Superman Villains Appreciation 2021

[Gaius]

[Vordan]

So weird that despite being one of Superman’s most well known villains, DC Animation has never really done anything with Zod beyond him being in JL Action.

[SiegePerilous02]

So weird that despite being one of Superman’s most well known villains, DC Animation has never really done anything with Zod beyond him being in JL Action.

Is there a reason he wasn't in STAS? They put the focus on Jax-Ur instead and invented Mala instead of using Faora or Ursa

[Gaius]

So weird that despite being one of Superman’s most well known villains, DC Animation has never really done anything with Zod beyond him being in JL Action.

Is there a reason he wasn't in STAS? They put the focus on Jax-Ur instead and invented Mala instead of using Faora or Ursa

The tie-in comics actually did introduce a DCAU version of Zod. Though he was from Argo, like Supegirl.

Mala was also even voiced by Ursa’s actress from the Reeve films.

[Vordan]

Is there a reason he wasn't in STAS? They put the focus on Jax-Ur instead and invented Mala instead of using Faora or Ursa

I think it was because of the “no other Kryptonians besides Kal” rule that DC enforced at the time? The DCAU had to walk the line between what the Post Crisis DCU enforced and what the creators wanted to do. Like Gaius said the others were “Argonauts/Argonians” to get around that rule. I’d love to see a new animated Superman series without that dumb rule to restrict what they could use.

But even then it’s odd he’s never been in an animated movie. I saw some speculation that he might be in YJ S4 based on the “Phantoms” title being related to the Phantom Zone. Zod and his Kryptonians would make for a hell of a threat, and I’d like to see Kon and the Superfamily get focused on after S3 was heavily Batfamily focused.

[Gaius]

I think it was because of the “no other Kryptonians besides Kal” rule that DC enforced at the time? The DCAU had to walk the line between what the Post Crisis DCU enforced and what the creators wanted to do. Like Gaius said the others were “Argonauts/Argonians” to get around that rule. I’d love to see a new animated Superman series without that dumb rule to restrict what they could use.

But even then it’s odd he’s never been in an animated movie. I saw some speculation that he might be in YJ S4 based on the “Phantoms” title being related to the Phantom Zone. Zod and his Kryptonians would make for a hell of a threat, and I’d like to see Kon and the Superfamily get focused on after S3 was heavily Batfamily focused.

Hmm, less Bat-stuff might actually get me to watch YJ season 4. Though they'd probably add another 20 cast members by that point.

I assume for the animated movies, it's because the early ones at least were adaptations of existing stories that came out during the "no other Krpytonians" policy.

Though since Unbound was an adaptation of Johns' Brainiac story, kind of surprised they never tried to adapt Last Son of Krypton.

[Frontier]

Need more group shots of Superman’s Rogues done officially

They look like such pals...

I think it was because of the “no other Kryptonians besides Kal” rule that DC enforced at the time? The DCAU had to walk the line between what the Post Crisis DCU enforced and what the creators wanted to do. Like Gaius said the others were “Argonauts/Argonians” to get around that rule. I’d love to see a new animated Superman series without that dumb rule to restrict what they could use.

But even then it’s odd he’s never been in an animated movie. I saw some speculation that he might be in YJ S4 based on the “Phantoms” title being related to the Phantom Zone. Zod and his Kryptonians would make for a hell of a threat, and I’d like to see Kon and the Superfamily get focused on after S3 was heavily Batfamily focused.

He was in Gods and Monsters.

[Vordan]

They look like such pals...

He was in Gods and Monsters.

And that was the most they’ve ever done with him, and he immediately died, so beyond Lor briefly wrestling with learning his dad was a dick he doesn’t really play a major role. I’m just surprised they’ve never done a movie with him as the main bad guy.

[kalai]

Why didn't DC use the Bizarro World more often?
The last mention of Bizarro World was during Tomasi's Superman run as far as I can remember.

[Gaius]

Remember being introduced to Bizzaro as a kid not through cartoons or comics but an episode of Seinfeld.

Always liked Bizzarom even though I've never really had preferred take on him.

[Vordan]

Why didn't DC use the Bizarro World more often?
The last mention of Bizarro World was during Tomasi's Superman run as far as I can remember.

In the cartoon or the comics? DCAU Bizarro was based on the Byrne take where Bizarro was just a malformed clone (and they did a good job with that). In the comics it’s similar, comics Bizarro is just a clone but there’s another Bizarro out there in the Multiverse who is Superman’s backwards duplicate. Multiversity took a long time to get made, and since it was supposed to be the book that’s still up the post-Flashpoint Multiverse, most writers restricted themselves to E0. It’s only now that writers are really digging into what the Multiverse set up is supposed to be.

[Frontier]

In the cartoon or the comics? DCAU Bizarro was based on the Byrne take where Bizarro was just a malformed clone (and they did a good job with that). In the comics it’s similar, comics Bizarro is just a clone but there’s another Bizarro out there in the Multiverse who is Superman’s backwards duplicate. Multiversity took a long time to get made, and since it was supposed to be the book that’s still up the post-Flashpoint Multiverse, most writers restricted themselves to E0. It’s only now that writers are really digging into what the Multiverse set up is supposed to be.

Yeah, I remember around New 52 we got clone Bizarro in Forever Evil and not long after I think there was a one-shot with Multiverse Bizarro helped take Superman's beard off in that Greg Pak story.

[marhawkman]

I think it was because of the “no other Kryptonians besides Kal” rule that DC enforced at the time? The DCAU had to walk the line between what the Post Crisis DCU enforced and what the creators wanted to do. Like Gaius said the others were “Argonauts/Argonians” to get around that rule. I’d love to see a new animated Superman series without that dumb rule to restrict what they could use.

But even then it’s odd he’s never been in an animated movie. I saw some speculation that he might be in YJ S4 based on the “Phantoms” title being related to the Phantom Zone. Zod and his Kryptonians would make for a hell of a threat, and I’d like to see Kon and the Superfamily get focused on after S3 was heavily Batfamily focused.

The funny thing is that if you take the Argoan angle far enough you realize Argoans are actually just Kryptonians with a different name... from an IN-universe PoV. Heck... I don't think they ever do ANYTHING to distinguish Argoans from Kryptonians other than being born on Argo.... which also orbits Rao.... just a bit further way. Oh and I'm pretty sure Argo was a colony world and not the homeworld of any race. So yes, you can say that Kara In-ze is NOT from Krypton and thus not a Kryptonian. But that's based on nationality/citizenship, more than genetic origin.... also in the comics In-Ze was the maiden name of Kara's mother. So even that is less of a change than you'd think at first.

[Vordan]

The funny thing is that if you take the Argoan angle far enough you realize Argoans are actually just Kryptonians with a different name... from an IN-universe PoV. Heck... I don't think they ever do ANYTHING to distinguish Argoans from Kryptonians other than being born on Argo.... which also orbits Rao.... just a bit further way. Oh and I'm pretty sure Argo was a colony world and not the homeworld of any race. So yes, you can say that Kara In-ze is NOT from Krypton and thus not a Kryptonian. But that's based on nationality/citizenship, more than genetic origin.... also in the comics In-Ze was the maiden name of Kara's mother. So even that is less of a change than you'd think at first.

It was them doing the bare minimum to meet the mandate while still allowing them the freedom to do what they wanted. Should’ve made DC realize how dumb the mandate was but they’re stubborn.

[kalai]

In the cartoon or the comics? DCAU Bizarro was based on the Byrne take where Bizarro was just a malformed clone (and they did a good job with that). In the comics it’s similar, comics Bizarro is just a clone but there’s another Bizarro out there in the Multiverse who is Superman’s backwards duplicate. Multiversity took a long time to get made, and since it was supposed to be the book that’s still up the post-Flashpoint Multiverse, most writers restricted themselves to E0. It’s only now that writers are really digging into what the Multiverse set up is supposed to be.

I'm thinking about the Bizarro World in general,
Bizarro was one of the main characters in Redhood and Outlaw,
he defeated Trigon and became king of hell or something,
but my point is, maybe DC think Bizarro World as a concept is too silver age-ish for DC,
in that case they should update it to be more like the version in All Star Superman or something else,
I just thought that concept should be used more.
Also Doomsday seems to appear a lot more than Bizarro now in the Superman comics for some reason.