Plot summary: When the demonic Karkull is unleashed Superman implores an old acquaintance for help – the enigmatic Dr. Fate.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 33 (S2.E20)
Original Air Date: October 11th, 1997
Directed: Dan Riba (9)
Written: Hilary J Bader (6) & Stan Berkowitz (6)
Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (19)
Music: Shirley Walker (2)
They never say his real name, but this is Kent Nelson, the most frequently occurring iteration of Dr. Fate.
Superman’s vulnerability to magic is established for the first time in the series. It’s not that he’s particularly weak to magic like he is to Kryptonite, but rather his near invulnerability doesn’t extend to magic. Basically he’s barely more likely to survive a magic attack than Batman. Hence him struggling here more than normal, but not instantly dropping to his knees.
This episode almost aired twice in one day due to a scheduling error.
Recap
While raiding the archeology department of Metropolis University a thief discovers a tablet hidden inside a jar. He reads the inscription, which magically transforms itself to English. Red flag, my man.
Gradually transforming into a more demonic creature, he flees security and spooks everybody he encounters. ‘Karkull’ is fully unleashed, destroys the tablet and attacks a cop, declaring himself free forever.
Overhearing his rampage, Superman swoops down and they battle. I wouldn’t go as far as to say Karkull beats the piss out of our hero… but he does draw blood while suffering no damage himself.
Making matters worse, Karkull invokes “The Lords of Chaos” to erect a magical barrier around the Daily Planet (where else?) which Superman can’t penetrate.
Maggie Sawyer and the cops have no more luck with whacky sci-fi weaponry the next day. A friendly goth girl claims to have answers, but Dan Turpin is driven wild with Boomer rage and shoos her.
Inspired, Superman seeks the aid of an ‘old acquaintance’, Dr. Fate, who fought Karkull 100 years ago but refuses to help now as he’s grown weary from the battle against evil and withdrawn to the astral plane. I guess?
Clark scolds him and leaves, with Fate’s wife, Inza, taking pity and handing him a magical talisman that ends up opening a hole in the magic barrier.
And not a moment too soon as Karkull finishes a summoning ritual to call forth little demons to possess the various hostages trapped in the building with him… including Lois and Jimmy!
Superman tries his best but is quickly overwhelmed. Luckily Fate had a change of heart and teleports in to even the odds, having remade the magical tablet Karkull destroyed.
Together the heroes banish Karkull back into the tablet and Fate tells Superman that his determination inspired him to return to the fight against evil.
Best Performance
“My real name’s Doris, but my elf friends call me Rainsong.” followed by “Okay, Tink, back to Neverland.” is just a fantastic piece of banter and precisely how you utilise Turpin. Why they had him show up to utter the most generic possible dialogue when they could have been doing this kind of loveable grump stuff I do not know. I do enjoy Cree Summer and Joseph Bologna but I can’t give this award to a single back and forth… can I?
If we’re looking at the episode overall… I suppose it would be Ted Levine. It’s not a towering performance, and if anything they cast him for his trademark off-putting and sedate demeanour to slightly subvert expectations. Sure, they crank the deep echoey vocal effects up and Karkull says a lot of generic ‘foolish mortal’ type shit, but there an offbeat mellow energy to the character that I think really works, selling the idea that this guy is just an entirely different type of threat than anything Superman has faced so far. Plus props for sticking with all the mumbo jumbo incantation stuff.
George Del Hoyo and Jennifer Lien are unfortunately not worth writing home about as the enigmatic Dr. Fate and Inza. They’re just good enough to keep the mystique going, but it would be nice if they had another gear to them.
Episode Ranking
Occasionally I’m blessed with a DCAU episode that feels like it was written specifically for me.
Taking Superman into the supernatural corner of DC and inviting the art team to get their Lovecraft on is also playing to my tastes, and it was genuinely pretty gnarly to see Daily Planet employees running for their lives as flying manta rays flew into their brains and mutilated them into demons. They weren’t lazy with the designs either, as the first couple being mini-Karkulls might lead you to believe, with a good half dozen or so variations on the theme. They could easily have enforced uniformity without making it ‘worse’ but I really appreciate that they took the time to diversify. And then there’s the giant shadow monster in the pit, depicted as just eyes and teeth, and Superman barely avoids getting eaten. Love an imperceivable basement monster! I also really love the touch that as Karkull is sucked into the tablet at the end he is ripped off the thief like he’s a costume.
Every so often I mention to a friend of mine that I’ve latched onto certain comic characters that are slightly off the beaten path and am met with a difficult to answer “Why?” Dr. Fate isn’t exactly niche, but I don’t think there are many people that could call themselves huge fans… and yet here I am, inexplicably an enthusiast. So his inclusion in this episode automatically endears it to me without them even having to try very hard; show the Tower of Fate and all his little mystical trinkets and I’m generally pretty happy. The Helm of Fate calling to Kent Nelson ‘like the Green Goblin mask’ is compelling imagery, delaying the arrival of the man himself in all his glory for a to build a little more tension.
The problem with ‘The Big ManTM’ is he’s a lot of bark and an inconsistent amount of bite. His big debut is teased out, he arrives in bombastic fashion, he talks a huge game… and then his plan is pretty easily thwarted by Karkull’s goons and all he can do is exclaim “No!!!” And then he keeps getting ensnared by tentacles while making various struggle noises, occasionally firing off an energy bolt while waiting for Superman to retrieve his McGuffin. In an ideal world you have him carve up the demons (non-lethally of course) to show off his powers before requiring an assist to re-banish Karkull. Instead if you weren’t familiar with the character you’d assume he’s a D-List loser, and while they tease his immense Big Picture importance, it does seem like the goal is to establish how much better Superman is than every other superhero. Especially when you consider The Flash’s appearance earlier this season…
I’m torn about the notion of Superman having met Fate ‘off-screen’. On the one hand you’re robbing the audience of a first-time encounter, but on the other it makes the world feel lived-in, and by giving our hero more knowledge than the audience you do create a sense of mystery. So I guess what I’m saying is I’m not torn at all and think it’s good. It does pair nicely with the aforementioned Flash episode, and will continue to do so as we go on and add more DC characters.
And then you’ve got the amateur coven of alt girls. They’re clearly deployed for some degree of comic relief, with Turpin naturally detesting them on sight. Teen pop culture had developed a minor obsession with witchcraft in the mid-90s, and Rainsong and her gang feel like they’re simultaneously playfully jabbing at a subculture that the writers find perplexing… and also a nice little piece of representation. It would have been cool to time the resolution of the Karkull threat with them finishing their spell so that they think they saved the day, but you can’t have everything.
The episode almost does have everything from my very specific perspective, but I can’t overlook how anticlimactically everything is resolved. I don’t think we’re quite in ‘should have been a two-parter’ territory, but it does feel a lot like they simply ran out of steam after a really strong first two acts. All the pieces were there but it just didn’t come together in a satisfying way. Fate arriving and immediately getting owned, Superman having to get the tablet for him, and then a slightly limp final conversation where Fate seems to have discovered the notion of heroic determination for the first time just knock it down a few slots compared to episodes that are strong from start to finish.
- Brave New Metropolis
- World’s Finest
- Livewire
- Double Dose
- Fun and Games
- Father’s Day
- The Hand of Fate (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
- Bizarro’s World
Rogues Roundup
Karkull (Ted Levine) (first appearance)
Before we go any further he’s going to score highly based on the design alone. A hooded chthonic sorcerer monster? Come on! He doesn’t even need to do anything other than slither and slime his way down the street, tentacles and arms every which way, terrifying everyone and he’s already got a place in my heart. And then his first action is to attack cops with magic spells?! COME ON!
You could definitely argue Karkull is a generic mwahaha monster man trying to conquer the world and enslave mankind, but he has a subtle sense of humour to him that I think does wonders. From his general taunting of Superman to pointing out Clark can’t hurt his lil servants as he may kill a friend, I like my demons a smidge bitchy and a lot powerful, and they kind of nail that brief. He’d need to talk a lot more to crack the Top 5, but the Rule of Cool still carries him pretty far.
- Livewire
- Darkseid
- Lex Luthor
- The Joker
- Toyman
- Metallo
- Parasite
- Karkull (NEW ENTRY)
- Brainiac
- Mr. Mxyzptlk
- Kalibak
- Harley Quinn
- Lobo
- Luminus
- DeSaad
- The Preserver
- Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
- Kanto
- Mala & Jax-Ur
- Mercy Graves
- The Prometheon
- Earl Garver
- Titano
- Bizarro
- Detective Bowman
- Weather Wizard
The Matt Signal 
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