Superman TAS: The Last Son of Krypton Part Two

Screen Shots

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Episode Credits

Synopsis

Previous in Part One: The planet Krypton had been rocked by a series of violent tremors. Brainiac (Krypton’s sentient computer network) claimed that the tremors were just the result of a small shift in the planet’s orbit. Jor-El (Krypton’s leading scientist), however, had discovered that Brainiac was lying. They both knew that the tremors were a sign that Krypton was about explode, but Brainiac was more interested on saving itself than working on an evacuation plan. Brainiac tried to have Jor-El arrested to cover its own escape, but he evaded the police with the help of his father-in-law. Jor -El and his wife Lara launched Kal-El, their infant son, into space in a small rocketship minutes before Krypton exploded. It’s only apparent survivors were Kal-El and Brainiac.

Kal-El’s rocket ship comes out of its space warp on the far side of Earth’s moon. The drag from Earth’s atmosphere helps slow its approach before retro-rockets bring it in for a gentle landing in, of all places, a duck pond in rural Kansas. The rocket’s descent surprises farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent who were driving past in their old pick-up truck. They investigate the ship and discover the sleeping infant inside. Martha instantly falls in love with the new arrival, but Jonathan is more circumspect and wonders whether the child is part of a Russian space programme. He’s soon won over, but is surprised again when Martha decides to keep the baby. She names him Clark after her maiden name.

Smallville, sixteen years later.

Clark Kent/Kal-El, is a straight-A High-School student in the town of Smallville, Kansas. Clark tells his friend Lana Lang that he’s been feeling “weird.” He confesses to her that he’s been able to hear things other people can’t and demonstrates by describing Pete Ross’s conversation with Jenny (a cheerleader) despite them being on the other side of the sports field. Clark also tells Lana that he can see through walls. Lana ribs him about peaking into the girl’s locker room, but Clark is obviously distressed by his new abilities.

Meanwhile outside of Smallville, a camper van blows a tyre and swerves out of control. Clark hears the tyre blow and tells Lana to call an ambulance. The van flips on its side and slides into a gas station. Clark runs to the scene, but is thrown back by an explosion. He leaps through the flames and pulls the adults in the van to safety. He then goes back to rescue their daughter, but to the horror of the onlookers including Lana Lang (who has only just caught up) a second explosion rips through the gas station. Everybody fears the worst, but a smoldering Clark walks out of the flames cradling the little girl. To Lana and Clark surprise he isn’t even burned, but he doesn’t understand why.

Clark avoids Lana for the rest of the day as he doesn’t know what to tell her. He already knows that he’s adopted, but his new abilities finally prompt Jonathan and Martha to tell him the whole truth. They take him out to the barn and show him the rocketship. Jonathan tells him “You know how some babies are found in baskets? Well, this is how we found you.” The only items in the rocket beside Clark were a few blankets and a strange box that his biological mother Lara had placed in a compartment. The box lights up when Clark touches it and he finds himself in a telepathic recording of Jor-El’s laboratory. Recordings of Jor-El and Lara tell him that they are his biological-parents and the circumstances of why he is on Earth.

When the recording ends Clark find himself back in the Kent’s barn with his worried adopted-parents still looking on. The revelation overwhelms him and he runs off across the fields. Clark’s running so fast that he doesn’t even notice how easily he leaps a river gully until he’s on the other side. He backs up and tries again, but this time he doesn’t come down again. To his wonder Clark discovers that he can fly and drifts across the moon lit Smallville landscape. His depression falls away as he revels in the joy and freedom of his latest superpower. The Kent’s are equally amazed and for once everything starts to make sense for the young Clark Kent.

Metropolis, the present day.

Angela Chen TV reporter for the Metropolis Edition tells her viewers about the story of how little Danitra Evans was saved from a thirty story fall by a mysterious red and blue “guardian angel.” In the Daily Planet newsroom, Lois Lane mocks Chen’s piece, but storms into editor Perry White’s office when she discovers that the same story is on the Daily Planet’s front page. Her entrance gives Perry the chance to introduce her to a new reporter he’s hired, Clark Kent. Perry pairs Clark with Lois and instructs her to show him the ropes. Lois is less than impressed with the rural newcomer, who she nicknames “Smallville”, and describes her new job as “baby sitting.” She uses the unwitting Jimmy Olsen (the Planet’s young photographer and copyboy) as a decoy while she slips away to cover a press conference about a new weapons system.

The weapons system in question is a military grade battle-suit called the Lexosuit 5000 which was designed and built by the billionaire industrialist Lex Luthor and his Lexcorp conglomerate. Lois runs into Angela as the press gather at Lexcorp Laboratories, but her quips are cut short when she discovers that Clark arrived before she did. He’s already got quotes from one of the project scientist and impresses her with his hard nosed insistence on a byline. The press see footage of the Lexosuit destroying a quartet of automated tanks before Lex Luthor appears in person to extol it virtues. He tells the press that the suit is “not an instrument of war, but an instrument to end war!”

Clark’s superhearing picks up the approach of a trio of unidentified aircraft – an advanced aeroplane and two men on flying-sledges. He excuses himself just moments before the lead craft opens fire on the hanger where the demonstration is being held. The press and PR people scatter, but Lex quietly and calmly slips away. The chaos gives Clark the chance to change out of his business suit, ditch his glasses, and reappear in a distinctive red and blue costume. In the meantime, the lead craft has flown through the hole it blew in the hanger wall, snatched the Lexosuit, and made another hole by flying out through the room. Debris rains down in the hanger and the disguised Clark catches a massive metal beam before it crushes Lois. Fortunately for him she doesn’t recognise her savior as her new colleague.

Clark pursues the thieves and the stolen Lexosuit. The two flying sledges fall back to attack him, but their guns barely hurt him. They then try out-running him, but he catches up and pushes them into each other. The damaged sledges drop out of the sky as their riders parachute to safety. With them out-of-the-way Clark is free to continue after the lead craft. One of the sledge riders radios to pilot in the lead craft that “I don’t know what he is or who he is, but he’s all yours.” The pilot of lead craft launches a remote controlled missile towards his pursuer. They zig zag through the clouds for a bit until it looks like Clark finally shaken the missile. However, he’s helpless to stop the rogue missle from colliding with a passing airliner.

Commentary

Tim Daly – Superman/Clark Kent

The iconic role of Superman went to Tim Daly. In 1996 his time in the sitcom Wings as Joe Montgomery Hackett was coming to an end. On the Superman role he told TV Squad,

Superman was a total accident. The producers of the animated series were having a hard time finding someone to read the character. I was brought in through a connection and, I think, out of desperation. I went in thinking, ‘This would be fun.’ But, I was underestimating how deeply the fans care about that character and his legacy.

I think the failure to realize what a big deal it really was led me to read it easily, and something about that worked because the producers hired me on the spot. Afterward, I was taken aback by the response to the show.

The fun part for me was playing Clark Kent. Superman is pretty much a straightforward Boy Scout, but Clark is trying to be human. He encounters the problems of being a human — though he isn’t human. That was fun to play.

More recently, he’s become famous for his work as guest star on the Sopranos (as a drug addled screenwriter, a role that won him an Emmy nomination) and his role as Peter Wilder on the Greys Anatomy spin-off Private Practice.

Lois Lane – Dana Delany

Dana Delany had previously played Andrea Beaumont, Bruce Wayne’s love interest from Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), the first animated feature produced by the Bruce Timm led animation studio. She discussed her role as Lois Lane with the Superman Homepage’s Brain Freiman,

Delany found inspiration for Lois’s character in the tough-talking, working women of 1940′s cinema. “Especially because of Bruce Timm’s animation, which is kind of classic and has a bit of a retro feel to it, when I auditioned, the way the character was written, I thought of Rosalind Russell from ‘His Girl Friday’” Delany explained. “That kind of rapid, spitfire delivery… It’s a character thing more than a voice thing.”

The dichotomy of the professional journalist, an independent working woman, who loses her objectivity around caped men in spandex drew Delany to this interpretation of Lois. “I wanted (Lois) to be this tough, no-nonsense, ‘watch out bud’ character and then, of course, she turns into this total (pussycat) when she’s around Superman,” she said.

“My audition tape for (Superman) was that great scene where she’s looking at a picture of Superman, where they’ve spotted him for the first time in Metropolis, and she looks up and says ‘Nice S’. And I thought, ‘that’s just great.’”

Delany has reprised the role of Lois Lane in Justice League, The Batman, the feature Superman: Brainiac Attacks, and the video game Superman: Shadow of Apokolips. Since Superman she had become best known for her role as Katherine Mayfair on Desperate Housewives opposite Terri Hatcher – Lois Lane from Lois and Clark.

Lana Lang and Pete Ross

Lana was introduced when DC Comics started publishing a Superboy comic, the adventures of Superman as a teenager, and needed a love interest. She was created by Bill Finger (the co-creator of Batman) and John Sikela for Superboy #10 (September-October 1950). Superman didn’t meet Lois until he arrived in Metropolis so a new girl was invented for his teenage love interest. The comic book Lana Lang was also a red head. The cartoon Lana has had a crush on Clark since he was three. It may be my imagination, but a spunky red head does draw parallels with Spiderman’s Mary Jane.

Clark demonstrates his superhearing to Lana by describing Pete Ross’s conversation with one of the Cheerleaders. In the comics Pete is Clark’s closest childhood friend and was the best-man at his wedding to Lois Lane. People will be most familiar with Pete Ross and Lana Lang from the TV series Smallville where they were played by Sam Jones III and Kristin Kreuk. The obvious difference is that Smallville made Pete an African-American and Lana an Asian-American.

The adult cartoon Lana reappears as a fashion designer in a couple of later Superman episodes. The teenage Lana was voiced by Kelly Schmidt, she reprises her role as the teenage Lana for the Superman episode “New Kids In Town” featuring the Legion of Superheroes. She had a couple of contemporary parts in things like ER, but doesn’t seem to have had many other roles.

Angela Chen

Angela Chen is a reoccuring background character in Superman who serves the basic role as Snapper Carr does in Justice League. She’s a character than can deliver exposition to the viewer disguised as one of her news reports. Chen is voiced by Lauren Tom. She played Dana in Batman Beyond as well as Green Lantern in the two-part episode “The Call” – the story that served as a pilot for the Justice League. Tom also played Amy Wong in Futurama and Gizmo/Jinx in Teen Titans.

Misc.

• The people that play Jonathan and Martha Kent, Mike Farrell and Shelley Fabares, are husband and wife in real-life. Farrell is best known as Capt Hunnicut from M*A*S*H. A young Fabares had an appearance on the 1950s Captain Midnight TV series, Midnight was originally a radio adventure hero and had a spin-off comic published by Fawcett Comics (the same people who produced the Captain Marvel comics).
• The names that Martha suggest for Kal-El include Christopher, Kevin, Kirk. That would be Christopher as in Christopher Reeves, Kirk as in Kirk Alyn – the Superman actors from Superman: The Movie and The Adventures of Superman.
• Warner Brothers’ rule no. 2814 – every setting must include an easily recognisable water tower.
• If Brainiac Operations from Part One looked like the computer from Superman III then the game of tag with the missile resembles the game of tag above the Grand Canyon in Superman III.
• The cast list goes on for three cards. The usual Superman or Justice League credits have the stars on the first card and the guest stars on the second card, having the gueststars spill over onto a third card is very rare.
• Despite his relative promaniance to the series George Dzundza’s Jimmy Olsen isn’t listed with the main cast.
• Jason Marsden plays the teenage Clark Kent, he’ll later played the minor reoccuring role of Snapper Carr in the Justice League series.
• Martha alludes to blankets in the rocketship. In the old origins Superman’s indestructible costume was made from those baby blankets.

Opinion

Highlights

The young Clark Kent discovering that he can fly.

Oddities

The cliff hanger. Okay I know that this Superman is significantly weaker than the other incarnations, but he should have been fast enough to case after the errant missile. I refer you to the video How Superman Should Have Ended.

My Thoughts

What I find interesting about this Superman is just how weak he is. At the start, in 1938, Superman was only as powerful as the famous “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound” tag-line. His powers increased through the 1960s until he was essentially invulnerable, able to juggle planets, and could fly so fast that he could travel through time. It wasn’t until the 1980s reboot that DC was successful in rolling his powers back to something more manageable. He could no longer breadth underwater, couldn’t travelled interstellar distances on his own, and would barely survive a nuclear explosion. However, even his was too powerful for the Superman producers. In this cartoon they’ve rolled Superman’s abilities back to essentially the same level as the old Fleischer cartoons. Notice how much he struggles with the steel beam in his episode and how the villains gunfire causes him some discomfort.