Superman on Television

Superman: The Animated Series - Episode Reviews

Season 2 - Episode 3: "The Prometheon"

Original Air Date: September 12, 1997

Reviewed by: Jeffrey Taylor

"I don't trust what I can't control and I don't like what I can't trust." - pick your cliché

Every television series has at least a few episodes I'd rather skip over. This is one of them.

1Rating - 1 (out of 5): There are two major problems with this episode.

First, the villain is completely uninteresting. This Prometheon doesn't speak, but destroys everything around it as it seeks out fuel, which is heat. The villain is neither interesting nor innocent. It's a machine and I don't feel one way or the other about it at the end. I'm not sure which direction we as the audience were supposed to go on that.

Second, the entire plot of this story is about as formulaic as you can get.

A military leader in charge of the mission rejects the hero for some reason (in this case for being an alien). The hero (Superman) discovers how to stop the threat in question. The military leader refuses to believe the hero and makes the situation worse. Hero stops the threat.

I can think of oh so many movies with the same plot (Outbreak, Armageddon, in fact most Michael Bay flicks, actually you can pick most action movies, but I recommend starting with a Die Hard installment of your choice) as well as other stories on TV, in comics books and so on. None of those movies used this as an entire plot, but usually a second or third act. Obviously this is a 30 minute episode, so it would take up the whole plot, but why did it have to employ a clichéd and predictable plot outline at all. The first time I saw the beginning of this episode and General Hardcastle stated that he didn't like Superman because he was an alien, I already knew the middle and end, as many viewers would because they've seen it a million times before.

The Prometheon The Prometheon was created for this episode and never appeared (at least in name) in any other medium of Superman. That said, it was as powerful as Titano or Lobo for pure, brute force. It was a giant robot with rock-like skin that could suck up energy from just about any source. The Prometheon certainly wasn't out to hurt or kill anyone, he simply didn't care. If he didn't mean to or felt remorse, we as the audience could be sympathetic toward it, but since it clearly has no consciousness and therefore no conscience, we don't care if it dies at the end. There was nothing alive to really kill. Since its only real need is a constant energy supply, we can't specifically dislike it as an antagonist because it's like a large animal looking for food. Where does that leave us? Apathy. Not feeling one way or another about something means not caring. We should care about a villain for a number of reasons, but I feel completely apathetic about this Prometheon robot.

As the episode opened, a team of military astronauts led by General Hardcastle were approaching an asteroid headed for Earth along with Emil Hamilton and Superman. Their mission was to execute a billion dollar (one would assume) plan to blow a series of charges on the asteroid to destroy it before it hit Metropolis. Once Superman discovered the "creature" he told Hamilton and Hardcastle that he could adjust the asteroid's trajectory enough so it would enter Earth's orbit instead of impacting.

So let's say that you, the reader, are Hardcastle and you hear Superman say this. What is your response? Seriously, feel free to say something on the comments page. Here's mine:

"Superman, Big Blue, buddy. You know how I don't trust you because you're an alien and all, but I want you to know that part of me respects you for all the good you do in the world. But I just feel compelled to ask, if you could have adjusted that asteroid's trajectory so it wouldn't kill most of the people on the planet, WHY THE HECK DIDN'T YOU TELL US THAT BEFORE WE SPENT A BILLION DOLLARS ON AN EMERGENCY MISSION TO BLOW THE DARN THING UP AND RUIN MY AFTERNOON?!?!?!

I get that this is a kid's show, but this was a glaring plot hole. Hardcastle didn't even flinch. The only reason to keep the General in the beginning of the episode was to get him right into the thick of the story, which makes sense to do. What doesn't make sense is that Superman changing the asteroids path wasn't Plan A. It could have been fixed easily with a quick exchange:

Hamilton: Push it into orbit Superman!

Superman: But Professor, you said even I wasn't strong enough to move it!

Hamilton: You have to try! You don't know whether this creature's a blah-de-blah blah.

I would have expected an episode like this to have a huge three or four minute fight between Superman and the Prometheon, but the fight lasted about 60 seconds before the Metropolis power grid was turned off. Not all episodes need that kind of violence, but it's a giant rock monster. I would have preferred a little more fighting and a little less shooting at it.

There was one important part of the episode that I did like. I enjoyed that they solved a super-problem like this with real world technology and physics, or at least close enough to it. First, Hamilton switched off power to Metropolis, which stopped the Prometheon since he was only headed there to absorb its energy. Then Superman used his heat vision on the end of a steel I-beam to lure the creature away (ok, so that part that we couldn't do in the real world, at least not the same way). The robot was lured to a dam where it waded in the water. Hamilton set up two cargo planes filled with chemicals that, when mixed, would freeze the water, depowering Prometheon. After all, cold is the absence of heat or energy. And chemicals like that exist. There are cold packs with two chemicals that freeze when mixed. I don't know that those chemicals could freeze water completely solid, but it's a neat idea based on real world technology, and that's cool.

The episode ended there, so we didn't see what happened to the Prometheon's body/shell. It was probably ejected into space or thrown into the Sun. It never showed up again and they wouldn't leave it in Metropolis's frozen and chemical-laden water supply or try to store it on Earth.

The animation was spot on this time. So far it has improved as the season progresses. The Prometheon itself didn't need to move like a normal person, so I assume extra care was given to the rest of the cast. There were some interesting angles as well, since this was the first time Superman fought something that size in this series.

Guest stars include Charles Napier (Blues Brothers, Silence of the Lambs, TV's The Critic) who voiced General Hardcastle. He returned as the same character later this series and reprised his role in an episode of Justice League. He also played Salin' Whalen on an episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman entitled "Target: Jimmy Olsen." On a side note, he was in an episode of Star Trek in 1969.

Frank Welker returned to create the creature sounds of the Prometheon. He also played the giant snake monster back in "The Main Man Part II." His resume is worth looking into. He even played Nibbler on Futurama. Townsend Coleman returned to play a Captain in this episode. He was a Programmer back in "Stolen Memories" and voiced Dr. Magnus in Justice League: The New Frontier. He also played Michelangelo in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons of the 1980s and 90s.



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