Superman: The Animated Series, Season 2, Episode 14: Ghost in the Machine
This is more like it. Back in season one, I complained a little about how the Brainiac episode kind of made both Superman and Brainiac look like relative fools due to the weird focus on Brainiac trying to dupe Superman into working alongside him, while at the same time possessing less charisma and lying skills than my laptop.
Here, we have a far, far more entertaining three-way-battle between Lex Luthor, Brainiac and Superman. And rather ironically but perhaps not surprisingly, Superman actually gets the lowest billing while all this is happening. In fact, if I had to select a 'main character' for this episode, it'd actually be Mercy Graves. Which we'll talk about first. We've seen scant little of Mercy Graves. She's not quite as bad as some other characters like Angela Chen or Perry White, who barely get screentime. She's got some hilarious jealous scenes in 'My Girl', alternate-universe Mercy got to do a whole ton in 'Brave New Metropolis', but this is the episode (and I think only episode) to put so much emphasis on Mercy Graves.
One of the DCAU's most significant characters is perhaps Harley Quinn, a character that is equal parts hilarious because she's a crazy nutter of a villain, yet at the same time tragic because she's trapped in such a sobering abusive relationship. It's absolutely hilarious when I watched Harley Quinn as a child -- she's a clown that gets hit all the time by slapstick comedy! But when I rewatched BTAS as an older person, she's a disturbing example of an unhealthy relationship -- someone who gives all of herself to her 'lover', while the Joker never, ever once appreciates her beyond the services she provides as a henchwoman. Mercy Graves perhaps is not as well-known as Harley Quinn, but at the same time, her character's basically a more subtle version of Harley -- a henchwoman to the main superhero's biggest villain who's absolutely devoted to working for him.
Mercy's character is absolutely interesting -- the episode's main plot not about her, but rather about Luthor and Brainiac butting heads with each other. Yet while going through it, I found that Mercy's B-plot is so much more engaging. She gets more screentime even in the first scene, where she tries to be encouraging to Luthor's big demonstration without being smothering like Harley is. Throughout the episode, Mercy respects Luthor's orders so much, not letting anyone into Luthor's office without question, and finally panicking when she realizes that Luthor wasn't the one giving her orders. And, of course, because Luthor's a dick, he leaves her to die at the end of the episode... yet she stays anyway, because she literally has nowhere else to go. This gives Mercy's appearance in Justice League a lot more weight considering what she does in that episode. It's a pretty great story because Mercy and Superman bond a little over the episode, but Mercy never loses sight of her professionalism even as she tells Superman that, no, Luthor doesn't "have" anything on her. He took her in like a stray dog, and she freely admits that it's the reason why she's so loyal. That and love, as Lois lane points out.
Of course, the rest of the episode is wonderful as well. Superman getting attacked in his own apartment when Brainiac tries to murder Clark Kent with a missile, forcing Clark to fly out and stop the missile bare-handed and have it explode above the city... and the smoke clears leaving him in full Superman getup? Badass. Superman and Mercy's back-to-back battle against Brainiac's drones? Superman using the Sky-Sentry to blast Brainiac? The disheveled Luthor rushing towards the pile of chocolate bars like a rabid animal when Brainiac lets him 'refuel'? God, that's creepy as all hell. The science facility literally being torn apart by weird gravitational force things as Superman and Brainiac's battle goes even wilder? All great visual parts of the episode.
But what's interesting is the first genesis of Brainiac and Luthor's relationship. As absolutely stupid as it is for Luthor to shoot actual live missiles at his demonstration (you'd think he would only shoot duds even if he wants dramatic effect), Brainiac manages to get Luthor's attention in a pretty big way, and basically gang-presses Luthor into building him a new body, noting that Luthor's own Achilles' hill -- his hubris and one-man-showing -- means that him ignoring everything to the exclusion of his obsession means that it's a very valid excuse that the loyal, unquestioning Mercy will accept. Brainiac is also savvy enough to make sure that his body's repaired enough and he doesn't need Luthor to completely fix his body, which is cool, even if it's a dumb move not to just keep Luthor around as a pawn.
Of course, Brainiac gets beaten by Superman and his new body destroyed (and confiscated by LexCorp), but not before giving us some pretty great lines as he fights Superman. Overall, a pretty awesome episode with standout performances from Mercy, Brainiac, Luthor and even Superman himself even if he gets crowded out in this particularly busy episode.
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