Superman: The Animated Series Review

Ladies and gentlemen they said that it couldn't be done they said i'd be foolish to even try such a feat but as of right now i've watched and reviewed Superman: The Last Son Of Krypton AND Superman: The Animated Series. I admit I doubted if I could even keep my word and even make this review but here we are so let's not waste any time here is my review of the awesomely underrated Superman: The Animated Series.

The premise of this show is Clark Ken aka Kal-El is an alien from the long dead planet of Krypton who after being sent to earth to avoid his own planet's destruction becomes the hero known as Superman. Yes I know that the summery I just gave could also be used to describe alot of Superman media but due to the fact that the show has no story to speak of this is the only one that makes sense. Speaking of making sense it makes sense to me that this show be episodic since this was made in the mid nineties and superhero weren't that big back then so it makes sense that something superhero related not have an overall story arc.

Starring in the series is Tim Daly as Clark Joseph Kent / Superman / Kal-El and Bizarro , Dana Delany as Lois Lane , David Kaufman as James "Jimmy" Olsen , Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor , Lauren Tom as Angela Chen , Mike Farrell as Jonathon Kent and Shelley Fabares as Martha Kent. Now I wouldn't mention this in my Last Son Of Krypton review so I can mention it right now the acting from the people playing Superman and Lois is honestly some of the best acting seen on the show I really believe that they are friends who secretly love each other.

Before you all start wondering how I managed to watch this series plus the premier movie and still review both. Well the answer is simple I havn't watched every episode of the show I instead went on Wikipedia and selected a handful of episodes and thus i'm basing my review just of those episodes and those episodes alone. I also want to say that i wouldn't recommend doing what I did just because it takes alot out of you so i'd only attempt it if your crazy , insane or both.

Now I actually cannot find any company listed as doing the animation so i'm just going to assume that it was done by Warner Bros Animation. With that said the animation in the series I thought was really good but it's not as good as the animation that was seen in the Batman animated series but then again anything is going to look bad compared to that masterpiece of a show but for a Superman show the animation is as good as you'd expect it to be.

Technically this show ran for two seasons I say technically because a third season of the show did indeed air but it was when the show was combined with Batman and became The New Batman/Superman Adventures. So I personally say the show is two seasons long but i'd understand it if people count The New Batman/Superman Adventures as the shows third season heck i'm even including some episodes from that season in this review.

Superman: The Animated Series originally ran from September 6th 1996 until February 12th 2000 which was when it was apart of The New Batman/Superman Adventures and it aired on Kids WB. There actually aren't that many episodes to this show at all in total including the season from New Adventures there's only fifty four episodes which might sounds like alot but it's really not so you guys could very easily watch this entire series in a week and still have time to review anything else.

One of the many things that the Batman animated series is known for is for being really dark which is fine for batman because he's a dark character. So it won't shock any of you to learn that Superman: The Animated Series is the complete opposite to that show in that it's very light in tone and is filled to the brim with hope and that right there is perfect for Superman because he's a hopeful character so it would seem out of place if he was dark brooding for twenty two minuets.

I will say that out of the two shows I and I think many others prefer Batman not only because it's alot more closer in tone to the comic books but also because it's the best adaptation of that character and yes that includes the Chris Nolan films get over it people. That said tho I don't think that this is the best adaptation of Superman I think it's a great adaptation of the nineties version of the character but if you guys want to see a great version of the character as a whole that check out the 1978 Superman movie it's alot better then the DCEU Superman in every way possible.

Now I mentioned this very briefly at the end of my review of The Last Son Of Krypton but the score for the series was done by the late and great Shirley Walker who also famously did the score for Batman: the Animated Series as well as Todd McFarlane's Spawn animated series. Does it really need to be said how great her score is she's a legend so of course it's going to be great I only wish that they used the iconic Superman theme tho and that the actual intro and the intro theme for the show was a bit shorter but that's just me personally.

We have ti talk about the action seen in the series in my own opinion the action that was in the animated Batman show was far better however that's not to say that the action seen in this show isn't good it's just that I preferred the action in the Batman show. I preferred it because we know that Superman isn't going to die or go to jail so there's no suspense there when a fight scene starts where as in Batman is a fight scene does start there's always a slight chance that Batman could die.

Overall this is a fun show and it's one that i'm glad that I watched but at the same time I prefer the animated Batman show more because of the fact that that show was a great adaptation of that character. Like I said this is a fun show and if you have young Superman fans in your family then there's no harm in showing them this show in fact i'd honestly recommend it more for little kids since they'd get alot more out of it so with that in mind this show gets an 7 out of 10 from me.

  

Superman: The Last Son Of Krypton Review

DC fans if you know me you know that I like to take at least a weekend to do a full series review well I thought that for this weekend i'd try something a little bit different for you see not only am I going to be reviewing the animated series i'm also going to be reviewing the premier movie all in the same day. Since this is a huge task for any mortal being i'm not going to be watching every single episode or watching all the movies so here is my review of Superman: The Last Son Of Krypton.

The plot of the movie is it's basically the whole origin of Superman that's really it there's nothing that links these scenes together. To me that makes sense in this case since this movie was originally the first three episodes of the show edited together so while it does feel like the plot of the movie was an afterthought it makes perfect sense once we remember that small fact. I can say tho it would have been really cool if there was more of a flowing narrative.

Starring in this movie is Tim Daly as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman , Jesse Batten as Baby Kal-El , Jason Marsden as Teenage Clark Kent/Kal-El , Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor , Christopher McDonald as Jor-EL , Malcolm McDowell as John Corben/Metallo , Corey Burton as Brainiac , Tony Jay as Sul-Van , Finola Hughes as Lara , Mike Farrell as Jonathan Kent , Shelley Fabares as Martha Kent , Dana Delnay as Lois Lane , Kelly Schmidt as Lana Lang , David Kaufman as Jimmy Olsen , George Dzundza as Perry White and Lauren Tom as Angela Chen.

Now since i'm also going to be listing alot of these actors in my review of the series i'm not going to mention how good they are here just because i'd be repeating myself. So i'll say that they are good in this movie the rest of the cast tho I think do deliver but alot of them don't have enough screen time so they can't really make much of an impression so i'm hoping that alot of them return in the series just because I want to get more of an impression on there characters.

I'm also not going to be naming which company did the animation for this film since it's obviously going to be the same company that did the animation for the series so there wouldn't be much of a point in me saying who did it twice in the same day. I will say tho that the animation is far better then what I was expecting it to be Superman has never had a good history when it comes to animated shows outside of the 1940's shorts so I was expecting the animation here to suck big time but no it was actually really good.

Like I said this movie is just the shows first three episodes but it's actually not the only set of episodes from this show to get the episode to movie treatment. The other one is The Batman Superman Movie: World's Finest which I do also plan on reviewing but at a later date and I mention this because it makes me wonder why a full length animated Superman movie set in this continuity was never made it would have been so freaking cool to see these characters in animated form on the big screen.

There is a lie on the poster for this movie because the poster states quite clearly that it's feature length. That is not even close to being true the movie is not even an hour long they couldn't even animate original footage to make it at least an hour and fifteen minuets long. I have no idea why they chose to add this lie to the poster since all you'd have to do is how long the film runs for and you'd know it's not even close to being feature length.

Another issue I have with the film is the fact that say set up Brainiac is the main antagonist of the film but he's only in like the first twenty minuets and he doesn't even show up again until the very end. If your going to spend that long setting someone up as the main villain then you better make that person the villain or at least have a more interesting character as the villain which this film doesn't do so I have to ask why didn't they just make Brainiac the villain.

Both this film and the series are set in the DCAU which for those that don't know stands for DC Animated Universe and was pretty much the only universe that alot of us nineties kids grew up even caring about. While later episodes would outright feature characters from the animated Batman show here tho the dark knight only gets a small reference and as a show set in a universe it really does work and since Batman was the most popular superhero show at the time it makes sense that they would reference the character

Action wise the film does have some really well put together action scenes and it's in those scenes that I feel the animation is at it's best. Helping to keep the animation for being repetitive is the fact that we get to see the big blue boy scout use his superpowers alot. Altho what would have been cool was if we had scenes early on showing how he found out about those powers since this is after all an origin story so it would have made sense and it would have helped get the run time close to feature length.

Overall this wasn't a bad movie to kick of the series but it's also one that I found to be very lacking it stays true to the Superman mythos. Yes I do know that Shirley Walker did the music but since she also did the score for the show i'm going to hold of until I write my review of the show to comment on the music and so this film gets a 5.5 out of 10 from me.