Superman - The Last Son of Krypton

[MerelyAFan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov-I4oR5sJ0

I'm always surprised by the weird ignorance that has people thinking Superman can only be written as big blue boy scout or brooding messiah, apparently unaware of what this show and later JL/U did. They were series which, shock of shocks, actually wrote Clark to be nuanced yet still moral character. Heroic, but still interesting to watch as a man struggling with his instincts and temptations given how powerful he is.

[Mecha82]

With DCAU they pretty much made best version of Superman just like they had done to Batman. For being considred to be "just for kids" DCAU shows had far better writing than any big budget live action movie based on those characters.

[CrypticMirror]

With DCAU they pretty much made best version of Superman just like they had done to Batman. For being considred to be "just for kids" DCAU shows had far better writing than any big budget live action movie based on those characters.

Shorn of the need to be seen as "adult" the movies had, the animated team produced something genuinely mature.

Then Dini ruined it all with that Killing Joke adaptation.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yeah. Oscar winning movies have nothing on shows like this and the Adam West Batman.

Interesting they dedicated a whole episode to Krypton's destruction plot.

[drewder]

One thing that's always confused me is that the kryptonians seemed to know that going to a yellow sun would turn them into some sort of race of supermen yet didn't leave previously. They're portrayed as one of the most advanced civilizations in history so they obviously had the technology. As advanced as they were they should have spread out into the galaxy and the destruction of krypton although tragic would have been a minor setback.

Its a bit like the galaxy spanning tkon empire in tng which had the ability to move stars yet somehow died because their primary star went supernova. Sure it would have been a bad thing but it's a bit like saying the us would lose 100% of it's population if DC was nuked.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

One thing that's always confused me is that the kryptonians seemed to know that going to a yellow sun would turn them into some sort of race of supermen yet didn't leave previously. They're portrayed as one of the most advanced civilizations in history so they obviously had the technology. As advanced as they were they should have spread out into the galaxy and the destruction of krypton although tragic would have been a minor setback.

Its a bit like the galaxy spanning tkon empire in tng which had the ability to move stars yet somehow died because their primary star went supernova. Sure it would have been a bad thing but it's a bit like saying the us would lose 100% of it's population if DC was nuked.

Same thing can pretty much be said about the Vulcans. Kind of a parallel backdrop when viewed from a human-centric arena.

[Mecha82]

With DCAU they pretty much made best version of Superman just like they had done to Batman. For being considred to be "just for kids" DCAU shows had far better writing than any big budget live action movie based on those characters.

Shorn of the need to be seen as "adult" the movies had, the animated team produced something genuinely mature.

Then Dini ruined it all with that Killing Joke adaptation.

Indeed.

That Killing Joke adaption left bad taste to my mouth with how bad it was. I get that they needed to add lenght to it but that first half was so bad.

[CrypticMirror]

One thing that's always confused me is that the kryptonians seemed to know that going to a yellow sun would turn them into some sort of race of supermen yet didn't leave previously. They're portrayed as one of the most advanced civilizations in history so they obviously had the technology. As advanced as they were they should have spread out into the galaxy and the destruction of krypton although tragic would have been a minor setback.

Its a bit like the galaxy spanning tkon empire in tng which had the ability to move stars yet somehow died because their primary star went supernova. Sure it would have been a bad thing but it's a bit like saying the us would lose 100% of it's population if DC was nuked.

Same thing can pretty much be said about the Vulcans. Kind of a parallel backdrop when viewed from a human-centric arena.

We've got the tech to build moonbases and, arguably, asteroid bases, right now but we don't. Mainly because we have a bunch of whiny crybabies who on one side refuse to fund it because it isn't directly profit making, and on the other refuse to fund it because "he have to fix all our problems on Earth before we go into space" too. It is very believable, looking at the state of modern space exploration as it slides down the videogame on the sofa route, that a single disaster affecting a home population could render a species extinct even though they know how to avoid it. It is a glimpse into humanity's (lack of) future. Now go fund space exploration, properly this time.

Oh, Queen Isabella where are you now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uMQXcKswxc

[FaxModem1]

One thing that's always confused me is that the kryptonians seemed to know that going to a yellow sun would turn them into some sort of race of supermen yet didn't leave previously. They're portrayed as one of the most advanced civilizations in history so they obviously had the technology. As advanced as they were they should have spread out into the galaxy and the destruction of krypton although tragic would have been a minor setback.

Its a bit like the galaxy spanning tkon empire in tng which had the ability to move stars yet somehow died because their primary star went supernova. Sure it would have been a bad thing but it's a bit like saying the us would lose 100% of it's population if DC was nuked.

As mentioned, they're a society that wasn't as forward looking as they could be, same as ours.

It's also worth mentioning that Jor El's rocket seems to be the apex of Kryptonian technology, as in that they don't seem to have giant transports ready to take colonists somewhere. They could, just as we could, transport colonists to another world, but they don't.

We know from Supergirl in the DCAU that they did establish another colony in the system, but they all died out as well, with only Kara surviving due to cryostasis.

In other versions of Krypton(which there have been many), the writers of DC made it to where Krypton was a world so culturally dead that it wasn't that big a tragedy that the world was destroyed, due to them barely seeming alive, as they had turned insular, only reproducing via cloning, abandoning attempts at empire building, etc. One thing that this episode did, and that the creators of Superman the Animated Series wanted to ensure, was that Krypton WAS a world worth mourning. It doesn't define Superman, but it is a part of him.

Personally, I like this version over the one that's seen in a lot of Superman comics, films, and adaptations, in which they're a very scientifically advanced people, culturally more advanced than us in a few ways, but they're still people, and the universe is poorer for it's loss. I also like the look of being a scifi culture as opposed to "CRYSTALS. CRYSTALS EVERYWHERE, the KRYPTONIANS BUILT EVERYTHING WITH CRYSTALS AND NOTHING BUT CRYSTALS" that seemed to permeate Superman pop culture since the 1970s movie.

[Scififan]

I am really happy to see you doing this series finally. In some ways I liked this more than Batman TAS and I do think that this show exemplified what Superman is all about.