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TV Database Superman: The Animated Series (1996)

OmegaMeistro
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4.00/5 1 Votes

Genre: Animation,Action & Adventure,Sci-Fi & Fantasy,Kids

Director: Bruce Timm,Alan Burnett

First aired:

Last air date:

Show status: Ended

Overview: Superman, an incredibly powerful alien from the planet Krypton, defends Metropolis from supercriminals. Superman hides his identity behind the glasses of Clark Kent; a mild-mannered reporter for the newspaper the Daily Planet. At the Daily Planet Superman works with fellow reporter Lois Lane and photographer Jimmy Olsen.

Where to watch

Cast

    • Tim Daly

      Superman / Clark Kent (voice)
    • Dana Delany

      Lois Lane (voice)
Show information in first post provided by The Movie Database
Superman: The Animated Series
Blasts from the Past (1)
Season: 2
Episode: 1
Air date: 1997-09-08

Guest stars: Clancy Brown,Leslie Easterbrook,Jim Cummings,Ron Perlman,Corey Burton,Lauren Tom,Victor Brandt
Superman decides to release Mala, a Kryptonian criminal, from the Phantom Zone, but when Mala proves too power-hungry for this world, Superman tries to send her back. Mala escapes with the Phantom Zone Projector and releases Krypton's most notorious traitor, Jax-Ur.

Mala and Jax-Ur because WB didn't have the rights to General Zod at this point in time. lol

It's a pretty standard "Superman is too naive and trusts a stranger from his home planet" storyline that goes about as predictable as you'd expect.
Superman: The Animated Series
Blasts from the Past (2)
Season: 2
Episode: 2
Air date: 1997-09-09

Guest stars: George Dzundza,Leslie Easterbrook,Ron Perlman,Ron Glass,Keri Tombazian,Corey Burton,Victor Brandt
Superman and Professor Hamilton start building a new Phantom Zone projector to balance the odds. However Jax-Ur and Mala manage to send Superman into the Phantom Zone, and then destroy the Projector. As their decimating attacks begin, it's up to Lois and Professor Hamilton to rescue the Man of Steel in time.

Because of how powerful he is, it's hard to write a good Superman episode. You have to set him up with villains that could either match his strength or manipulate him, and considering how naive the Big Blue can be early on in his career, especially in Superman: TAS, it can be pretty easy to perform the latter.

Due to copyright issues regarding General Zod involving the ongoing lawsuits between Warner Bros. and Siegel and Shuster, it's the likely reason we got diet Zod instead this episode with, uh... *looks it up* Jax-Ur and... Mala (which means "spicy" in Mandarin), the latter of whom acted more like a jilted lover than a war criminal to be feared as she only lost her shit after Superman said they're not a thing in front of Lois Lane, but not when she had eavesdropped on him talking about sending her to the Phantom Zone in an earlier scene.

This resulted in a pretty generic beat 'em up manner of resolving the plot, with the two criminals barely making an effort to dodge the ray beam that sends them back to the Phantom Zone, like two deer in the headlights.

What's worse is that this squandered any storytelling opportunity to explore Kal-El's feelings about his heritage, or seeing two of his Kryptonians. Instead, the best we got from Supes was a shrug. Just another day at the office.
Superman: The Animated Series
Ghost in the Machine
Season: 2
Episode: 14
Air date: 1997-09-29

Guest stars: Clancy Brown,Lauri Fraser,Michael Horse,Corey Burton,Lisa Edelstein
Lex Luthor is forced to build a new body for Brainiac who has downloaded himself into LexCorp's computers.

“What went wrong? Premature product launch?” - Lois dropping a Freudian bomb on Lex

The problem with CW shows, as one might have observed, is the myriad amount of plot and character inconsistencies and convenient plot-devices - basically, your average television production issues. With Saturday morning cartoons, that problem is equally relevant, perhaps even more amplified as producers dismiss them as merely a children's TV show and doesn't deserve the type of coherence or intelligent writing a real TV show would receive.

While Batman: TAS mostly had a better treatment of intelligent writing (though not always; see "I've Got Batman in My Basement"), Superman: TAS just simply didn't have that privilege, to the point where showrunner Bruce Timm received exaggerated claims of "hating Superman," favoring the Dark Knight. While a cartoon like Disney's Gargoyles, to make an example, would have character decisions that still can be justified and are perhaps even complex (albeit in a family-friendly Saturday morning cartoon setting), it's episodes like "Ghost in the Machine" that exemplified how the TV animation medium can sometimes compromise consistent characterisations.

Because in order to believe that Lex Luthor is somehow dumb enough to let himself be trapped by Brainiac, you'd require zero knowledge of whom Lex Luthor is outside of the animated series. In-universe, it makes sense, but it also makes Lex look painfully pathetic. Perhaps an argument could be made that that is the point, to make Lex a pitiful human who's literally worked into exhaustion by the Kryptonian AI to build him a new body, perhaps even dumb enough to only realize that the killer-bot might kill him once he outlives his usefulness at the very last moment, when he's finished building Brainiac's new body.

But even so, Brainiac is no genius either. Aside from the goofy-ass name ("I am smart, ergo, I am Brainiac"), the super intelligent software decided to make itself vulnerable... by turning into hardware. Why? Why turn into the one thing your adversary - AKA Superman - could literally punch or just zap a magnetic laser gun at? Then again, that's probably asking too much from, as I mentioned, "a Saturday morning cartoon."

Mercy Graves is an interesting addition to the Superman lore, however, even if she's nowhere as compelling as Harley Quinn. She love for Lex is obviously one-sided, and yet Lex isn't nearly as abusive to her as The Joker is towards Harleen. However, unlike Dr. Quinzel, Mercy's motivation is perhaps not a kind of mad love, but merely that she has nowhere else to go. Or as the Big Blue puts it at the end of this episode, "Just a stray." That's powerful stuff, and it's a shame the rest of the character writing couldn't be this compelling.
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.
Superman: The Animated Series
Livewire
Season: 2
Episode: 5
Air date: 1997-09-13

Guest stars: George Dzundza,David Kaufman,Cam Clarke,Townsend Coleman,Haunani Minn,Lori Petty,Brad Garrett
Radio shock-jock Leslie Willis is turned into a being of pure electricity, and begins her media-crazed rampage to drain Metropolis' power and kill Superman in the bargain.

A shock jock gets zapped by lightning and becomes... an electric-based villain. Did Stan Lee create her? Oof. No offense to the late Stan.

I've read that Superman's Kryptonian body is like a human body, in that electricity still flows through it. which explains why he's vulnerable to electric-based attacks, albeit to a lesser degree than a normal human, but I've always found it kinda lame that the superhero who's often cited as the strongest superhero in all of DC... is vulnerable to electricity. Better get that toaster away from the Big Blue when he's taking a bath, Luthor!

Leslie's personality is amusing enough to carry the episode, being an obvious Howard Stern stand-in and the anti-Lois Lane, but this is mostly an introduction for her character and doesn't do much to engage me with her character who feels mostly like a one-dimensional troll and a grifter without any interesting motivation beyond getting an easy paycheck. I guess not every villain has to have that, but electric-based comic book characters are a dime a dozen, so you really need to have something unique going for you to get me interested, though I guess her costume and hair design are kinda cool.

Also, with how many times Superman had to rescue people from falling cranes and construction failures for the sake of plot-convenience, the real villain here is obviously OSHA.
Superman: The Animated Series
Target
Season: 2
Episode: 7
Air date: 1997-09-19

Guest stars: Clancy Brown,Jonathan Harris,Eddie Barth,Robert Hays,Robert Ito
Lois is the "target" of explosive revenge from a one-time Lexcorp inventor, named Edward Lytener.

Lois: "I just hate this. I can't sleep, I can't eat. I feel so... helpless."
Clark: "Why don't you just relax?"
- Clark telling Lois "relax, woman" like a '50s husband after her numerous assassination attempts

This episode, someone tries to kill Lois by rigging her car and elevator; for a moment, I thought it was Dennis Hopper from Speed (aka Howard Payne). "Pop quiz, Lois: You win an award, you die. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?"

The idea of a whodunit and setting up all these red herrings were kinda neat, especially since I had assumed Julian Frey (the journalist who got award-snubbed since Lois won) was involved. They even set up Detective Bowman as one of the likely suspects. It's just a shame that many moments of this episode edge closer towards Silver Age Superman level of jerkassery for Superman, albeit unintentionally, because man, Superman really cut it close multiple times this episode, always waiting till the very last second before saving her like he's secretly filming a Punk'd episode.

It's fun to see the flirtations between Superman and Lois, but there's always that soap opera level of Silver Age plot absurdity because of it, constantly reminding you that you're watching a television show. Shame.
Superman: The Animated Series
Identity Crisis
Season: 2
Episode: 6
Air date: 1997-09-15

Guest stars: Clancy Brown,Robert Ito,John Rubinow,Joe Lala,Kendall Cunningham,Ryan O'Donohue,James Patrick Cronin,Lisa Edelstein
Superman encounters Bizarro, an imperfect genetic double of The Man of Steel, who tries to take Superman's place as Metropolis' hero.

Lois: Do you think he survived?
Superman: I don't know. I've never been in a half kiloton blast. I hope he did. He turned out to have a good heart.
Lois: Well, naturally. He came from good stock.
Lois Lane, ladies and gentlemen—watching a clone of Superman tragically explode and still managing to slide in some game.

Pretty entertaining episode though from start to finish. I like the fake-out at the beginning, because despite the corny speech, I couldn't tell it was a different Superman because I thought it's just the Big Blue doing his usual PSA moralizing. The Frankenstein's monster angle of Bizarro was neat too, even if the self-sacrifice play felt a little contrived (just toss away the falling ceiling maybe? Superman also literally walked away from Bizarro all casually and relaxed with Lois in his hands).
Superman: The Animated Series
Mxyzpixilated
Season: 2
Episode: 8
Air date: 1997-09-20

Guest stars: David Kaufman,Gilbert Gottfried,Sandra Bernhard,Tress MacNeille,Frank Welker,Mike Farrell,Shelley Fabares
The Man of Steel is challenged to a battle of wits by Mxyzptlk, a playful yet pixilating imp from the fifth dimension.

A number of parodies of Superman usually portray him as a not-so-bright goofball who mostly relies on his fists. That's obviously the broadest reading of Superman ever, even more than his alien immigrant reading.

This episode proves however, without a doubt, that Superman is not just smart, but clever enough to outwit a trans-dimensional imp that screws with reality. It's not even that Mr. Mxyzptlk is dumb either, but that Superman's schemes (that he had to come up with every three months after Mxyzptlk disappears) are just that good. Looks like Batman's not the only one with the powers of prep. This also makes the World's Finest movie kinda annoying later on as Superman gets sidelined by the "smarter Batman" because the writers don't know what to do with the overpowered Superman partnering with the genius Batman, as if the Big Blue only has his powers going for him.

I also like the overall Looney Tunes aesthetic of Mr. Mxyzptlk here (even having the Looney Tunes Assembly Line Music inserted for Mxyzptlk's robot-building sequence, aka "Powerhouse" by Raymond Scott), which makes sense since he's a Golden Age comic character. Initially, I thought that having the late Gilbert Gottfried and his grumpy energy (see Iago in "Aladdin") annoy Superman for half an hour would be irritating af, but I think he made Mxyzptlk's outrage comical enough that it's entertaining without being grating."
Superman: The Animated Series
Speed Demons
Season: 2
Episode: 4
Air date: 1997-09-13

Guest stars: David Kaufman,Charlie Schlatter,Marion Ross,Miguel Ferrer,Lorin Dreyfuss,Carl Lumbly,Neil Ross,Larry Cedar
The Flash teams up with Superman to counter Mark Mardon, a.k.a. "The Weather Wizard," who holds Metropolis hostage with the threat of unleashing a killer hurricane.

*hears The Flash talk for the first time this episode*
You're no Rosenbaum.

But yeah, a very rough star for the wisecracking DCAU Flash we'd come to know and love. This one's kinda an ass, and the worst part of this episode is that we don't even get to see who won in the end as we get settled with the plotline of a Silver Age B-tier villain (who only happened to knock down Superman because our TAS Supe is vulnerable to electricity for reasons). And Christ, those puns of his... "Stopped them cold"? Bro, shut up.
Superman: The Animated Series
Double Dose
Season: 2
Episode: 10
Air date: 1997-09-22

Guest stars: Jim Meskimen,Brion James,Lori Petty,Jeff Dombro,Joseph Bologna
Livewire escapes from prison, eager to attain revenge on Superman -- something that she hopes to achieve by teaming up with the Parasite.

Reasons why it's obvious this is a Saturday morning cartoon:
  1. Villain escapes from prison because of a guard's incompetency.
  2. Prison guards are useless instead of prepped for superpowered containment.
  3. The villain team-up goes awry not as a direct result of the hero's interference.
  4. Superman is dumb enough not to bring rubber gloves to the press conference at the start of the episode (at least he's not dumb throughout the whole episode).
  5. Knowing the hero's secret identity means you'll be going away for a while, possibly forever.
  6. It's not Batman: TAS or Gargoyles, so smart writing is off the table.

The double entendre between Parasite and Livewire is fine, and it makes sense for Parasite to be a creeper. Livewire should know better though than to team up with someone named Parasite when you're an energy-based villain. lmao
Superman: The Animated Series
Solar Power
Season: 2
Episode: 11
Air date: 1997-09-26

Guest stars: Clancy Brown,David Kaufman,Robert Hays,Castulo Guerra,Victor Brandt
Edward Lytener escapes from Stryker's Island and becomes Luminus. He hopes to render Superman powerless by hijacking a number of satellites so that they permit only red light to filter through from the sun.

Another day, another petty supervillain looking to kill Superman. By this point, what the reporters should really be asking at the end is what Superman's going to do about those criminals putting Metropolis in jeopardy every week for the sake of harming him.

At least there were some nice gimmicks in here like the invisible buildings and the use of the red sun energy to depower Superman, but it's like what I said about the Archmage's time-loop on Gargoyles: technically impressive plot device that's narratively boring. Instead of doing anything actually brilliant with it, Luminus chose to monologue and toy with his archenemy like a Bond villain before leading the Big Blue to his secret hidden lair. Ugh. Lex Luthor this guy is not.

And it's a shame too because you can clearly see that this guy has enough scientific know-how to counter Superman if he really tries. But as always, the kryptonite for your average Saturday morning cartoon villains is ego.
Superman: The Animated Series
Brave New Metropolis
Season: 2
Episode: 12
Air date: 1997-09-27

Guest stars: Clancy Brown,David Kaufman,Tress MacNeille,Joseph Bologna,Lauren Tom,Lisa Edelstein,Victor Brandt
Lois stumbles into a parallel world where Superman and Lex Luthor work together as dictators of Metropolis.

Lois Lane: [seeing a collection of plaques on Clark's wall] What is this? Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane? Why are all these names on your wall?
Clark Kent (Brandon Routh): A... reject from Gotham felt that we didn't cover him enough, so he played what he called a practical joke and gassed the building.
Iris West-Allen: All these people died?
Clark Kent (Routh): [nodding] My friends, my wife. I lost everyone in one fell swoop...
Lois Lane: ...almost as if you've been through more loss than any mortal man could endure.
Clark Kent (Tyler Hoechlin): I think we just found our Paragon.

There's something disingenuous about the portrayals of alternate universe evil Superman. Occasionally, you would get authentic and genuine portrayals that don't feel like a betrayal of Superman's character, such as "Superman: Red Son", but more often than not, writers seem more comfortable going the Zack Snyder "Knightmare" or the "Injustice" route, portraying Clark as fragile as a person that he would snap should anything happen to Lois Lane, the love of his life. Because that's how men are, potential aggressors who are just one short fuse away from genocide. Because we know there's no such thing as a grieving widower in fictional media who handled his grief in a healthy way. Oh wait - that's not remotely true at all. Huh.

That said, I think the best portrayal of a grieving Superman, the kind this episode attempted to portray, was of course the Kingdom Come Superman, the one that was so appalled that the world worshipped the killer of Lois' murderer that he quit being Superman. Granted, it's hard to make that kind of purity as compelling as a fascist Superman, but as exemplified in this episode, Timm's attempts to make Superman compelling doesn't really work either, because you'd have to assume that Kal-El was so mournful that he couldn't see what Lex was doing to the people of Metropolis, never mind the obvious fascist aesthetic and uniforms dotting the city. It just makes the Big Blue dumber than usual, given that the Superman in the Timmverse had to compensate for his nerfed strength by relying on his wits and smarts.

But no, let's not think too hard about this. It's just a cartoon. Never mind that Batman: TAS existed before this.

My grievances aside regarding "evil Superman," I will admit that this episode is still compelling on some level, mostly because it stood out from the series as a more thoughtful storyline, and also showing Superman's humanity at the loss of Lois.

More importantly though, it works mostly because of Lois, who gets a bigger role to play here fending herself against the fascist corp with a pistol and high heels (which she realistically tripped upon, unlike Claire Dearing in "Jurassic World"). She also slapped Kal-El for not talking to her about his feelings before she died in this universe, angry at his manner of grieving in many ways. Lois in the Timmverse has always been an intrepid reporter and independent woman despite being a damsel plenty of times, but it's in this episode, more so than the other Lois-centered "Target", where we get to see Lois take charge of the situation without any superpowers, all the while retaining her humanity and love for the Big Blue. It's definitely a refreshing change of character pace for Lois from everything we've seen before of this character rendition, less so because of character growth (because I don't think Lois' character had changed that much at all as an independent woman) and more so because of character opportunity, where she's finally given the chance to handle a crisis on her own.

It's a shame then that Lois' relationship with Superman is stopped short after this episode despite the development and her new perspective on her bond with the protagonist. Serialized as it is, it's still a pretty episodic TV series, not Spider-Man: TAS. Lois and Clark/Superman and Lois' relationship would be further explored in other versions of the character, particularly decades down the road, just not in this particular universe.
Superman: The Animated Series
Monkey Fun
Season: 2
Episode: 13
Air date: 1997-09-27

Guest stars: David Kaufman,Aria Noelle Curzon,Dean Jones,Mae Whitman,Joanna Cassidy,Pat Musick,Vinnie Paul,Frank Welker,Joseph Bologna,Brad Garrett,Victor Brandt
A monkey returned to earth from space begins to grow incredibly large and threatens Metropolis.

It's another silly Silver Age Superman character, basically King Kong but chimpanzee instead of gorilla. What else is there to be said? I guess it's funny enough, if you're 12 years old. But when Beppo got mixed into with the crashed booth full of toy monkeys, just so the episode could justify its runtime, I just kinda tuned out completely.
Superman: The Animated Series
The Prometheon
Season: 2
Episode: 3
Air date: 1997-09-12

Guest stars: David Kaufman,Frank Welker,Jennifer Hale,Marcelo Tubert,Townsend Coleman,Charles Napier,Victor Brandt
A giant humanoid creature with incredible strength and heat-sapping abilities, falls to Earth and now threatens the planet. Superman has to fight the creature's advances and send it back into outer space.

As you might or might not remember, the latest MCU film, "Captain America: Brave New World", featured a frozen Celestial named "Tiamut the Communicator", an abandoned relic from a more interesting MCU film (IMO) called "The Eternals" (which I enjoyed for its philosophical themes of gods among men debating whether to interfere with humanity, but I digress). It makes sense that if you have a god frozen in ice (an infant god at that), the military would want to mine such a relic for valuable resources, especially when said god contains a little known metal called... "adamantium".

Bruce Timm, however, lacked the imagination of Kevin Feige with the end of this episode, and that's saying something. We're just meant to assume that the monster got ejected into space or destroyed entirely because Metropolis is a forward-thinking city of tomorrow- oh, if you look to your left, ladies and gentlemen, you can see out your window a bigoted military general who hates aliens, probably metaphorical ones too.

The use of science to deter the threat is always a welcome one though. I'd much prefer a battle won using wits and brains than just punching something. But all of that hardly matters when I don't care enough about said threat. Prometheon as a creature could literally have been replaced with any kaiju, period. His backstory doesn't matter, because it never amounted more than being a mindless robot, as opposed to being a Frankenstein's monster created as a servant but ended up discarded because it got hungry. The lack of a sentient mind really meant we wasted a bit of time decrypting that code to explain a meaningless origin.

The existence of General Hardcastle and his actions in aggravating the situation by firing on the monster made the episode significantly worse. He might as well have been wearing a MAGA hat (if this was aired in 2016), because that's how subtle his xenophobia really is, not to mention how by-the-book his bigoted role was played out, the same "ignoring the hero's advice because of mistrust and ending up making things worse" pattern in every monster, action or horror movie, period.

We've scraped quite low on the bottom of the barrel in terms of Saturday morning cartoon silliness, but while "Monkey Fun" at least had the excuse of some decent Lois backstory, "The Prometheon" gave us the introduction of Hardcastle... yay?
Superman: The Animated Series
Father's Day
Season: 2
Episode: 15
Air date: 1997-10-03

Guest stars: George Dzundza,David Kaufman,Bruce Weitz,Robert Morse,Mike Farrell,Michael Ironside,Michael Dorn,Shelley Fabares
Kalibak, the son of Darkseid, comes to Metropolis to kill Superman, and prove himself to his father.

Superman's most iconic villain is probably Lex Luthor, but among the comic nerds, for us, it's Darkseid. However, after watching this episode and watching Kalibak talking about Apokolips like it's a Hot Topic death metal cult with your obligatory survival of the fittest rhetoric, I'm not so sure I'm impressed by Darkseid anymore. At least Thanos' motivation in the comics was less generic genocidal villain and more simping for Death absurdity. Still, maybe I'll be proven wrong down the road.

Still, not a bad fight as far as Superman fights go on this series. Plenty of destroyed environment for the Metropolis city council to clean up, all the while as Pa Kent is trapped under a slab of concrete throughout the entire fight. Kalibak's generic daddy issues motive left the episode feeling rather hollow though, even if it's thematically decent in terms of paralleling the upbringing between Kalibak and Kal-El. It's that typical "my daddy doesn't love me as much as your daddy loves you the hero" energy that you've seen a dozen times, proving once again that Batman: TAS is the superior DCAU cartoon, especially when it comes to compelling villain motives.

Darkseid's first real introduction here to Superman is easily intimidating and imposing, but the fact that he doesn't just go True Form and destroy Superman immediately just makes it hard to take him all that seriously. I heard there's some convoluted logic why he does that, but let's face it, the real reason is because plot-convenience.
Superman: The Animated Series
The Hand of Fate
Season: 2
Episode: 19
Air date: 1997-10-06

Guest stars: David Kaufman,Jennifer Lien,George DelHoyo,Cree Summer,Joanna Cassidy,Joseph Bologna,Dorian Harewood,Ted Levine,Ed Gilbert
When an evil demon is unleashed, Superman attempts to enlist the aid of the now disinterested wizard superhero Doctor Fate.

Jimmy Olsen: Holy--!
Lois Lane: Bad choice of words, Jimmy.

Easily the creepiest episode of the series so far, but that's not surprising when you're dealing with a malevolent Egyptian demon that look like a Mind Flayer from DnD lore and Baldur's Gate 3.

This was not the first time the series had a guest appearance from someone outside of Superman comics. Previously, we had "Speed Demon" which featured Superman racing with The Flash for a charity drive, but at least that appearance made sense, especially since it was based on a real storyline from the comics. Here, Superman's unexplained knowledge of Dr. Fate felt even more abrupt than Tony Stark's recruitment of Peter Parker in "Captain America: Civil War" when he went, "I know a guy."

To be fair, within the short amount of time of the episode, the writers had to make a lot of compromises, including simplifying what Dr. Fate's whole deal is and the concept of fatalism. I think they did the best they could, with Kent Nelson speaking about how evil always wins, and how Superman's undying hope to keep fighting changed his mind. It's as broad of a stroke as you could do with someone like Fate, unfortunately, and it isn't executed well enough to make Superman an integral part of the theme the episode was trying to explore with Dr. Fate here, but the effort is nonetheless admirable. I would have probably made it a two parter though, with the first part being the fatalism and despair, probably Superman lamenting Lois' fate this episode as a result of Karkull's actions, and then the second part exploring his perseverance to keep fighting, all the while using both parts to explore Kent's relationship with Inza Cramer and Nabu.

As it is though, it's a little clunky and unpolished, especially when you have Superman saying lines like "It's time to step on him again" like he's one bad day away from snapping Lex Luthor's neck. But for the most part, the script moves at a good clip and has some decent action sequences. It also introduces Dr. Fate as a compelling ally with an ambiguous morality unlike anyone we've seen before on the DCAU, so that's a pretty great accomplishment.
Superman: The Animated Series
Bizarro's World
Season: 2
Episode: 20
Air date: 1997-10-10

Guest stars: Joanna Cassidy,Joseph Bologna,Frank Welker,John Rubano,Corey Burton,Lauren Tom
Bizarro learns of the destruction of Krypton and attempts to recreate the destruction in Metropolis.

“Bizarro’s World” takes one of Superman’s more eccentric comic book villains—originally a warped duplicate from the backward planet Htrae—and threads that surreal, inverted DNA through a more grounded, Frankenstein’s monster lens. This version of Bizarro is no alien from a morality-flipped society; he’s a failed clone struggling with identity, purpose, and memory. The show wisely leans into his childlike innocence and tragedy, though it teeters dangerously close to “Simple Jack” territory at times, depending on how forgiving you are toward unfiltered earnestness wrapped in destructive power.

Bizarro’s antics—while occasionally hilarious in a “this could flatten downtown” kind of way—are rooted in a genuine desire for belonging. Whether he’s playing fetch with dangerous materials or awkwardly mimicking romantic gestures like a malfunctioning rom-com extra, it’s clear he isn’t evil, just deeply confused.

Credit where it's due: Lois Lane shines here. Her decision to stall Bizarro with gentle engagement instead of bravado is brave, strategic, and oddly touching. It’s yet another reminder why DCAU Lois remains a definitive take—sharp as ever, but capable of compassion when it counts.

Perhaps the biggest win of this episode, though, is how it quietly re-centers Superman himself. So many episodes in this series fixate on what Superman isn’t—he’s not a god, not a tyrant, not like Luthor, not like Darkseid. But here, we’re shown something rarer: what Superman is. A protector who doesn’t just punch problems, but solves them with empathy. A man who finds a third option when the world offers only fight or flight.

The animation and score hold up, particularly during a key sequence that pairs aerial tension with moral dilemma. It's not just spectacle—it's character.

Final Verdict:
“Bizarro’s World” doesn’t reinvent the Kryptonian wheel, but it gives one of Superman’s strangest foes a surprisingly soulful showcase—and reminds us that being a hero sometimes means offering peace, not punishment.
Superman: The Animated Series
Prototype
Season: 2
Episode: 21
Air date: 1997-10-11

Guest stars: Clancy Brown,Cynthia Gibb,Xander Berkeley,Joanna Cassidy,Michael Dorn,Robert David Hall,Cam Clarke
A suit of power armor is given to police officer who unfortunately is corrupted by the power it gives him.

Ah yes, John Henry Irons makes his debut—better known as Steel, aka that one time DC tried to cash in on superhero movies without Batman or Superman by casting Shaquille O’Neal in a tin can and pretending it was cinema. Spoiler alert: it was not. As a lifelong Marvel guy who grew up reading Spider-Man, the moment I saw Irons, my brain yelled “Cardiac!”—because that’s what you do when your comic diet is Web-Head with a side of guilt.

Now onto the episode: the real focus isn’t Irons (don’t get excited), it’s Corey Mills, the guinea pig for LexCorp’s latest walking lawsuit. Picture Robocop, but the suit is a symbiote, and he’s got the mental stability of a wet napkin in a microwave.

The episode flirts with deeper themes—power addiction, tech-induced madness—but never calls back for a second date. Mills goes from “cop with a conscience” to “guy who crushes Superman’s hand on a handshake like a freak” within five minutes, and you’re supposed to feel bad when he spirals? Nah. If they’d started with Mills as a relatable guy—a noble cop doing good, trying to help Superman—then slowly unraveled him with subtle cues, this could’ve been tragic. Instead, it’s like watching a Looney Tune put on an Iron Man suit and glitch out.

Superman’s momentary struggle is fine, the action is serviceable, but the emotional hook? Missing in action. This episode isn’t bad—it’s just prototype storytelling. All setup, no spark.

Daily Poll: Which superhero would you trust to babysit your kid? 🦸‍♂️

  • Deadpool in chaos mode

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Spider-Man

    Votes: 2 50.0%
  • Wonder Woman

    Votes: 2 50.0%
  • Batman

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other (state your choice in a reply)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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