Defenders of the Earth

DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH
Made by: Marvel Productions/King Features Entertainment
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1986 onwards

Pooling together a whole bunch of comic book heroes, Defenders was set in 2015, when the earth is under attack from evil extra-terrestrial quarters. In retrospect, the makers should perhaps have set the date a little further into the future, unless they knew something that we don’t. Anyway, Ming the Merciless, whose name always gets a cheap laugh, was the warlord bent on destroying mankind, and only one group of disparates can stop him. The main players were Flash Gordon (who, of course, took on old Ming in the camp 1980s film Flash Gordon), strong-man Lothar, the purple spandex-sporting Phantom, and Mandrake the magician. But it was always a bit like a Saturday morning trip to the Wal-Mart, because they all had their kids in tow: Flash’s son Rick; Jedda, the daughter of Phantom, and Lothar’s son, LJ (Lothar Junior, I assume.) Also tagging along was an orphan, Kshin, and her pet alien, Zuffy. Because, in 2015, no orphan need ever be lonely because they will all have pet aliens.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 2/10

(Thanks to www.80snostalgia.com for the borrowed pic)