Not long into his slumber, Gleek is awakened suddenly by one of those pesky tree trolls you often hear about stealing picnic baskets from unwary campers. Before you know it, the twins and their refugee from a pharmaceuticals testing lab are being overrun by a mob of Renaissance festival midgets pouring from a nearby cave, running from some guy named Malhavoc. I'm not sure which side should be more freaked out, the screaming troll people or the spandex clad Martians, but either way the siblings quickly pay for their curiosity when a red light engulfs them, a generic roar sounds and Gleek is the only one with any sense in his simian skull, hightailing his hairy blue balls outta there. Elsewhere, at the Hall of Justice, Batman shows Superman his latest science fair experiment: a Plutonium treatment that will make his cape impenetrable to radiation and energy beams... while poisoning him with the very Plutonium he sought to protect himself with. Don't listen to the hype boys and girls, Batman isn't half the genius crime fighter he's been made out be. Anybody who soaks their clothing in radiation and expects it to protect them is barking up the wrong nuclear silo. The fact that he did the process from behind a protective glass, the Plutonium was kept in a lead canister, and the canister was handled with a robotic arm all prove that Bats knows the shit's bad for your health, yet somehow wearing it saturated into his cape makes it no longer deadly?! That bad start's just snowballing with more and more momentum as the minutes tick by...

The radioactive treatment does make the Bat's cape all sparkly and shit though, which catches the eyes and admiration of his fellow Superfriends. While they're complimenting the vigilante on his fashion sense (and Aquaman looks on with his usual jealous demeanor, wishing he'd stayed in school so he might be of some use to the team... or at least be allowed to play with radioactive isotopes), the distressed chimp busts in on the festivities, panicked like Scooby-Doo trying to tell Freddy and Velma that Shaggy was snagged by the Creeper while hitting some kind buds off his Speed Buggy bong with Don Knotts and the Harlem Globetrotters... that sounds so much like a line from a Nerf Herder song... whoa, way off topic here, so I think I'll get back to work. Robin shows his youthful ignorance when he thinks Gleek's gone rabid, but before he can take the monkey's head off with his Bat 12-Gauge, Bats butts in with his extensive Lassie knowledge, pointing out that Gleek is actually trying to convey the message that the twins have been captured yet again and it's up to the adults to spatula their shapeshifting asses out of the frying pan. Upon crashing the troll cave, Supes wastes no time in declaring the lair as "Middle Earth", likely to the chagrin of J.R.R. Tolkien's lawyers. They find the twins transformed into trolls and chained to rocks, forced to mine Malhavoc's magic crystals for whatever unexplained reason he has for them. The rescue team, overly confident in their abilities as comicbook heroes, pull a head on attack against the Satanic looking fiend, only to find their attacks useless at every move. Supes gets smacked down, Wonder Woman gets entangled in her own lasso and Batman's portable bubble prison is popped with ease as Aquaman just looks on, thinking of how differently things would be if this fight were taking place underwater...

Having soundly proven his superiority to his enemies, Mal takes advantage of the heroes' vulnerability as they strike a random team pose and zaps 'em, transforming them all into trolls. Powerless, the good guys are put instantly to work in, you guessed it, the gem mines... where all the gems, no matter the size, are all perfectly cut without a single rough stone to be found. No wonder Malhavoc loves that mine to much. Hey Aquaman, here's your chance! You're on a level playing field now! It's your time to shine! Oddly enough, Aquaman's experience with being useless isn't utilized, even when Baldascan, king of the captive trolls, helps free Batman and Wonder Woman. Then again, even without their powers, Wonder Woman and Batman still have their "devices", so I guess I can understand the troll king's choice. Oh well Aqua, you'll be left to babysit Robin and the twins while Bats and Wonder Bra save the day once more. The two heroes, the king and Gleek escape further into the caves to face the "3 Deadly Tasks", as opposed to The 5 Deadly Venoms or Leonard Part 6. Though it's become obvious that Malhavoc could probably turn the Superfriends into Gummi Bears™ and feed them to sugar starved 9 year olds, or even easier, just tear them apart by their base molecules and scatter them to the hollow void of space, his ego take hold, as it does with all villains, and he allows the group to escape into the cave, confident it will just lead to saving him the trouble of killing them... that or he's just afraid that Batman will use his sparkling disco cape to deflect his magic zaps again... wonder why the caped crusader didn't think of that when he and his pals were being turned into little people with big noses.

What exactly are these so-called "3 deadly tasks" that Batman, Wonder Woman, Baldascan and Gleek must face if they hope to overcome the evil cousin of the Master from Manos, The Hands Of Fate? Well, they do some radical dental surgery on a hungry cave, escape certain doom at the fangs of the spider people with the help of the giant cave snails (long time amigos of the troll people, who also happen to enjoy tossing spider people with their powerful eye stalks...) and by-pass the infamous Dragon of Darkness to gain the magical ring that will bring an end to Malhavoc's reign of terror. Despite his best efforts to stop them by shining red beams of light on them, Mal fails to prevent Gleek from placing the ring over the finger of a giant demon statue, which opens it's eyes and disintegrates in less time than it takes to spell his name... the demon obviously wanted this stupid episode to end as much as I did, meaning he's got my vote come 2004! With the villain vanquished, of course everyone turns back to normal, their powers fully restored and the day is saved all thanks to the chimp. Before he can get his monkey on with a hot alien chick from Star Trek and have the key to the city handed to him by Grape Ape, this ridiculous dream sequence (can you really be surprised? Then again, this would explain Batman's misuse of radiation) is brought to an end and Gleek is awakened by his spandex-clad pals, trying to halt his monkey snoring. And that shadowy figure running through the bushes nearby? Just a tabloid photographer taking incest pics of the twins. Fans of Gleek take note, all two of you, take your thumb outta your ass and the plumber's snake out of your ear and pay attention, cuz this ending shows us that, not only do space monkeys dream but they're also big fans of Tolkien.

Holy crap, that was one of the worst cartoons I've ever seen! Superfriends, comicbook related, '70s born, American, just all around animated as a whole was this one of THE FUCKING HARDEST TO WATCH CARTOONS EVER! The same retarded dream premise that litters only the worst brand of cartoons, this one made worse by the fact that Gleek was not only the hero but that he was the one having the dream, combined with a 3rd rate villain so pathetic he was created for the show, giant snails who use their eye stalks to throw spiders around, all topped off by the appearance of Batman's sparkling radioactive cancer death cape equals one big, baffling, head shaking, hair ripping, tooth pulling 20 minutes of unbridled cartoon madness that, if it doesn't make you retarded, then you're far stronger than Brian Wilson was. Betcha didn't know that "The Lord Of Middle Earth" is what drove the former Beach Boy onto the downward spiral of mental illness. Well, now ya do, so I suggest you avoid it at all costs too. It's too late for me...