The Best Superman: Addendum

As part of my self-assigned "watch everything I own" project, I've moved into the Superman-adjacent section of my collection.  This includes Supergirl (The movie and the series), Krypton and 4 seasons of Superboy.

I've watched close to the entire Superboy series.  I cannot say that anything I've seen would make a dent in my previously collected list of the best of the best from the various incarnations of Superman over the years.  For pretty much the entire run, it's simply not much better than "meh" across the board.  The acting and writing just don't impress, with only a couple of noteworthy exceptions.

While neither version is great in any other way, the show's versions of Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bizarro are easily the most comic accurate...

...even if Bizarro's "S" is backward...er...forward...

I mentioned in the original list that Lana Lang has not generally been a huge part of the filmed incarnations of the Man of Steel.  She shows up infrequently and generally hasn't been a well fleshed out character.  I rated the version played by Annette O'Toole in Superman III as the best of a poor crop.  In the Superboy series, Lana finally gets to be the leading lady with Lois Lane nowhere in sight.  Stacy Haiduk is the only other red-head to play Lana and despite the show's overall mediocre delivery, she's at least not as whiny and weepy as the Lana Lang we got in Smallville.

Stacy Haiduk actually looks like Lana Lang as she appears in the comics.

As the show wore on, it did show a few moments of almost greatness.  There's an episode in season 4 called "Into the Mystery" where Superboy meets an incarnation of death in a story centred around Clark Kent's dying aunt Cassandra.  I'm not ashamed to admit to a teary moment here.  It's one of the only episodes that would have been better served by a longer running time than the show's usual half-hour format.

Finally, Superboy did a bit of stunt casting that is of note.  In one fourth season episode both Noel Neill and Jack Larson (Lois and Jimmy back in the 50's Superman show) show up for the day, to my knowledge the only time they appeared together again after their Superman series went off the air.  They also brought in James Bond himself, George Lazenby, to play Superman's father, Jor-el.  While not exactly a Superman related actor, having a well known Bond actor join the show, if only briefly, feels like stunt casting even if it technically isn't.  Incidentally, Lazenby's version of Jor-el technically isn't Jor-el at all, so it all works out.

Then there's the one and only Ron Ely.  For those of a certain age, Ely was Tarzan, playing the Ape-Man from 1966 to 1968, the same years that saw Adam West caped and cowled in the Batcave.  If there had been a Superman show in the late 60's, it's a safe bet that Ron Ely would have been the guy.  He played "Doc Savage" in a film and the Savage character is basically a non-powered Superman. Again, he's not exactly stunt casting, but he's so perfect for the role they gave him that it feels like stunt casting.

Ron Ely plays the only "Old Superman" in live action that we've ever seen and he's simply, totally BRILLIANT.  In a cardigan.

 

Ely plays the hell out of his brief, un-unitarded stint as the elder Man of Steel, bringing a self-assured, relaxed, "seen it all but not jaded" kind of content gravitas to the character.  He plays him exactly as I always imagined an older Superman would come across.

Ely rocks the Superman spit curl in this show probably better than it's ever been rocked before or since.

 

Next up is the complete run of Supergirl and the simply awful Supergirl feature film.  Off the top of my head I can't think of much beyond the previous mention of the CW version of Lex Luthor played by Jon Cryer that would merit a mention on the Best Of Superman list, but I could be wrong.  Certainly the version of Brainiac from the Krypton series and maybe more will prompt at least one more update to the list in the next few months.

 

Stay tuned.