Superman & Me: The Adventure Continues…(Part 2 of 3)
My Obsession Continues
Since I was about 5 years old my fascination with Superman has grown with each passing year. It has become a guilty pleasure of mine to follow the adventures of the Man of Steel as I’ve grown into adulthood. Now as a married man with a day job I am still able to access the kid inside and “geek” out whenever I want. As I entered my teen years I thought Superman and I would start to drift apart. But one hot day in the summer of 1993 my on again off again relationship with Superman would take a giant leap forward into the fanboy for life department. I remember I was about to cross the street on a very busy corner and as a city bus drove by I saw on the side of the bus an ad for a new TV series. The image was of a man and a woman embracing and on the man’s arm was a tattoo of the superman symbol. “Lois & Clark The New Adventures of Superman, this fall on ABC”, needles to say I was speechless. I couldn’t believe there was actually going to be a live action TV series about Superman. The last live action series on TV was a couple of years earlier; the Superboy series produced by Ian Salkind who also produced the Superman films. It lasted four seasons from 1988 to 1992 but wasn’t really a good show. It was cheesy and because of the limited budget and the time’s, the effects were not so spectacular.
Photo: supermantv.net
Photo: ckmaccom.startlogic.com
This new Superman series was a new venture into the mythology and with a network like ABC and Warner Brothers behind it, the prospect looked hopeful. Once the show premiered in the fall I was hooked. The show was able to capture the spirit of Superman but relate more to Clark Kent as a person and develop the idea that Clark Kent is who Kal-El is and Superman is what he does. This interpretation worked because the show aired on Sunday nights and was geared to a more adult audience. However the show also managed to get the attention of fans of all ages and “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” went on to last 4 great seasons. It wasn’t perfect, I never liked the portrayal of Lex Luthor but the character was eventually written off by the end of the second season. Unfortunately in the end the last season was its weakest. Once they married off Lois and Clark, the sparks ended. The last episode that aired ended with somewhat of a cliffhanger as the idea of a baby is introduced. By the time the show ended I was 17 years old and looking forward to enjoying my senior year of high school.
After the four wonderful years I had with The New Adventures of Superman. I satisfied my Superman appetite with another TV show that began airing in 1996. Superman: The Animated Series. With the success of Batman: The Animated Series, Warner Brothers capitalized with the growing popularity of Superman and ran these animated adventures of Superman from 1996 to 2000. Soon after that the show spun off into the animated show Justice League, which ran from 2001 to 2006. It was great, even though I was well into my college years when these shows were airing I was able to get my fix and enjoy being a kid watching. However in 2001 another incarnation of the man of steel was about to take primetime by storm. In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the world had changed and a newfound spirit of patriotism had filled the hearts of every American. It seemed perfect that a month later the premiere of the origin story of America’s greatest superhero would begin.
Photo: images.wikia.com
Smallville, the story of Clark Kent, a farm boy raised by his earth parents Jonathan and Martha Kent began what would be the longest running Superman television show in history. Smallville has now become a staple in the Superman mythology. It introduced us to a very fresh, up and coming, star named Tom Welling, who almost perfectly matched the Christopher Reeves look of Superman and brought it to another level. We were also introduced to a new origin story for Lex Luthor, and how fitting that Clark and Lex would have met way back in Smallville before Clark ever donned the tights and cape. Lex was played beautifully my Michael Rosenbaum. For ten seasons now the show was taken audiences though an odyssey in answering the question, how did Clark go from a farm boy to the world’s greatest superhero? The series has had ups and downs; plot wholes and amazing twists over the years. It created a new character by the name of Cloe Sullivan (who is now a character in cannon in the comics) as a Lana Lang best friend to Clark type of character but also maintained the Lana Lang character as the unattainable love interest to Clark. Over the years it was changed the mythology as we know it in many ways but still managed to remain true to the spirit of Superman. Now in its tenth and final season and as the we draw nearer to its two hour final episode scheduled to air on May 13th, I can help think what will I do after the show is no more. I’ve since reconnected with a local comics book store and continue to satisfy my guilty pleasure of buying any comic that has anything Superman related on it. I also own an iPad now so I also have a gaggle of Superman related electronic comics at my fingertips. However – what then?
Well in 2006 I got a taste of what was to come. To some it was a huge disappointment and to others an unappreciated masterpiece. It was a return to the big screen and I was first in line to see what this new film adaptation would be. But that’s a tale for another day.
To be concluded.
