Superman: the Animated Series has never been particularly complex as character drama; its complexity stems instead from its interweaving of massive set pieces and how it exploits the immensity of the geographical expanse that serves as its backdrop. The best episodes are tour-de-forces of crosscutting between various spaces, each housing its own character interactions or action scene, and the sum of all these plot strands translates into an intricate urban network that usually carries political, sociological, or mythological baggage.
Apokolips…Now!, a two-part episode awash in mythology, lacks the adroitness or formal ingenuity of Ghost in the Machine or The Late Mr. Kent. Rather it announces itself as a masterpiece by closing the spatial gaps that comprise the Metropolis for a single, concentrated vision of chaos, and then creating an even larger intergalactic system of interplanetary diplomacy that cuts the minutia and idiosyncrasies we’re so accustomed to down to size. After Apokolips…Now!, Metropolis looks decidedly small compared to the added forces of Apokolips and New Genesis, each of which has its own richly detailed history and full-fledged design scheme. In this regard, Apokolips…Now! opens the door for imaginings of the universe itself as a network of multifunctional dimensions and planetary units, which in turn lays the groundwork for Justice League and for the image we now have of the DC Animated Universe as a gigantic, all-encompassing phenomenon.
Ignoring the episode’s importance as a precursor to greater things to come, it is also a triumph of Manichean epic and apocalyptic vision, indulging its moral extremities without a trace of self-consciousness and wearing its Biblical allusions on its sleeve, not to mention its blatant titular pun on one of American cinema’s most thunderously nightmarish war films. Given Superman’s history as a salvation figure for the masses and the series’ history of crafting mythical archetypes, Apokolips…Now! somehow feels genuine even though it borrows from a compendium of different texts. It charges head-forward into the restless waters of the portentous epic and filters every plot contrivance and line of potentially campy dialogue through fully committed writers, artists and voice actors, so that when Darkseid, for example, predictably seals his betrayal of Bruno Manheim with the declaration, “and so you are: a king of fools!” it can’t arouse anything but our gravest attention.
Dan Riba dresses it up with extravagant backgrounds and dynamic poses, almost all of which hark back to Jack Kirby’s brand of simple but bold illustrations. Almost every shot is a feat of careful craftsmanship. The first alone includes both a tilt down and pan across a hi-tech police outpost, a shift from static monumentality to horizontal action that succinctly encapsulates Riba’s brilliance at framing and camera movements. In the climactic battle scene, one of the most ambitious any cartoon series ever attempted, pans are actually distinguished from tracking shots (a distinction rarely attempted in animation), as Riba creates a semicircular camera trajectory to mirror Superman’s turning his head to witness the coming onslaught, replicating the feel of a camera’s rotation. The rigorous designs and direction are also thematically pertinent; the first battle scene lingers on a shot of a ravaged, debris-strewn street and the first part ends with an act of nuclear warfare, both premonitory signs of the coming apocalypse, all as the red color schema that subtly infuses the first part slowly becomes more saturated.
If Apokolips…Now! has a flaw, it is the overload of mythological information and rapid augmentation of new characters. Part one’s expository centerpiece is a ravishing widescreen historical overview of both Apokolips and New Genesis via Orion’s Mother Box, nuggets of comic book knowledge cropping up rapidly with little time for adjustment. When Orion, who only moments ago crash-landed on Earth, solemnly tells Superman that he is Darkseid’s son, already coloring in the cold and objective alien history with dramatic content, it is difficult to attune our emotional reaction to the grave tenor of the acting and score. The expansion of characters, information, and set pieces almost threatens to overwhelm the human aspect (promised at the outset by Maggie Sawyer’s hospitalization), but a last-minute bravura brushstroke shockingly yanks us from the delirious swarm of stuff and into a moment of deep and intimate human feeling.
The climax of part two has Superman crucified and paraded through the streets of Metropolis as Darkseid announces the impending dictatorial takeover of the planet. In the face of such heavy-handed symbolism pointing to Superman’s individualistic role as Earth’s savior, inspector Dan Turpin leads an uprising that puts a populist spin on the Biblical tale of Christ’s suffering and death. Superman is saved not by divine intervention but by the actions of an ordinary man, and in the midst of this celebration, which entails a squadron of New Gods prepared for battle, Darkseid, in a matter of seconds, vaporizes Turpin without leaving a trace of him behind.
Suddenly the notion of apocalypse has transferred from an avoided global catastrophe to a very real and piercing human tragedy, as Fogel and Riba transition from an enraged Superman at his most Herculean pounding away at Darkseid’s abandoned vessel to a still, serene funeral rendered with the utmost authenticity. The site modeled on a real cemetery and the Hebrew verses sung by an actual rabbi, Turpin’s funeral is a model of reverence that ends in a visual rhyme that complements the end of part one. To the lyricism of a wistful piano, Superman stands solemnly over Turpin’s grave with the same emotional burden as Orion and says, “Goodbye old friend; in the end the world didn’t really need a Superman, just a brave one.” It is a line that veers on the edge of platitude but that makes all the sense in the world.
As the episode closes, there is a dedication to the great comic book artist Jack Kirby, whose artistic sensibilities rub off everything in the episode, who is responsible for the creation of Darkseid and the New Gods, and whose personage had been channeled through Turpin’s character throughout the series. It is a metafictional conceit that equates artistic integrity to everyday courage, Superman’s mourning of a fellow hero standing for Timm and company’s mourning of a fellow artist. The humility that Timm exhibits whenever he acknowledges Kirby, one of his key inspirations, becomes Superman’s humility as he downplays his own virtues to honor the heroism of a simple, but courageous man. It is this very humility that completes the picture of Superman as a Christ figure, his superhuman power giving way to an all too human love for his brother.
This scene is a radical tonal departure from the body of Apokolips…Now!, which consists of so many operatic confrontations and colorful action sequences, and yet it is all the more poignant for it, reminding the viewer of the very human reality of death in the face of so much escapism. Superman: the Animated Series bravely flaunts its genre underpinnings, here in the most histrionic genre of the space opera, but only on the condition that we don’t scoff at its often scoffed-at precepts of undiluted heroism, and in Apokolips…Now!’s illustration of human loss it more than accomplishes this mission.
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