Superman TAS S01E09-10 Review: Metal Rockstar Bounty Hunter

Superman: The Animated Series, Season 1, Episodes 9-10: The Main Man, Parts 1-II

(Yes, parts 1 and II, with Arabic and Roman. Silly editing department!)

So we have this season's only two-parter, which I'll discuss in a single review entry because to be honest -- there's really not much that I have to say about this two-parter. The previous episodes have been concerned mainly on introducing some of Superman's most iconic enemies. Brainiac. Lex Luthor. Metallo. Parasite. Toyman. This time, it's Lobo's turn... and he gets two whole episodes to himself. Now, mind you, Lobo's a bit of a contentious character. He's introduced initially as a pastiche of the grimdark/edgy superhero trend, but takes it to a more hilarious tone. Sort of like Deadpool -- Lobo looks like the crossover between a hardcore KISS metalhead and the biggest, meanest muscle-bound brute, working the same job that Boba Fett did (only he didn't suck), fights with a chain-hook and rides a flying space chopper bike, being super-strong super-unkillable and super-duper-brutal... and he ends up taking off. Sometimes writers tend to forget that he's supposed to be a parody and portray him as a grimdark-edgy supervillain, but in his best Lobo's a hilarious dude that the writers doesn't take seriously and in his worst Lobo's an irritatingly grating creator's pet.

Thankfully, DCAU's Lobo (voiced by the comedian Brad Garrett) is more on the hilarious side. He chews up scenery as much as he can, he sneaks in a couple of cuss words ("I'll kick your S!" "Frag-face!") and it does help that the animation for Lobo is pretty great, with some slapstick that worked. He plays off the far more serious Superman very well, too, with the two's interactions from Lobo being a brutish bounty hunter into Superman's reluctant ally is decently shown. But at the same time, did this really need two episodes?

And one of the biggest problems I have is the sheer length of the episode. There's really not much to go on. The Preserver is an interesting concept, if stolen wholly from Marvel's Collector, but the Preserver himself is a very dry villain and gets dispatched very easily. The waves of random alien beasts and robot whores with zipper mouths that Superman and Lobo fight through are bland and uninteresting, and what's worse is when you consider Lobo's competitor, Gnaww, or his previous target, Squeak, both of whom are just ugly and irritating and takes up way, way too much screentime.

Still, it's not an entirely bad episode. Not all the Lobo scenes work, but there's enough fun in it to make my viewing experience not entirely painful. The battle in Metropolis is also a neat highlight of the episode, although it might just that I'm so unimpressed with all the other scenes against the Preserver and the bounty hunters. Luthor's brief cameo in the movie as his poor office gets wrecked by the two titans fighting is funny, though. Overall, while Lobo himself is entertaining the episode as a whole flops due to slow pacing and a direly boring story.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Lobo is, as mentioned here, the last Czarnian, a brutish alien race with insanely powerful strength and endurance, working as an intergalactic bounty hunter. While he is an unrepentant murderer, he at least works on his own code of honour. Some things that get adapted well into the episode is the sneaking in of the detail that he blew up his own home planet, his alias is the titular "Main Man", and he uses 'frag' as a thinly-veiled space substitute for 'fuck'. 
• The Preserver (or the other bounty hunters) isn't adapted from the comics, though his modus operandi is similar to the Marvel comics villain the Collector.
• Starro is briefly seen in one of the enclosures (around 9 minutes into the second part). The alien starfish is, of course, famous for being the gigantic threat that caused several superheroes to band together and form the Justice League. 
• Superman putting a bunch of alien animals into his own intergalactic zoo within the Fortress of Solitude is a reference to how in the comics his base also contained an intergalactic zoo. Which means Starro's one of them...