With the first season of STAS in the books it’s time to weigh up these thirteen episodes as a collective and take stock of the strengths and weaknesses of the show so far.

1. Season Review
2. Episode Ranking
3. Rogues Roundup

I’m forgoing the traditional breakdowns of directors, writers, animators and composers this time around and just sticking to an overall season review and then a reminder of the current standings for the episodes and villains.

I will present final numbers on all these categories when the entire series is over, but there’s really no value in it at this stage given the work was divided so evenly that very few individuals worked on multiple episodes and the points are so close it doesn’t warrant discussion. I’ll consider debuting them after Season 2 bulks up the episode count more, but whatever value I imagine they have normally is certainly not there yet.

Season Review

While it’ll never soar to the heights of its far more famous sibling, STAS is a much more solid show than I expected. With years of experience working on BTAS under their belts, this creative team knew exactly what they were doing and were able to sidestep some of the teething problems of those earliest Batman capers. It’s a smaller team of writers they trust and will use for years to come, rather than the heavily freelanced first season of BTAS, and while there are a lot of directors, the art style was simplified in such a way that likely made life easier in that regard. It doesn’t have Batman’s stylistic flourishes (no title cards, boo), but it’s also a smoother looking television show, as staying on model and working with trusted animators became king. Beyond that, it feels like the dramatic change of scenery brought with it a renewed sense of passion, with everybody excited to carve out their own version of The Man of Steel and a set of stories that mostly happen in the daytime.

They hit the ground running with a three-parter that gives Kal-El a sense of history, establishes a looming threat, depicts his life in Smallville and then moves on to a basic but effective first public appearance of Superman. I would personally have preferred the Smallville section got an entire episode for neatness and breathing room, but it still works nicely. You get to meet all your series regulars and have some solid guest stars in Malcolm McDowell and Christopher McDonald. Superman’s first big action sequences underlined their vision for the character as it takes genuine effort for him to pull off his Herculean feats, struggling to prevent a plane crash and getting the snot beaten out of him by a battle mech. Just the simple act of seeing his strained facial expressions while the music swells goes an extremely long way for a character often dismissed as massively overpowered.

From there I was pleasantly surprised at both the world building and subtly serialised nature of the show. He gets to knock over some ‘standard’ villains in Toyman, Parasite and Metallo, while Kryptonite, STAR Labs and multiple supporting characters are established before growing the scope of the show significantly with the arrival of Brainiac from the stars, and Superman heading into space to battle (and team with) Lobo. We get our first glimpses of the Fortress of Solitude and the menacing Darkseid. And they love to bring things back they debuted earlier. Whether it’s Lana Lang dating Lex Luthor, Parasite being brought in to help stop another criminal, or the upgrades in threat level for Brainiac, Metallo and Bruno Mannheim. Many villains remain at large to set up future episodes. There’s a surprising amount going on here, and none of it is forgotten.

Beyond this clarity of vision and tidy execution of their ideas, the show is buoyed by a number of great acting performances, chiefly series regulars Dana Delany and Clancy Brown as Lois Lane and Lex Luthor. Delany is phenomenally charming whether she gets focus or just a couple of lines to remind you she’s still around, at once bolshy and disarming. Flirty, funny but always fiery. She rules. As does Brown, who prevents Lex from ever being one-note despite regularly slipping into fits of pure rage. Brown nails the suave cockiness that you’d expect of an evil billionaire that’s hoodwinked most of the general public into thinking he’s a good man. Not to constantly compare STAS and BTAS, but it goes without saying you can’t really compete with the latter, and Tim Daly is no Kevin Conroy; He’s perfectly decent, but no more. They’ve landed some fun names like Malcolm McDowell, Brian Cox, Michael York and Michael Ironside, as well as great work from Joseph Bologna, Brad Garrett, Joely Fisher, Bud Cort and Corey Burton.

All of this adds up to an argument that this is one of the strongest individual seasons of any DCAU show… depending on your stance on highs vs lows. There’s absolutely nothing here that contends with the iconic BTAS episodes, but there’s also not a bad episode in the bunch for my money. Everything is much cleaner, but perhaps at the expense of memorable grandeur. I enjoyed watching this season, but I’m unlikely to dip back into many of the episodes over and over.

Finally, I will say that as somebody who does not identify as a Superman fan, thus far this is one of my favourite Superman things anywhere ever.

Episode Ranking

Just in case you have skipped straight here and are furious about anything…

I’ve counted multi-parters as a single entry as splitting them up often hurt them when covering BTAS. I’m not convinced this is better, but I figured I’d try it.

It seems an unpopular pick for the current top spot, but I just really enjoy the intense focus of ‘Fun and Games.’ It may be a traditional ‘Villain Spotlight’ episode that lacks the ambition of things like ‘Stolen Memories’ or ‘Tools of the Trade’, but sometimes there’s elegance in simplicity. I would feel better about recommending a straightforward but extremely tight episode with a charismatic villain than something that takes big swings but has some rough patches. But that’s just me, the guy who thinks ‘The Laughing Fish‘ is the best episode of BTAS.

While something had to end up near the bottom I actually didn’t dislike a single episode of this season, so would say the floor is MUCH higher than with Batman, even if the ceiling is lower (so far) as well. My bottom 4 all have great ideas but a confluence of minor issues piled up or they lacked a sense of oomph. I’m doing deeply serious writing here.

1. Fun and Games
2. The Last Son of Krypton
3. Stolen Memories
4. Tools of the Trade
5. The Main Man
6. The Way of All Flesh
7. My Girl
8. A Little Piece of Home
9. Feeding Time
10. It Takes Two

Rogues Roundup

Bruce Timm put Superman’s villains on blast when trying to break the show, and I have to say growing up I felt similarly that he only had a small handful worth talking about because he’s simply too powerful to present a convincing challenge. I’ve come to realise the group is deeper than I initially thought, and in fact the best Superman challenges are about can he save everybody in time, rather than is there a dude that could fight him.

I say all that to say I think they did a good job with this first batch. Lex Luthor functions more as a series regular than an adversary that won’t stay down. He’s extremely well written and voice acted and lends himself nicely to multi-faceted dynamics, with a third villain i the mix that’s either helping or hindering Lex with Superman caught in the middle. They also serialised a couple of the villains, with Brainiac and Metallo debuting in less dangerous forms early on before levelling up and presenting a legitimate challenge to The Man of Steel. This is also vaguely true to Bruno Mannheim, albeit to a lesser extent, and Kanto and Darkseid are mere teases of what’s to come next season. Aliens are generally a sensible way to go, with Lobo and The Preserver holding their own against our hero, while intelligent and heavy armed foes like Toyman and Earl Garver prove trickier than you might expect.

I wasn’t as into Parasite as I wanted to be, despite him arguably coming closest to killing our hero in his first appearance by draining his powers. With some fine tuning he could climb higher.

So are these guys The Joker, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy? No. But that’s the highest bar in all of fiction, so check your expectations at the door. You could do way worse than our starting roster though.

1. Toyman
2. Lex Luthor
3. Brainiac
4. Metallo
5. Lobo
6. The Preserver
7. Parasite
8. Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
9. Kanto
10. Earl Garver
11. Mercy Graves
12. Darkseid