Honest thoughts on Superman: The Animated Series?

[Agent Z]

For it not being the best counter argument, it certainly has been used enough!!

What are you talking about?

STAS - grunted and groaned a lot when performing feats (i.e. saving an ocean-liner),

Do you not know what an ocean liner is?

high-voltage pained him greatly (i.e. Liver-Wire),

Live Wire would be a pretty stupid villain if she couldn’t harm him.

needed a Space suit etc....

Which was in line with his limits in the comics at the time.

Dini, Burnett and Timm all copped to depowering Superman making it difficult to perform Superhuman feats so the audience could relate and appreciate Superman better, however, they received quite a bit of flak for nerfing Superman....Later....there was bit of a "power-creep" to compensate for this.

And again, it isn’t like Superman’s power levels have ever been consistent. He couldn’t even fly in his original appearance.

[Jokerz79]

I liked the series is it my ideal version of Superman not even close but it was a good interpretation and a fun watch with some really good episodes my favorite being the Late Mr. Kent loved the focus on his reporting and importance of his Clark Kent persona. While there are usually a lot of arguments the DCAU "nerfed" him with his powers I understand the reasons from a story point of view and they got the personality right IMO and that's way more important to me.

[Kuwagaton]

Hey it's payday lol. I think I'm gonna Prime a season.

Do you not know what an ocean liner is?

I'm not sure if I'm reading this right, but aren't many of them over 100,000 tons?

Which was in line with his limits in the comics at the time.

Not really. I mean in the month that the cartoon debuted it was Final Night, but the cartoon staff couldn't have known that. The September before that?



But strangely, although this sort of thing may spare the comic creators from the "they hate Superman" claim, I find that a decent amount of people who like or dislike the comics from the time feel the same way about the show.

[jimmy]

[QUOTE=Agent Z;3454983]What are you talking about?

What are you talking about?

Why Magic being a crutch of course remember!

Writers get flack for using magic as a crutch all the time. Not the best counter argument.

Do you not know what an ocean liner is?

I do the like the; Queen Mary, Titanic which displaced more than 52 metric tons or so water - I know very heavy!

Live Wire would be a pretty stupid villain if she couldn’t harm him.

Stupid hmm.. I don't know about that - but then he (Superman) later on, took a thunder bolt to the chest with no problem....more of that inconsistency.

Which was in line with his limits in the comics at the time.

Err..it had been 10 years nearly since J.B's 1985/86 re-boot before STAS went live on the WB and the power creep was in-play in the comics.

And again, it isn’t like Superman’s power levels have ever been consistent. He couldn’t even fly in his original appearance.

Which writers interpretations that give way to the lack of consistency and continuity have been the "bones of contention" and irritant like gum on one's shoe - for along time, even before this S:TAS - I'd discount the so-called "original appearances", as they were more a "work-in-progress" roughing out what Superman would become and be noted for character and ability wise!

Hey it's payday lol. I think I'm gonna Prime a season.



I'm not sure if I'm reading this right, but aren't many of them over 100,000 tons?



Not really. I mean in the month that the cartoon debuted it was Final Night, but the cartoon staff couldn't have known that. The September before that?



But strangely, although this sort of thing may spare the comic creators from the "they hate Superman" claim, I find that a decent amount of people who like or dislike the comics from the time feel the same way about the show.

Final Night - Emerald Night -Yes with the Sun Eater ... - ...another pre-crisis premise worked into post crisis and The Green Lantern was the Parallax... nice!

[manofsteel1979]

Over all, it was a good show. Some aspects haven't aged well, but others are classics. Whenever I read Lex's and Lois' dialogue in the comics, I hear Clancy Brown and Dana Delaney's voices in my head. Not a fan of how they underpowered him, but I think they got more right than wrong.

Plus, it allowed for Mark Millar's now classic​ Superman Adventures series, Which is probably one of my favorite runs of Superman in the comics ever.

[Agent Z]

[QUOTE=jimmy;3455433]

What are you talking about?



Why Magic being a crutch of course remember!

Yeah I remember. I’m not sure how it is relevant beyond that.

I do the like the; Queen Mary, Titanic which displaced more than 52 metric tons or so water - I know very heavy!

And yet you call lifting one a mundane task.

Stupid hmm.. I don't know about that - but then he (Superman) later on, took a thunder bolt to the chest with no problem....more of that inconsistency.

Live Wire can control the output of her electricity to hurt Superman.

Err..it had been 10 years nearly since J.B's 1985/86 re-boot before STAS went live on the WB and the power creep was in-play in the comics.

Fine. I’ll admit to making a mistake here.

Which writers interpretations that give way to the lack of consistency and continuity have been the "bones of contention" and irritant like gum on one's shoe - for along time, even before this S:TAS - I'd discount the so-called "original appearances", as they were more a "work-in-progress" roughing out what Superman would become and be noted for character and ability wise!

More like they were what his original creators intended for him before editorial started asking for power ups to have him compete with Captain Marvel/Shazam.

[jimmy]

[QUOTE=Agent Z;3455452]

And yet you call lifting one a mundane task.

Not at all, but when you struggling in one episode (actually he turned the ship into the wave to keep it from capsizing) then episodes later, Superman is lifting a similar ship up into the air, no sweat!! = It just another example of consistency or, lack thereof...call it a "power flux" or surge


Tim and Dana and Clancy, as a matter of fact, every everyone who did a voice over on that show was all top shelf, outstanding work!

[DochaDocha]

I liked Tim Daly as an actor, but I thought his Superman performance was somewhat lethargic-sounding.

I guess another summary I can make about the show is that there are a lot of nice aspects to it, but the worst parts might be Superman himself. This includes his VA.

[JBatmanFan05]

I've probably written at length about this series about as much as anyone here. Anyway, just to summarize my prior thoughts, it's okay, but this is a really boring take on Superman. It comes from a place where the creators look at Superman and see a problem, specifically that he's too powerful to be interesting (in their opinion), so everything is written backwards (to be fair, IMO). So you take all your Superman staples, and downgrade them. It's pretty palpable, to the point where it's not just lowering the baseline of Superman's powers and going from there. It's essentially a theme of the show that they try to hit over our heads in every episode: everything physical Superman is going to do is going to be difficult. Again, it's based on the idea that he's too powerful to be interesting (in their opinions) so the episode won't be interesting unless they show that he has to struggle each and every time. You may like that, and I get it, but I find it jarring as hell.

Also, I never could get over the fact that Bruce Timm was once quoted saying Superman was inherently a "dull" character, and it ends up showing in certain episodes. Take the otherwise fantastic episode "Knight Time," when Robin meets Superman for the first time. While traditionally Robin is known to be a bit of a Superman fanboy, this Robin couldn't seem to care less he met Superman. Superman's celebrity shouldn't be so understated. I mean, he's not Kim Kardashian, but there should be a, "Look, it's Superman!" element when people see him for the first time.

Elephant in the room: these guys liked Batman more. So, when the characters interacted...

I also thought there was a lot of meddling from WB and DC. For instance, DC Comics had no Kara Zor-El at the time, so the cartoon could only have a remixed version in Kara In-Ze from planet Argon. Also, Superman just had a hyped wedding to Lois in the comics, so Superman's interaction with characters such as Lana and Maxima were about as boring as you could get. To steal a line from a Wonder Woman comic, he might as well have been a gay Vulcan.

But, despite all of my complaints, it's not like it's all bad. The good episodes are really good. It still gave me my favorite Brainiac, as well as my favorite Superman vs. Darkseid rivalry. I will always kind of resent this show, but it's not as though there aren't things from it I enjoyed a lot, too.

What a great post that captures a lot of my thoughts more eloquently than I. Having fundamental problems with Superman is something that the Post-Crisis era really reflected IMHO, which is why I mentioned how I felt the show was too colored by that period (but I'm not saying the show needed to reject all Post-Crisis elements and worthy contributions like with Lex and Lois and etc). STAS Brainiac was inspired and fantastic. STAS tried to combine various aspects from different Superman eras, but it just didn't get to the kind of true distillation of the character that the Fleischer/Famous cartoons were (or like how BTAS was for Batman).