DC SUPER HERO GIRLS: INTERGALACTIC GAMES (2017)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*    

The second SUPER HERO GIRLS telemovie is a marginal improvement over the first one. The fight-action is a little better, there are a few less extraneous characters, and there's less clumsy exposition and bad melodrama. But the writers still shoehorned too many irons into the fire (to mix metaphors flagrantly).

The titular games sound like they'd involve a lot of different contestants, but there are only two competing teams of note here: the students at Super Hero High on Earth and a motley crew of aliens under the command of the "renegade Green Lantern" Sinestro. He's not a villain here yet, just an asshole, but the "Korugar team" also includes Blackfire, the snide sister of the Hero High student Starfire. The subplot involving Starfire's attempt to connect with her snooty sibling is moderately well handled.

The main plotline seems to concern inventor Doc Magnus's invention of three crimefighting robots, who are based on the comic-book heroes The Metal Men. The three robots go on a rampage due to faulty systems, and two are permanently taken out of action by the super-heroines, leaving only the one female, Platinum. Magnus's invention is pursued by two separate villains: the Female Furies of Apokolips and the scientist Lena Thorul. The latter works at the high school as an "IT girl," concealing the fact that she's actually the sister of Lex Luthor under a pseudonym-- and even concealing that she's as bald as her brother. The writer seems to build up to some conflict between Lena and Supergirl, simply because the characters had an intimate buddy-relationship in the comics, but the script never justifies this. Big Barda, a former Female Fury who switched from evil to good in order to join the school for superheroes, has a predictable run-in with her former compatriots from Apokolips, but this too goes nowhere fast. Then, as if to compensate for my comment that there were fewer heroes stuffed into the continuity, the last act includes another familiar fiend who's pulling the strings for Lena Luthor.

A subplot involving Platinum's upgrade from a mechanical consciousness to something approximating humanity is the sole reason that this entry involves a cosmological myth-function.