Plot summary: Darkseid and the forces of Apokalips make their next move against Superman, as Kalibak attempts to kill The Man of Steel to win his father’s favour.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 28 (S2.E15)
Original Air Date: September 29th, 1997
Directed: Dan Riba (8)
Written: Mark Evanier (2) & Steve Gerber (1)
Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (18)
Music: Shirley Walker (1)
The events of this episode were set up in ‘Tools of the Trade‘. As I mentioned then, the notion of Darkseid as the ‘Final Boss’ of DC was really not a thing in the comics and this show is arguably responsible for that shift in attitude in the last 30 years.
Shirley Walker finally joins the party after composing the main theme but not scoring a single episode up to now. The trio of Carter, McCuistion and Ritmanis ended up being the ‘main’ DCAU composers going forward (with some Harvey Cohen sprinkled in) but Shirley still had some work in her!
The maître d’ looks EXACTLY like (but is presumably not literally) Arnold ‘The Ventriloquist’ Wesker, and is even voiced by the same actor, the great George Dzundza. This might be intentional as there’s an episode of TNBA where Wesker walks through a park where Lois & Clark are sitting on the grass. But we know Wesker was living and working in Gotham at the time, so it seems more of a meta nod than an in-universe thing.
Recap
Lois is jogging in the park when an orb-shaped drone piloted remotely by DeSaad from Apokalips lands and begins wreaking havoc, bringing Superman to the scene.
Kal is able to overcome the craft’s considerable firepower, causing Darkseid to order a self-destruct. Superman flies it away from the park to prevent casualties.
DeSaad calls the test a success in assessing our hero’s capabilities but Darkseid admonishes him for failing. He refuses to allow Bruno Mannheim to return to earth, and also rejects his monstrous son, Kalibak’s plea to give conquest a try.
Ever the schemer, DeSaad approaches Kalibak and convinces him to go to earth in secret, offering to let him take all the credit when he defeats Superman.
Arriving right outside a restaurant where Clark is late for a lunch with Lois and and his parents (in town for Father’s Day… get it?), Kalibak gets to smashing.
Superman arrives on the scene and the two brawl in the streets (and briefly in the subway below), where Clark struggles to keep bystanders safe and fend off the hulking invader.
Motivated by his father being in danger, Superman goes Neo-mode, easily blocking Kalibak’s punches and tossing him miles outside the city before rescuing Jonathan.
Darkseid appears to banish Kalibak, easily flooring Superman when he tries to confront him, before returning to Apokalips, making it clear there are more steps to his plan…
Best Performance
Oooo boy are we spoiled for choice. Michael Ironside’s chilling stoicism as Darkseid? Robert Morse’s conniving DeSaad? Mike Farrell’s ‘kids these days with their computers’ turn as Pa Kent? Dana Delany charming her way into lunch with the Kents?
Who are we kidding? Obviously it’s Michael Ironside. He’s SO good at talking shit to his minions, eviscerating Kalibak and DeSaad, going as far as to say he has no son. I also loved the measured delivery of “And did you?” when Kalibak says he wanted to kill Superman for him. It’s only three words and you’d be forgiven for thinking you can’t fuck them up, but they convey so much. Darkseid is pissed that his son disobeyed him, but he remains calm and almost makes him mock himself for failing. It’s teaching. It’s opportunity. It rules. He nails the more elaborate dialogue too, from matter-of-factly telling Superman what’s to come to explaining to DeSaad why he let Clark live. As perfect a casting as exists in this medium, truly.
Episode Ranking
Oh hey, look at these guys doing their fancy script with two different father/son stories in conflict with each other! The Kents’ visit doesn’t end up being quite as big of a deal as you might think (Superman would obviously have rushed to help whether his parents were in the restaurant or not), but it is charming while it lasts. From Jonathan bamboozled by their new fangled technology at the Daily Planet to Martha making it pretty clear Clark is smitten with Lois, I wish they had time for the Kents a little more often. I say Martha makes it clear, Lois does not in fact pick up on that, or her shouting Clark’s name while Supes is catching a beatdown, so not really Miss Lane’s finest hour. Still, they stick the landing on this duality as both hero and villain are motivated to get back up by their fathers after huge beatings. Darkseid’s admonishment refuels Kalibak’s rage tank, while Jonathan being in danger allows Superman to go god mode and win the fight.
Speaking of Kalibak and Darkseid, they’re obviously the main pull of the episode, giving us our second window into the creative team’s longterm plans for the show. Apokalips frankly looks incredible. The planetary shots could stand to be a smidge more Kirby, but in general it all looks great, with the fire and brimstone aesthetic in stark contrast to Metropolis being perpetually bright and beautiful. The cast of characters that occupy the planet are incredible as you’ll read a LOT about below, and I never stop enjoying when they add new wrinkles to the mythos of the show to expand its scope. That idea that there’s a whole universe of powerful beings out there that I talked about with Lobo and The Preserver. That’s chiefly expressed through fight scenes that are taken to a greater extreme than we’ve seen so far, but the character dynamics and dialogue bolster it all really nicely.
I really didn’t expect a score like this from Shirley Walker, but I liked it! Very high energy and uptempo rather than the moody orchestral strings she’s best known for. I don’t think it would scream ‘alien threat’ in a vacuum… but something about it really works given the brute force threat Kalibak provides. These boys just keep fighting!
I can’t go toooo far, because it’s clearly just an opening salvo of what’s to come, and the top episodes were able to pull off some higher concept stuff, but I’m surprised this one isn’t talked about more!
- Brave New Metropolis
- Livewire
- Double Dose
- Fun and Games
- Father’s Day (NEW ENTRY)
- The Last Son of Krypton
- Ghost in the Machine
- Stolen Memories
- Action Figures
- The Prometheon
- Tools of the Trade
- The Main Man
- Mxzypixilated
- Blasts from the Past
- Target
- The Way of All Flesh
- Solar Power
- My Girl
- A Little Piece of Home
- Feeding Time
- Speed Demons
- Two’s a Crowd
- Identity Crisis
- Monkey Fun
Rogues Roundup
Kalibak (Michael Dorn) (first appearance)
In terms of character work everything begins and ends for Kalibak with his desperate need to prove himself to his father (loved him reliving Darkseid’s harsh words as a motivator to get up and keep fighting), and he’s otherwise just a big dumb behemoth.
But there is an elegant simplicity to that, as he beats the shit out of Superman in a way we haven’t seen so far. Livewire and Brainiac have zapped him. Parasite and Metallo have drained him. Lobo, Mala and Jax-Ur felt evenly matched with him. But Kalibak repeatedly slams his face into concrete and ragdolls him around by one ankle, unleashing a level of violence and physicality we’ve not seen to date.
He also gets as good as he gives, with Superman hitting him as hard as he has anybody, including grabbing a pair of cars and clapping, and eventually just fucking yeeting him out into the countryside. A key tenet of the character is that he holds back, so it’s nice when we get villains that let him flex a little more.
Darkseid (Michael Ironside) (second appearance)
What a fucking guy. His brutal declaration that nobody gets a second chance is a little cliché, but there’s something unsettling about how calm and calculating he is despite being a death metal demon. Refusing to let his son go to earth but then punishing Mannheim for mocking Kalibak is a good wrinkle. It’s not out of love for his boy – going as far as to call their relationship “a technicality of his birth” – but rather because Bruno asked why he’d even keep Kalibak around, and Darkseid won’t be questioned.
I love the touch of having his shadow look absolutely enormous as he sneaks up on DeSaad, and while he is being deceived there is an overall vibe that nothing happens on Apokalips without him knowing. You also give him all these cronies so that you can keep having them cower in fear at his very presence, which is a great shortcut for communicating how powerful he is.
Then of course we have our first confrontation between him and Supes, easily bringing our hero to his knees before deciding to just leave. Sometimes you’ve just got to put people on notice, ya know? Actually, I guess Superman does resist the Omega Beams a little, which appears to annoy Darkseid, but he just turns up the heat and wins the exchange.
I was torn between moving him all the way up into second place, but I can’t do that to Lex after he just earned that spot. More to come though! Watch out Livewire…
DeSaad (Robert Morse) (first appearance)
A snivelling little worm, essentially. I think flunkies like this are necessary for a Big Bad like Darkseid, and his expertise with whacky weaponry is a fun quirk, totally at odds with his wizard-like garb. You also get a small degree of ‘palace intrigue’ with him going behind Darkseid’s back and manipulating the dimwitted Kalibak to try and cover himself in glory, and then lying through his teeth when Darkseid finds out.
I’d love to see how he plays off Kanto, but obviously screen time is limited with these kinds of ensembles.
Bruno Mannheim (Bruce Weitz) (third appearance)
Given Darkseid chiefly surrounds himself with more explicitly alien and weird-looking followers I’ve always found his regular human henchmen funnier, so seeing a mobster hanging out on a hell planet and trying to sweet talk Space Satan is wonderful stuff.
He’s mostly just here to give Darkseid somebody else to bully, banishing him to the mines for making pissy comments, but it’s nice to see him either way.
- Livewire
- Lex Luthor
- Darkseid (↑)
- Toyman
- Metallo
- Parasite
- Brainiac
- Mr. Mxyzptlk
- Kalibak (NEW ENTRY)
- Lobo
- Luminus
- Mercy Graves
- DeSaad (NEW ENTRY)
- The Preserver
- Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!) (–)
- Kanto
- Mala & Jax-Ur
- The Prometheon
- Bizarro
- Earl Garver
- Titano
- Detective Bowman
- Weather Wizard
The Matt Signal 
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