Subtly builds up a full invasion by Darkseid

>subtly builds up a full invasion by Darkseid
>actually deliver on the premise

Why isn't the Superman animated series as well liked as Batman?

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Because Batfags are a cancer.

Even the people working on the show thought Superman was lame

This. Fuck Batfags.

Fags

not enough waifus

Some complained that Supes was weak af. As clever as it was, it wasn't as overtly adult as Batman animated series. The artstyle change to a more simplistic design wasn't as striking as BTAS. The villains were the stars of BTAS and unfortunately the same can't be for Supes where only Luthor and Darkseid left any meaningful impact..

Bottomline, it was a more subdued and safe show than BTAS. However, it was competently made and the best media adaptation of the character yet.

It had less lows than BtAS, but less highs too.

Because Superman is inherently the type of franchise that makes the audience think not "How is the hero gonna get out of this one" but rather "How could the hero be thwarted." Not really engaging for a series.

Also, this

Because fags like you never talk about the show but only bring it up to compare it to BTAS

The Batman show was first and therefore gets credit for being the Pioneer.

Ultimately people kinda forget the negatives of the batman show and remember only the positives.

If you go back and watch both shows back to back STAS is the superior show.

I was really surprised by how good this series was when i checked it out. serially underrated, but it has to compete with btas and justice league. is there a marvel show that even comes close aside from 90s spiderman and xmen?

BTAS wasn't even that good in most places, people just remember it for the episodes which were amazing while conveninetly forgetting that the ratio of good too dogshit was like 1:5

That Jack Kirby funeral episode. Beautiful.

And the show had some great variety. Mxy episode for humor, Brave new metropolis was doing the evil superman before it was super played out, and Brainiac has gotta be one of the best cartoon villains ever.

Was STAS where Brainiac was completely reinvigorated as a character concept? I forget if the Kryptonian supercomputer thing had already started by then.

I'm ready to be convinced this is good, what are the best episodes to start out with?

And does darkseid, like, literally invade? Or is it some portal opens and is closed without people coming through again?

I'm pretty sure that's what did it. I honestly prefer that version

It didn't stick too long in comics. Probably because Colu is too cool for cosmic DC to lose. DCAU doesn't have to consider stuff like that because the concepts don't get explored in the same way.

He invades earth twice

Also, just go through the whole damn thing. It's a fun ride all throughout.

There are a couple that are overlooked because they had really awful first seasons, but got a complete revamp in season 2. The 90s Fantastic Four is a great example.

Just marathon through. It's not like BTAS where you have to skip around.

Just marathon it from start to finish, but if I had to choose, go with the Lobo 2 parter. And yeah its a literal invasion, Metropolis gets fucked up and it was saved only by Highfather intervening

It's well liked but it didn't reinvent the character in animated form. Superman was still largely the same superman he'd always been. But before btas any cartoon incarnation of batman had been camp and this new version of Gotham and the Bat was mind blowing.

>this new version of Gotham and the Bat was mind blowing.

It was a toned down Burton Bats. Their cues were taken directly from Burton Bats.

Yeah. That was extremely disappointing to find out while watching the special features.

Is it weird that this is the definitive Superman for me? It pretty much nails every character, and arguably gave us some the best interpretations. Brainiac for example, at least for me, works so much better as a Kryptonian AI. Its one of those things where Clark is essentially fighting the last bit of his home planet, and by destroying him hes literally erasing its history outside of what the fortress of solitude contains

I can't stress this enough. Batfags are complete parasites. And fuck Batman too.

Burton's Batman isn't animated you weirdo.

Burton's Batman didn't create the "dark" version of Gotham or Batman; the comics did.

Yes you have a poor taste but at least you're aware enough to question it. We can't help what we like.

(Don't get me wrong, the show is good though.)

Actually, I don't really care for Batman as far as heroes go.

I would fuck him though.

fpbp

No, but BTAS was taking cues directly from the Burton films because that's what the studio wanted.

I think the problem with Brainiac is that writers rarely think deeply about what he actually means as a character.

So if you think that's "poor taste" then what would you suggest to get "the definitive Superman" as this user mentioned?

Because there's certainly a lot of merit in the cohesive, self contained and somewhat more limited Superman and the world he exists in that STAS portrays.

What does he mean? I'm a relative Superman casual, and while I've read some of the stuff with Brainiac I certainly don't understand him as a character on more than a superficial level of wanting to have all the knowledge and making sure no further knowledge can come along.

>That Parasite x Livewire episode.

Post-Infinite Crisis Superman is 10/10, bronze age is good too though

I actually forgot I liked superman before until I rewatched all the animated series + JL.

Modern day DC sure has done a good job to make me hate Superman and Wonderwoman now

Didn't Morrison square the circle in his Action Comics run? Like, if memory served, he had it so that the name and the corps of the entity was Brainiac, but it was all cobbled together by other stuff or something like that.

Superman didn't have Roxy Rocket and Harley Quinn
I hated him for a a while because he ruined my ship, a shame since his one of my favorite Superman villains from the show

That's exactly it. Watching DCAU supes and wonder woman really got me to enjoy them again. It seems to be a good blend of classic and modern, drawing from a very rich heritage in mostly the right ways.

Pretty sure it was just the same world bottling Brainiac. I think Luthor or Lois might have named him though rather than him already having the name? Called himself the Collector iirc.

why do people hate petes monologues in 90s spidy? i find it perfectly fine.

>enjoying DCAU WW

wew

>not even naming the best Marvel show

youtube.com/watch?v=7SpWAnBjdNg

uh
>Spectacular Spider-Man
>Incredible Hulk
>Silver Surfer
>Avengers EMH
>Iron Man: Armored Adventures
>Fantastic Four: Worlds Greatest Heroes

A lot of writers treat Brainiac as something of a boogeyman figure that's, in practice, fairly replaceable with other various space conquerors and warlord.

STAS made him a thematic parallel to Superman, another last son of Krypton, which while interesting in the DCAU kinda treads on Zod and the Eradicator's territory in the comics.

Morrison's take was that Braniac was an alien (I can't recall if he was a cyborg or full AI or started out organic and became wholly mechanical over the ages or if the story even specified for sure) who took over the internet of a planet in order to acquire their knowledge before he bottled them. He'd done it to Krypton before he tried doing it to Earth.

I think the other user was on the money saying that the villains are what made BTAS and made it more memorable.

I mean, I enjoyed STAS. It is my definitive Superman - and a lot of the other characters. It had its really stand out episodes, a few duds, but was otherwise a solid series.

But for something about it just doesn't linger. Maybe it was the lack of extended cast? Dick, Babs and Tim fleshed things out for Bats, but Jimmy and Lois couldn't keep pace with Supes. (And, frankly, I thought Kara was annoying as fuck until her last appearance in JLU).

But the rogues gallery really was lacking. Luthor and Braniac were god tier, but then.. what? Toy Man, Myx, Bizarro and Metallo were essentially used up in their first appearances - their reprisals never really measured up. Parasite and Live Wire had a good run, but they got played out quickly too.

And while the Apokolips stuff was well done, they're on such a ridiculous power level you have to make them endgame. You can't have them being reoccurring threats.

To me, this is kind of proof that Superman doesn't work well as a title character - at least not anymore. He was perfect in JLU as a contributing factor/force, but I don't think he can carry an engaging series on his own.

Brainiac, along with most superman villains are a warped perception of Superman's themes that work as a foil for the character.

Brainiac in the comics is a super powerful alien that comes to new planets and "preserves" them. Only, instead of helping the people on the planet in a normal way, he shrinks a city and catalogs it like a collector and makes sure that the specimens inside it are kept safe without regard for humanity or freedom.

Hes the concept of an alien imposing itself on humanity taken to the worst extreme possible and is usually contrasted to Superman's more naturalistic way of helping humanity as a human.

The comic Red Son shows this, and more recently Brainiac's appearence in the New 52 plays with this concept a bit as well.

In the cartoon they got rid of the shrinking cities thing and they made it so he saves cities by "downloading all their information" and moving on. So a related concept but less obvious.

So what you're saying is that Brainiac has no real niche.

Brainiac is pretty much what Luthor fears Superman is. An alien that goes to a planet not as advanced as it and imposes its own morality to "save" the populous and in doing so stifles and controls them like that planet is some ant farm.

>only Luthor and Darkseid left any meaningful impact
>Livewire, Metallo, Parasite, Toyman, Brainiac and Mr. Mxyzptlk weren't memorable

Did we watch the same show?

The thing that I like the most about the last confrontation with Darkseid is that it was built up over the course of the entire series. There are episodes all over the place that are connected in one way or another to that last invasion. Not to mention the invasion itself, with a completely beat Superman and a totally conquered Earth with everyone saved only because of Highfather.

As much as I love B:tAS, I can't think of any instances of that show that did anything like the above.

Okay so given this, how does the original comment of "most writers don't really get what Brainiac means" work out?

Granted i've only really read stories that are recommended so I'm only getting the good stuff, but is Brainiac misrepresented or mishandled particularly more often than most other Supes villains? It doesn't seem like it's that complex of a character concept to handle.

Damn. That really sucked to find out.

I have to say watching BTAS all the way through was a lot of fun. Seeing where they fucked up and made trash episodes was part of the adventure.

Of course you'd still be totally justified in skipping the duds.

You know your shit. Thanks for the share.

>Lex Luther and Darkseid
>only memorable villains

>Toyman, Myx
One good episode each.

>Parasite, Livewire
Good intros, good together, so three good episodes total.

>Brainiac
You got him there. SATS Brainiac was god tier.

I feel like that statement was made by a DCAUfag who thinks that he needs the Kryptonian angle to work. As if the conquering alien parallel isn't enough.

I tried it too, but there was a point where I began to recognize the bad episodes like 5 minutes in and just went ahead and skipped them.

Within the context of STAS this is mostly true though, with Brainiac as the third most memorable.

Modern Brainiac has a more distinctive theme, as pointed out by , but I feel that DC is missing out on a very obvious direction for the character: cosmic horror. Not in the Lovecraftian sense, but he's a alien being of immense power operating in a manner that most find incomprehensible to rational thinking with complete disregard to anything outside his whims. And if you think about it, the knowledge he collects isn't of much use in a scientific sense, as the rules of physics don't change planet by planet, so the vast majority of what get collects is cultural in nature. Essentially trivia. It's like a guy coming to your house, kidnapping you, killing your family, burning down your home, and imprisoning you for the rest of your life just so he can steal your videogame collection.

>Superman didn't have Roxy Rocket and Harley Quinn

It had both.

Brainiac has been around forever and has changed a lot over the years. His look, and personality and traits have changed several times, but his theme is generally the same.

Sometimes he has telepathic abilities, but they're used to invade planets and control all the inhabitants in some quasi "positive' inhuman way similar in theme to shrinking a city to preserve it and its inhabitants.

Like any character some times in the past he was thrown in to just be another antagonist for Superman to fight, but usually Brainiac is seen as too big of a threat for a one off comic. That means he shows up infrequently and most artists and writers have their own twist on him.

you know dam well what I mean

>I feel like that statement was made by a DCAUfag who thinks that he needs the Kryptonian angle to work. As if the conquering alien parallel isn't enough.

Nah, my fav version of the character is from Red Son. Making him another conquering alien is boring I think. If you want just an alien conqueror use Mongol or Despero

>one good episode for Mxy

Uh...both of his episodes were great. Bizarro turned out to be a great foil for him.

Fair enough, thanks for the lesson you guys. I've always liked Brainiac as a concept so happy to learn more about him.

I guess we can all agree that, James Marsters aside, Smallville Brainiac was shit though, right?

Smallville was only good for Clois shipping and the tie-in comic

Completely miss Brainiac. Personally not a fan of this version of the character, but I can see why others like him. The rest, though are ok, but certainly not show stealers.

And Metallo?

Yeah I know, I was just being a dick

Yeah obviously the presence of those episodes brings the show down, but I had fun watching them. Seeing them try something new that doesn't work, watching a guest writer really not get the message on what the show was going for, or seeing just how badly Akom could miss the mark could be interesting at times.

I think this version is very much an Elseworlds sort of interpretation since it only works in a small context where you touch on the idea once or twice but don't revisit it a lot. In a long run Krypton should be a tragedy rather than something caused by a villain.

Nope, I don't really care for the Kryptonian angle. What I mean was that Silver Age Brainiac was just a standard alien menace with a unique gimmick and most writers didn't really move on from that. The "knowledge collector" concept of Brainiac is only about 20 years old and didn't appear in the comics until a decade ago.

I feel like Smallville: The Animated Series could really have been a cool show, what with Clark's powers growing still.

Nah, the Bizarro one had potential in premise but was terribly executed. At least I didn't care for it.

Set-up was great, transformation was great, and the volcano episode's ending was wonderfully creepy. And then he was randomly back for that meh Steel ep. Then he got jobbed in JLU. B-

It was really about "saving" the planets, its just that Brainiac realized that knowledge was more valuable when fewer people had access to it. He was "deleting" the originals.

But Brainiac didnt cause Kryptons destruction, he merely concluded his existence was more valuable and worth saving. Had he alerted the Kryptonians of the inevitable disaster, one that even he could not calculate a contingency for, they would force him to try and save them regardless thus being destroyed in the process. Its still a tragedy, its just that in this scenario another being is tied to it

>Nah, the Bizarro one had potential in premise but was terribly executed. At least I didn't care for it.

What did you think was so terribly executed? That he was portrayed as a more of a lovable idiot after his first appearance?

>was wonderfully creepy
That reminds me, Toyman should've been a one episode deal. He was never as creepy as he was in his first appearance.

I never was a fan of DCAU Toyman's appearance. Personally I prefer the Jack Nimbal wooden marionette look.

What about the episode where Clark Kent was framed for murder, and the actual perpetrator got the chair?

Possibly my favorite DCAU episode.

Maybe I need to watch it again but it seems like he figured out the danger early enough that they could have saved more lives had they moved quickly enough (admittedly you run into the issue of "who do you choose to save" at some point). But at least probably enough people that they wouldn't be extinct right away. He was just more concerned in not losing the knowledge since we knew he can download himself to the smallest amount of tech and survive.

It was stated that he discovered the oncoming disaster with just enough time to save himself. We're talking hours here. Say he did warn them, they didnt have enough ships to save enough to further the species and the panic would have further complicated the rescue, all choices still leading to Brainiacs destruction. He simply calculated his existence and the vast knowledge of Krypton was the greater good.

That's why I need to rewatch. I thought he mentioned that he figured it out longer than that when Jor-El went to talk to him. Like at least a couple of weeks.

Nah, I liked tragically tryhard Bizarro. I just didn't think any of the jokes were funny, the animation was subpar and the ending was weak.

What did they say?

This Plus THIS especially because Timm and Dini are among the world's biggest Batfags, they sold WB on the idea of doing Batman as an animated series first. So, simply by being first out AND being done decent to well, there's more nostalgia fag and rose-tinted glasses looking back at BTAS than there is for Supes

>Loved B:TAS.
>Loved S:TAS.
>Loved BB.
>Loved JL.
>Loved JLU.
>Loved GL:TAS
>Never saw Static Shock.

Did I miss much?

It's a fun monster-of-the-week superhero show with a few short running story arcs, but it's mostly episodic.

The typical type of faggotry you'd see on Sup Forums from someone who doesn't read comics.

"Superman is boring because he's too perfect, so he's soooo hard to write not like our precious DEEP Batgod"

You know what's funny? STAS has a great depiction of Superman. So if Timm and Dini really did think Superman was lame, they were really professional about it, and did a fantastic job with the character regardless.

Its not as kino as BTAS but I liked it more as a Superman fan

The writer (unfortuantely, I can't remember his name at the moment) who did many of the scripts later said that he came to change his mind, I think it's in the second season DVD or in the bonus content to the first DVD for Justice League.

It also helped that they had a good cast for Clark and for Lois. I know people are really attached to the guy who does Bruce but I was never impressed by him and having just watched a bunch of JLA last night, I think his voice is the one that really feels out of place of all the main actors in that.

>The villains were the stars of BTAS and unfortunately the same can't be for Supes where only Luthor and Darkseid left any meaningful impact..

Toyman was good, so was Parasite & Braniac but yeah Bat-villains are usually more interesting

I just remebered Metallo too, fuck STAS actually had some nice villains

Needed more Lobo.

That goddamn nympho.

Mr. myxlplyx were great as you had Gilbert Gottfired just be himself and bam fun epsidoes

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