Plot summary: Toyman returns to stalk a famous supermodel who is not quite what she seems…
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 45 (S3.E4)
Original Air Date: October 31st 1998
Directed: Dan Riba (12)
Written: Paul Dini (11) (story) and Andrew Donkin & Ron Fogelman (1) (story & teleplay)
Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (29)
Music: Shirley Walker (3)
The events of this episode are wrapped up in the Static Shock episode ‘Toys in the Hood’. Theoretically I’ll cover that show one day.
Darci’s black and white swimsuit look when taken prisoner by Toyman near the end is patterned after the original line of Barbie Dolls.
Lana Lang was of course established as a successful fashion designer in ‘My Girl‘
Recap
Lana Lang introduces her new line of swimwear, with even Clark getting hot under the collar at the site of signature model Darci Mason.
Turns out Toyman feels the same way, sending some of his automatons to try and kidnap her. Superman smashes them real good and ensures Darci’s safety, but believes she knows more than she tells the police. Way to believe women, Clark!
Seeking a follow-up interview, Clark lets himself into her apartment when nobody answers the door and is suspicious of the total lack of personal effects or food in the fridge.
Darci returns home and agrees not to call the cops thanks to Clark claiming to be a friend of Lana. She insists she doesn’t need any help, but Superman ends up having to defend her from a robotic kangaroo that hops right through her balcony.
Lana finds Darci in her studio after hours… taking a blowtorch to her face! That’s right, the supermodel sensation is in fact a robot and is repairing herself after getting injured in the fracas.
Darci confirms Toyman built her, modelling and naming her after a line of dolls that were popular years ago. She wants to kill her creator, but makes sure to terrorise Lana a bit first, leaving her to die in a fire.
Obviously Superman saves Lana, who fills him in on Darci’s true nature. Talk of the devil, she raids Toyman’s hideout but is unable to mruder her maker due to latent programming.
Superman comes to her rescue but finds himself locked in a combat arena with ‘Death Fist Ninja’, which he’s eventually able to defeat and overload the energy fence keeping them trapped.
Toyman escapes with Darci in a helicopter, but she realises while she can’t hurt him directly she is able to disable the chopper and ostensibly kill them both before Superman can catch up.
Some time later Darci’s death is reported but naturally we see her leaving town by train, easily able to carry luggage too heavy for the attendant.
Best Performance
Umm… where the fuck is Dana Delany? It made sense for Lois to be missing from an episode set in Clark’s youth in Smallville, but she’s been in all but 1 episode set in the present so I demand justice.
Turns out Bud Cort is still superlatively creepy as Toyman though, so it would have taken one of Delany’s best efforts to take the crown. What’s even to say at this point? Almost every line of dialogue gives me the shivers, including but not limited to “Nobody’s going to come between my Darci and me.”, the twisted “You could never hurt me.” when she realises she is literally unable to harm him, and of course “I know there’s a place for me in your heart… I just have to find it.” as he approaches her with a fucking power drill.
Everybody else is decent – good, even – but it feels pointless even acknowledging them given what Cort is doing in this episode.
Episode Ranking
The level of creepiness from Toyman counts both towards his villain ranking and the episode itself, because the art design, animation, music, script and voice acting all work in concert to create a delightfully uncomfortable atmosphere. From the very first shot of Schott (lol, shot of Schott) playing with his little array of creations in the shadows, up to him lording it over Superman from an enormous high chair, flanked by killer robots, the disturbing vibes are off the charts.
Dini’s hand in the episode is abundantly clear if you’ve watched his BTAS episodes, as he specialised in stories featuring the likes of Mad Hatter and Baby-Doll, but it also evokes episodes like ‘Read My Lips‘ and ‘Torch Song‘, with the latter featuring a similar stalker scenario. Dini just has a knack for these kind of genuinely unsettling villains and a feeling of legitimate danger while still playing within the rules of children’s cartoon censorship. For example Darci’s self-repair is full-on body horror, but as we know by now you can kind of do what you want with aliens, monsters and robots. The reveal of her true nature is really well done, with the tease of her bare-bones apartment and Clark not noticing her take a pretty nasty faceplant. The audience of course sees the big bloodless crack in her face (which remains for the rest of the episode), and then having Lana walk in on her patching herself up works really well, as we’re already on high-alert for stalkers targeting vulnerable women. And from there we transition into Darci turning from victim to villain as she chases Lana around the studio, which of course makes for a perfect location for such a scene, covered as it is in mannequins and dozens of giant pictures of her. You could easily imagine this being a scene in a slasher flick. Plus it nicely mirrors the shrine Toyman has of her from earlier in the episode.
I really liked the little video-game-come-to-life battle from the end, complete with ‘health meters’, a cavalcade of Toyman’s creations cheering in the stands, and some distinct music from Shirley Walker, who scores the entire episode perfectly, which makes sense given this is such a BTAS style episode for the most part. Toyman seizing manual control after Superman susses out the rhythm of Death Fist Ninja with a console that looks like an arcade machine is a very cute touch.
Darci is a fascinating little character. We’ve seen that Toyman is generally not able to make such lifelike creations, and not only does she fully pass for human physically, but she thinks and feels for herself, so no matter what they do with her in terms of temporarily becoming a villain herself (they even give her the BTAS style ‘the bad guy is still out there!’ ending) there’s no end of tragedy to her situation. She just wants to live a normal life (as a rich, famous supermodel but still!) while this demented little creature perpetually thinks of her as his property and seeks to literally strip her of her autonomy so she’ll be an obedient doll. Someone much smarter than me could probably make some very cogent points about a living doll opting to become a model. Like Lana is literally using her to play dress-up, and both she and Toyman have ‘shrines’ of a sort to her. Is that something? It feels like something!
Given everything else going on it was really just flexing to also toss in Superman putting out the fire with a huge clap that generates sufficient wind to douse the flames, but at the expense of blowing the windows out and sending a rush of embers out into the night air. Just a really cool little animation flourish.
This is an even better episode than ‘Fun and Games‘, which I’m apparently so much higher on than the average fan of the show. Imagine my confusion learning this is one of the lowest rated episodes! It fucking rules man! What more do you want from television? Superman gets a legitimate challenge from a staggeringly compelling villain while the life of a sympathetic victim hangs in the balance. It looks great. It sounds great. The dialogue and voice acting are great. It borrows a lot from its far more beloved Batman-helmed predecessor. This is one I’d recommend to anyone sceptical of trying the show, and given that was my entire justification for putting ‘The Late Mr. Kent‘ over ‘Brave New Metropolis‘, it feels hypocritical of me to not slide this all the way… to the top of the list!
- Obsession [NEW ENTRY]
- The Late Mr. Kent
- Brave New Metropolis
- Apokalips… Now!
- World’s Finest
- Livewire
- Double Dose
- Fun and Games
- Warrior Queen
- Knight Time
- Father’s Day
- Little Girl Lost
- The Hand of Fate
- 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
- Where There’s Smoke
- Protoype
- My Girl
- A Little Piece of Home
- Feeding Time
- New Kids in Town
- Speed Demons
- Two’s a Crowd
- Identity Crisis
- Heavy Metal
- Monkey Fun
- Bizarro’s World
Rogues Roundup
Toyman (Bud Cort) (second appearance)
Holy shit. I thought he was creepy before when seeking arguably justified vengeance on a mobster, but we’re operating on an entirely different level now he’s king of the incels. Sniffing Darci’s fucking robe after the failed kidnapping attempt is utterly unhinged. He’s even got a teddy bear that he has one sided conversations with now so you’d know he’s fully loco even without spending the entire episode trying to imprison a woman for intentionally vague reasons. Darci says he treated her “like something you’d wind up or plug in” and honestly that’s one of the best lines of creepy dialogue I’ve ever heard. It implies so much.
Just like before I’m including his robot minions in his ranking, and I liked the variety on display, with Schott deploying a cowboy (which continues on the episode headless), a knight, an astronaut and a kangaroo packing serious heat. Not only does the kangaroo do the obvious punching and stomping, it also launches an entanglement coil and even when Superman damages it, it uses the sparking electricity to shock him. The kangaroo alone is a strong villain! Oh and of course Death Fist Ninja.
If you were hoping I would ‘see sense’ after ‘ranking him too high’ last time you are sorely mistaken and if anything he’s going back above Lex freakin’ Luthor. I just don’t see how you can argue with a character this compellingly twisted. His gimmick is SO strong, with plenty of mileage to be gotten from his army of creations, and they took the end of his last appearance where he traps Lois in a giant dollhouse and turned that into the premise of a whole episode. Very few villains in the DCAU have given me such a visceral response. He places a woman in giant doll packaging for goodness sakes!
- Livewire
- Darkseid
- Toyman (↑)
- Lex Luthor
- The Joker
- Queen Maxima
- Metallo
- Parasite
- Karkull
- Brainiac
- Mr. Mxyzptlk
- Harley Quinn
- Granny Goodness
- Kalibak
- Volcana
- The Gotham Rogues
- Lobo
- Luminus
- Project Firestorm
- The Female Furies
- DeSaad
- Detective Bowman
- Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
- Steppenwolf
- The Preserver
- Kanto
- Mala & Jax-Ur
- Mercy Graves
- The Prometheon
- De’Cine
- Corey Mills
- Earl Garver
- Titano
- Bizarro
- Weather Wizard
The Matt Signal 
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