Superman TAS S02E21 Review: Robocop

Superman: The Animated Series, Season 2, Episode 21: Prototype

"Prototype" is the first part of Steel's origin story in the DCAU, and it's actually a pretty smart and well-done storyline that introduces John Henry Irons as a supporting character an episode before he dons the Steel armour. But even without the knowledge that the episode is there to introduce a supporting character, it's still a pretty great episode of its own merits.

There is the rather questionable business practice of Lex Luthor allowing the resident tragic villain Corey Mils to keep the super-important, super-advanced police armour without any supervision, but once you get past that particular logic hiccup, it's a pretty solid story as Superman and the genuinely well-meaning Sergeant Corey Mills team up to save Metropolis from a gigantic building fire and whatnot. But the episode gives Sergeant Mills a fairly unexpected large amount of screentime even though he's what amounts to be a throwaway character. We get to see his increasing obsession with the suit, his increasingly distant relationship with his wife, and his increasing aggression as he becomes more and more psychotic. It's a really creepy and well-done scene as Mills uses the same equipment that he used several minutes ago to save people alongside Superman to bury car thieves under a mountain of cars. 

John Irons don't actually do that much in this episode, to be honest, but he's prominent enough and has a memorable enough voice and design in order to make him stick in your mind. I did like him, and we establish that he refuses to compromise on his morals and way more akin to Superman as compared to Luthor, and at the end of the episode he starts building the Steel suit, free to improve his work into something that can be used to truly protect and not a lethal weapon.

The actual confrontation between Mills and Luthor is actually a pretty cool thing, with Luthor lording over his contingency plan against Mills ending up not panning out, and Mills about to feed Luthor to a shark (hahaha!). The actual battle between Mills and Superman is... okay, as is Superman's constant attempts to try and get Corey Mills to return back to the hero he originally was. It's not the best episode out there, with some rough hiccups, but still pretty neat. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• John Henry Irons (borrowing his name from the real-life American folk hero John Henry) in the comic books is the superhero known as Steel, appearing in the 90's as one of the four replacements of Superman after his death, claiming Superman's "Man of Steel" epithet as his own. His backstory there is relatively similar to the one given here, someone who's disgusted at the practices of the company he's working (Amertek instead of Lexcorp in the comics), and is inspired by Superman to be a superhero, donning a suit of armour and becoming one of the superheroes of Metropolis. 
• While Corey Mills is an original character to the DCAU, the concept of a police force donned in super-advanced robotic suits subservient to Luthor resembles Team Luthor, a group of powered-armour-donning policemen that is loyal to Luthor.