DC Super Hero Girls: Intergalactic Games

I am unsure exactly when this dvd entered my collection but I do know I got it for very cheap and it came out in 2017. When talking about the Super Hero Girls there are 2 separate eras to talk about, the web series era (G1) and the CN era (G2) and each era has a specific art style and vibe. This is a direct to dvd movie from the former era. The five main girls are Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, Starfire, and Bumblebee but dozens of other heroes are featured as part of the school. Members of rival schools (Korugar Academy and the Female Furies of Apokolips) include Blackfire, Lobo, Bleez, Maxima, Mongal, Lashina, Stompa, Mad Harriet, Artemiz, and Speed Queen. The main plot of the movie centers around the 3 teams getting ready for and competing in the titular “Intergalactic Games” which kind of feels like the Olympics and kind of like high school sports.

While the Intergalactic games are the focal point, there’s quite a few other major plots and set pieces that are worth mentioning. The beginning of the movie has the Super Hero Girls facing off against the Metal Men (just Platinum, Iron, and Lead) and Platinum herself would become integral to the plot going forward. The Metal Men, as they appear in the film, are projects of Will Magnus who was attempting to make artificial super heroes but because of their inability to have emotions or empathy they were deemed too dangerous and set for destruction. Lena Thurol (not Thorul as it’s normally spelled) is introduced here as the IT for Super Hero High and takes Platinum to be destroyed but instead takes her back to her laboratory.

It is when the other schools come that we learn of Starfire’s sister Blackfire, who is part of Korugar Academy and Big Barda who used to be part of the Female Furies. Both of these relationships will be played with and explored as the movie goes on and they add a bit of tension and stakes to the competition at the end of the film. The Wonder Woman part of the plot is also revealed as her mother, Hippolyta, is wanting her to impress Ambassador Bek so that she can be a representative in the intergalactic council. Lena is revealed to not only be bald, but also evil although according to Platinum she doesn’t currently have any criminal record. Lena is working on reprogramming Platinum and building up an army of Krypto-Mite piloted mech suits based on Platinum’s technology. She also has a mysterious cohort that she talks to via an earpiece.

The opening ceremony for the games results in an impromptu food fight started by a hidden Krypto-Mite but would quickly be encouraged by Harley Quinn. The competition started the next morning and all 3 teams were preforming admirably but the evening would have Super Hero High and Korugar Academy tied with the Furies tailing behind. Later that night the Female Furies would infiltrate one of the facilities to steal the responsometer that Doc Magnus had used in his creation of the Metal Men. This results in a battle between the Super Hero Girls and the Furies and would ultimately end with the Furies being removed from the competition and being placed in protective custody.

With just 2 teams left and a few games remaining they stay pretty neck and neck. Thanks to Supergirl and Starfire leaving one of the competition to help with a building fire, Korugar Academy wins and they are once again tied going into the final competition. Unfortunately the game wouldn’t be played because Lena chooses this moment to launch her attack and reveal she isn’t Lena Thurol, but Lena Luthor! It’s here that Lena tries, and fails, to convert the citizens against the heroes before she launches an all out attack. Even faced with a mech suited and kryptonite powered Lena, Supergirl still tries compassion first instead of fists. And it is this compassion and heroism that shows Platinum there’s other ways to live beside Lena’s way. The battle rages on and the Krypto-Mites depower Supergirl, but thanks to the quick thinking of Batgirl, they’re able to get anti Kryptonite guns and Bumblebee has put together an anti kryptonite suit for Supergirl. Korugar Academy also left as soon as the fighting started, but Blackfire chose to stay back to help her sister in the fight.

Battle won and Lena safely locked up, and only 15 minutes left of the movie, you think everything is wrapped up but nope! Brainiac shows up and merges all the mech suits Lena made, along with his skull ship and Platinum and starts up the fight once again. It’s the compassion Platinum witnessed from Supergirl and the bond between Starfire and Blackfire that eventually turns the fight against Brainiac in the Super Hero Girls favor. We see Platinum switch sides and help the girls but in doing so she sacrifices herself. Thankfully she was reconstructed by doctor Magnus and was able to attend the award ceremony with the rest of the girls.

That’s most of the movie but there’s a couple fun background elements throughout the movie that I wanted to point out. The theme song at the start of the movie is the same one used for the webisodes but here we’ve got an extended version. The Super Hero Girls facing off against the Metal Men was cool to see even if Gold, Tin, and Mercury weren’t included. Throughout the movie we get a few scenes with Paradite as a groundskeeper for the school and his work is constantly getting ruined by the shenanigans going on with the rest of the plot. While I brushed over them in my synopsis, the games themselves all seem really well thought out and there’s quite a few shown in a montage. The funniest one might be Korugar putting Lobo in for the race against speedsters Flash and Speed Queen wherein Lobo realizes he’s out of his league almost instantly.

There’s a lot of the movie that focuses on cross school relationships like Big Barda and her former teammates the Female Furies, as well as Starfire and her Sister Blackfire from Korugar Academy. This seems to be a major theme of the movie along with an idea of saving people’s lives over anything else even if it means you lose something you’re excited for.

While Supergirl isn’t the main star of the movie, she does get a few nice moments. During the opening fight with the Metal Men, Platinum reads out a couple stats for Supergirl; “heat vision: 2000 degrees” & “Supergirl’s Fist Velocity: 168 miles per hour”. She also, along with Starfire, forfeits one of the competitions to save a family from a fire. Supergirl’s fight with Lena features both Super Compassion and Super Willpower as she continues to fight against the Kryptonite. Supergirl fighting Brainiac is also always a good time.

While I wouldn’t say this movie is peak cinema, and it’s obviously made for a very young audience, it was a lot of fun and I had a good time watching it and they jammed a lot of stuff into host 76 minutes. The movie ends with a tease of Brainiac saying “I will destroy those supers!” I don’t know if this plot is ever picked back up again but I’m thrilled to find out as I track down more of these direct to dvd Super Hero Girls movies. If you have any thoughts or questions feel free to email me daringnewblog@gmail.com Hope you enjoyed and I hope you come back for more!