Super Best Friends Forever hits Saturday Morning

Super Best Friends Forever debuted on DC Nation’s Cartoon Network and, for me at least, the 90 second short was better than 22 minutes of Green Lantern.

The plot was simple - Supergirl and Batgirl want Wonder Girl to “borrow” Wonder Woman’s invisible Jet. Lauren Faust has shown her ability to sketch female characters that are both broad and imbued with personal touches in her previous work. That’s she able to do it her in under two minutes is a testament to her talent.

The piece begins with a wonderful moment of Donna Troy swearing an oath to her mother. And in about 5 seconds we find out that Wonder Girl’s mission is to join her “sister’s quest to ease suffering in the world of man”.  So much for the usual “Wonder Woman is so hard to explain” line.

Faust, speaking at the DC Nation Animation panel yesterday, described Donna as “stoic, very responsible, very trained.”  And that comes across. But the thing surprised me was her accent. I’ve heard of artists who have been told that their depictions of Wonder Woman were, um what’s the word I’m look for, uh “Greek” so it was a pleasure to see them go this route with Wonder Woman’s sister.

So with an understanding of Wonder Girl’s mission we then move to Supergirl and Batgirl trying to get her to come with them on a jaunt. Supergirl wants to TP Lex Luthor, Batgirl just wants authentic Mexican food. Batgirl is filled with energy here. Faust said yesterday that Batgirl is in “for the love of it” which I assumes means superheroing. This is a bouncy, squee-filled Batgirl and while it is miles from the comic book Barbara Gordon (she is definitely more Stephanie Brown) it is fun.

Supergirl on the other hand has an edge to her. Faust stated at WonderCon that her take on her is the she is “a teenage girl that has all the same powers as Superman, but routinely gets overlooked in favor of her famous cousin.” And you get a sense of this edge when Wonder Girl keeps saying, “No” to her pleas:

Wonder Girl explains her reticence in the best moment of the short that doesn’t involve toilet paper where she proudly details her duty as an Amazon:

But her real reticence is not duty but that “my sister will kill me”. Peer pressure and the lure of mexican food and charity work bring her around and the girls take off Supergirl bringing along toilet paper.

I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the shorts of which there are apparently five. I hope the Cartoon Network and DCE are smart enough to look at expanding this into a are regular series. It’s been too long since the Powerpuff Girls gave young girls and boys a fun-filled superhero show starring women. Super Best Friends Forever seems a worthy successor. You can watch the whole short here.