Superman: The Animated Series

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Jabroniville
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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14-15) Superman meets a pair of KRYPTONIAN CRIMINALS OH MY GOD IT's oh wait it's two people I've never heard of. Okay, so it's based off of an old story (that was kinda modified for Superman 2), and the Silver Age was FULL of other Kryptonians (the old gag was "Krypton explodes, killing Superman's parents and a few close relatives"), but come on- how bitching would ZOD have been?

The bad-ass chick is pretty cool, and I like how she assumes she's gonna get it on with Kal-El, hates Lois immediately, and generally acts entitled and superior. The second episode is just a slugfest when she summons her boyfriend/boss to fight too. Watching these brawls reminds me of how much of a "level-up" Justice League was for super-brawls- some of this is pretty decent, but it's just so... BLAH... compared to the later fights in the DCAU.

I think what irks me the most is that there's no hint of Superman's... loneliness here. He should be ECSTATIC to meet another Kryptonian, and have a million questions. Instead, it just turns out that she's rotten and so there's gotta be a fight. The whole detached nature of the hero in this show is a problem- Batman ALWAYS seemed to feel it when bad guys ran amok.

Their designs are pretty weak, too- Mara is okay, but their outfits are terribly boring- just black bodysuits with funky boots & green "Kirby Harnesses".
Jabroniville
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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16) It's the debut of original character Live Wire, who is a quirky, funny radio show host with a Daria-esque design and a bitchy attitude (suggesting that Lois is banging Superman), who decides to... keep a concert going in the rain, which causes her to turn into living electricity. Her costume is a GREAT example of Simplicity Is Style, as it's just a few colors and designs, but just WORKS. Unfortunately, her act gets a little bit tired, as she's now just a snarking pest who kicks ass and makes fun. Maybe her act just got grating as time went on- I dunno. In any case, she effortlessly beats on Superman, and can't really be KO'd since she's living energy, but she throws a blast into a hydroelectric dam, and the water finishes her.

17) It's one of comics' most legendary one-offs- the race between Superman and The Flash! Here, the Flash is depicted as a smart-mouthed, arrogant asshole, teasing Superman the entire way in their footrace. Meanwhile, the Weather Wizard gets a device from his brother that lets him create weather patterns all over the Earth. MAN that is a generic costume- he's just a guy in a green speed-suit- Doctor Thaddeus Venture has a more dynamic outfit! He tries to off his brother, who's saved by the heroes, and they team up to win. Superman admits that the Flash is okay, even though I don't recall the flash saving Supes in this one. Odd filler, and Flash is nowhere near as good as his JLU self.
Jabroniville
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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(onto the second set now, as annoyingly it's just labeled 1, instead of 3- I think they just took the exact DVDs from old Season Sets and put them in here)

1) The first appearance of Bizarro- a Luthor-created clone of Superman who soon breaks down (why does his COSTUME change, too?) and starts going a bit nutty. He nonetheless sacrifices his life in the end, helping to save Lois. Basically a 1/100th version of The Iron Giant.

2) Someone has it out for Lois, setting up a series of deathtraps for her when she wins an award for exposing some nonsense at LexCorp. A bunch of suspects are lined up- Luthor, an obsessive fanboy, a cop whose job she hurt with another expose, and a rival reporter. HAHAHAHAH- best moment: Lois's look at Clark when he suggests he stay at her apartment overnight. He's all "someone IS trying to kill you", but the animators just kill it with her "oh REALLY?" smirk. Lois remains the best part of this show. Especially when the next scene has her in a black nightie. Naturally, it's the fanboy, who was fired from LexCorp but STILL didn't get to hook up with Lois.
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Ken
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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Jabroniville wrote: Fri Apr 28, 2017 7:43 am 14-15) Superman meets a pair of KRYPTONIAN CRIMINALS OH MY GOD IT's oh wait it's two people I've never heard of. Okay, so it's based off of an old story (that was kinda modified for Superman 2), and the Silver Age was FULL of other Kryptonians (the old gag was "Krypton explodes, killing Superman's parents and a few close relatives"), but come on- how bitching would ZOD have been?

The bad-ass chick is pretty cool, and I like how she assumes she's gonna get it on with Kal-El, hates Lois immediately, and generally acts entitled and superior. The second episode is just a slugfest when she summons her boyfriend/boss to fight too. Watching these brawls reminds me of how much of a "level-up" Justice League was for super-brawls- some of this is pretty decent, but it's just so... BLAH... compared to the later fights in the DCAU.
Until the Salkind Superman films, Jax-Ur was considered the baddest of the Phantom Zoners. In the comics he had destroyed on of Krypton's colonized moons, and that's what got him put in the Phantom Zone. But the film makers decided to go with General Zod (and they invented Non and Ursa), and ever since, Zod had been the top of the Phantom Zone pile.

Mala, in the comics, was a dude. He had two brothers, U-Ban and Kizo. And the three of them weren't even Phantom Zoners. Before Kryptonians put their criminals in the Zone, they put them in suspended animation and launched them into orbit! Somehow, in 1954, the rocket that held these three made it to Earth. Mala was notable in that, we found out in his second appearance, that he looks like Kal-El.
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danelsan
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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I'm jumping ahead of the reviewed episodes, but even with all the short-to-the-point-of-basically-absence skirts around, I still have to vote for Volcana as the sexiest lady in this cartoon. Redhead, flirtatious, incredibly sexy voice, bad-girl-but-not-really*, appears in swimwear...pretty strong "hotness curriculum" XD



*At least it appears so in the Superman cartoon, as she more or less reforms in the end of the episode, but she gets back to villainy in the JL cartoons (with no explanation if my memory is not playing tricks on me)
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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danelsan wrote: Sat Jun 10, 2017 10:14 am I'm jumping ahead of the reviewed episodes, but even with all the short-to-the-point-of-basically-absence skirts around, I still have to vote for Volcana as the sexiest lady in this cartoon. Redhead, flirtatious, incredibly sexy voice, bad-girl-but-not-really*, appears in swimwear...pretty strong "hotness curriculum" XD



*At least it appears so in the Superman cartoon, as she more or less reforms in the end of the episode, but she gets back to villainy in the JL cartoons (with no explanation if my memory is not playing tricks on me)
Yeah, my lust for Volcana (and her VA, Frasier's Peri Gilpin) is well-known, I would hope :). I haven't hit that episode yet, but she's rad. The voice and attitude are killer, even more than the microskirts used in the show!
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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3) Two innocent kids find a semi-amnesiac Metallo, who now looks a fair bit cooler as a skinny, "Armature-Robot" with an entirely skull-like face. He kind of just hangs out with them for a bit as his memories slowly return and he remembers he hates Superman, but then Lois & Clark follow some obvious clues and locate him. He immediately captures Lois (of course), then there's as fight. The fight actually involves a lot of lava, with Metallo burning Superman's "Kryptonite-Protection Suit" under a flow of the burning liquid, but Supes is apparently not that affected by Kryptonite in this round, because he quickly recovers and soon throws Metallo's K-Heart into the lava-stream. Metallo ends up swept away, then buried, as his mind slowly powers down. Not a great episode, but an interesting and more unique fight sequence.
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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4) Oh good- the Mxyzptlk episode! And with the man born to play him- GILBERT GOTFRIED- in the role! In a funny bunch of circumstances, the Imp vexes Superman at every turn... until Clark gets him to install a rule into their "game"- if he's tricked into spelling his name forwards or backwards, he has to leave. And of course, he IMMEDIATELY gets goaded into doing so when Clark plays dumb ("No, you have to get ME to say it!" "Say WHAT?!" "KLTPZYXM! GEEZ- YOU'RE DUMB- oh wait"). Mxy keeps getting beaten, often in mere seconds, and gets more and more annoyed and obsessed. The fact that his SCORCHING hot wife is at home, wanting love and attention, while he does this, is the gag of the series so far- she even transforms into various fetishes (Pin-Up Girl! Cheerleader! Charo! Bikini Girl! Only a Towel!), while he just ignores her and works on his Killer Robot. Superman outwits him one final time, getting him to promise not to invade again.

5) Livewire returns, this time with Parasite in tow. I dig Livewire's VA for her snarkiness, but she REALLY can't pull off the "murderous psycho-killer" vibe when she's explictly tryint to kill Superman- lines like "I want REVENGE! I want your LIFE! Why won't you DIE?" really fall flat because she still sounds snarky. Parasite keeps trying to drain her without permission (Dude! CONSENT IS A THING!), and finally does so, which ends up screwing them both over. Superman's "cover himself in plastic" trick doesn't hold up for long, and he's badly drained, but he sets off the sprinklers with some fire, which fries Parasite (who now has Livewire's weakness).
Jabroniville
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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6) Luminus returns in full-costume, and actually hijacks LexCorp satellites (which he designed, anyways) to turn the sun red, thus depowering Superman! Decent, but Luminus isn't exactly the top of the Rogues Gallery, y'know.

7) Monkey Fun- and they name Titanno on-screen almost immediately, so I know what's coming. A lab monkey gets shot into space and vanishes in an accident, then returns to Earth twenty years later, totally irradiated. Lois Lane's father was in charge of the program that shot him into space, meaning Lois hung out with the "monkey" (clearly a chimp) as a little girl. This episode indicates that Lois, despite talking and acting like an extremely mature, confident, snarky older woman, is only twenty-eight years old. Lois's "tiny apartment" is almost literally palatial, with a forty-foot ceiling and a weird "room with a top floor" in the corner- what a weird design. Never mind the balcony larger than most people's houses, but only from some angles.

Jimmy falls about forty stories before Superman flies up and catches him literally a floor from the ground (PHYSICS!), and why the hell does this skyscraper only have one large window on the entire front side? This building is SO WEIRD. Though not as weird as EVERY CHARACTER referring to the ape as a "monkey". A pretty solid episode, largely based around Giant Animal hijinks, which is pretty "classic Superman", to me.

8) Brave New Metropolis, about an alternate universe where Superman & Lex teamed up and rule the world as dictators. Lois gets sent there, and realizes how much Superman cares for her, making her desperate to go back.
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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Jabroniville wrote: Tue Sep 12, 2017 11:00 am Though not as weird as EVERY CHARACTER referring to the ape as a "monkey". A pretty solid episode, largely based around Giant Animal hijinks, which is pretty "classic Superman", to me.
I would assume that it was done because people are ignorant. The word "ape" has an uncertain origin, and is often used imprecisely. You and I may know that apes include gorillas, humans, chimpanzees, orangutans, and gibbons; but for a lot of people, "ape" is little more than a synonym for "gorilla". "Monkey" similarly is an imprecise term. Old World Monkeys are actually more closely related to Apes than they are to New World Monkeys.

As such, I'd guess that the creators had everyone use the term "monkey" as a way of saying "simian primate that isn't a gorilla".
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Scots Dragon
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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Ken wrote: Tue Sep 12, 2017 5:09 pm
Jabroniville wrote: Tue Sep 12, 2017 11:00 am Though not as weird as EVERY CHARACTER referring to the ape as a "monkey". A pretty solid episode, largely based around Giant Animal hijinks, which is pretty "classic Superman", to me.
I would assume that it was done because people are ignorant. The word "ape" has an uncertain origin, and is often used imprecisely. You and I may know that apes include gorillas, humans, chimpanzees, orangutans, and gibbons; but for a lot of people, "ape" is little more than a synonym for "gorilla". "Monkey" similarly is an imprecise term. Old World Monkeys are actually more closely related to Apes than they are to New World Monkeys.

As such, I'd guess that the creators had everyone use the term "monkey" as a way of saying "simian primate that isn't a gorilla".
Also to be fair, many people use the term that way colloquially already so it's really not much of a stretch.
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Jabroniville
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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Scots Dragon wrote: Tue Sep 12, 2017 8:06 pm
Ken wrote: Tue Sep 12, 2017 5:09 pm
Jabroniville wrote: Tue Sep 12, 2017 11:00 am Though not as weird as EVERY CHARACTER referring to the ape as a "monkey". A pretty solid episode, largely based around Giant Animal hijinks, which is pretty "classic Superman", to me.
I would assume that it was done because people are ignorant. The word "ape" has an uncertain origin, and is often used imprecisely. You and I may know that apes include gorillas, humans, chimpanzees, orangutans, and gibbons; but for a lot of people, "ape" is little more than a synonym for "gorilla". "Monkey" similarly is an imprecise term. Old World Monkeys are actually more closely related to Apes than they are to New World Monkeys.

As such, I'd guess that the creators had everyone use the term "monkey" as a way of saying "simian primate that isn't a gorilla".
Also to be fair, many people use the term that way colloquially already so it's really not much of a stretch.
MANY PEOPLE ARE WRONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!! IT PAINS ME SO :).
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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Jabroniville wrote: Wed Sep 13, 2017 11:16 am MANY PEOPLE ARE WRONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!! IT PAINS ME SO :).
If we want to get really technical, apes are considered a sub-category of monkey rather than an entirely separate term. All apes are monkeys, though not all monkeys are apes. Part of the reason for this is that apes are an evolutionary branch of monkeys and basically everything else in this branch of the family tree before then is monkey so there's no real good reason to distinguish.

However it has traditionally been the case that some people like to distinguish between apes and monkeys even though it's a perfectly serviceable blanket term, and honestly it's not worth continuing the nitpicking over considering that it's not even wrong. Some like to use primates or simians for that purpose, but honestly it's not that big a deal and the latter is basically another way of saying monkey anyway so it's not even getting into a considerable difference there.

And naturally it shouldn't go unmentioned that this is actually our evolutionary family, so we're also technically monkeys.
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Jabroniville
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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Wikipedia says thus:
Monkeys are haplorhine primates, a group generally possessing tails and consisting of about 260 known living species. There are two distinct lineages of monkeys: New World Monkeys and catarrhines. Apes emerged within the catarrhines with the Old World monkeys as a sister group, so cladistically they are monkeys as well. However, traditionally apes are not considered monkeys, rendering this grouping paraphyletic.
So, you know, very clear, and with a bunch of words I totally understand :). You are merely cladistically correct, but not paraphyletically.
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Re: Superman: The Animated Series

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9) Brainiac returns, holding Luthor hostage. Lex grows increasingly-desperate and maddened while prisoner, and we get a minor bit of backstory on Mercy, who admits she was a "stray" on the streets when Lex found her, and turned her into what she is. This kind of character really deserved a Full-Episode Backstory, given how much more she appears in the series than, say, Harley Quinn does in Batman. There's that nice moment where Lex considers saving her, then runs off to save his own life, though- you can see their relationship change after that.

10-12) World's Finest- The great crossover between Superman & Batman, written by Steve Gerber, surprisingly! Alas, it uses the "simplified" Timmverse versions of the characters, which really weakens the Joker in particular. The two heroes immediately don't get along, and in a great pair of moments, they totally figure out each other's identities (Bruce uncharacteristically doesn't have his cowl lined with lead or anything; Superman just doesn't notice a tracker). Batman intimidating Clark with the piece of kryptonite ("it doesn't take much, does it?") is great, as is The Joker flagging down Luthor by pulling the "sexy leg on the side of the road" schtick. GOD this incarnation of the character was perfect. And of course Lois has the hots for Bruce Wayne, who declares that Clark missed his shot. ICE COLD.

The second part sees Bruce shot at until he falls off of a building, but of course 9,000 bullets fail to hit him and nobody's suspicious. He survives anyway, and then Joker lures Superman into a deathtrap which he falls for easily (he didn't expect Joker could get through his vulnerable "anti-kryptonite" suit?). Batman saves the day by disintegrating the kryptonite (though that was Superman's idea), then flies off in the most hilarious way- simply hooking his grappler to the Batplane as it does a fly-by. Seriously, that would RIP YOUR ARM OFF.

Bruce Wayne is revealed when a Kill-O-Bot attack results in his cowl being torn off, and Lois is PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSED, since they've been seriously dating to the point where she's planning on moving to Gotham City. Bruce's smart-assed "Well I never actually said I WASN'T Batman" is hilarious- I miss this interpretation of the character SO MUCH. Batman & Superman decide to team up in one big battle, where the Kill-O-Bots are MUCH easier to kill, despite being larger and more numerous this time, and soon blow up a GIGANTIC Flying Wing that Luthor built. Watching Luthor be repeatedly stymied by the nutty Joker is a great running gag (he tries a double-cross, but Joker is onto him and has him tied to a chair in the Wing), as is Mercy constantly getting the snot kicked out of her (Batman easily one-punches her with a backhand that sends her across the room).

We end things with Lois breaking things off with Bruce, and him leaving. The two superheroes kind of have an understanding, even if they don't really LIKE each other. A great set of episodes, with Joker & Harley Quinn bringing a ton of fun to the festivities.
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