Superman on Television

Superman: The Animated Series - Episode Reviews

Season 2 - Episode 12: "Brave New Metropolis"

Original Air Date: September 27, 1997

Reviewed by: Jeffrey Taylor

Would you believe the same story was better in Lois & Clark?

This is far from a new kind of story, whether you prefer Elseworlds tales or Marvel's What If? line. DC Comics even sporadically released a number of "Imaginary Tales" in the Silver Age. Those depictions of our favorite heroes take place in alternate universes and/or timelines. This episode set up a substitute history for Superman and all of Metropolis. The difference was that Lois Lane, who was the hero of the story, remained exactly the same as she had been throughout the series. The audience explored the alternate Metropolis through her experiences.

The first moments of the episode featured Lois falling into a vortex that transported her to another universe where she had died, which caused Superman to become a fascist lapdog to Lex Luthor's whims. As time went on, the face of Metropolis changed for the worse.

Sound familiar? It's been done to varying degrees in the comics, which nearly makes it a classic Superman premise, which I support. But since this is television, let's look back less than two years earlier to January 21, 1996. It was an episode of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman called "Tempus Anyone?"

Lois ended up in a parallel universe where she had died and so Superman ... wait. That's the same set up! So Lois died and consequently Clark never became Superman, allowing the sinister Tempus to become a fascist dictator and Metropolis had changed for the worse. In the end Lois returned to her universe after changing Clark/Superman for the better, allowing him to become the Man of Steel he was always destined to be. So same setup, same ending, slightly different middle.

I like Lois & Clark a lot. It was not a perfect series and had its fair share of craptacular episodes, but it also produced a lot of gems. I'm not saying that Superman: The Animated Series copied them. I'm just saying that less than two years before "Brave New Metropolis," another show did a better version of a story that had the same beginning and ending. It was a better story in part because the character motivations in "Tempus Anyone?" made much more sense.

Lois & Clark always played up the romance between the title characters, while Superman: The Animated Series specifically avoided it, except for a few rare tidbits sprinkled throughout the series. In The Animated Series, why would Lois's death early on in Superman's career have made him a fascist who worked regularly with Lex Luthor? Obviously Lois and Superman cared for each other in a way that transcended the obvious hero/damsel motivations, but the Lois of this series had never been more than a good friend up to that point, and hardly enough to change Superman in such an extreme way.

For Lois & Clark, in addition to killing Lois before she met Clark, Tempus went back in time and killed Jonathon and Martha Kent before they could raise Clark to adulthood, which was a much better explanation for why Clark might not become Superman because his values and humanity came from his parents. Obviously that would be harder in The Animated Series because Lois didn't know that Superman was really Clark Kent. She was the hero of this episode and the audience watched through her point of view. News that Clark Kent's parents had been killed 25 years ago wouldn't matter much to her plot since she did not know that Superman was really Clark.

3Rating - 3 (out of 5): Logistics aside, the episode was very creative and a lot of fun to watch. It was one of those rare instances where I wish it could have been two parts. "The Main Man" was a two-part episode back in season one, and I'm still not sure it deserved one. The upside was that the story unfolded at break-neck speed and only gave the audience a chance to catch its breath during commercial breaks. Even the music in the alternate universe was fittingly different.

A two parter would have allowed much more characterization with the alternate versions of the main cast. Most of Superman's supporting characters appeared, but with little time to learn anything about them. Jimmy Olson and Dan Turpin were the only two somewhat developed characters besides Superman. With a longer time to tell the story, they could have been fleshed out and several more characters could have been explored. The only other option would have been a sequel episode later down the line, except that this story had a clear conclusion and didn't need a sequel.

The DVD commentary revealed that the creators originally wanted the alternate Jimmy Olsen to have a missing arm that the fascist Superman had somehow caused. That would have been incredible and elevated the show to a new status. I believe that most kids are smarter than they're given credit for, and that cartoons with a child audience in mind can still tell awesome stories that adults can appreciate. Jimmy's having lost a limb in the past because Superman turned out differently in this dimension would have been poignant in a way that most children could handle and understand. Plus it would have added depth to the character simply by design and six seconds of dialogue.

The artists otherwise did a wonderful job making the alternate characters look different. Jimmy's long hair and post-adolescent thin beard showed clearly that he had become a different person. Dan Turpin was still a member of the Police, but the alternate uniforms showed clearly how the past years had broken him down to the point that he had become just another member of Luthor's brigade and was no longer the loner with a heart of gold from the regular reality. Even reporter Angela Chen appeared briefly as a street beggar.

Brave New Metropolis Superman's costume was entirely different as well. It was mostly black with a hard-edged lightning pentagonal "S," and no cape. His allegiance to Lex Luthor was hammered to the audience from the moment Lois arrived in that dimension and she first saw the statue of Superman and Luthor, back to back with the engraving, "The men who saved Metropolis."

Lex Luthor and his henchwoman Mercy Graves were the only characters left unchanged in the alternate universe. They were both as cold and brutal as they were in the rest of Superman: The Animated Series. One of the best moments of the episode was when Lex verified Lois as the genuine article despite her previous death in that universe just because she was rude. There were a few leaps of logic after that where Luthor stated that the return of Lois Lane could ruin the relationship he had built with Superman, which was what happened in the end, but again, it wasn't a given since Lois up to that point had such little impact on the Man of Steel.

During the alternate Superman's first appearance to the audience, he fought off terrorists/freedom fighters and nearly killed at least one of them. Here was another flawed spot. Superman fans usually understand that one of the Big Blue's defining characteristics is that he never kills anyone. There have been certain exceptions like the Phantom Zone villains from the Pocket Universe way back in Superman #22 in 1988, which became a major plot point expressing why Superman never takes a life. If this Superman could be redeemed at the end, I refuse to believe he could have killed anyone or even come close to it.

I need to break for a moment to discuss how ineffectual guns (or are they lasers?) are in this episode. Lois was shot in the leg and Jimmy in the arm, yet neither seemed to suffer more than a few hours' soreness.

Despite the great character design in the alternate universe, the animation was clearly rushed again. The best example was Lex Luthor who was traditionally close to the same height as Superman in most of the series. Yet in some scenes where his whole body was shown he appeared to be less than five feet tall. It was blaringly present in certain shots, then absent in others, so no argument about this universe's Luthor being shorter than the other holds water.

The concept for this episode worked on a number of levels, but unfortunately there were incongruities that drew away from it. One of the more annoying bits in the episode was that whenever Lois encountered a doppelganger in the alternate universe she would say, "Turpin?" or "Jimmy?" or "Angela?" with the exact same questioning tone in her voice as if she had forgotten that people in this dimension would have different appearances and personalities. The creators even mentioned it in the DVD commentary.

Superman: The Animated Series specifically avoided the romance between Lois and Superman for most of its run, but it made those rare moments when their feelings bubbled to the surface all the more special. As Lois was about the leave the alternate universe in this episode, she kissed the black suited Superman. She also expressed emotion for the original Man of Steel once he brought her back to the normal universe.

One of the staples of the comic book industry is that creators often rehash classic stories and put out an updated version of a pre-existing plotline or concept. I believe that the creators of The Animated Series were in no way trying to copy Lois & Clark, but the fact remains that the story break downs were remarkably similar. This episode just had a lot of little problems that took away from the flow of the story.



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