Superman on Television
Superman: The Animated Series - Episode Reviews
Season 1 - Episode 11: "My Girl"
Original Air Date: November 23, 1996Reviewed by: Jeffrey Taylor
Whose Lana is it anyway?
Lana Lang has had many faces and voices over the years. She first appeared early in Superboy stories as a contrast to Lois Lane, who will always be Superman's intended love. The whole idea behind Lana's existence is intrinsically tragic. If she's Superboy's primary love interest, but Superboy must grow up to become Superman and end up with Lois Lane, then Lana unfortunately ends up relegated to "the girl it just didn't work with." Superman: The Animated Series never had a Superboy for Lana to crush over. She just had normal old Clark, which makes her love for him even more poignant because she truly does fall for the man behind the symbol instead of the symbol itself.
Lana represents another in a long line of L.L. initialed characters that include Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Lori Lemaris, and by technicality: Lara-El, Superman's Kryptonian mother, plus a couple of others who have appeared in one-shots over the years, but who don't really count. In the comics, Lana was young Clark Kent's lovable friend who doted on Clark, while he thought of her more as a sister. Again, tragic. Lana was briefly introduced in Part 2 of the pilot, but as a teenager and voiced by another actress. Her return was assured and this time she was ably played by Joely Fisher (TV's Desperate Housewives and Ellen).
This isn't the shy, doting Lana from the 1986 Byrne comics, nor the over-the-top possessive one from the alternate universe in Lois & Clark. She's certainly not the oft loved/hated damsel in distress/power woman from Smallville. Lana of Superman: The Animated Series is actually quite similar to Lana from the Silver Age Superboy comics. She's peppy and she's got spunk. She's basically the same character as Lois Lane, except that she doesn't sound like a female Humphrey Bogart. But they are both unhealthily skinny.
Rating - 3 (out of 5): It's not that this was an exceptionally bad episode, it just wasn't an exceptionally good one. I have to start my mentioning Lois Lane's eyes in the first scene. They're purple. And that works when you dress her up in her purple fem-blazer and purple on white pinstripe mini skirt. It's not noticeable and it works. It fits the character and doesn't draw any anti-reality attention to itself. But when you put her in a green ball-gown, the effect stands out, and not in a good way. Minus one for error in style.
Lana's attitude towards Superman is interesting and tragic. She had seen Clark use his powers as a teenager in the pilot, so it only follows that she would know he was Superman later in Metropolis. It's somewhat adorable when she first saw Superman's suit and said, "Let me guess, Martha sewed it for you." Plus one for character.
The pronunciation of Lana's name with that insipid American "aaaaaaa" sound was obnoxious enough, but it was worsened when different characters along the way couldn't keep the pronunciations straight. Minus one for continuity (and annoying the reviewer).
In the comics of this era, Lana had worked in a dress shop in Smallville until she finally married Pete Ross and later moved up in the world. In this series, she's a high end fashion designer who hangs on the arm of Lex Luthor. Plus one for interpretation.
The villains of this episode bought some incredibly technologically advanced weapons that shoot a laser beam which excite the electrons in the target, causing it to explode after a few moments. We all know that normal guns don't hurt the Man of Steel, but wouldn't it have been more interesting if such powerful weapons could at least slow him down or cause him some level of pain? How about a simple "ow?" Minus one for giving Superman too much power.
One of the villains shot a bridge with the electron exciting gun just before a train approached and Superman had to hold up train tracks to safely help it across the chasm. Plus one for paying homage to one of the best movies ever made.
In an interesting twist, Lex actually had real feelings for Lana (stop groaning Smallville fans) and tested her loyalty, not to catch her, but in hopes that she might in fact be faithful to him. Big plus on character development.
Clark's car (yes he drives around Metropolis sometimes) has a flip top. To get in and out of the vehicle, one would have to fly, or at least be an adept Dukes of Hazard fan. It looks neat, but wouldn't work if anyone other than Superman drove it. Plus one for style. Minus one for impracticality.
The terrorists grabbed Lana at Lex's behest and hid her in a lead factory in order to block Superman's vision, but forgot how good his hearing is. At one point, Superman was covered from head to toe in molten lead, then in the blink of an eye grabbed Lana and escaped the building before it exploded. How could he not burn her with his touch? He was clearly still covered in the lead when he caught her. Minus one for basic physics. By the way, can anyone tell me why it's wise to keep massive amounts of explosives in a hot lead factory?
There was one wonderful moment in the factory where Superman used his body and cape to protect Lana from the liquefied lead before it could pour onto her. It hearkened back to a scene from the Fleischer animated shorts. It's probably the most famous single shot from that series, so have a look. Plus one for referencing Fleischer.
There was excellent foreshadowing at the end when Lana told Clark that he would find the right girl someday. "Someone quiet, understanding, patient..." and then Lois yelled "Hey, Smallville! Get your tail in here," from down the hallway. Plus one more for Dana Delany's Lois.
When reviewing, it's easy to tear apart an episode that fell completely flat, or to find praise in one that went above and beyond, delivering something truly fantastic. It's hardest when it runs straight down the middle. Nothing exceptionally good, but nothing incredibly bad. This was one of those episodes, thus the 3 out of 5 average rating. It was fun to see Lana's return as an adult, great to see a humanized Lex and tragic to see the relationship between Clark and his high school sweetheart that was never meant to be. The rest of the episode just didn't hold up. To be fair, the first season of the show was wrapping up at this point and any series' first 13 episodes have to start big and end big, which this season did. This installment just suffered a slight case of middle-child-syndrome.
Guest voices include the terrorist, Mr. Eelan who was voiced by Larry Drake (Darkman, TV's L.A. Law) and Lizzie and Big Susan played by Lauri (Laura) Fraser (A Knight's Tale, Vanilla Sky) and Valri Bromfield (TV's Animaniacs) respectively.
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