One of the Best "Superman" Series is Finally Available on DVD

After the incredible success of the dark, noir-ish "Batman: The Animated Series," Warner Bros wanted to repeat the success with the Man of Steel. Getting the same creative team on board, including producers Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Alan Burnett, they put on their red capes and made us believe a man could fly. Of course...that's easier in animation. But still.

"Superman: The Animated Series" aired from 1996 - 2000, and included 54 episodes in all. After 2000, both Superman and Batman's animated series were cancelled, and both heroes became part of the Justice League in that Cartoon Network series still on the air today.

The producers were faced with a few problems with Superman as a character that made him a more limiting character than Batman was in terms of storytelling. It's not as interesting to watch a hero that's unstoppable and invulnerable. So they "depowered" Superman a bit, making him weaker than his comic book counterpart. This Superman probably couldn't juggle a solar system, for example. He's vulnerable not only to magic and kryptonite, but could be killed if a big enough load were dropped on him.

Another problem is Superman's batch of villains--his "Rogues Gallery" isn't nearly as colorful or threatening as Batman's is. And because there really hadn't been a series that fully explored those villains, unless you were a comic book geek, you wouldn't know those villains. So the series creators had to introduce villains and make them prime players in short order. I think they did a great job with it.

The third problem was one of their own success with Batman. They were so praised for the noir, art deco Gotham City they had created...but didn't want to do the same thing with Superman. Supes doesn't live in that dark world that Batman does. So their Metropolis, and their look for the entire series, was brighter and more colorful than the Batman series, while keeping the same general visual style, albeit even more streamlined than Batman's was.

So with those three hurdles overcome, Superman was set to take flight. And he did. One of the remarkable, but unsung talents on the animation team was the voice director Andrea Romano--she came up with a stellar cast for the three most important characters on the show: Tim Daly, best known for his work on "Wings," was cast as Superman/Clark Kent. Dana Delany, who I knew from "Northern Exposure," was the smoky-voiced Lois Lane...and Clancy Brown gave Lex Luthor the evil intellect his character needed to stay one step ahead of the Man of Steel.

They made the wise choice of keeping Superman's supporting cast intact--everyone from Ma and Pa Kent back in Smallville to Lois, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White at the Daily Planet are there to help Clark and Superman. They also carried several characters over from the comic books, like Professor Hamilton of STAR Labs (to explain stuff to Superman and the viewers) and cops Dan Turpin and Maggie Sawyer. The heroes are as important as the villains in this series, and we even got eventual appearances from Supergirl, Green Lantern, Flash, and Aquaman--although only the Flash's guest starring stint is on this first set of DVDs.

The villains are introduced, and the backgrounds are tweaked on many of them--an improvement for most of them, making them more psychological in some cases, more threatening and personal to Superman in others. Among them are Lex Luthor, now a cunning businessman instead of a mad scientist--he's built Metropolis, and resents a new favorite son who's continually in his way. This Luthor is probably my favorite of all time--pending what "Smallville" does with Lex in Season 5 of that series. Brainiac has been rebooted so he was partially responsible for the destruction of Krypton, and was an enemy to Superman's father Jor-El before Kal-El ever came along. Metallo was created by Lex Luthor to be a thorn in Superman's side, Parasite a result of corporate skullduggery, and Toyman far creepier than the spandex-wearing freak from "Challenge of the Superfriends." At every turn their histories and powers were tweaked to make them more believeable and more threatening villains. We even get a version of the Phantom Zone criminals you met in "Superman II," but they don't use the line "kneel before Zod!"....what were they thinking? There was actually some great stuff in that episode--Superman's reaction to other survivors of Krypton is almost poignant the way it's played out.

The only villain they created "from scratch" in this first batch of 18 episodes was Livewire--an electrical powered chick who used to be a "shock jock" DJ and who wants to kill Superman again and again and again. She seems a bit too "Harley Quinn" for me in this first appearance, but her character gains some depth later on.

The episodes included are:

The Last Son of Krypton Part One
The Last Son of Krypton Part Two
The Last Son of Krypton Part Three
Fun and Games
A Little Piece of Home
Feeding Time
The Way of All Flesh
Stolen Memories
The Main Man Part One
The Main Man Part Two
My Girl
Tools of the Trade
Two's a Crowd
The Prometheon
Blasts From the Past Part One
Blasts From the Past Part Two
Livewire
Speed Demons

In all this is a solid set of episodes, covering the first season plus of Superman: the Animated Series. There are a few short documentaries, one about creating the series and one about the supporting cast. More enlightening than either of those are the commentary tracks on four episodes, explaining why certain choices were made. It's a good set of extras, and 18 episodes plus the extras for less than twenty bucks is a good deal. If you've got little (or big) Super-fans in the house, this is a must-buy. The series isn't broadcast in reruns anywhere on TV these days, and this is a great series for young and old alike. The mysteries are solid, the performance and animation excellent, and--it's Superman. The best and brightest. Buy it today!