NOTE: This essay is an updated version of one I wrote two years ago for the DCAU fan site The World’s Finest. Since I wrote that Superman: The Animated Series retrospective new information has come out, and I wanted to account for it in my narrative.
As of this writing, we are two years past the twenty-fifth anniversary of Superman: The Animated Series (or STAS for short), the influential television show that ran from 1996 to 2000 and existed between the zeitgeist-shattering Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS) and the extreme ‘90s corporate synergy of Batman Beyond, and that commemoration went off not with a bang, but with a whimper. The ugly truth is that STAS has become the middle child of the DCAU (DC Animated Universe); the last show that people think of when they consider the creative output of Bruce Timm (producer / character designer), Paul Dini (producer / writer), Alan Burnett (producer / writer), and company. Consider: when it came to releasing these shows in HD, STAS was the last to be released in 2021, whereas BTAS and The New Batman Adventures (TNBA) were released in 2018, Batman Beyond in 2019, and Justice League Unlimited (JLU) in 2015. Unlike its critically acclaimed forebear, there was never a Superman: Animated art book by Paul Dini and Chip Kidd. And—despite some lovely articles and retrospectives about the show—it was easily overshadowed by the 30th anniversary of BTAS that occurred the following year. While appreciated for what it was, compared to its BTAS counterpart, it just can’t seem to get a break.
Compounding the issue further is the current situation with Superman’s animated shows. As part of Warner Bros.’ 100th anniversary this year, they recently released newly remastered digital and Blu-ray copies of the classic Max Fleischer’s 1940s Superman animated shorts, which set the standard for the Man of Steel and superhero animation in general (without the Fleischer shorts, we wouldn’t have BTAS or STAS in their current forms). In addition, this past month saw the release of My Adventures with Superman on Adult Swim, which is—team series aside—the first animated Superman show since STAS. Just like before, STAS is once again sandwiched between the classic standard and the anime-inspired upstart, and I fear that it will once again be relegated to an afterthought by comparison. With that in mind, let’s take a moment to remember this remarkable, yet underrated, television series.
The Beginning
In the mid-1990s, Warner Bros., riding high on the success of 1995’s Batman Forever, sought to package Superman in a similar manner (the September 20, 1996 issue of Entertainment Weekly had “Can Superman Be the Next Batman?” on the front cover; see above). And while much has been said about the outcome of that endeavor—Kevin Smith’s stories of the botched Superman Lives script have become legend—one of the things that every budding 1990s franchise needed was an animated show, and Bruce Timm—fresh off of BTAS—was tapped to head the project, though it was not an immediate continuation:
I don’t think anybody said, “Hey, let’s do Superman next!” What happened was that Steven Spielberg approached Jean MacCurdy, my boss, and said, “I really like that Batman show you guys are doing! I want to do an adventure show with that crew. I want to have a meeting with those guys.” So, me, Alan Burnett, [and] Paul Dini all went over to Amblin and had a meeting with Steven, and he said, “I really love what you guys did on the Batman show, and I don’t really have an idea for what I want to do, but you guys can come up with some ideas, and I can pick one, and we can develop it together!”
So, we went back to the office and developed a bunch of pitches. We came back with all these pitches, and the one that he picked was Freakazoid!—which, at the time, was supposed to be a more of an adventure show with comedy. As we were developing it, it became more of a comedy show with some adventure elements in it and, at that point, I thought it was going really heavily in the Tiny Toons arena and thought there were better people out there to produce it besides myself.
I walked away from it, with respect, but then I was left without anything to do. Fortunately, I was meeting with Jean MacCurdy about the same time for something else, and she was like, “Maybe we could do a Superman show? Are you interested?” I said, “Yes! I will do that!” I had literally nothing else going on at the moment, so I said, “Sure, I can start tomorrow!” (qtd. in Stone, “Bruce”)
The development process took many different permutations. At one point, the creative team toyed with carrying on with the BTAS “timeless” appearance, harkening back to the artwork of the aforementioned Fleischer Superman shorts. The above photo, retrieved from an eBay auction, is notable for featuring early drafts of Superman, the Daily Planet staff, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and—surprisingly—General Zod and Ursa, two characters who would be replaced with Jax-Ur and Mala on the final show. In a roundabout way, this could be what the Superman cast might have looked like had they appeared on BTAS.
At first, Bruce Timm was very excited about this take, as revealed in Comics Scene #54 (January 1996):
It would be Fleischer all the way. Not just the Fleischer look, but the early Superman, with his Jerry Siegel / Joe Shuster look. I love that look on Superman, with the little squinty eyes and everything. That would be my take on it.
Personally, I would take a similar approach to what we did with Batman and set it in a very ‘40s film noir-ish world. My personal take on it is that I would like to do Clark Kent the way they did him in George Reaves’ Adventures of Superman TV series, where he’s not the “bumbling Clark Kent” or the “real nice guy Clark Kent,” but a real hard-boiled crime reporter. That would be a neat approach.
That ‘40s kind of style would dictate the entire series to me, even when using the more science-fictiony characters like Brainiac. It really would be neat to do Brainiac as a ‘40s android from Hell. (qtd. in Jankiewicz)
In the end, however, this approach was shelved. In The Jack Kirby Collector #21 (October 1998), Bruce Timm reflected how “[w]e didn’t wanna go back and make it look just like the Fleischer cartoons; I didn’t want anybody to put our show up against Fleischer’s and say, ‘Well, look, they’re doing the Fleischers, just not as well’” (qtd. in Khoury and Khoury III).
Another pitch that lasted only a week (Brick) featured a more Brave and the Bold format, where Superman would team-up each episode with other DC Comics’ characters. As Timm recounted in Modern Masters, Vol. 3: Bruce Timm:
At a certain point, we toyed with the idea of opening it up and having the show—instead of being just Superman—kind of a prototype Justice League show, where it would be Superman and a rotating supporting cast of other super-heroes. I actually did a couple of development drawings along those lines and Jenette Kahn was the one who put that to a stop. She met with us and said, “You know, I just don’t think you guys should do this. You should give Superman the respect that he deserves and give him his own show, the way you did Batman, before you get into the Justice League.” Right away we said, “Yeah, you’re right.” (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington)
As for Batman, he was not considered for this pitch, as “[h]e already had his own show,” according to Timm (qtd. in Brick), although the fact that the rights to the character were still with Fox Kids probably had something to do with it (Stone, “Bruce”).
The Look
After several false starts, Timm and his creative team—many of them from BTAS—hit on the show’s unique look. First, the show would shed the “dark deco” look of BTAS, and the characters would be sleeker, more streamlined, compared to their BTAS counterparts. Said Timm in a 2021 Comic Book Resources interview:
We figured it would be better to do something fresher, so it incorporated some of the design elements from BTAS, but also by setting it in a much less retro world, with slightly futuristic cars and more modern fashions and hairstyles, it gave it a little bit more of a timeless feel of its own that didn’t look specifically tied to any one era. I think that was probably the proper way to go with it. (qtd. in Stone, “Bruce”)
[T]he show is set in the present, but it’s a very futuristic present. Metropolis doesn’t just look like New York. It’s much bigger and more optimistic-looking. We’ll still have a lot of art deco elements, so it does have a little bit of retro look to it. But it’s futuristic retro; we’re calling it “ocean-liner deco” with all those zigzaggy, hard-edged buildings. Everything’s rounded off at the top. The city has an open feel. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Men”)
The second major aspect of Superman’s style came from the influence of legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby. Said Timm in The Jack Kirby Collector #21:
When the time came to do Superman, we really didn’t know what to do that would make it visually different from Batman but at the same time just as cool. […] One of the things we wanted to do with Superman was to kind of “Marvelize” Superman a little bit. That’s why the police don’t just carry handguns, but these Kirby-like weapons. All of the science-fictional elements in this series—whether it’s a tank or something from outer space—has a kind of Kirby feel to it, or at least we try to. Even in the pilot, the origin story, there’s this Brainiac satellite floating around Krypton, and we tried for the longest time to come up with a design for it, and we didn’t come up with anything I really liked. I found this Kirby gizmo in one of the Kirby comics, and I turned it upside-down and said, “Hey! That’s our satellite.” There are things like that all the way through the show where we would just find Kirby-ish elements and turn them into things in the Superman show. (qtd. in Khoury and Khoury III)
Whereas BTAS Gotham City was dark, film noir, and set in an indeterminable mid-20th century time period, STAS Metropolis was bright, set in the present, and peppered with futuristic tech that drew heavily from the works of Jack Kirby.
The Main Cast
The look and style for the series established, the creative team moved to the development of the cast. One of the major hurdles that any Superman vehicle runs into is the comparison to what has come before. For much of the franchise’s history—both from the pre-Crisis comics and the Christopher Reeves movies—Superman is perceived as an overeager boy scout, Clark Kent is a mild-mannered wall flower who pines for Lois, Lois Lane is a bitch who ignores Clark but lusts for Superman, and Lex Luthor is a bald con man whose primary focus is crooked land deals (and, in Gene Hackman’s case, hideous leisure suits and toupees). Fortunately for the series, the creative team wisely made several deviations from this formula.
The first major change can be found in the Man of Steel himself. Normally portrayed as being a very public “hero’s hero,” this version was notable for taking a few cues from the Dark Knight’s playbook. “We’re making Superman a little more mysterious,” Timm said in Wizard, continuing, “when he saves somebody, he doesn’t stand around and say, ‘No problem, citizen, it’s all part of the job. Thank you, Commissioner, blah, blah, blah…’ He saves somebody, and he’s off again. He’s quiet and mysterious” (qtd. in Allstetter, “Men”). This new “mystery man” persona was coupled with a darker color palate, trading his regular colors for a darker red and an almost navy blue. In addition, the creative team traded in his red shorts—often a punchline of superhero costumes—for a black pair featuring a single red highlight, and they removed the second yellow symbol on his red cape, as it was an “animation issue” (Liu). “[I]n some scenes in long shots, [the costume] almost looks black,” Timm added (qtd. in Allstetter, “Men”).
While the changes to Superman were significant, it was nothing compared to the changes made to Clark Kent. Seeking to distance themselves from the clumsy nebbish from the past—especially considering how they just portrayed Bruce Wayne in a similar manner in BTAS—this incarnation of Kent was similarly quiet and unassuming, but first and foremost a hard-nosed reporter. Said Timm in Wizard #59:
When we were looking back at a lot of other interpretations of Superman, [we found that] in the 1950s TV show, largely because of limitations with budget, the action was mostly on Clark. They were playing him as reporter / private investigator, and that added a nice edge to his personality. We thought that was something to capture in animation. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Men”)
In a 2009 interview with Comics Continuum, Superman voice actor Tim Daly recalled the casting process for the role:
The wife of one of the writers on Wings knew Andrea [Romano, casting / dialogue director], and I guess they had been having trouble casting [Superman] for some reason. I don’t really know why. She suggested me, and I came in and read for them, and they sort of hired me in the room. I was just shocked, but I was thrilled, because it was Superman. And, you know, if someone’s got to keep America safe for democracy; it might as well be me. [LAUGHS.] (qtd. in Allstetter, “Superman”)
In preparation for the role, Daly avoided previous performances, as “[w]e weren’t doing a remake of [the Christopher Reeve] Superman: we were doing a newly conceived version of Superman, so I wanted to come to it fresh” (qtd. in Stone, “Superman: The Animated Series’ Tim”). He would go on to describe the challenges with voicing his version of the Man of Steel:
Superman is a real boy scout, a real straight arrow, and yet he does have certain moments of kind of ironic humor. The challenge is not to tip him into cynicism because he is not a cynical guy. He is truth, justice, and the American way. He is about trying to do the right thing and trying to be earnest about his goodness. What makes him fun are those little moments where he reveals that he actually does have a sense of humor. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Superman”)
This character paired well with the show’s Lois Lane, played by returning DCAU actor Dana Delaney (Batman: Mask of the Phantasm). Portrayed as an intelligent, aggressive journalist, she was not afraid to get into people’s faces while Clark Kent stood back and paid attention to the details. Initially dismissive of the man she would nickname “Smallville,” she grew to respect his skills as a reporter. Meanwhile, as Superman, he was able to provide her assistance when she needed it (and, considering the type of crime in Metropolis, she needed it). And while there was an attraction between Lois Lane and Superman, it didn’t turn into the unhealthy love triangle from the Silver Age comics. Said Timm in Wizard #59 of their relationship:
They’re like a brother and sister who don’t get along. Lois definitely sees Clark as a threat. She’s a hotshot reporter at the Planet, and here comes this guy who starts scooping her on all these stories, especially involving Superman. She can’t figure out how he does it. […] I don’t think there are really romantic sparks between them, but there are definitely romantic sparks between Lois and Superman. It’s not like Clark pines for Lois. We won’t be playing up that angle at all. Clark can have his cake and eat it too. When he’s Superman, Lois is crazy for him, but when he’s Clark, he’s ribbing her all the time. It’s a strange relationship. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Men”)
In a 2021 interview with Comic Book Resources, Voice Director Andrea Romano recalled Delaney’s audition for Lois Lane:
She was just so good in Mask of the Phantasm [as Andrea Beaumont], which is one of my favorite films that we ever made way back when. She’s not only a good actress and understood what she had to do, but she had fun. I always like to think of casting a project as casting a party, “Who do I want to be together at this party? Who’s going to have fun, and who’s going to bring something to the party?” She absolutely fit all those categories, so why not give her a chance? The question is, when you get to a project that’s probably going to be recording once a week for at least a year, with ADR for another year after that, some actors who are film actors can’t commit to that kind of time. […] Dana was absolutely willing and always did make herself available in our production, and she’s just so darn good.
[…] I remember when she auditioned; I always walk actors up to the microphone and chat them up to make them feel comfortable in the room because an audition is a bit of a trial. You’re being judged, and you can get a bit intimidated. Really good actors can get intimidated by the audition process, so I try to make them feel really comfortable. I walked [Dana] up to the microphone, chatted her up and went back to the booth, asked if she was ready, and said, “Okay, this is Dana Delany as Lois Lane.” There was dead silence. She doesn’t speak, and I ask if she was okay, and she says, “I’m just letting those words wash over me. I’ve waited so long to hear somebody say I could be Lois Lane.” [LAUGHS.] It was so charming that this established actress had such a desire to play this character and put all that together and you get a brilliant Lois Lane. (qtd. in Stone, “Superman: The Animated Series’ Director”)
Later, in her own Comic Book Resources interview, the actor revealed her love of Lois Lane, a role that she once said she’d play “for free” (Lowry):
When I was a kid in the 1950s, I would watch the Superman live-action series with my maid when I came home from elementary school. Somehow, we became a Nielson family and, back then, they used to give you a little booklet, and you would write down what shows you watched every day. Every day, I wrote about Superman because it’s all I ever watched, so I hope I helped their ratings. [LAUGHS.] I watched the original Lois, Phyllis Coates, and then Noel Neill—whom I got to meet, which was a thrill. Every Sunday, I went to church, and the reward was we’d then go to the drugstore, where I’d get an ice cream soda and take my dime to buy my Lois Lane comic book because she had her own comic back then. I read Superman and Batman too, but Lois was mine, so I’ve been attached to her my whole life.
[…] When Superman came up, they asked if I wanted to audition for it. I remember when I got to audition for Lois, and I got to say that line, “Nice S,” when she names Superman, that Nietzschean ideal. I remember thinking it was the best line ever, and just saying it in the audition is enough, even if I didn’t get the job. [LAUGHS.]
[…] It was basically the writing. It was so classic 1940s—quick patter and snappy dialogue. It was great writing, and I immediately thought of Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, and she was the ultimate girl reporter. I pretty much patterned her after Rosalind Russell. It seemed to work with it because of the way the series was drawn and written was very retro, but modern at the same time. Rosalind Russell was both of these things, classic and modern, at the same time. (qtd. in Stone, “Superman: The Animated Series’ Star”)
Standing in opposition to this ‘90s Woodward and Bernstein was, of course, Lex Luthor, portrayed by character actor Clancy Brown. Unlike the supervillain / evil scientist incarnation from the later Justice League era, this version of Luthor drew heavily from the post-Crisis Man of Steel character created by John Byrne in 1986. According to the original character profile from the Kids’ WB! website (which, for all intents and purposes, was the Series Bible), Luthor grew up in the Suicide Slum neighborhood of Metropolis, then a city in decline, but then used his genius (along with an insurance settlement from a “mysterious auto accident” that killed his parents) to get a master’s degree at MIT, which he used to build his business, his fortune, and the city of Metropolis (“Lex”). At the series’ beginning, Luthor is the city’s hero, as he has brought Metropolis back from decline—half of the buildings in the city bear his name, and his businesses employ two-thirds of the city’s population. And it could be argued that all of the “futuristic Kirby tech” mentioned above was the result of Luthor’s genius.
In a 2021 interview with Comic Book Resources, Clancy Brown recalled the audition process, and how he originally tried out for a different part:
I threw my hat into the ring because I was a new dad. I had had a little taste of animation work and these voice actors are so good, and they’re all my friends now. I thought it was astounding, but my agents said at the time, “What are you doing?! You don’t need to go into voiceover!” [LAUGHS.] But I really wanted to go into voiceover, and Warner Bros. was casting outside-of-the-box because they had cast outside-of-the-box for Batman and that was such a success they decided to do Superman: The Animated Series.
It was a general call, and they brought in a lot of people to read for Superman. I read for Superman, and Andrea had me stick around and read for Lex. I rolled my eyes, and she went, “Oh, you don’t have to read for it!” I said, “No, I’ll read for it; I just wonder what it is about me that I’m always playing the bad guy?” [LAUGHS.] But she was just seeing what mixes and matches, and that’s how I got it. I wasn’t bummed. I was actually quite happy to do it, but I really thought I had a shot at being Superman. [LAUGHS.] But I never did! I didn’t ever! (qtd. in Stone, “Superman: The Animated Series’ Clancy”)
It is worth noting that, prior to Brown’s audition, an early frontrunner for the voice of Luthor was Sherman Howard, who would later go on to voice similar villain Derek Powers in sister series Batman Beyond (Fischer). In the DVD commentary for “Stolen Memories,” from the DVD set Superman: The Animated Series, Vol. 1; Bruce Timm reflected on what made Clancy Brown’s Luthor special:
[Clancy Brown] was like the perfect Luthor to me. Clancy just had this thing—in my mind, I always saw […] Luthor as being like Telly Savalas [as villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld] in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, one of my favorite James Bond movies, [where he, in essence, portrayed Blofeld as] a cultured thug. He was basically like this bruiser who wanted to be taken seriously and wanted to be […] treated like a baron, and I thought that was like a really good way to treat Luthor. [Luthor] is rich and powerful and kind of elegant, but at the same time—just barely beneath the surface—he’s a brute. There was something in Clancy’s delivery during his audition that reminded me of Telly, so it was just serendipity. Clancy just nailed it—the voice that I had in my head—it was no contest at that point. (qtd. in “Stolen”)
The presence of Tim Daly, Dana Delaney, and Clancy Brown gave the series gravitas in the same way that Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and others did for BTAS. They would come to anchor the series, though it must be said that the presence of Lois and Luthor lessened in the final episodes.
The Supporting Cast
Compared to BTAS, the presence of the supporting cast on STAS was largely perfunctory. Aside from scenes (or episodes) highlighting Ma and Pa Kent, Mercy Graves, and John Henry Irons, they largely served as set dressing. There was never a spotlight on Perry White or Maggie Sawyer. Professor Emil Hamilton was just Superman’s science buddy until, out of nowhere, he showed some spine in the last episode. And harbor local Bibbo Bibbowski—aside from one significant scene in the pilot—only made brief appearances as comic relief. Of them, I can think of only two worth singling out for further discussion: Jimmy Olsen and Dan Turpin.
For a character central to the Superman mythos, the STAS incarnation of Jimmy Olsen was—at best—a missed opportunity. He was sold in the original character profile from the Kids’ WB! website as a scrapper from the streets with a smart mouth (“Jimmy”) who Bruce Timm referred to as “a bit of a weasel” in early press material (Allstetter, “Men”), but the character we got was a slightly dim tagalong for Lois Lane when Superman was soaring across the skyline. Drawn as a kid of an undetermined age—short stature, youthful features—who, for some reason, was always hanging around the Daily Planet offices instead of being in school, one gets a strong sense that he was the result of Kids’ WB! requesting a child character that the viewers “could identify with.” In the later episodes, when adult Lois Lane was unexpectedly sidelined, Jimmy got promoted to Superman’s sidekick but, again, there was nothing there aside from a blank Guy Friday. He was “Superman’s Pal” in name only.
In contrast, if anyone among the cast deserved the status as being a pal to the Man of Steel it was Dan Turpin. Designed to physically resemble legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby (Khoury and Khoury III), Inspector Turpin was part of the Special Crimes Unit, a branch of the Metropolis Police Dept. that specialized in super crime. Initially resistant to Superman’s help, over several episodes he came to value him as an ally, even a friend. Perhaps due to the fact that he was based on Kirby, Turpin’s dialogue and presence sparked in a way reserved for Lois, Clark, and Luthor, which made his demise in “Apokolips…Now!” all the more painful because his absence only showed the remaining supporting cast’s lack of depth and detail. All we had left from that point on was Inspector Maggie Sawyer, but she was no Commissioner Gordon, and the only character development we got from her was the suggestion of her LGBT+ status in “Apokolips…Now!”
The Rogues’ Gallery
Of course, the measure of any superhero is in their enemies, but historically the Man of Steel’s Rogues’ Gallery has had some problems. Said Timm in Wizard #59:
Batman was easier because he had such a great rogues’ gallery. Almost all of the villains were really interesting and exciting because they were all so psychologically screwed up and so weird and inventive. I went out and got that Superman encyclopedia and thumbed through it to see what we might want to do, and the list of villains was staggeringly dull. There’s the Parasite, Brainiac, and Bizarro—and that’s it. All the other classic Superman villains are old, fat guys in business suits … the Toyman, the Prankster. Where’s the visual appeal there? We’re having to either re-invent these guys from scratch or create new villains. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Men”)
And reinvent they did. As opposed to Batman’s villains, where the creative team got to cherry-pick the best elements from the characters’ long and storied histories, in many cases here they had to strip Superman’s foes down to their name and basic gimmick, and then rebuild them into something better. I would argue that, in addition to the aforementioned Lex Luthor, the Superman creative team succeeded in rebuilding Superman’s Rogues’ Gallery into one of the finest line-ups ever.
Of these revamped characters, probably the most changed was Brainiac. Created in 1958 by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino (fun fact: along with his brother, Earl, Binder wrote the classic “I, Robot,” the science fiction short story that would go on to influence author Isaac Asimov), the original Brainiac was a “12th level android intelligence” from the planet Colu who, disguised as a humanoid alien, was a galactic traveler who studied civilizations to see if they were ripe for conquest. Also, when the mood struck it, the android would use a shrink ray of its own design to take samples of each world’s civilization by shrinking a major city from each planet and storing them in glass bottles. Over time, however, it became known mostly as Superman’s other bald villain—this one green—who went around wearing a pink polo shirt with no pants. However, thanks to the Superman creative team (especially Alan Burnett, who originated the idea; Stone, “Bruce”), the villain was revamped to be the HAL 9000 of Krypton, an intelligent A.I. who hid evidence of the planet’s impending destruction from the populace to save itself. Afterwards, Brainiac—taking a cue from Marvel Comics’ Galactus—traveled the cosmos cataloging the technology of various civilizations and then destroying them afterwards, so it would be the only one to possess that knowledge.
Let us pause to consider how simply brilliant—yet painfully obvious—this take on the character was. Why did it take over thirty-five years for someone to think of this? Not only does it simplify the character—who underwent various reboots in its comic book career—but it ties the villain more strongly to the Man of Steel and his history. Not only does it make Brainiac a generational adversary (once Jor-El’s enemy, now Kal-El’s), but it also makes a foe out of the last active part of Krypton.
The second major villain figured out, the creative team took cues from their time rethinking BTAS villains, and the rest fell like dominos. Under their guidance:
Metallo, formerly a one-note villain in a robot body with a “heart” made of kryptonite, became an amoral hedonist trapped in a powerful, yet senseless, Terminator-like body. Thanks to Luthor, the former John Corbin could no longer taste food, savor smells, or enjoy the company of women (the most striking scenes in “The Way of All Flesh” were the impotence he felt when confronted by Lois or Luthor’s boat companion). He may have cheated death, but now he is a mind stuck in a perpetual state of sensory deprivation. All he has is his hatred of Superman.
Parasite, a purple brute who can leech the energy of others, became a stalker and bully to Superman’s boy scout. Initially a low-rent thug bullied himself by an overbearing partner, Rudy Jones became the aggressor himself thanks to a dip in toxic chemicals. Also, in a twist native to this series, not only does Parasite absorb energy and powers, but he also absorbs skills and memories. The tragedy of the character—and a blessing to the Man of Steel—is that these phenomenal powers were wasted on a slacker like him (one episode has him helping the cops in exchange for cable TV in his cell, rather than freedom). Could you imagine the damage he could have caused if he got his hands on Batman?
Bizarro, Superman’s imperfect duplicate with a face resembling rough-edged plaster of Paris, became a tragic Frankenstein-like example of the dangers of cloning. In the short term, Luthor’s fear of the threat that the Man of Steel could become was realized in the creation of this creature with all the destructive power of Superman, but the intelligence and maturity of a child. Long term, however, he was part of the flawed first generation of Kryptonian clones, which would later be perfected in Justice League Unlimited via the creations of Galatea and Doomsday. All that damage from a few drops of Kryptonian blood.
Perhaps the most reminiscent of the villains of BTAS was Toyman. It follows the previous series’ formula of a victim taken advantage of by a powerful figure (here Bruno Manheim), only to return with a costume, gimmick, and thirst for vengeance. However, the character was no longer an “old, fat guy in a business suit,” this version was a nightmarish combination of Mr. Rogers and a ventriloquist dummy. Said Bruce Timm on the former Toon Zone message boards (circa 2006): “Toyman’s design is actually based on a generic ventriloquist puppet design that was fairly common from the 1940s to the 1970s (and may still be available, for all I know). Paul Winchell’s ‘Jerry Mahoney’ was one such” (Timm). And while his debut episode identifies him as the son of toymaker Winslow Schott in “Fun and Games,” who knows? Could it be Schott himself or, for that matter, was the figure menacing Superman a toy itself, controlled remotely?
Pitch-hitting for General Zod and Ursa, Jax-Ur and Mala became the resident Phantom Zone criminals for the series. Overall, they were pretty one-note—revenge on the Son of Jor-El and planetary conquest—but Mala was notable for the rage she felt as her romantic overtures were rejected by Superman, sending her on a Miss Piggy-like rampage.
Finally, we have Mr. Mxyzptlk, voiced by the late Gilbert Gottfried. The fifth dimensional imp was originally a character writer Paul Dini dreaded getting to (Allstetter, “Men”), but fortunately he figured him out when the time came. “Mxy was fun to write,” Dini said in a 1997 interview with Animation Arena, adding “[w]e didn’t want him to be like The Mask, or a Robin Williams-type goofy character so, basically, I just made him a little shit—a mean little creep who just wants to screw around with Superman for the sake of screwing around with him” (qtd. in Aquino). This combination of persona and voice actor proved popular enough to be revisited in 2016’s Justice League Action series. As for his physical appearance, Dini went on to say, during a 1998 chat on Toon Zone, “Bruce [Timm] and I looked at all the versions of [Mr. Mxyzptlk] and, while the more current one was the one we had grown up with, there was something about that old ‘Elmer Fudd’ version that just appealed to us as an animated cartoon character” (qtd. in "Paul").
Adding to the villains listed above, the creative team did create some new adversaries for Superman, primarily in the form of the electrically powered Livewire, the solid light generating Luminus, and the pyrokinetic mutant Volcana. And while they may have lacked the depth of the above villains, they did add some much-needed muscle to the team. Also, during this retooling process, the influence of Jack Kirby made its mark in subtler ways. Said Timm in The Jack Kirby Collector #21:
A lot of the Superman villains aren’t nearly as interesting as the Batman villains. Batman has the best rogues’ gallery in comics and the Superman rogues’ gallery is pretty dull. We would take characters like Brainiac and Parasite—that are pretty dull-looking in the comics—and go, “If Kirby were designing them, what would he do to them?” So, we would put Kirby-type costumes and Kirby touches on them to make them more interesting. (qtd. in Khoury and Khoury III)
It should also be noted that additional villains came in the form of characters “loaned” to the show via the superhero team-up episodes. In addition to the “antihero” Lobo, who appeared in the two-part “The Main Man” episode, the show benefitted from appearances by the Joker (from the Batman team up event “World’s Finest”), Sinestro (from the Green Lantern team up episode “In Brightest Day…”), Weather Wizard (from the Flash team up episode “Speed Demons”), and Karkull (a revamp of the Golden Age villain Ian Karkull, from the Doctor Fate team up episode “The Hand of Fate”). The most notable of these was Sinestro, voiced by Ted Levine (Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs), whose redesign would serve to influence the character’s comic book appearance in Geoff John’s Green Lantern run (several issues of his run traded his pinkish-purple skin tone for the blood red hue he wore in his DCAU appearances).
Missing from the above lineup is the monstrous Doomsday, which some might find odd, considering the character’s popularity in the ‘90s, especially in The Death of Superman arc. However, the character’s absence from the series could be chalked up to massive disinterest. “As far as I know, there was no plan to use Doomsday in Superman; after all, he was kind of an uninteresting villain, wasn’t he?” said writer Stan Berkowitz in a 2005 interview with The World’s Finest (qtd. in Hamilton). Perhaps it’s just as well, seeing as how Doomsday would later be used to great effect in both Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, especially in the Cadmus arc.
Could there have been more? In hindsight, most certainly the series could have benefitted from more heavy hitters such as Justice League villains Solomon Grundy—who was considered for Superman, but “the story just never gelled, and we never got around to it,” according to Timm (qtd. in Myers and Crow)—and the Ultra-Humanite, but that is a thought exercise with no winner. At any rate, even with the formidable team assembled above, there is one major villain left to consider…
Darkseid and the Forces of Apokolips
Considering the amount of influence that the works of Jack Kirby had on this series, it was only natural for Bruce Timm and company to utilize the DC Universe’s “big bad” villain as a major recurring foe for the Man of Steel. “Thank God for Darkseid,” Paul Dini said after discussing the lack of usable Superman villains (qtd. in Allstetter, “Men”). Added Timm in The Jack Kirby Collector #21:
Again, when we were doing Superman, we were trying to find interesting villains for him to come up against. The regular Superman villains are pretty uninteresting and most of them are fifty-year-old fat guys in suits. We figured, “Well, there’s Darkseid; let’s definitely use Darkseid in the show.” So, Paul Dini and I were sitting around one day trying to figure out what we were going to do with Darkseid and the New Gods, and we just started throwing out ideas.
For one thing, what does Darkseid want? It’s not just enough for him to conquer the Earth; why does he want to conquer the Earth? We went back to the comics to figure out 1) what is Darkseid’s motivation and 2) what is the Anti-Life Equation? We decided we couldn’t figure it out ourselves. We got the idea that maybe even Jack [Kirby] didn’t know what he was doing! He had this really cool idea and even if he had something that he meant to do with it in the comics, the series was cancelled before he had a chance to. The Anti-Life Equation makes sense in the comics, but it’s kind of a big, nebulous thing, and we only have 20 minutes—or, at most, 40 minutes—to tell a story. So, we had to make it easy for eight-year-olds to understand.
Our version of the Anti-Life Equation is basically that he feeds on the despair of people, so that’s why he wants Earth and that’s why he wants to destroy Superman. He’s going to come to Earth and take their greatest hero and reduce him to nothing. He’s going to feed off the despair of the entire planet. (qtd. in Khoury and Khoury III)
Darkseid’s presence weighed heavily upon the Superman series. In an early example of serialized storytelling for the DCAU, the Lord of Apokolips appeared as a cameo early on in the series—in the Season One episode “Tools of the Trade” (much like R’as Al Ghul did in the BTAS episode “Off Balance”)—and then made a small appearance in “Father’s Day,” which set the stage for three—count ‘em!—three two-parters towards the series’ end, including the series finale. In a 2003 interview with the former Toon Zone, Bruce Timm discussed the appeal of Darkseid and his rivalry with Superman:
[Darkseid has] class, baby! Of course, that’s just part of his appeal, but it is an important part. He’s a massive, ugly brute, but his harsh physical look is contrasted by a stillness, a soft-spoken speech pattern, and a supreme self-confidence. He’s a monster, yes, but he’s an elegant one. [Also,] aside from the occasional Omega Blast, [Jack] Kirby almost never had Darkseid engage in physical action and, usually, he doesn’t have to. With that powerful presence—and that voice—he automatically commands attention, respect, [and] awe.
He’s very much like the classic James Bond villain. As Kingsley Amis [a James Bond historian] pointed out, the best Bond villains—Goldfinger, Dr. No, Blofeld—are all evil authority figures, or “dark father” figures, with Bond playing the role of the disrespectful, willfully disobedient schoolboy. It’s implicit in “Apokolips…Now!,” in the “Lucifer tempting Jesus” scene on the cliff, and it’s explicit in “Legacy,” with Darkseid’s “adoption” of Superman. The climax of “Legacy” especially resonates with that father / son dynamic: “You’ve been a bad boy. Now take your punishment.”
(“Little Girl Lost” was the only time Superman could claim an unqualified victory against him. In both “Apokolips…Now!” and “Legacy,” Darkseid managed to have the last diabolical laugh.)
[…] Darkseid doesn’t just want to physically crush his enemies; he wants to shatter their spirit, to humiliate, debase, and demean them. It’s that little extra measure of cruelty that sets him apart from the other villains. [He is] the most powerful, the most sadistic, the most willfully evil villain. (qtd. in Allman)
With Metropolis built, the cast in place, and the armies of Apokolips waiting in the wings, the series was ready to debut.
Season One (1996)—Superman: The Animated Series
Superman debuted on Friday, September 6, 1996 in primetime with the three-part “The Last Son of Krypton” pilot (“Backstage,” screen 1). This episode was notable for the Man of Steel not actually appearing until the end of Part Two, with a significant chunk occurring in Smallville and the entirety of Part One featuring Jor-El versus Brainiac on Krypton. Still, it was an excellent debut, featuring the introductions of the primary cast, and—through his father’s heroism—how Superman’s valiant nature is clearly in his blood. This was then followed the next day by the show’s debut in its regular Saturday morning time slot, where it would air for the first year (“Backstage,” screen 1).
Compared to the creative team’s prickly interactions with Fox Kids and Broadcast Standards and Practices (BS&P) during the BTAS era (Dini and Kidd), Timm recalled that he had a more agreeable relationship with Kids’ WB! in regard to STAS’ storytelling … at least, at first:
As far as I know, I don’t remember that there was any pushback. The people that we worked with at Kids’ WB at the time were very easygoing, much more so than Fox Kids. Fox Kids was a little more uptight about things, particularly of the Standards and Practices nature, whereas we couldn’t believe our luck when working at Kids’ WB that first season. These guys were letting us do whatever we wanted, which was great. (qtd. in Stone, “Bruce”)
While it is possible that this relaxed association was due to it being the first year of Kids’ WB!’s existence, where they were new and throwing things at the wall to see what stuck, it’s also stands to reason that this can be due to the protagonist’s durability. Said Paul Dini in a 1997 interview:
Generally, the network has been less strict on Superman. On the other hand, you can throw just about anything at Superman, and he’s not affected by it. Batman and most of his enemies are mortal. So, the things that Superman and Metallo can do to each other, you can’t have Batman and the Joker do to each other. (qtd. in Miller)
So, while the creative team initially enjoyed less network notes, it certainly helped that their guy could shrug off getting tossed through buildings or smothered in lava.
In this environment, you could definitely see the influence of BTAS in Season One’s storytelling. For example, much like Batman’s bad guys from the Fox era, you could see ways to empathize with Superman’s villains despite their criminal actions. In “Fun and Games,” you could see how the machinations of gangster Bruno Mannheim caused the son of Winslow Schott to lose his childhood and, in turn, seek his revenge as Toyman. In “Feeding Time,” you could understand how Rudy Jones turned from victim to victimizer with the power of the Parasite. The best example of this influence, however, can be seen in the story of John Corbin, aka Metallo. If you watch his first three appearances—“The Last Son of Krypton,” “The Way of All Flesh,” and Season Two’s “Action Figures”—you can watch as the metal literally seeps into him, destroying the man—first as a pilot in LexCorp’s suit of armor, then as a mind starved for sensation inside a cyborg body whose “flesh” is rotting away, and finally as a “steel man” whose very identity has been stolen from him by extended sensory deprivation. These stories were told in episodes that were every bit the equal of BTAS episodes “Mad as a Hatter,” “Two-Face,” and—dare I say it?—“Heart of Ice.”
The exception to this, surprisingly, was Lex Luthor himself, but he was never a victim anyway. Unlike Batman’s rogues, who are often preyed upon by another, inspiring their thirst for vengeance, Luthor is cut from the same mold as other BTAS villains, such as crime boss Rupert Thorne and fellow CEO Roland Daggett. He’s not the victim, he’s the victimizer. He’s the one who preys upon others, which—in turn—creates other villains. It is through Luthor’s actions, either directly or indirectly, that created Mercy Graves, Metallo, Bizarro, Livewire, Luminus, and Sgt. Corey Mills (“Prototype”). Luthor was the one who sought the attention of Brainiac, whose presence threatened to destroy the Earth. And it was Luthor’s press conference that enraged Mala, leading her to release Jax-Ur from the Phantom Zone and attempt planetary conquest, in “Blast from the Past.” At the beginning of the series, it was Luthor who was the primary antagonist, and he got the ball rolling for a significant number of episodes.
(Another interesting Luthor detail is how, in Season One, his directions lead to a number of “disappearances.” For example, he requests that the two thieves in his museum be “dealt with” in “A Little Piece of Home” and, later in that episode, directs Mercy to see a scientist in his employ “safely home.” Also, in “The Way of All Flesh,” Luthor taunts Superman over the disappearance of Dr. Vale [“And what makes you think there’s any of him left to find?”]. Luthor’s casual murders were phased out after Season One, or they were at best unsuccessful [“A Fish Story”], but it added extra depth to his villainy that I greatly appreciated.)
While not making as big a splash as its predecessor, Superman was a modest hit, and further episodes were being developed. However, a change was coming to the Kids’ WB! lineup, and it was coming on familiar ebony wings…
Season Two (1997)—The New Batman / Superman Adventures
With the popularity of Superman came the desire on behalf of the network to replicate that success, and the easiest way to do so was by resuscitating an old cash cow. During production of Superman’s second season, the rights to Batman, which had been previously held by Fox Kids, had reverted to Warner Bros., and Kids’ WB! immediately requested more Batman episodes (Stone, “Bruce”). However, while The New Batman Adventures was seen as a continuation of BTAS, both the network and the creative team were interested in “freshening” the show (qtd. in Riesman), which initially meant redesigning the characters to match the artistic style of STAS. However, rather than have two separate DCAU shows on the lineup, they would be combined into one: The New Batman / Superman Adventures. In addition, bolstered by the acquisition of the original 85 BTAS episodes from Fox, the series would expand from its single half-hour Saturday slot to airing six times a week, with a ninety-minute time slot on Saturday (“Backstage,” screen 2). However, while bringing the Dark Knight and Gotham City into the fold was welcome, it is worth noting that, while grouped together as one, Superman and The New Batman Adventures were still two different shows, and the acquisition had the unfortunate effect of forcing one creative team to do the task of two. And, according to writers Stan Berkowitz (Hamilton) and Evan Dorkin (Liu), Batman became the priority.
Despite this added burden, there were many highlights to Superman’s Season Two. “The Promethean” gave us a take on Kirby’s Promethean Giants, as well as the debut of General Hardcastle, a minor character would become more significant later on in the DCAU. “Speed Demons” introduced us to the Flash, our first superhero outside of Metropolis or Gotham. “Double Dose” gave us a team-up between Parasite and Livewire that was so heavily laced with sexual innuendo that the Man of Steel’s only recourse was to cover himself with latex. “Ghost in the Machine” introduced the troubling relationship between Luthor and Mercy Graves. The three-part episode “World’s Finest” provided the Batman / Superman team-up that, to this day, surpasses anything that director Zack Snyder could ever dream of. But the finest half-hour had to be “The Late Mr. Kent,” an episode with the strongest ties to the best of BTAS, where Superman must free a wrongly convicted man from death row while dealing with Clark Kent’s “murder” during his investigation. Even with competition from the Dark Knight, the Last Son of Krypton could still knock it out of the park.
This is not to say, however, that this was a seamless transition, as Kids’ WB!—which was initially described as “easygoing” by Timm—began to flex its muscles. During the development of TNBA, the executives were interested in “increasing the kid appeal” (qtd. in Riesman), as Paul Dini recounted in a 2017 interview:
The WB had come into existence, and that brought in a whole different group of executives with a whole different set of rules. A lot of the executives we found we were dealing with; their mind-set was completely anti-everything that we had been doing with the characters. There was a different approach to story, and to character, and to the way of looking at these shows, that we felt frankly was passé, old-fashioned. Their approach was: “This is for kids, and the idea of doing a show that is a crossover for an older audience, even a college-aged audience, really does not appeal to us, and we don’t even want to think along those lines.” (qtd. in Riesman)
Suddenly the storytelling and depth of character that brought them critical acclaim was verboten. In an interview with the creative team in Wizard #72, it was admitted that “the network has mandated the series [specifically Batman] become lighter and more appealing to kids,” as summarized by writer Rob Allstetter, and this became apparent when The New Batman Adventures debuted, featuring the Dark Knight with three youthful sidekicks (Batgirl in nearly every episode, with Robin and Nightwing as well) and a focus on action and “supervillain of the week” stories. Timm added:
The kids enjoy the fantasy element of the bizarre villains—Joker, Clayface, Catwoman, Scarecrow—so, if we concentrate on stories that deal heavily with them, either a plot they hatch in Gotham, or some unique character quirk within them, that seems to propel a fun story that Batman can get involved with. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Dark”)
And while some excellent episodes did come out of this mandate—“Never Fear” and “Over the Edge” come to mind—the shift in tone was noticeable in ways other than the redesigned cast. For example, compare the nuanced portrayal of the villain Two-Face in his best BTAS episodes (“Two-Face,” “Second Chance”), where his vulnerability and friendship with Bruce Wayne are key plot points, with his—forgive me—two-dimensional appearance in TNBA’s “Sins of the Father,” where he’s just a themed bad guy ransoming the city. Simply put, this mandate changed the Batman series, and it bled into Superman as well.
An example of this tonal shift can be found in the Season Two episode “Livewire,” which dealt heavily with the public’s perception of the Man of Steel. In the episode, talk radio personality Leslie Willis rails against Metropolis’ slavish devotion to Superman. Why? Well … at one point, she does imply to Lois that it may have a feminist basis (“To make it in this town, I had to be better, sharper, and louder than any man to get half as much notice! And nothing was handed to me on a silver platter either, unlike your friend Superman!”), but a more likely culprit is the episode’s implication that the radio station is owned by Lex Luthor, who probably wants a shock jock trashing Superman on a regular basis (the radio station’s call letters were WLXL). Then, after Willis is transformed into Livewire and goes on a rampage for … some reason, there’s a scene with reporters asking Superman if he did everything he could to save Willis from being electrocuted, considering what she said about him on air, and even by episode’s end there is still a question as to the Man of Steel’s involvement in regard to the public. Aside from the flashy fight scenes, the plot of the story kind of goes nowhere. However, in a 2006 World’s Finest interview with co-writer Evan Dorkin, he revealed that there was originally more to this episode:
I’m not crazy about the episode; I wanted a bigger ending, and I think a few things fall flat. […] “Livewire” was supposed to be a first season episode, and the early premise had a lot more material about how people were coping with the concept of having Superman in their midst. He was supposed to “come out” in the episode, appear publicly for the first time and address the citizens of Metropolis, answering public concerns about his being a potential threat, or posing as a hero to cover a plot to invade the planet by his fellow super-beings. I think that lent itself to some more interesting material than what we got. (qtd. in Liu, “Evan)
Further cracks began to appear. Metallo, after strong appearances in “The Way of All Flesh” and “Action Figures,” returned as a one-note villain in “Heavy Metal” and Season Three’s “Superman’s Pal.” They even returned his ripped skin into exactly the same configuration from the end of “Flesh,” even though it was long gone by “Action Figures.” The episode “Warrior Queen” introduced the alien villain Maxima who, in the comics, was a warrior seeking Superman as a mate in order to add his genetics to her family’s bloodline. With her enhanced strength and psionic powers, acquired through generations of selective breeding, she could have been a formidable femme fatale in the same way Catwoman is to Batman. However, in the animated series, she was portrayed as a bratty royal who wanted Superman merely because she found him attractive. However, the most disappointing cuts may have been to “Little Girl Lost,” the two-part episode debuting Supergirl. Aside from a surprising amount of material that was cut for time (and later reused in Superman Adventures #21 [July 1998]; more on that in a moment), co-writer Dorkin revealed how the ending was originally very different:
Sarah [Dyer] and I have writing credits on both episodes. Paul and Alan have co-writing credits on part one, and we have a story credit on the second episode, but I forget the name of the writer [Rich Fogel]. The second half was changed fairly last minute, and a regular series writer reworked the plot. Originally, Granny Goodness was bringing together wayward teens and training them with Apokolips technology because she was harvesting them as source material for creating new Parademons. It was a riff on Paradise Island from Pinocchio, where the kids were taken in and transformed into donkeys.
Here, the kids were taken to Apokolips to be transformed into Parademon troopers to bulk up Darkseid’s army. It was going to be revealed that Parademons were all genetically-engineered beings: Armaghetto inhabitants, slaves, captured aliens (Thanagarians, Martians, etc.). We were going to show this huge, Nazi-like Krupp Works for Parademons with beings on chains being dragged into chambers where they’d emerge as soulless Parademons. The two-parter ended with Supergirl and Superman in full-scale battle on [Apokolips].
Anyway, from what I was told, a producer who had signed off on the original premise balked and then asked for changes. We had already done several drafts, and after they handed us the new plot, we ended up doing another slew of drafts. It was nuts. […] I do wish the Apokolips ending was retained. I always thought the giant meteor / comet from space was hokey and made very little sense as a reason for Granny to break the pact and traffic with a bunch of useless kids. Body harvesting kids for shock troops was creepier, made somewhat more sense, and was very Kirby / Apokolips in tone, at least in my opinion. (qtd. in Liu, “Evan)
Frankly, I was shocked when I read this information in the 2006 interview. On the surface, it’s a great plot point—one I was surprised was vetoed. By using abducted children to create Parademons for his army, it greatly enhances the evil of Darkseid in a way that the previous episodes were unable to do. It also added many potential ethical questions and issues. Could it be reversed? Could they be rehabilitated and freed from Darkseid’s control? I could certainly see the series explore this complexity in the BTAS era, or on Justice League Unlimited, but in the Kids’ WB! era—with its “for the children” ethos—I suspect the execs were trying not to upset their target audience. And, I will admit, it certainly doesn’t look good knowing that when Superman punches a Parademon, he’s punching an abducted child. Hell, in “Legacy” there are scenes of him straight-up incinerating them with his heat vision, reducing them to ash.
Finally, there was another way that the revival of Batman affected Superman’s show: the episode count. Originally intended to be a 65-episode run, the final number of Superman episodes was 54. That’s eleven episodes missing. What happened? Well, in Wizard #72, it was announced that The New Batman Adventures would consist of 24 new episodes. I suspect that Kids’ WB! only greenlit thirteen new episodes, and then the creative team took thirteen more from Superman’s count. In fact, I can prove it—when questioned about “Little Girl Lost” in a November 1997 installment of Comics Continuum, Bruce Timm was reported as saying, “[the Supergirl two-parter was] literally the last two episodes [of] Superman we did. We had to steal two episodes back from Batman” (qtd. in Allstetter, "Supergirl on Superman"). So, yeah, the Batman revival shortened Superman’s run.
This is not to say, however, that the series didn’t score some victories of its own. In fact, one of their finer moments came through pulling a long con on DC Comics itself.
The Supergirl Job
Debuting in Action Comics #252 (May 1959), the original Supergirl was Kara Zor-El, a cousin of Kal-El who also survived the destruction of Krypton and traveled to Earth. While she was not the first female spin-off of a popular male superhero—that would be Mary Marvel in 1942—but she would be one of the most significant. However, following 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths and the 1986 Man of Steel revamp, DC Comics mandated that the Post-Crisis Superman was to be the last and only survivor of Krypton, thus precluding any surviving kin. They got creative—introducing an artificial life form made of protoplasm from an alternate universe who looked like Supergirl who, later, merged with a human to create another Supergirl—but the cousin from Krypton was forbidden until Superman / Batman #8 (February 2004). However, the creative team for Superman wanted her for the animated series, so a compromise was struck. Said Paul Dini in an interview with Comics Continuum (January 1998):
We wanted a take on her that was not the current version, some sort of alien who is combined with a human girl and is all confused and angst-ridden. And we didn’t want to do the blob of protoplasm who takes the shape of Supergirl’s form. We actually wanted to do the original version, which is Superman’s cousin from Krypton. We ran into a wall with DC because they insisted that Superman be the last Kryptonian. So, we did a compromise, that she’s from a small planet in the neighboring system that was colonized by Kryptonians, but they’ve evolved slightly differently.
She is sort of a cousin, in terms of being from pretty much the same race and, when she shows up on Earth, she’s a feisty 16-year-old. She loves being here, she loves being able to fly, she loves having powers. […Superman is] very protective of her because he doesn’t want her rushing into some battle with as supervillain and getting killed. He wants her to realize there’s responsibility involved in what she’s doing. (qtd. in Allstetter, "Supergirl Adventures Update")
Here is the original Supergirl character profile, taken from the Kids’ WB! website:
When Krypton exploded, its smaller neighbor planet, Argos, was thrown out of its rotation and sent flying into space. Fortunately, Argos’ top scientist convinced the people of Argos that Krypton’s destruction was at hand, and together they managed to construct a force field that maintained the gravity and atmosphere of their planet. For sixteen years, the residents of Argos survived. In time, Argos’ force field began to fail, and—sensing the end of their world—the scientist placed her family in cryo-tubes to preserve them until help could arrive. Kara, however, was the only one to survive. Clark was delighted to know there had been another survivor of the Krypton system.
Superman introduced Kara to his adoptive parents, who took her in and are now helping her adjust to life on Earth. In order to blend in, Kara has taken the last name “Kent,” and Jonathan and Martha explain that she is a niece on Jonathan’s side of the family. Inspired by her “cousin” Clark, Kara has made a costume similar to Superman’s and occasionally joins on missions as Supergirl. Kara frequently visits Clark in Metropolis and, as Supergirl, she has full access to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
Because Argosians and Kryptonians sprang from a common humanoid ancestor millions of years before, Supergirl’s powers closely parallel Superman’s. As a result, Supergirl has powers that are similar to Superman’s (flight, strength, heat vision, super-hearing), but is more resistant to Kryptonite. Exposure to the radioactive element would kill Superman in about twenty minutes, but Supergirl could hold out for several hours. Also, because Supergirl is nearly half Superman’s age (16), her powers are not quite as strong as his. She more than makes up for this in attitude, which is cocky, hip, and very independent. With Supergirl, Superman has a living link to his alien heritage and someone he can talk to about his dual lives as Superman and Clark Kent. She is a frequent friendly ally who can be trusted with Superman’s secret. (“Supergirl”)
According to this profile, Supergirl is not from Krypton per se, but a survivor of a neighboring world Argos, which was colonized “millions of years before” by ancient Kryptonians who were no longer Kryptonian, but Argosians, when they finally died out. Basically, in order to appease DC Comics’ “Last Son of Krypton” mandate, the creative team created an elaborate backstory differentiating Kara from Kal-El.
And then they proceeded to completely ignore it.
I suspect that this whole business was just a smokescreen to get approval from DC Comics to use Supergirl on the show. Consider: the series never referred to Supergirl as an “Argosian” once on the series—or on Justice League Unlimited, for that matter. In fact, she’s basically treated exactly as a Kryptonian, including their sensitivity to Kryptonite (see how quickly she goes down in “Legacy,” as well as the JLU episodes “The Return” and “Chaos at the Earth’s Core”). If anything, her people were probably Kryptonians who colonized Argos a few generations prior. And for those of you who doubt whether the creative team would go through the trouble to create a fake character profile to fool people, writer Rich Fogel admitted in a 2005 interview that he did exactly that to obscure Hawkgirl’s backstory for Justice League (Rossen). Instead of a detective from Thanagar who got hit by a “dimensional transport beam” and zapped to Earth (as detailed in her original bio; Allstetter, “Justice”), she was secretly a Thanagarian spy working undercover the whole time, as per the three-part episode "Starcrossed."
(It is worth mentioning that the aforementioned cuts to “Little Girl Lost,” which were later reused in Superman Adventures #21 [July 1998], largely featured Kara’s Argosian backstory. I suspect this is why they were cut from the episode.)
Despite its ups and downs, Superman and, by extension, The New Batman / Superman Adventures continued to endure. However, in the final years of its run, it soon became a literal victim of its own success.
Seasons Three and Four (1998-2000)—Batman Beyond and Friends
It was announced in January 1998 that Kids’ WB! was preparing another Batman series. Originally titled Batman Tomorrow, it would later be rechristened as the more familiar Batman Beyond. In Modern Masters, Vol. 3: Bruce Timm, the producer revealed the show’s birthing process:
[W]e had a meeting with Jamie Kelner—the president of the WB network—and he basically said, “Batman is doing well for us, but we think it’s time to do something different with Batman to freshen up the franchise.” At first we were a little bit hesitant. Where’s this going? It quickly became apparent that he was talking about more than just revamping the costumes or the look of the show again, that he really wanted an all-new Batman show. He kept leading into it, and then he came out and said, “It would be great if we had a teen-aged Batman.” And immediately all of us went, [disgustedly] “Aww, man. That’s the last thing we want to do.” Also, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was their big hit at the time, and I think Jamie was very much influenced by Buffy. He really wanted us to Buffy-ize Batman.
We didn’t really want to do that, but it sounded like he was pretty serious about it, and rather than just handing it off to someone else to let them do it and possibly mess it up, we figured we kind of owed it to the character to give it our best shot and at least try to see what we could do with it. At that same meeting I hit upon the idea of setting it in the future so we could keep Bruce Wayne in the show, but just change his role slightly. The whole premise of Batman Beyond was basically thought up and nailed right there at that first meeting.
[…] It was a tricky show to do, because […] we were still finishing up Superman and finishing up the new Batman at the same time. We hardly had any development period on Batman Beyond. Jamie had basically given us a green light at that meeting, so we had to start from scratch and just go with it. We were making stuff up as we went along. (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington)
(To make things even more complicated, Timm also revealed, in Comicology Magazine #1, that this was the same meeting where another considered pitch was Batman training a kind of “Junior Justice League.” Said Timm: “He’d be training Aquaman Jr. and Wonder Woman Jr. and … by the time we got to that one, our heads were spinning, and we were thinking ‘We don’t want to do any of those. What do we do? We gotta come up with something quick.’ And, kind of on the spur of the moment, I said, ‘What if we set [a Batman series] in the future?'”; qtd. in Lamken.)
At any rate, I think Bruce Timm is underplaying something here, as we know from other sources that Kids’ WB! was undergoing changes during this time period. This was, after all, the same year that saw the network greenlight Animaniacs knock-off Hysteria! and forced the popular Pinky and The Brain to add Tiny Toons’ Elmyra Duff to the show, resulting in the retooled (and reviled) Pinky, Elmyra & The Brain. This was the same group of television execs that wanted to turn Batman into a team drama. In addition, the development of Batman Beyond added a third show to the already heavy workload of Superman and The New Batman Adventures, which—in turn—put more pressure on the creative team. In a March 1998 interview with Comics Continuum, Timm discussed how they would juggle multiple shows:
We’ve put the current Batman series on hold for the moment. The plan is to go back and do more of those once we’re done with the future Batman show. We’re doing more Superman for next fall, and we’ve got a bunch of them in the works. As soon as the Batman [Beyond] script crosses my desk, then we’re going to put Superman on hold and get started on the new Batman show. We’ll be playing checkers a little bit, going back and forth between the shows. (qtd. in Allstetter, "Batman Tomorrow")
And, in a July 1998 interview with Comics Continuum, Paul Dini added the following:
Probably, at some point in the next year or two, we’ll go back and do some more of the contemporary Batman. […] We tend to vary them off, season by season. We’re really doing three shows at once, and we’ll probably be doing all three shows for quite some time now. We’re all very busy. (qtd. in Allstetter, "Batman Animated")
However, the effort apparently took its toll on the creative team. According to a 2006 interview, freelance writer Evan Dorkin recalled his take on the climate at the time:
Working on Batman Beyond was more of an eye-opener than working on Superman, because we got to see what it was like to work on a show that wasn’t firing on all cylinders. We learned about how budgeting affects a script or episode, what it’s like to work on a show without a complete [Series Bible], and how writers and board artists can extensively alter your script. We didn’t experience many of those things—at least not to that degree—on Superman.
Other than that, the biggest surprise was that the WB unit had a rift of sorts between the writers and the artists, more or less two camps that didn’t always get along and didn’t always communicate well enough. It affected at least one script of ours, the Batman Beyond one [“Splicers”]. Very weird. But we were able to avoid office politics because we were far away, low-level freelancers, and no threat to anyone. (qtd. in Liu, “Evan”)
Now, before I continue, I want to say that I have nothing but respect for Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Alan Burnett, and the entire cast and crew that had, by this point, created and sustained animated shows about Batman and Superman for eight years. Their passion made me interested in both superheroes and writing, but passion can only go so far. I firmly believe that the combination of creating three animated shows simultaneously in a toxic network environment led to a collective burnout that affected the quality of all three shows.
By Fall 1998, there were 13 episodes of Superman and 11 episodes of The New Batman Adventures left to produce and air (“Backstage”). To that, add 52 episodes of Batman Beyond, which would air in rapid succession from 1999 to 2001 (as well as Return of the Joker, which began production in 1999 and required massive changes following a backlash against violence in children’s media before being released, in edited form, in December 2000; Allstetter, “Batman Beyond: Return”). That’s a lot. Now, this is not the time to go into the pros and cons of Batman Beyond, but the added workload certainly caused a dip in quality when it came to Superman.
This change is most noticeable if you consider the two-part episode “Apokolips…Now!” as a demarcation line. Pre-“Apokolips,” episodes focus the action on Clark Kent, his alter ego, and Lois Lane as they pull at the threads of Lex Luthor’s criminal tapestry. Also, Superman has an at-first contentious, then friendly, relationship with the relatively well-developed Dan Turpin who serves, for all intents and purposes, as his Commissioner Gordon. Post-“Apokolips,” however, both Lois and Lex are forced to take a backseat—only making substantial appearances in “A Fish Story” and the two-part “Legacy”—and Darkseid becomes the primary villain of the show. Turpin is dead, and the episodes make an effort to make Jimmy Olsen his primary point of contact.
As for quality, the animation—formerly handled by DCAU mainstays TMS Entertainment (“Little”), CNK International (formerly Koko Enterprises), and Dong Yang Animation (“Feeding”)—took a dip in quality in later episodes, with many being farmed out to untested studios like Group T.A.C. Co. and Jade Animation (“Unity”), and the storytelling was—at best—half-baked. The formulaic “supervillain of the week” syndrome that hit The New Batman Adventures began affecting Superman here in a similar fashion—the bad guys showed up, but they lacked the depth and characterization of their earlier appearances (this would also explain Luthor’s absence—despite his history, in Kids’ WB!’s eyes, they must have seen him as just another boring, non-costumed villain). I would argue that the episodes from this era approaching depth were “Knight Time” (with its gracious contribution from the TNBA cast) and “Where There’s Smoke,” a pre-Cadmus conspiracy story that didn’t stick the landing (“This isn’t the government! It’s just you, throwaway villain!”).
Another consequence of minimizing Lois Lane and Lex Luthor was that, in their place, this batch of episodes did everything they could to surround the Man of Steel with kids. Desperate to attract 6 to 11-year-old viewers (Allstetter, “Alan”), the execs in charge were only interested in that demographic, which translated to shows featuring kids for kids. And while the Man of Steel did not come into the series with a surplus of youthful sidekicks like Batman did initially, they certainly made up for it by pairing him with Jimmy Olsen, Natasha Irons, Robin, Kyle Rayner, the Legion of Super Heroes, and Supergirl. As for the latter, I suspect the creative team held Supergirl back until the end of production out of fear that the network would require her to appear in every episode like Batgirl (Allstetter, “Dark”).
Season Three saw the show’s presence expand, airing six times a week, an hour a day (“Backstage,” screen 3). This was followed with the addition of Batman Beyond, which debuted Sunday night, January 10, 1999, with the first regular Saturday airing occurring on January 16, 1999 (this date coincided with the airing of the final episode of The New Batman Adventures, “Mad Love”; “Batman Beyond”). The New Batman / Superman Adventures continued on in its timeslot, until it was eventually reduced to one episode a day for the following television season. And as for Superman, its Season Four consisted of three episodes: “The Demon Reborn” (another Batman team-up) and the two-part finale “Legacy” (Superman being mind-controlled by Darkseid and sent to attack Earth, and their throwdown fight once he regained his memories). As the series was not renewed, it ended on a down note, with Darkseid triumphant and the Man of Steel a pariah on his adopted home world. According to Alan Burnett, from a 2002 interview, there were plans for a final season, where Superman would attempt to reprove himself to society following his fall from grace in “Legacy” (Allstetter, “Alan”), but it was not meant to be.
With Superman over and Batman Beyond halfway through its run, Bruce Timm began the inevitable talks with the network to begin work on his next show. A series centered around the Justice League was the obvious choice—and demoed in the two-part Batman Beyond episode “The Call”—but it was an option that Timm was famously resistant to (Townsend). And so was Kids’ WB!, who wanted “kids only” in kids’ programming (in a July 1999 Comics Continuum interview, Paul Dini said how, with a Justice League program, “all [Kids’ WB! sees] is a bunch of adults in suits”; qtd. in Allstetter, "Dini"). As for the series pitches discussed in this round of talks, well, that would be an essay in itself (my favorite was a Batman Beyond spin-off pitch that sent Terry McGinnis to a colony on Mars; Timm [2005]). Fortunately, Cartoon Network stepped in and bought Justice League after one phone call (Allstetter, “Bruce”). Still, the transition to Justice League saw the loss of long-time producers Paul Dini (Allstetter, “Briefly,” January 12, 2001) and Alan Burnett (Allstetter, “Briefly,” January 26, 2001), and the majority of Season One was considered to be less than stellar by fans (even Timm recognized this, later calling it “bland”; MacDonald). It began to improve by “The Savage Time,” however, but it took a network change and the addition of writer Dwayne McDuffie to kick the burnout and put the lead back into their collective pencil. By comparison, Season Two was a significant improvement, and Justice League Unlimited ended the DCAU on a high note.
Legacy
Looking back after twenty-seven years, one could say that, while not as influential as BTAS, Superman was significant in many ways. The most obvious influence was on Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, which—in many ways—served as a sequel series to STAS, with many characters and plotlines continued. Even with the unfortunate replacement of voice actor Tim Daly by the exemplary George Newburn (Daly was unavailable due to his involvement in the 2001 remake of The Fugitive; Dimino), the series featured a number of STAS veterans returning, including Dana Delaney, Clancy Brown, Corey Burton (voice of Brainiac), Michael Ironside (voice of Darkseid), and Nicholle Tom (voice of Supergirl). The Cadmus Arc, from JLU, hinges on the events of “Legacy,” and Lex Luthor became a recurring adversary throughout the series. Also significant was Brainiac, whose storyline evolved in “Twilight,” where it sought to utilize Superman’s DNA to become an organic life form (similar to the 1997 sci-fi / horror film Demon Seed) and “Divided We Fall,” where it temporarily merged with Luthor. Also, under the tutelage of Green Lantern and Green Arrow, Supergirl grew into a more professional hero on Unlimited, culminating in her decision to leave the League and join the Legion of Super Heroes in “Far from Home.” Other episodes featured memorable reappearances of Mercy Graves, Metallo, Parasite, Bizarro, Volcana, and Toyman. And, of course, Darkseid made his presence known in the aforementioned “Twilight” and the two-part JLU series finale, “Alive!” and “Destroyer.”
Another way that Superman left its mark was in the comic books. Like Harley Quinn before them, both Mercy Graves and Livewire migrated to the comics—in Detective Comics #735 (August 1999) and Action Comics #835 (March 2006), respectively—and they eventually found their way into other television shows and film. And, on occasion, one may notice references to the animated series in the mainstream comic books, such as in Mr. Mxyzptlk’s appearance in Action Comics #975 (May 2017).
Still, the animated Batman shows cast a long shadow. Reflecting on his time writing for Superman, Evan Dorkin recalled, “I always felt that Superman was the red-headed stepchild of the Warner [Bros.] shows. As soon as they got the rights back to Batman, it felt like everybody ran from Superman. The fans loved the show, but when Batman came back; they were all so excited” (qtd. in Liu, “Evan”). That said, as a new generation watches and appreciates the majesty of BTAS on digital platforms, perhaps curiosity will permit those fans to try out this important series, allowing it to emerge from that shadow once more.
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Poor Superman TAS; the forgotten bastard child of 90s cartoons. While I do think they could've done more to give characterization to everyone and it kind of dropped the ball after the first season (could they not have done more with Perry, Lana or Clark himself?) it will always hold a special place in my heart. I didn't know anything about Superman before watching it as a kid and it intro'd be to all the villains and the world. And I still think Legacy is an all time banger, maybe my favorite DCAU episodes next to Two Face.