Superman: The Animated Series
Action Figures
Season: 2
Episode: 9
Air date: 1997-09-20
Guest stars: George Dzundza,David Kaufman,Ernie Hudson,Hassan Nicholas,Lauren Robinson,Malcolm McDowell,Lauren Tom
On an island with an active volcano that is about to erupt, Metallo appears with temporary amnesia.
On a purely surface level, Metallo could be compared to Frankenstein's monster, but that would be somewhat disingenuous as it ignores the character's criminal and hedonistic background. Instead, John Corben is more akin to Emil Blonsky (aka The Abomination), a fighter who was used as a tool against the hero and ended up becoming something less than human.
The concept of a hedonistic man who's forced into an unfeeling shell should be a fascinating subject to explore, on paper anyway, as is the concept of said man losing his memory and reexploring the humanity within this metallic husk. It's why the first-half of the episode (more like the first-third) was at its strongest, focusing on an amnesiac Metallo coming out from his deep-sea baptism like a newborn child as he stumbles across a couple of kids. This should've been the angle the episode went with, but alas, this is but a Saturday morning cartoon.
So instead, we have Metallo crushing the doll with the S stitched across its chest and cursing Superman's name as he remembers his sworn adversary. There could be a way to handle this direction of the plot as well, such as having John express what he lost because of Superman's existence, but instead, we merely have a vessel of blind hatred and vengeance that sprouts villainous line like "Have a drink on me, Superman" while dunking the hero's head into molten lava. Brilliant.
It really doesn't help that the episode is ironically hilarious, like instead of flying the geologists away to safely, Superman chose to punch collapsing debris from the volcano like he's playing Fruit Ninja with solid rock, causing the smaller pieces to smash the campground and the geological equipment anyway. He also manages to grab a boulder and create a trench across the surface of the volcano, an amazing feat of strength that he periodically displays when it's convenient to the plot, but when lifting falling bridges or hell, punching out Metallo, he's holding back his strength like he's Spider-Man.
And that fight with Metallo also had an unintentionally hilarious beginning, with John exposing his Kryptonite heart, only to have Superman recite, and I quote, "It won't work this time" and yeeting the villain away without harm thanks to his Anti-Kryptonite suit, a suit that easily gets punctuated when Superman is thrown against the volcano, giving Metallo a more even fight.
We end the episode with Metallo's mind slipping away as he's encrusted in molten rock, but he tethers himself to his human identity to prevent that, reciting "I am Metallo... I am Metallo" like a glitching Alexa whose Bluetooth connection is not functioning well. Classic.
A goofy episode with squandered potential, but at least it's ironically funny.
