Justice League Int'l-Zan & Jayna FAQ
A brief FAQ about Zan and Jayna...the Wonder Twins
(...oooh look....the Hall of Justice!)
Most people who are *not* comics collectors, but still have an interest
in the characters in them, tend to ask me, frequently, one question...
What ever happened to the Wonder Twins? What Comic are they in?
Hmmm...The Wonder Twins. I will admit, I too, watched the Super Friends, by Hanna Barbera, and
loved it...it was a really cool cartoon, after all. It had all the big name super heroes, with
all their stuff...and they had a pretty good lineup of villians and threats.
It is not the intent of this page to duplicate the material that other Super Friends scholars have
already produced on the World Wide Web, in most excellent formats. If you want to check out the
Super Friends in general, I strongly advise you to go to the
Super Friends Archive, a bold site, which is beautiful to view, and offers many links. I also
state here, for all the world to see, that I have shamelessly looted from this wonderful and informative
site, and thank its webmaster wholeheartedly for all the great graphics and data that have been put up, making
this Wonder Twins Mini-FAQ possible.
Who are the Wonder Twins?
The Wonder Twins are named Zan and Jayna, and are a pair of aliens from the planet Exxor, who are
effectively super heroes in training. They also have a pet blue monkey, named Gleek, who is bright
but troublesome (sounds sort of like Guy Gardner, but not as violent). Zan, the boy twin, had the
power to spontaneously change into any water based form, where Jayna could become any animal. In many
cases, these powers were pretty liberal, allowing things like, "Shape of the Sphinx!" or, "Form of...an
Ice Shovel!" The twins needed to touch hands, and shout "Wonder Twin Powers, Activate!" in order to
use their shape shifting powers...
As a point in fact, you have no Idea how often people shout that at me. However, I highly recommend that
you try it...its pretty satisfying, and you never know...
Anyway, to continue, Zan and Jayna also had the power to communicate with each other telepathically. They
didn't have to touch one another to do this, which is good, since its pretty limiting to communicate
telepathically with someone you could just talk to. The also carried their "Teen Trouble Alerts", which
allowed troubled teenagers the world over to contact them instantly. In other words, a super pager.
The Wonder Twins were brought in during Season Two of the show, to replace the previous child-identification
characters of Wendy and Marvin, two regular kids who were aspiring heroes. This excerpt from the Archives'
History of the Show illuminates the situation...
"1976 reruns in a half-hour format proved successful enough to cause The All-New Super Friends
Hour in 1977. The hour had a half-hour episode and numerous shorts. This time besides
Superman and the major DC heroes, the youthful trainees were aliens Zan (male) and Jayna
(female) (a.k.a. the Wonder Twins) with their pet monkey Gleek. The Wonder Twins had the
ability to telepathically communicate with each other, and shapechange. The twins wore Teen
Trouble Alerts to signal them, and unlike their predecessors, Wendy and Marvin, the twins were
good in a fight. More DC heroes appeared in these adventures, such as Hawkman and Hawkgirl,
along with newly invented multicultural heroes like Apache Chief who could become a 50 ft giant,
electric Black Vulcan and the whirlwind Samurai. Each episode also featured a special public
service cartoon warning kids about the evils of cheating, smoking or drag racing (among other
vices). "
And that, true believer, is, in a nutshell, the scoop on the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna. Remember the
Super Friends slogan...
"Their mission: To fight Injustice. To right that which is wrong. And to serve all mankind!"
Wow...try and tell that one to Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and Mr. Miracle after they've eaten too much pizza, and
gotten in troble with Big Barda...I think their mission would have more to do with Alka Seltzer, and hiding...
Enjoy the neat graphic to the right, as you hop in your invisible jets, your bat planes, or just fly like Superman
himself...I must admit, having STAR Labs donate shuttles to the JLI takes the politics out of who gets to fly with
who...
Thank you for you inquiry...We hope that this has been informative!
Due to the large volume of questions Oberon and Catherine get about Zan and Jayna...we felt it would be smart to
set up a sort of information referral about them! If there is anything else you'd like to see at the League, let us know!
Oberon tends to get a little stressed, given the large amount of hate
mail to Guy Gardner he has to process, and worse yet, the telephone complaints about Guy's behavior on the town. However, he
will get your message to the team promptly, just use the handy "mail to" Netscape function below. Oberon's a bit busy now, but
we'll be switching him to decaf soon, so never fear!
If you have questions, comments, or submission of material to the League, or want to be on the JLI mailing list,
click here and mail me!
Avia Free, the JLI Page Manager!
Go back to the JLI Main Monitor Room, Heroes!