"Last Son" Re-Watch: "In Brightest Day" & "Superman's Pal"

 Superman The Animated Series

Including the episodes in this post, we have six total until we wrap up "Superman: The Animated Series." These episodes continue to introduce more famous DC characters and things from the Superman mythos that they haven't yet touched on. Let's get to it.

Sinestro: "You can't stop me, Green Lantern, I never give up!"

Green Lantern: "You never shut up, either."

Alien Abin Sur crash lands on Earth and as he dies his Green Lantern power ring searches out a replacement. It settles on Daily Planet artist, Kyle Rayner. Abin Sur is being pursued by rogue Green Lantern Sinestro. Superman meets with the Guardians of the Universe on Oa who explain the purpose of the Green Lantern Corps. Can Kyle Rayner master his newfound powers and stop Sinestro?

What a derp.

It feels like "Superman: The Animated Series" is the most successful when Superman is interacting with other heroes in the DCAU. The best episode of this shortened season three has been the one with Batman and Robin. I'm not sure what it says about Superman that his solo animated series works better when there are other heroes around, but these episodes definitely feel like they were testing out for the "Justice League" animated series that would premiere after "Batman Beyond." 

When you think of Green Lantern, you probably think of Hal Jordan immediately or maybe John Stewart. Heck, even Guy Gardner. Kyle Rayner probably isn't the first GL of sector 2814 that you think of, unless you were a heavy comics reader in the '90's. Kyle Rayner was the first Green Lantern that I really knew. When Hal Jordan went nuts because of Parallax and destroyed the core for a while Kyle Rayner was the only Green Lantern there was, and that was during this time. So, it makes sense that he would be the oen that is the focus of this episode. 

This episode has a lot to do in about 20 minutes. It has to introduce Kyle Rayner and make him a character that you care about. They had to introduce people to the Green Lantern Corps and Sinestro. Make a compelling conflict and resolve it. That's a lot to do and not a ton of time to do it, but I think the episode is really successful on all those points.

Kyle is a great character. He's charming. In the brief scene that he has with Jimmy in the opening of the episode shows exactly who he is. He's kind of self effacing but he's brave. He easily takes out that mugger. It makes a lot of sense that the ring would choose Kyle. I am kind of a sucker for an unassuming person becoming a superhero unexpectedly and figuring it out on the fly, and there is a lot of that here. Kyle getting jerked around the city by the ring, flashing in and out of costume. It really hits all the right buttons for me.

Kyle is the focus of this episode, but Superman is the title character. So, the episode wants to get Superman out of the way for Kyle to shine and the way they do that is by having him be pulled into a meeting with the Guardians on Oa. It's definitely an exposition dump but two birds, one stone. And it's not like Superman is left completely out of the action. He goes toe to toe with Sinestro and its kind of fun to watch Sinestro smack Superman around with his yellow ring.

The action here is great. One of my favorite things about Green Lantern is the constructs and we get some fun ones here. We get buzzsaws and like rockets. But I kind of wish we had gotten more. I did love that we got the Green Lantern oath, I wasn't sure if we would. As always, Kyle becoming accustomed to the ring and his powers maybe happens a little quickly but I'll give it a pass because this is a great episode overall.

Grade: A-

Lois Lane: [entering Perry White's office] "Sounds like some wacko wants his manifesto in the paper. The police traced the call to a scrapyard north of the city. They said we should play along until they can scramble a team up there."

[The breeze from Superman flying by blows her skirt up.]

Lois Lane: [covering herself] "I gotta start wearing pants."

Due to some creative editing, word gets around Metropolis that Superman and Jimmy Olsen are best pals. The people of Metropolis love their new local celebrity. At first, Jimmy is enjoying the perks, but the constant requests and harassment from strangers starts to wear him down, not to mention folks with a grudge against Superman coming after him. Jimmy tries to get the story rescinded but when an old foe from Superman's past targets Jimmy, it might be too late.

The signal watch!

Ever since the Silver Age, Jimmy Olsen has been Superman's pal. He even had his own comic series touting that, one that was revived a few years ago and was a great maxi series. There was a lot of Silver Age nonsense in that series, like Jimmy becoming a turtle or some such and I think this episode could have used a little bit of that.

I think this episode could really have benefitted from the kookiness of those older stories. Can you imagine if Jimmy turned into an alien or a giant or wrestled Superman or turned into a humanoid tortoise as mentioned above. I know this was the time of trying to do away with that stuff or act like it never happened, but there is a way they could have done it. And it would have really elevated this episode above the kind of ho-hum, hum-drum rut that it kind of gets stuck in.

A lot of the issue with this episode is that it does focus on Jimmy. Jimmy Olsen has kind of been a non-entity for the majority of the series. It's almost like they forget like he's there most of the time or that he's there because he has to be. They have tried to have some half-hearted character development for him, but it never seems to stick. In this episode, he just comes off as this sad sack. He's not compelling at all. I don't care what's happening to him. Also, Clark don't encourage Jimmy to keep hitting on a woman who has explicitly told him to buzz off. It's not a good look.

This episode also features Metallo as the villain and I think it's just understood at this point that if Metallo is the villain, the episode is going to be bad. He's annoying. He's a one-trick pony. They give him a girlfriend, Tina, the Planet intern, who fakes being in to Jimmy. And honestly, all I could think of is what is she getting out of this? Does Metallo fuck? And if so, how? I don't think he's anatomically correct. And like, what's the appeal of grinding on whatever metal alloy he's making. I spent more time thinking about this than I did about this episode. That's not great.

At the end, Superman gives Jimmy his signal watch, which is a big part of Superman lore. So, that happens and that's fine I guess. But honestly, give us more Justice Leaguers please.

Grade: D

Next up, I get my wish as Superman meets Aquaman and Supergirl returns.

What did you all think? Are there any other Kyle Rayner fans out there? Did you want more for Jimmy's big episode? Anyone else want to weigh in on the does Metallo fuck question? Let me know in the comments.