He's still faster than a speeding bullet. He's still able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
But, in his latest television incarnation, Super-man isn't quite the man he used to be.Oh, he's tough. He's plenty tough.
But he's not completely omnipotent in "Superman," the new animated version of the classic super-hero.
"We're bringing down his powers so we can have some good action scenes with him," said producer/writer Alan Burnett. "He can be killed. Although he's pretty invulnerable, he's not as powerful as he's been in the past."
"It's a way of making the character more vulnerable and also more interesting - a little bit more human-scaled so that everything is not quite as easy for him," said producer/writer Bruce Timm. "Even flying. He doesn't just levitate off the ground. He always gives himself a nice big push.
"Same thing when he's lifting a tractor trailer. He can't just pick it up with one hand and toss it."
Burnett, Timm and Paul Dini - the people behind the very successful Warner Bros. revival of the "Batman" cartoon that has aired on Fox for the past couple of seasons - obviously know what they're doing. The 90-minute premiere of "Superman" (which airs tonight at 7 on Ch. 30 and Saturday at 1:30 p.m. on WGN) is a rousing retelling of the legend of Superman's origins.
Despite their success with "Batman," however, the TV bunch were not exactly met with open arms by the people behind the Superman comic books.
"When we first started talking about the character with DC Comics, we talked about the vulnerability issue with them," Timm said. "And mentioned that we would like Superman to be a little bit more, not weaker, but not nearly as omnipotent as he is in the comics. For instance, we think a tank blast would knock him down. And maybe a really good-sized one would kill him.
"And the people at DC Comics were saying, `No! No! You could drop an atomic bomb on him - it wouldn't kill him.' I'm thinking, `Geez, where's the conflict there? So we had to de-power him quite a bit to make it more of a challenge."
Superman does, of course, still possess super powers. He still has that back story of escaping from the destruction of the planet Krypton and coming to Earth, where he's adopted by the kindly Kents.
There are, however, a few intriguing new twists on the tale this time around - "something new for the mythos of this character," as Burnett put it.
The first third of the 90-minute premiere takes place on Krypton, as Superman's father, Jor El, battles to prove that the planet is about to destroy itself. (Jor El is "sort of like Bruce Willis in our show," Burnett said.)
Only this time, he's battling not only the stubborn rulers of the planet but Brainiac, the artificial intelligence that pretty much rules the planet - sort of "an evil version of Krypton's Internet," according to Dini.
In the comic books, Brainiac was an android from another planet. (And he'll end up as an android of sorts once again.) It's all part of adapting various incarnations of Superman for this latest version.
"When we developed these shows, we looked at sort of an overview of the character, whether it's Superman of Batman or any established character," Dini said. "There are a lot of things that are sort of added to the mythos over a period of years by various creators, some of which serve the character a little bit better than others. And there are certain things that we wanted to see in the show."
What they've ended up with is an entertaining version - both for kids and their parents. (At least parents who like this sort of thing.)
"We try to do the show for us," Timm said. "We try to make the show that we would like to see. When we were kids . . . cartoons were pretty bland. There wasn't really a whole lot of excitement. So we're trying to make the shows that we always wanted to see that will please us intellectually as adults as well as being out-and-out fun for the kids."
And the story in "Superman" is quite good. (Remember, however, that this is an action show, so Superman will be battling various villains as guns rattle and bombs ex-plode.)
The animation in "Superman" is rather flat, but, for television, it isn't bad. (We're not talking Disney movie animation, however.)
There's some resemblance to the prime-time "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," but not a great deal. They will be competitive colleagues.
"There are certain things about the `Superman' mythos that you just can't mess around with too much," Burnett said. "And that was one thing that's endemic to the whole character. She's a real, hard-boiled crime reporter."
"She's the Daily Planet's star reporter," Timm said. "And along comes this stranger out of no place named Clark Kent, who suddenly is getting her assignments. So there's a real rivalry between the two of them."
But in this cartoon, the couple aren't going to be getting married anytime soon. And when will Lois Lane find out that Clark Kent is really Superman?
"Not for a while," Burnett said.
"If ever," added Timm.
LOTS OF "SUPERMAN" COMING: A total of 65 half-hour episodes of the new "Superman" cartoon have been ordered and will be rolling out over the next couple of years.
The WB will air the first 13 weekly - Saturday mornings at 11 a.m. on Ch. 30.
And in the fall of '97, "Superman" will air five days a week on the WB's weekday schedule (at a time to be announced).
FAMILIAR VOICES: Many of the voices behind the animated characters in "Superman" are nearly as familiar as the characters themselves. They include:
- Tim Daly ("Wings") as Clark Kent/Superman
- Dana Delany as Lois Lane
- Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor
- Malcolm McDowell as Corben/
Metallo
- And real-life married couple Mike Farrell ("M.A.S.H.") and Shelley Fabares ("Coach") are the voices of Clark's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent.
LOVE THAT LOIS: Delany insists that she was always a fan of "Superman" comics books - and of Lois Lane in particular.
"I was addicted to them," Delany said. "And my favorite were the `Lois Lane' comic books. I don't know if they still have them. They were some comic books just dedicated to Lois Lane."
As for Lois, "She was kind of snappy and stood up for herself. I like that in a woman," Delany said.
But, still, how is it that a woman as smart as Lois never manages to figure out that Clark and Superman are the same guy?
"Those glasses are awfully good," Burnett said.
"It's an eternal question," Delany added.