Plot summary: Superman and The Flash agree to a race for charity to determine the Fastest Man Alive, unaware the Weather Wizard is using them to power his nefarious schemes.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 17 (S2.E4)
Original Air Date: September 13th, 1997
Directed: Toshihiko Masuda (2)
Written: Rich Fogel (2)
Animation: TMS-Kyokuichi Corporation (7)
Music: Michael McCuistion (6)
One of the biggest unknowns in the DCAU for a long time was whether their version of The Flash is Barry Allen or Wally West. Justice League eventually confirmed the latter was serving on the team… but some doubt remains around this episode. It’s a different voice actor but is written identically, so while it’s possible this is Barry and then Wally later took over off-screen… it’s far more likely this is meant to be Wally too. Episode writer Rich Fogel certainly said in his head it was Wally. Watchtower Database made a fun video about if Barry actually exists in the DCAU.
The episode’s original title was ‘The Fastest Man Alive’ and the story is not based on any particular version of the many instances of Superman and Flash racing in the comics.
Miguel Ferrer lends his iconic voice to Weather Wizard. He coincidentally played a slightly different version of the character in the notoriously terrible live action TV movie, Justice League of America, released 3 months after this episode.
Recap
Superman and The Flash prepare for a charity race of ONE HUNDRED laps around the world for the title of ‘Fastest Man Alive’. Their progress will be monitored by tracker bands and the assembled crowd are split down the middle as to who will win.
They sprint out of Metropolis, over a bridge, through the desert, across the ocean and more, with Flash enjoying a very narrow lead after 15 laps.
Unfortunately it turns out the armbands are also harnessing ‘ionic energy’ generated by the speedsters and feeding it to The Weather Wizard, who conjures a huge storm off Northern Australia.
Superman immediately flies away from the race to help a ship caught in the storm, with Flash reluctantly tagging along. They’re competitive about it, but save everybody and the storm dies down.
Balking at Weather Wizard’s $1billion ransom demand, they go after him but encounter a sudden blizzard so severe it freezes them in place. Thankfully both are able to escape with their respective powers.
They also both deduce that the race tracking bands are being used against them, so Superman destroys them both. Weather Wizard gives them 15 minutes to pay or he’ll destroy Metropolis.
Arriving at the villain’s hideout, the heroes circumvent a lightning shield by tunnelling their way in and are eventually able to disarm their dangerous foe and destroy his machine.
Superman flies everybody to safety, Weather Wizard goes to prison, the heroes come to an understanding and then start a new race.
Best Performance
As someone who saw Justice League/JLU before this episode, hearing Charlie Schlatter‘s voice coming out of The Flash was strange, but he’s undeniably really good. The biggest thing is that he’s the cockiest man in the world, and also a little bit of a sleaze, with the first 60 seconds of the episode cramming in plenty of smack talk to Superman before the starting gun. There are some slightly diminishing returns as the episode goes on, but he’s got less of a crowd to play to, so it tracks.
This isn’t a bad outing for Tim Daly, as Superman’s nearly infinite patience is tested so much that he gets a bit snippy. It humanises him, not that he’s in desperate need of it as their version is always warm. But yeah, him telling Flash to STFU and even hitting him with some razzing of his own by the end was fun.
Miguel Ferrer is basically on autopilot. Not bad by any means, but entirely forgettable. The ‘Australian’ accents during the storm scene were awful. Boooo.
Episode Ranking
Taking one of the most enduring ideas in all of comics, a race between the two most famous speedsters (sorry, Quicksilver) and finding a way to make it kind of a drag is impressive if you ask me.
The actual racing is plenty of fun (having a whale jump over them while they sprint across the water especially), but deploying a shitty version of an already not amazing villain, and devoting two-thirds of the episode to them is a recipe for failure. Sure, it let them demonstrate the personality differences between the two heroes, with Superman instantly dropping out of the race to save lives while Flash needed some coaxing. Likewise, Flash tries to bolt straight after they’re done before coming back to ask if Superman will tag along. Plus their different approaches to escaping being frozen solid are kinda fun. But that stuff only goes so far, and instead we spend a great deal of time with an underwhelming drama between the villain and his little brother.
Having the brother object repeatedly to how his machine is being used, only to be shouted down by Weather Wizard should result in the brother helping save the day in a normal script. Generally you’d expect him to shut the machine down himself, or at least clue the heroes in on how to do it, but instead they stumble on him by total random chance, and while he directs them to the hideout, it wasn’t very far away at all, so they didn’t do a great job of making it seem like he was essential to the victory. He gives them no such insight into how to disable the machine either.
All of that is made way worse by the fact Lois and Jimmy aren’t seen again after the opening. This was a global special attraction and Flash agreed to an exclusive interview (by hitting on her), so could we not get a couple of cutaways to them monitoring the progress of the race and reactions to the impending unnatural disasters? Nobody is going to react to this enormous media event being cancelled? If you’re not going to make the brother stuff mean anything, I’d rather you gave his screen time to people we like and care about. Did Weather Wizard even need a brother? Plenty of villains monologue. Oh, and I have absolutely no clue what the value was in him wearing a disguise at the starting line, only to drive miles away and dispose of it. He looked like a generic white guy either way, and there was no discernable advantage to witnessing the start of the race given the event had broadcast coverage! Just start your plan from your hidden base!
So yeah, there’s fun to be had from the race itself, the visuals, and the two big personalities clashing, but there’s simply too little of that and too much of a powerfully underwhelming villain.
- Fun and Games
- The Last Son of Krypton
- Stolen Memories
- The Prometheon
- Tools of the Trade
- The Main Man
- Blasts from the Past
- The Way of All Flesh
- My Girl
- A Little Piece of Home
- Feeding Time
- Speed Demons (NEW ENTRY)
- Two’s a Crowd
Rogues Roundup
Weather Wizard (Miguel Ferrer) (first appearance)
He looks exactly like Agent Bennet from Batman Beyond. So that’s something! I’ve already cooked him plenty in the episode review, because he’s a huge part of why it isn’t very good.
What else is there to say? He’s the most generic looking villain to date, just putting on some slightly unorthodox eyewear and wearing a turquoise turtleneck. Such super villain costume! Affixing a younger brother character to him means he’s not a smart villain who invented incredible tech. He’s just a shitty dude who unleashes bad weather and is taken down really easily.
Darkseid’s rise to the top has begun!
- Toyman
- Lex Luthor
- Brainiac
- Metallo
- Lobo
- The Preserver
- Parasite
- Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
- Kanto
- Mala & Jax-Ur
- The Prometheon
- Earl Garver
- Mercy Graves
- Darkseid
- Weather Wizard (NEW ENTRY)
The Matt Signal 
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