Plot summary: A mysterious alien wants the last living Kryptonian for his private collection so hires the bombastic bounty hunter, Lobo.

1. Notes and Trivia
2. Recap
3. Best Performance
4. Episode Ranking
5. Rogues Roundup

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 9 (S1.E9)

Original Air Date: November 9^th, 1996

Directed: Dan Riba (4)

Written: Paul Dini (4)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (6)

Music: Harvey R. Cohen (2)

If we follow the airdate order Professor Hamilton’s claim that the rocket has yet to be tested in deep space is inaccurate as they did exactly that in ‘Stolen Memories’… but if we follow production order then there are 2 episodes between this and Part 2… so… maybe those custom orders people suggest on Reddit have some merit!

There’s a brief glimpse of a starfish-like creature in The Preserver’s collection, intended as little more than a throwaway reference to Starro the Conqueror, the Justice League’s first villain. This would be greatly expanded upon in one of the final episodes of Batman Beyond.

Sherman Howard, who plays The Preserver, narrowly lost out on landing the role of Lex Luthor, but was instead tapped to play the equivalent role in Batman Beyond, Derek Powers/Blight.

Speaking of The Preserver, he’s almost certainly based on Marvel’s The Collector.

Recap

Professor Hamilton and STAR Labs continue testing their modifications to the rocket that brought Superman to earth. It is now capable of insane speeds within atmosphere. Hamilton ponders the wonders of the universe…

Elsewhere the crass bounty hunter Lobo raises hell in a bar on an alien world. After much brawling and shooting he gets his man/weird little bug critter, flying off on his space-bike and leaving the bar in ruins.

Lobo is abducted on his way to collect his bounty, with the eccentric Preserver hiring him to capture the last Kryptonian alive to add to his collection of oddities.

A man of action, Lobo marches right up to a police station to ask about Superman’s whereabouts. Learning he responds to trouble, Lobo shoots up the joint.

Lois asks Clark how he gets so many Superman scoops, so he tells her the truth, which she of course takes as a joke. She thinks she’s beaten him to the story of Lobo at MPD, but Supes has already swooped into action.

Superman and Lobo brawl and while Kal keeps landing heavy blows, Lobo proves impervious to harm. Clark gives up on the fight in order to save civilians, which Lobo notices and uses against him.

Lois steps in to save Superman and just like with Metallo is rewarded with sexual harassment. Superman uses the distraction to send Lobo flying. The bounty hunter elects to take a break and drives away.

Superman pursues in his modified rocket and deep-space suit and they take turns destroying each other’s vehicles… leaving them easy pickings for The Preserver’s tractor beam…

Awakening in traditional Kryptonian garb, Clark is unable to break free of his ‘exhibit’ due to a lamp that emulates his home world’s Red Sun, nullifying his powers.

Lobo taunts him and prepares to go collect his original bounty… but naturally The Preserver wants the last Czarnian for his collection too, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s Lobo!

To be continued…

Best Performance

While it constantly toes the line with being annoying, there can only be one real choice, and that’s Brad Garrett’s motormouthed merc, Lobo. He plays in the same lane as Harley Quinn and Deadpool, making light of every conceivable situation, flirting with anyone and everyone, and stopping just short of mugging for the camera. Thankfully Garrett plays the character with a surprisingly quiet tone most of the time, which helps a lot with keeping the annoying factor under wraps, and he’s probably at his best when he’s essentially muttering to himself in what might have been improvised fashion. Your mileage may vary hugely here, and if you felt it was a tour de force by Garrett, I guess I’m happy for you.

Dana Delany and Clancy Brown are excellent in very short appearances (an unfortunate trend with Lois in recent episodes!) David L. Lander is pretty great as Sqweek the bizarre little alien Lobo captures early on, too.

Episode Ranking

I guess you could call this a Villain Spotlight, but it goes way beyond that as Lobo is treated as a ‘tweener’, an obvious villain when fighting Superman, but they want you to think he’s cool when he’s going about his bounty hunting. Every line of dialogue, every action scene, every whacky little joke is designed to smash Lobo into your face and say ‘Have you seen this guy? Have you?? Have you???’ That can be fraught ground to tread, as audiences can reflexively hate having something ‘shoved down their throat’, and while I think they’re constantly in danger of that happening here, they pull him back JUST enough. Still, it feels like a bit of an audition of a spin-off, and I personally can’t imagine a less appealing idea.

The music does a lot of heavy lifting in this one, with scuzzy biker rock playing behind all of Lobo’s scenes. Much like giving certain characters non-standard fonts and speech bubble colours in comics, this kind of custom presentation makes Lobo feel ‘special.’ Great work by Harvey Cohen throughout.

I’ve talked about the gradual expanding mythos in recent episodes, with Brainiac introducing extraterrestrial threats and letting the art team come up with zany creature designs. This must have been a treat after years of mobsters and only the occasional mutant animal in BTAS, and they more than rise to the challenge, as these aliens kinda rule. Of particular note are Gnaww and Sqweek who have tiny faces above one ‘eye’… which become mouths. Truly horrifying. Likewise between the alien bar and The Preserver’s ‘collection’ there are bugs, worms, fish, and all manner of other gnarly freaks (compliment.) It’s one thing to heavily imply the existence of aliens when your main character hails from another planet, but it’s another to actually start showing some of these critters, and I’m glad they’ve gone to that well before the first season is over.

Wonderful joke with Lex’s office getting trashed twice as Lobo flies through it while fighting Superman. I didn’t include it as a full villain appearance for Luthor below, but it’s a fantastic use of a recurring character, and if you’re going to include a Bugs Bunny-ass character like Lobo, you might as well do some slapstick.

I’m going to tentatively slot the episode exactly halfway, remembering Part II could move it up or down. There’s a decent amount of fun to be had with plenty of action and cool designs, but it lacks the grandeur of ‘Stolen Memories’ and the three-part opener, and the self-contained quality of ‘Fun and Games.’

1. Fun and Games
2. The Last Son of Krypton
3. Stolen Memories
4. The Main Man (NEW ENTRY)
5. The Way of All Flesh
6. A Little Piece of Home
7. Feeding Time

Rogues Roundup

Lobo (Brad Garrett) (first appearance)

I’ll be real with you; I’ve always hated Lobo. Thus, it pains me to admit this is the least grating version of him I’ve encountered to date. It’s still a very try-hard character in the vein of when Deadpool is badly written, but he’s less obnoxiously loud than usual, and Dini reins in his dialogue a smidge.

He’s definitely from a certain era of comics, aiming to parody Wolverine but inadvertently being sincerely embraced by fans. So… exactly like Deadpool with Deathstroke. Seemingly built in a lab to be a Rad, Bad Dude, he smokes cigars, drinks, has a sick hog, KISS face paint, is covered in spikes and skulls, LOVES guns, and talks shit to Superman while fighting him to a stalemate. They haven’t even gotten into his comically over the top healing factor yet (likely due to censorship preventing the gore required to show it off), but you get the idea given Superman punches him hundreds of feet across Metropolis and he’s absolutely fine. He gets knocked down, but there’s never a scratch on him.

It is interesting that one of the biggest knocks with Superman is how few of his villains stand a chance against his overwhelming power, with even Bruce Timm lamenting how lame his rogues gallery was, but they’ve already established a trio of heavy hitters who can go blow for blow with The Man of Steel less than 10 episodes in.

Anyway, much like his showcase episode, Lobo goes straight to the middle. Not annoying me as much as I feared keeps him from the bottom, still being obnoxious keeps him from the top.

Preserver (Sherman Howard) (first appearance)

Another solid alien design, this time a weird floating egg man, with a classic comic book gimmick but almost nothing in the way of a personality. His double cross of Lobo is predictable, but I suppose it’s kinda funny that he tricked one target into capturing the other. Straight to the bottom, I’m afraid.

1. Toyman
2. Lex Luthor
3. Brainiac
4. Metallo
5. Lobo (NEW ENTRY)
6. Parasite
7. Mercy Graves
8. Bruno Mannheim
9. The Preserver (NEW ENTRY)