This inconsistency ended up being one of the major problems I had with the series, as a whole. Not because the Man of Steel is super-powered, but because we can’t rely on hard limits for his powers. I can see, of course, why this is done, but it does hinder drama. Despite the fact that we know it’s cartoon where the hero will ultimately prevail, it is more exciting to see Batman trying to make a jump, run fast enough, or hit hard enough. He’s occasionally seen chasing cars, for example, and while he doesn’t necessarily have trouble with them, he does not just zoom down in the blink of an eye and stop them immediately, either. There’s even an episode, Speed Demons (which coincidentally introduced the Flash to the DCAU) where he races Wally West around the earth 100 times. I was very surprised, therefore, to rarely see the effect used later in the series. In the first few episodes, when Clark discovers his powers, he’s seen as just a streak when he runs at top speed. Not even because Superman is impossibly fast, but because we actually don’t know how fast he really is. But the traditional problem of Superman being effectively unkillable and unstoppable remained, despite the fact that the writers came up with plenty of creative ways to provide credible threats to him, as well as inventive ways for Superman to get out of them. Superman is somewhat de-powered here, which is actually a positive – his power level has always been variable, and this allowed some more tension when squaring off again an opponent. The scope in the series, however, is so wildly inconsistent – ranging from street crime to the cosmic, that I simply never really felt I got a grasp of the intended tone of the series, which left me floundering from one episode to the next. I’m not saying Superman can’t be dramatic – he absolutely can be, and he actually sometimes is in the series. There’s no way around it – Superman: The Animated Series is just not as good. It’s not even worse – it’s just that the subject matter, as cool as it is, is, ultimately lends itself far less easily to serious or emotional storytelling.
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