Superman: La serie animada

There was a cartoon Superman series in the early 1940's which is in a class of it's own. However, since then there have been a few Superman cartoons and then there was Superman on the Superfriends show. This was indeed Superman's best cartoon. Excluding the 1940's series, the other Superman cartoons look dated and cheezy if you were to watch them now. The same can be said for the Batman cartoons. This Superman series is brilliant, on par with Batman:The Animated Series.

How did people make this series work? Simple. They did exactly what they did with Batman:The Animated Series and did it with this cartoon. Superman is an intelligent cartoon for adults and children with great plots, humour and plenty of action. Let's not forget artistic license either-don't you just love Superman's big jaw and Clark's big jaw as well (big giveaway there to anyone wanting to find out Supe's secret identity). It has been ten years since Batman:The Animated Series made it's debut and it has not aged at all; the same can be said for Superman.

I strongly recommend this movie and also, the Batman/Superman team up movie from 1998. Absolute magic!

This is show came after Batman:tas, it is just as good if not better in my opinion. The relationship between Lois and Superman/Clark is great right from the beginning. The crossovers with batman are great, and provide some of my favorite episodes. My favorite episode was when superman went undercover as batman and teamed up with robin because Bruce Wayne went missing.The Animation is great. While it was not as thin and cheap looking as "The New Batman Adventures" (don't get me wrong, that animation looked great) it wasn't as good as the animation in Batman Animated Series. While Batman TAS had the best animation, there were some episodes that had HORRIBLE animation, but with Superman this doesn't happen.

I enjoy a lot of the superheroes that are based on comic books. This show Superman: The Animated Series was one of them. Superman is based on a DC Comics comic book about a ageless human who is the last son of the planet Krypton and then gets sent to Earth and becomes the legendary protector of his adoptive home Earth. He is Superman! Superman is also alias Clark Kent who is a newspaper reporter. But when there's trouble you know who to call (and I know there are a lot of superheroes you can call but there's only one you can call in this series) SUPERMAN! This show premiered on Kids WB back in September 1996 and lasted for 3 seasons until February 2000. Superman was also in a few DC Comic superhero show spin-offs like "The Batman/Superman Adventures" and "Justice League". Which are also good shows!

User Rating: 7/10

BOTTOM LINE: SUPER!

So far for the most part any movie featuring the man of steel have missed the mark. If one were to gather their knowledge of Superman from these movies they will deduce that Superman's main villains were Lex Luther, Zod, Nuclear Man and Richard Pryor. One also gets the sense that he is kind of a dweeb and the type of guy who when he gets a female pregnant he bolts the planet. Well this animated series was great as it featured a vast assortment of villains, great voice work by Tim Daly, and had interesting stories. I enjoyed watching this incarnation of Superman as he was actually Superman without being indestructible unbeatable man like he has been portrayed at times. So what you are not going to see in this film is a lot of time spent back in Smallville growing up, a crusade to stop nuclear missiles, strange comedy, and yet another scheme by Lex involving real estate. No here you will see him lose a good friend to the cold Darkseid, help the Green Lantern take on the villainous Sinistro, and battle schemes by Lex involving him creating a cyborg man with kryptonite in his chest named Metallo. So suffice to say this series was a lot of fun and a lot better than nearly everything in the movies. The best thing the movies did was introducing Zod.

After the success of "Batman: The Animated Series", Superman, who'd been out of the lime light for a while except for "Lois & Clark", finally got a shot at his own series again. This show recapped Superman's origin, established his relationships and pit him against a variety of characters - including a memorable brawl between him and Lobo, voiced by Brad Garrett (who also voiced another character, but I forget his name).

Superman was voiced by Tim Daly, and he did a damn fine job of it too. It's a shame that he wasn't available for "Justice League", as he was definitely superior to his successor, George Newbern (sorry George). Dana Delany was what Margot Kidder's Lois Lane SHOULD have been but never was. Same goes for Clancy Brown as Lex Luther. M*A*S*H alum Mike Farrell provided the voice of Superman's Earth dad.

Storylines were generally good and voice acting solid (as mentioned above), but the only thing that really marred this show was the animation. While not bad, the characters, particularly the male characters, were too blocky looking. Superman himself looked as though he'd been carved out of rock. This animation isn't bad but it's not on par with the animation in "Batman: The Animated Series". Sadly, this look has been retained for "Justice League".

Batman has made guest appearances on Superman from time to time, even did a "movie" with him, which brought their relationship up to date.

So all in all, a 9 1/2 out of 10.