Superman on Television

Superman: The Animated Series - Episode Reviews

Season 1 - Episode 8: "Stolen Memories"

Original Air Date: November 2, 1996

Reviewed by: Jeffrey Taylor

"The fewer beings who have the knowledge, the more precious it becomes."

3Rating - 3 (out of 5): Here it is, the return of Brainiac, the most culpably responsible party for Kal-El's legacy as the last surviving member of his race. No one could have stopped the planet from exploding, but Brainiac's greatest strength is deception, and he convinced the population to ignore Jor-El's warnings while he saved himself. I mentioned in the review for the first episode that Alan Burnett deserved a medal for placing Brainiac on Krypton, and he still does. When we last saw him at the end of the pilot, Brainiac's escape module had been picked up by a passing alien ship, which he immediately took over and disappeared into space. This time we learned where he had been and what he had been up to during those intervening years and finally got to see his corporeal self. For more information about Brainiac from Superman: The Animated Series vs. Brainiac from the comics, please refer to my review of Last Son of Krypton - Part I.

Superman and Professor Hamilton at S.T.A.R. Labs had been experimenting with the rocket that brought Kal-El to Earth as a baby with the hope of recreating its Warp Drive (for lack of a better term). Superman managed to pilot the ship past Earth's nearest star (other than the Sun), Alpha Centauri, about five and a half light years away. Just for a kick, let's see just how fast he was traveling. There are 5,865,696,000,000 miles in a light year x 5.5 Light years = 32,261,328,000,000 miles to Alpha Centauri x 2 for return trip, 64,522,656,000,000 total distance / 4 hours = Superman was traveling at 16,130,664,000,000 miles per hour. Ultimately this means that I want one.

Obviously Superman wouldn't remember that Brainiac was his father's nemesis, so it only follows that he would be curious about meeting another alien. Upon visiting Brainiac's ship, he read a sampling of Kryptonian glyphs carved into the interior, before being attacked by a series of robots bearing Brainiac's three eyed symbol. We all want to see Superman go all out and let loose with his powers, but creators can't have him do that to Toyman or other human bad guys because 1) this is a Saturday morning cartoon and there are rules against that kind of violence, and 2) Superman generally wouldn't do that anyway. So when writers have a big fight with giant robots, it gives artists a chance to animate him using all his powers to their fullest extents. Of course within the story, the robots were Brainiac's way of testing Superman's powers in order to decide how best to defeat him. Much of the style of Superman: The Animated Series derived from the 1940's Fleischer animated shorts. The robot fight definitely appeared to be a nod to an episode in that series.

Brainiac's three-eyed symbol was placed on his robotic forehead, instead of the standard chest placement that most heroes and villains share. He is an anthropomorphized robot, so it makes sense that it would be placed where Brainiac's brain would be. The symmetrical upside down triangular three-eyed symbol would clearly be the work of a computerized intelligence as opposed to Superman's "S" symbol that curves in the interior and besides being placed in its pentagonal shape, offers no other sense of symmetry. Although this series drew heavily from the reboot of the Superman comic series in 1986, one major abandoned concept was the state of mind of the populace on Krypton. In the comics Superman's home planet was a cold, sterile world and its people worshipped science instead of mysticism. All poetical originality had been erased from the collective consciousness, which is why Jor-El's altruism in saving his son could be seen as out of place when compared to the rest of the people on the planet.

That's why Superman had to create the "S" himself in that origin in the comics, as opposed to other versions where that symbol was proudly worn as part of his alien heritage. The comics version of Krypton would have been incapable of creating such an asymmetrical shape. Back in part I of the pilot for Superman: The Animated Series however, we could see that Krypton was far more human emotionally based. Jor-El was not the only compassionate or altruistic member of the population, so it follows that his race would be capable of creating the symbol, while Kryptonians of the 1986 comics would not. I'm not sure why the "S" never appeared to the audience on the planet itself in part I of the pilot, but rather on the information providing box that Clark was given in part II. When comparing Brainiac's three-eyed symbol to Superman's "S," it's clear which one had a humanistic derivation. That's why it's so ironic when Superman questions why Kryptonian language was written in his ship and Brainiac responds, "I am Krypton." He believes he is, but never comprehends the humanity of the population that really defined Krypton. In fact, you could say that his existence is a nod to the Krypton of the comics in 1986, but that's a bit of a stretch.

Brainiac was busy traveling to many planets to gather their information and histories before destroying them. He had been the repository of all knowledge on Krypton, and through his travels was attempting to become the repository of all knowledge in the Universe. All that information was then placed into tiny glowing orbs that someone can touch to learn the history of that planet. He claimed that Jor-El helped him escape Krypton just as he had baby Kal-El. Remember that Brainiac's greatest strength is his ability to deceive. Technically he wasn't lying because Jor-El did unknowingly help him. After touching Krypton's information orb, Superman saw a little about his planet, but conveniently missed the part where Brainiac was responsible for the eradication of its people. He later dreamed the rest of the pertinent stuff about Brainiac's role in Krypton's destruction. It was a cheesy way of doing it, but it got the point across.

Meanwhile Lex Luthor had planned to share information and technology with Brainiac and there was a big scene where a new satellite dish was installed on the top of Luthor's skyscraper. Once connected, Brainiac took over Luthor's computer systems and no one could do anything about it. I hate that Lex gave up and sat down. He's a genius and a fighter to the end after all. Get off your butt and go smash the satellite dish to physically break the connection. Baseball bats and technology don't mix. I guess he never saw that scene in Office Space.

Superman paid another visit to Brainiac after his dream, but couldn't be sure his dream was reality. Brainiac was preparing to take over Lex's computers and asked Superman to wait in the room with all the information spheres. Superman began to touch the spheres and learned how Brainiac destroyed all those civilizations and stole their knowledge. As artificial intelligence that expresses no emotion beyond greed, I refuse to believe he would have left Superman in that room by way of vanity. It's almost as bad as the villain explaining his/her evil plan to James Bond and then leaving him alone to escape and stop the bad guy. Still, the 360 degree shot of Superman seeing a world die was quite nice. It's hard to explain, you just have to see it.

Once Superman defeated Brainiac (by punching the laser beam - another throwback to the Fleischer cartoons), Luthor regained control of his missiles and fired at the ship. As he "died," all Brainiac cared about was saving the informational orbs, which showed a lot about his artificial character. Superman only managed to save one, which was of course Krypton. There was a brief intro to the Fortress of Solitude where Superman decided to keep the orb, saying, "I knew this place had possibilities." More on the Fortress later when we can see the whole thing.

I know I keep saying it, but the ending of this episode is once again the same as all the others where the threat of the defeated villain is shown to still exist. One of Luthor's lackeys explained that there was some strange code left over from the link up with Brainiac. Obviously it's a digital remnant of the villain and we should expect his return to spring from that in a future episode.

We all know that Lex Luthor is the primary villain in the Superman Universe and given how well Clancy Brown performed the part, most fans are glad he was featured so prominently in the series. This was another super-villain team up episode where one villain is ultimately betrayed by the other, then the betrayee helps stop the betrayer. Superman represents the heartland of America and neighborliness while Luthor stands for the evils of money and the city. That's why Clark Kent has friends like Lois and Jimmy while Luthor tends to have employees, associates and the occasional dimwitted date. Therefore it makes sense when other Superman villains are in opposition to Luthor while fighting Superman, rather than the standard super-villain team up. We saw it in the Metallo episode too, and we'll see it plenty more in the future.

I remember this episode as one of my favorites and began watching for the review anticipating a 5 out of 5 rating, but upon rewatching, I realize that although it's not a bad episode, it wasn't particularly outstanding either. The story felt choppy in places like when Superman dreamed the truth about Brainiac's part in Krypton's destruction or that Brainiac used the room with the orbs as a waiting room for Superman, his greatest threat, where he could learn that Brainiac needed to be stopped. This was a big episode and a lot had to happen really quickly. I wish it had been fleshed out into a two parter, especially given that there will be a two part intallment up next (The Main Man parts 1 & 2) that probably should have been a single.

The animation for this episode was much choppier than usual. Characters were not as uniform as they had been in earlier installments and sometimes came off deformed, especially early in the show. Character movements that should have given the people a sense of life came off odd, stilted and strange. Even Superman in flight seemed off kilter. It was unbefitting for the show and clearly rushed.

There are a few "Easter Eggs" in this installment if you know to look for them. The big rig truck in the opening moments for instance is designed to look like the Batmobile from Batman: The Animated Series. It only looks weird if you already know the design reference, but it's still kinda cool. There's also a single frame of Krypton exploding as the hologram of Brainiac disappears later in that first scene. According to information from the creators, Mr. Mxyzptlk was supposed to have been in this episode, but I have no idea how he would have fit in. I'm glad they saved him for later to star as a solo antagonist.



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