 DVD Review: Ruby-Spears Superman
By Craig Byrne - KryptonSite Webmaster
In 1988, just in time for the 50th anniversary of Superman and soon after John Byrne's comic book reboot, the Ruby-Spears animation company and CBS presented a new weekly Superman cartoon. Despite being a solid program, the series lasted only 13 episodes.
Every episode starts with a new adventure of Superman and then cuts into a "Family Album" detailing Clark's childhood. The final "Family Album" shows Clark on graduation day - very interesting to compare with Smallville's "Commencement."
The "Family Album" sequences are a little bit on the silly side but they have a lot of heart, and may in some ways be my favorite parts of the episodes.
The animation style is a bit better than what Superfriends/Super Powers regressed to in its final days, and the show itself feels a lot less like a toy commercial. Unfortunately, a toy line might have helped this show, which was created at a time when cartoons like DuckTales and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were more in favor. By 1988, Superman may have been too "squeaky clean" or predictable.
An issue I had with the cartoon that I may not have noticed when I was younger is that there are a LOT of spelling errors in the animation. Words like "telephon" and "orphange" are seen on signing, and that's just sad. Kids (like myself, even) learn how to read from watching TV and cartoons; if they see bad spelling like that, they're just going to do it themselves. There are also soome lazy animation errors, such as flip-flopping the colors of the "S" emblem. I understand if there were time constraints, but a little bit of quality control would have gone a long way here.
A bonus feature on this DVD looks into 1980's capitalism and greed in an attempt to tie it in with the new "businessman" approach for Lex Luthor. To be honest, I didn't feel it belonged on this DVD at all. I wanted more discussion of the cartoon itself, and if I want to watch something political, I'll turn on the news. It's a shame, too, because Marv Wolfman (who also wrote many episodes of this series) was the one to originate the "businessman Lex Luthor" aspect of the character, and I would have liked more attention to that minus the political commentary.
By the way, on this cartoon, Lex has a dim assistant named "Miss Morganberry." She kind of is a mix between Miss Teschmacher from the movies and Mindy Church of Lois & Clark.
Like the recently-released Plastic Man, a major voice is provided for the series by G.I. Joe voice actor Michael Bell. Here he plays Lex Luthor. He does well, but I can't help but make the connections between him and the leader of G.I. Joe. Kinda sad, though, that Plastic Man sounds like Duke, Lex Luthor sounds like Duke, but Channing Tatum in the G.I. Joe movie? Not so much. A voice actor named Beau Weaver is Clark/Superman and he does a great job.
If you can get this set somewhere at a place where the price is right, it's worth picking up. It's nothing extraordinary but it's definitely entertaining and rewatchable. It's also unfortunate that the show didn't get more than 13 episodes to prove itself. However, decent stories, decent animation, and a look at Superman 1988-style might make it all worth it, especially for those who've never seen these adventures of Superman before.
Ruby-Spears Superman arrived on DVD on November 3. Order a copy from Amazon.com and support this site!
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Ruby-Spears Superman
Warner Home Video
Available November 3, 2009
13 episodes on 2 discs
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