Superman on Television
Superman: The Animated Series - Episode Reviews
Season 1 - Episode 6: "Feeding Time"
Original Air Date: September 21, 1996Reviewed by: Jeffrey Taylor
"You can't have any desert until you finish your dinner" - My Mom
Rating - 4 (out of 5): One of the drawbacks of catering to the Saturday morning cartoon audience is that everything creators put into their work has to remain kid-friendly. The people behind the scenes of Superman: The Animated Series are some of the best in the business and know how to creatively use that drawback as a strength. This episode featured the first appearance of the Parasite, a classic comic book villain who leeches energy or life-force off his victims in order to revivify and power himself. In the comics, most of his prey were leeched to the point of death, most notably in Adventures of Superman #481 (September 1991) where he first appeared after the 1986 John Byrne reboot of Superman where he killed an entire Metropolis subway train full of people. Any death of major, ancillary or guest star characters in this show had to be done carefully and with meaning because of its primarily young audience. Therefore this Parasite put his victims into comas or merely weakened them rather than kill them. During the third act of this installment, he held the Man of Steel in chains in order to periodically leech his abilities which is a prime example of the writers using the no-kill weakness of their stories to the best of advantage. It's the same reason Superman: Doomsday (soon to be released on DVD at the time of this review) couldn't have been told in the animated TV format, considering the necessary deaths on top of Superman's within the story.
The Parasite a.k.a. Rudy Jones of The Animated Series played by Brion James (The Fifth Element, TV's Highlander) began as a near-innocent. He was a janitor at STAR Labs, which is where Emil Hamilton and other scientists work to create technological and medicinal advancements to better the world at large. Rudy Jones was a weakling who even his coworkers thought of as "Wimpy Rudy Jones," and he clearly wanted more out of his life, which is why he attempted to purloin materials from STAR. He teamed up with the stronger-willed Martin Lebeau, played by Robert Patrick (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, TV's The X-Files) who double crossed him, thus turning him into the Parasite by way of the strange purple goo that fell out of the stolen containers while they made their escape from STAR. Patrick proves his voice acting ability by disguising his voice to the point that it's entirely unrecognizable to those who have enjoyed his movies and TV appearances.
Rudy could not understand his powers or his hunger at first. He knew only that he needed to feed, much as one would expect a newly embraced Vampire. His touch, visualized with animated electricity, leeched the energy of his victims to the point that they went into comas. He also leeched memories and the ability to effectively copy their voices. The energy exchange soon proved to be temporary, eventually returning to the victim and leaving the Parasite, forcing him to constantly search for new victims. His first victim was a rat, but when the police officer approaches him soon after, he appears in the shadows to be holding a gun. Dropping the twitching rat was far scarier than a gun would have been.
Brion James's performance as Parasite is just about perfect. He adds innocence, simple-mindedness and humor to the role. The Parasite of the comics was an evil murderer, but again by the genius of the writers using the no-killing disadvantage as a strength, this Parasite comes off as a weakling who gets drunk off his newfound power. He held Superman hostage in this episode in order to perpetually feed and gain his power, until being saved by Mr. Action himself - Jimmy Olsen. Whether by intelligence or luck, Superman managed to get parasite to grab hold of the chunk of Kryptonite kept in a vault from the previous episode. Parasite had gained Superman's strengths, but also his weakness, visualized by altering the villains skin color from purple to green as the radiation took hold. Following the subtle theme of the show at large, he becomes his own worst enemy.
Once he was locked up at the end, he appeared to be tame and quiet, not seeming able to talk. Then he leeched energy from a simple cockroach and smiled. Unfortunately that ending is the same as the ending of every episode so far. Obviously the writers always want the option to bring villains back for future episodes, but must every one close with the possible threat set up for later shows? The pilot ended explaining that Brainiac was still out there and would return. The first full episode ended with the Toyman's broken mask - proving he was probably still out there. The Kryptonite episode ended with a quick pan to more kryptonite buried in rock not far from Luthor's excavation team. The endings with obvious threats of return is becoming a theme unto itself by this point, and it needs some variation soon.
Another ongoing theme established in this episode is that whenever Superman encounters Kryptonite or something like the Parasite's abilities that can drain his powers, that he now has a suit that was invented by Emil Hamilton at STAR Labs that can block him from harm (There's a second suit for space travel, but it won't be used until later). At some point in most of the episodes involving substances like that in the future, Superman will put on that suit, then damage it, then solve the problem at hand without it. It hasn't become formulaic yet, but it will by the end of this season.
This episode offers the second appearance on Angela Chen, as well as a brief appearance by Ron Troupe who doesn't speak (watch carefully or you'll miss it). Commissioner Henderson also sort of shows up, played by Mel Winkler, (A Life Less Ordinary, All the Right Moves) who also played Inspector Henderson (basically the same character) on several early episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventure of Superman.
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