Superman: The Animated Series
Episode 11
My Girl
What we have here is an episode that focuses on a personal relationship between Clark Kent/Superman and his high school girlfriend Lana Lang. The villain is inconsequential in the story. Yet, somehow the villain is the driving force for the entire plot.
Lana Lang is a top brand fashion designer, because that’s the only successful thing women are allowed to grow-up into on television/film. Lana Lang is dating Lex Luthor. During a big fashion show which Lois and Clark are covering, Lana get’s kidnapped/robbed by two women. One is a large thuggish lady, the other more traditional looking. The ladies want the diamonds on Lana’s dress. Instead of just ripping the diamonds off Lana’s dress outright, they take Lana and say they are going to take her somewhere private to change into cheaper clothing. Their entire plan doesn’t make sense because she was alone in the dressing room. They could have just held her down there and swiped the diamonds instead of dragging her to an exterior elevator.
Of course Superman shows up. The crooks toss her out of the elevator, he swoops down and saves her, then rips the elevator out of the building and ties it with the ladies inside to a bridge. Let’s break this down. She’s thrown out a glass window and he flies down to save her, that’s all good. He can’t control the bad guys breaking stuff. Then he ruins the entire elevator on a large skyscraper by hanging it on a bridge with people inside. How much destruction did that cause? The elevator which needed a window repair now needs an entirely new elevation, new wires. Tons of money in either insurance premium or outright cash afflicted on the building owners. Leaving them hanging off a bridge requires emergency crews to rescue hostile criminals who are willing to kill people to avoid capture. So the fire department has to risk their life to get these bad women off an elevator stuck on a bridge, risk getting harmed by them in an attempt to escape. Emergency services are now distracted rescuing these criminals when the resources could be spent putting out fires, capturing other bad guys. Superman could have absolutely apprehended these women in a less severe manor which involved less property destruction.
Why go though all this, well for starters, the female criminals were a writing device because network standards and likely the creative team themselves didn’t want men man-handling women in a children’s cartoon. Lana gets tossed around pretty hard. You really don’t want a man doing that in front of children, even bad guys. The same rule applies to Superman. He can’t rough up these bad-women to immobilize them. Therefore the solution is to rip the entire elevator off the building and hang them from a dangerously high bridge.
After the heroic save Lana revels she knows Superman is Clark Kent. Superman is shocked by this. For an investigative reporter, he’s a bit clueless. Why wouldn’t his teenage girlfriend who witnessed him doing some crazy superhero stuff put the pieces together? Even though she’s dating Lex, Lana wants to rekindle her romance with Clark. Clark isn’t interested in her in that way and really just wants her to stay away from Lex Luthor because he’s a huge jerk. As Superman flies off, Lex’s bodyguard Mercy Graves suspects they have a fling going on. She narcs to Lex who doesn’t want to believe it but sees the proof with his own eyes.
Lex shows some genuine loss in this moment. He really seemed to care for Lana Lang. The dude is a billionaire and it’s probably hard finding a woman he thinks is actually into him and not just his money. As we saw in the Metallo episode, The Way of All Flesh, Lex can get hot girls but they are company, not keepers. Lana Lang is a millionaire in her own right, established career woman, strong willed, smart, super hot. It’s a personality Lex Luthor would be attracted too. He also briefly dated Lois Lane before the start of the series who dumped him for reasons unknown but we can surmise it’s because he’s an arrogant jerk. Lois is smart, established, good looking. She’s not a millionaire but certainly well off and successful in her career. Lex has a type. It’s apparently the same type as Superman. Lex’s reasons for his taste in women appear to be much deeper than Superman’s. Superman seems to just want to save all his women. Lex likes a person that challenges him.
When Lex discovers the betrayal of Lana he is truly upset by the loss. Since he’s a super villain, it’s his obligation to have her killed and not just break it off with her. If Lana fell for anyone other than his mortal enemy, he probably would have taken it better. Also Lana is spilling trade secrets about Lex’s illegal activities to Superman. You just can’t do that.
Lana gets kidnapped again, her life is in danger again, Superman shows up and saves her again. The episode wraps up with Clark and Lana agreeing to be friends. Lana is going to Europe for an undisclosed amount of time to promote her fashion line. There’s a joke about Lois Lane being his true love. Here endeth the episode.
Putting aside the jokes about the plot, this is a great episode. It has action, great characters, good jokes. Using Lex as the villain, giving Superman a personal problem to attack is brilliant. Superman easily saves Lana throughout the episode but he needs to find a way to establish a platonic adult relationship with his high school girlfriend. The best minds can’t navigate that problem. The happy ending truly belongs to Superman because no other person could ever accomplish that balance in life.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
