Superman: The Animated Series, Season 2, Episode 27-28: Little Girl Lost
I completely forgot about this episode, because it's kind of ingrained in my mind that season two of Superman: TAS ended with the Darkseid invasion. The DVD boxset that I have had the last five episodes of season two lumped with season three, and I kind of just assumed that season two ended with 'Apokolips Now'. Whoops! I could edit the Apokolips Now review to reflect this, but eh. Whatever.
Anyway, 'Little Girl Lost', acting as the season finale, also bizarrely acts as an introduction to Supergirl, as well as featuring a weird little coda to the whole Darkseid plotline by having his minion, the appropriately-slimy Granny Goodness (awesomely voiced by Ed Asner) revive Intergang and terrorize Metropolis with a master plan that's supposed to bring a comet down to Earth to destroy it with a natural disaster, keeping Darkseid's hands clean of the treaty. We don't actually find the full extent of the plan until very late in the second episode, though, so for the large majority of the two-parter it just seems that Granny Goodness, a member of Darkseid's Apokoliptan force, just decided to revive Intergang for shits and giggles. Hell, for a majority of my watching through this episode, I genuinely am confused if it's supposed to happen before or after Darkseid's invasion. But oh well, I digress.
One of the biggest problem I do have with this two-parter is just how much padding is in it, and yet it still doesn't have time to properly introduce Supergirl and establish her relationship with Superman. Comparing it to how Robin was introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, how they bonded and Bruce eventually adopts Dick after bonding over their shared tragedy, Superman and Kara... just happens to apparently bond offscreen.
More egregious is that Supergirl's origins here is completely original and made up by the show's team to keep Superman's status as the last Kryptonian unique, so Supergirl isn't even related to Superman -- she's from Krypton's sister planet, Argo, and the opening of the episode is chillingly well-done, extremely somber as Superman flies through the ruins of his dead world, and then through another, finding another sole survivor. Even if the show wants to get on with the action, having Superman find Kara's pod, and quite literally flash-forward to Kara already in farmgirl clothes and apparently unofficially adopted as Superman's cousin, skipping forward all of that felt like a bit of a missed move.
Especially considering what we got for a majority of Supergirl's focus in the first episode felt relatively weak. Sure, Supergirl not being allowed to fight and having to stay down thanks to Superman's overprotectiveness is okay enough, but having her snoop around with Jimmy Olsen (who himself gets a larger proportion of screentime in wanting to be a journalist) to investigate as reporters is honestly very bland and drags on forever. Also, the two-parter puts an ungodly amount of screentime on Trouble and Amy, a pair of Intergang mooks that fights Superman with an ice gun and a fire gun, and Amy later tags along with Supergirl and Jimmy in investigating Granny's operation. And honestly? Amy doesn't really contribute much to the story that Supergirl and Jimmy aren't already contributing.
They then fight the Female Furies, an iconic group of colourful characters from the comics (only three of them show up in the DCAU, though) which is all fun and good, but honestly the fights are a little repetitive considering we have 'Supergirl vs Furies!' followed immediately by 'Supergirl and Superman vs Furies!' and then again by 'Supergirl and Superman vs Furies... IN SPACE!' The Furies are all one-trick ponies. Stompa stomps, Lashina lashes her weird tape-whip, and Mad Harriet keeps trying to stab someone with her needle-gauntlets, but always, always gets the brunt of someone else's attacks. Poor Harriet.
And even when Superman is abducted by the Apokoliptans and brought before Darkseid, the threat that Darkseid exudes honestly doesn't feel to be as menacing as he does in all his previous appearances. It really just feels like Darkseid is having an off day, and I dunno, he just looks so disinterested outside of that one actually well-done speech about how he'll destroy what he can't conquer. His omega beams fails to do jack-all this episode, though.
The episode ends with Supergirl standing triumphant, having saved the city from the falling comet, but I dunno. Maybe if the episode wasn't a two-parter -- and it easily could've been, cutting out Jimmy and Amy's subplot, and trimming some of the fights and comet scenes -- it would've been paced better? Or simply giving Supergirl more to do beyond her inadequate feelings of not being allowed to help out Superman? I dunno. It's not terrible, but there are so many parts of this two-parter that I feel could've been done better.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
Anyway, 'Little Girl Lost', acting as the season finale, also bizarrely acts as an introduction to Supergirl, as well as featuring a weird little coda to the whole Darkseid plotline by having his minion, the appropriately-slimy Granny Goodness (awesomely voiced by Ed Asner) revive Intergang and terrorize Metropolis with a master plan that's supposed to bring a comet down to Earth to destroy it with a natural disaster, keeping Darkseid's hands clean of the treaty. We don't actually find the full extent of the plan until very late in the second episode, though, so for the large majority of the two-parter it just seems that Granny Goodness, a member of Darkseid's Apokoliptan force, just decided to revive Intergang for shits and giggles. Hell, for a majority of my watching through this episode, I genuinely am confused if it's supposed to happen before or after Darkseid's invasion. But oh well, I digress.
One of the biggest problem I do have with this two-parter is just how much padding is in it, and yet it still doesn't have time to properly introduce Supergirl and establish her relationship with Superman. Comparing it to how Robin was introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, how they bonded and Bruce eventually adopts Dick after bonding over their shared tragedy, Superman and Kara... just happens to apparently bond offscreen.
More egregious is that Supergirl's origins here is completely original and made up by the show's team to keep Superman's status as the last Kryptonian unique, so Supergirl isn't even related to Superman -- she's from Krypton's sister planet, Argo, and the opening of the episode is chillingly well-done, extremely somber as Superman flies through the ruins of his dead world, and then through another, finding another sole survivor. Even if the show wants to get on with the action, having Superman find Kara's pod, and quite literally flash-forward to Kara already in farmgirl clothes and apparently unofficially adopted as Superman's cousin, skipping forward all of that felt like a bit of a missed move.
Especially considering what we got for a majority of Supergirl's focus in the first episode felt relatively weak. Sure, Supergirl not being allowed to fight and having to stay down thanks to Superman's overprotectiveness is okay enough, but having her snoop around with Jimmy Olsen (who himself gets a larger proportion of screentime in wanting to be a journalist) to investigate as reporters is honestly very bland and drags on forever. Also, the two-parter puts an ungodly amount of screentime on Trouble and Amy, a pair of Intergang mooks that fights Superman with an ice gun and a fire gun, and Amy later tags along with Supergirl and Jimmy in investigating Granny's operation. And honestly? Amy doesn't really contribute much to the story that Supergirl and Jimmy aren't already contributing.
They then fight the Female Furies, an iconic group of colourful characters from the comics (only three of them show up in the DCAU, though) which is all fun and good, but honestly the fights are a little repetitive considering we have 'Supergirl vs Furies!' followed immediately by 'Supergirl and Superman vs Furies!' and then again by 'Supergirl and Superman vs Furies... IN SPACE!' The Furies are all one-trick ponies. Stompa stomps, Lashina lashes her weird tape-whip, and Mad Harriet keeps trying to stab someone with her needle-gauntlets, but always, always gets the brunt of someone else's attacks. Poor Harriet.
And even when Superman is abducted by the Apokoliptans and brought before Darkseid, the threat that Darkseid exudes honestly doesn't feel to be as menacing as he does in all his previous appearances. It really just feels like Darkseid is having an off day, and I dunno, he just looks so disinterested outside of that one actually well-done speech about how he'll destroy what he can't conquer. His omega beams fails to do jack-all this episode, though.
The episode ends with Supergirl standing triumphant, having saved the city from the falling comet, but I dunno. Maybe if the episode wasn't a two-parter -- and it easily could've been, cutting out Jimmy and Amy's subplot, and trimming some of the fights and comet scenes -- it would've been paced better? Or simply giving Supergirl more to do beyond her inadequate feelings of not being allowed to help out Superman? I dunno. It's not terrible, but there are so many parts of this two-parter that I feel could've been done better.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Supergirl: Supergirl of the cartoon is Kara In-Ze, a resident of Krypton's sister planet Argo. The Superman: TAS incarnation of Supergirl is the very first incarnation after the original Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, is retconned out of existence in the mainstream comics during the Crisis of Infinite Earths, due to a mandate from DC comics that Superman's status as the last son of Krypton be kept unique. Thus the TAS team created a brand-new backstory that still had Supergirl retain her status as Superman's "cousin", but is adopted from another planet. Her white-top blue-skirt costume, as well as her wearing a wig, would be adapted to the first post-Crisis Supergirl in the comics, Linda Danvers.
- Granny Goodness: Granny Goodness is the sadistic torturer of Apokolips, who rose from the lowlies -- the lower slave class -- and trained to be one of Darkseid's merciless elite soldiers, and in this training, she specialized in indoctrinating children and potential warriors to be fanatical soldiers that obeyed Darkseid and Darkseid alone. She created the fanatical force, the Female Furies, but the only child she cannot break is Highfather's son, Scott Free, the child who, after escaping Apokolips, would become the superhero Mr. Miracle.
- Female Furies: The Female Furies are fanatical woman soldiers trained by Granny Goodness and loyal to Darkseid, and while their members are far more in the comics (notable omissions from the original lineup include Bernadeth and Gilotina, as well as Big Barda, who would defect), and basically act as Darkseid's personal hit squad.
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