Even as the Superman feature film series collapsed into inanity in the late 1980s, the mythos continued in another form. The Man of Steel returned to Saturday mornings in this half-hour CBS series created by Ruby-Spears Productions. With a focus on fidelity to previous media entries, this one-season series boasts a re-orchestration of John Williams' "Superman March" as a theme song, and re-purposes the opening narration of the 1950s Adventures of Superman.
The great Marv Wolfman serves as the story editor for 1988's Superman, and Beau Weaver provided the voices of Clark/Superman. In these tales, Clark frequently clashes with his regular nemesis, Lex Luthor, who is aided not by the movies' Miss Tessmacher, but a character similar in nature: Jessica Morganberry.
Meanwhile, all the old friends at the Daily Planet -- Lois, Jimmy and Perry White -- are also on hand. Typically, each episode of Superman (1988) features a main story, and then a short vignette from the so-called "Superman Family Album."
In "Destroy the Defendroids," Superman and Lois are enjoying a romantic flight over Metropolis together when Superman must set down to battle a remote-controlled tank of some type.
After defeating the robot vehicle, he traces it back to Lex-Corp. Luthor claims that he is "strictly a legitimate businessman" but threatens Superman with his Kryptonite ring nonetheless. Meanwhile, Luthor donates to the city a squad of specially-built "Defendroids," robots which can accomplish the same super deeds as The Man of Steel.
When a fire rages out of control at an apartment building, the Defendroids get all the good press for rescuing two trapped children, and make Superman look like yesterday's news. Superman resigns from service, but secretly uses his new-found anonymity to discover Luthor's real plan: "Operation Nugget," the robbery of a train carrying a billion dollars worth of gold. Superman defeats Luthor's scheme, and Lex quips "I've seen cats with less lives than that man!"
In "The Superman Family Album" portion of the episode, "The Adoption," we witness Martha and Jonathan Kent take young Clark to the orphanage after discovering the strange boy on their farm. The orphanage would prefer younger parents, so the Kents must say goodbye to the boy...forever.
But Clark knows who he wants his parents to be, and even as a toddler demonstrates a propensity towards action.
When other couples come to adopt him, Clark acts out -- demolishing a bed room, or flying in a lion from the local zoo -- and scares off the prospective parents. Finally, the exasperated workers at the orphanage have no choice but to let the Kents adopt young Clark...
Unlike the six-minute Filmation Superman adventures on The New Adventures of Superman, these episodes from the 1988 program allow a bit more time for character development, which is a relief.
In "Destroy the Defendroids" it looks as if Superman's out of a job...and Lois isn't about to take that lying down. The story is fun, if relatively predictable given Superman history, but even after just one episode it is annoying how Luthor weasels out of getting caught. Superman always stops his plans, but somehow never lands the villain in jail. It seems that if Superman focused a little more on catching Luthor red-handed, so-to-speak, he could get rid of the menace permanently.
On a design note, I'm not entirely enamored of the visual approach regarding characters. Both Lex and Superman seem to possess heads much too small for their pumped-up, steroidal bodies. They look mis-proportioned.
On the other hand, there are moments here when -- looking at Clark Kent -- I swear I can see Christopher Reeves, which is a nice touch.
The "Superman Family Album" section of the episode is extremely silly, and seems to run counter to the whole idea that Clark needs to hide in Smallville as a child, before growing up and moving to Metropolis.
If Clark really pulled off the egregious, crazy stunts we witness here in this vignette, it wouldn't be long before every newspaper reporter within a hundred miles was coming to get a good look at the amazing baby who could levitate a rocking horse, or tame a lion.
I remember a _Comics Scene_ feature on this series when it debuted, and it mentioned that BJ Ward was voicing Wonder Woman for an episode. Since she had voiced WW on at least a couple of seasons of _SuperFriends_, I think this was one of the earliest realizations I had about the idea of "crossovers" within TV series.
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