DC Animated Universe/Characters/Superman: The Animated Series

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A list of characters from the DCAU who first became prominent in Superman: The Animated Series



Superman (Clark Kent/Kal-El)

The quintessential Cape and Flying Brick of the DC Animated Universe.

An alien orphan named 'Kal-El' who was sent into space as an infant to avoid suffering a cataclysmic death on his home planet of Krypton. His craft landed in a Kansas field and he was discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who raise the boy as their son under the name 'Clark'. As he matures under the Earth's yellow sun, he gains superhuman powers such as nigh-unlimited physical strength and the power of flight. As an adult, he moves to Metropolis to work as a newspaper reporter. It is here he becomes aware of the corruption and evil in the world, deciding he must use his gifts to right these wrongs, taking the moniker 'Superman' after a story of his deeds is published in the Daily Planet by Lois Lane, who uses the term.

After having worked long and hard since the end of "Legacy" (from Superman: The Animated Series) to regain the world's trust in him, it is he who first suggests that he and the other superheroes form the Justice League, in order to deal with future threats as great as the Imperium. According to the series' promotional information, he was shown to be the face of the League, as well as the peacemaker for the other members.

  • Adaptational Jerkass: A very Downplayed Trope. Superman here is still a great guy and an example of heroism to all the other heroes, but he is not a nice as comic Superman who is a paragon of compassion and humility. This Superman is more prone to hold grudges (his first instinct upon seeing Darkseid after Darkseid briefly brainwashed Superman into serving him is that Superman wanted to destroy Darkseid), sees being Superman as setting an example to others(comic Superman never recognizes himself as an example and his motivation is just to help people because he loves the earth and cares about everyone), and is more prone to be dismissive or distrustful of others as while Luthor was, at one point, doing public works simply to get good PR, TAS Superman thought they were part of an evil plan and ignored Captain Marvel's opinion that Luthor was acting benevolent to the point of fighting Marvel (comic Superman, while knowing better than to trust Luthor outright, would never condemn someone without doing his own investigations first and would always take the opinions of his friends and teammates into account. He would also remain vigilant and prepare for the worst but never throw the first literal or figurative punch).
  • Adaptational Wimp: While Superman here is no slouch being able to land falling planes and send Darkseid across the city with one punch when he isn't holding back, he seems to strain and show effort when he pulls off the biggest of his feats which are impressive but never come close to his mainstream counterpart (comic Superman can hold a black-hole in his hand). He also can't travel interstellar distances under his own power and needs breathing apparatus when staying in space for extended periods of time. Comic book Superman, meanwhile, is so strong he can move mountains without much trouble and only ever shows effort when he's pulling off feats like moving weight equal to the mass of planets. Comic Superman can also travel interstellar distances, able to fly faster than light, and can hold his breath for a time equal to weeks allowing him to travel those distances.
  • Badass: Regularly goes up against enemies at least as powerful as him and far more ruthless, and has demonstrated that even without his powers, he's still not to be taken lightly.
  • Betty and Veronica: Lana and Lois a couple of times
  • Berserk Button: Harming his friends is never a wise thing to do since he's, well, Superman. Aptly demonstrated in the second part of "Hereafter," where he flew into enough of a rage to almost smash Vandal Savage's head with a rock when the other man started describing in detail how he slaughtered the other League members (but of course, the Reset Button was very handy at the end of the episode), and in "For the Man Who Has Everything," where Mongul was running Wonder Woman ragged.
    • Additionally, in "For the Man Who Has Everything," Supes did not take it well that Mongul's Black Mercy plant forced him to have to make a painful choice to leave his idyllic fantasy life behind to return to reality.
    • Darkseid's mere presence also qualifies. He's the only character in the entire DCAU that Superman has NO reservations about killing.
      • Well there was also Mongul but that was more of passion. Darkseid is the only character that Superman can think about for more than five minutes and still want to kill.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: As Darkseid and Mongul find out the hard way.
  • Broken Pedestal: For Captain Marvel. Note that it was Lex Luthor's plot to make people distrust Superman and it worked well for Captain Marvel, that even Superman thought what he was doing was wrong, but the other founding members immediately showed that it was all a ploy.
    • At the start of Justice League]], many people on the whole world saw him as this, after the STAS finale when Darkseid brainwashed him into leading the charge against his adopted homeworld. He only got proof that his efforts to fix his image paid off after Green Arrow stood up to him in "Divided We Fall".
  • Brought Down to Badass: Superman gets depowered and handles himself on an After the End Earth pretty well, including forging a sword out of rebar and turning a pack of wolves that had been hunting him into sled dogs.
    • Luminus filters all sunlight except red to depower Supes, then baits him into a Hard Light death trap. Supes manages to survive until he destroys the sun blocker.
  • Brought to You by The Letter "S"
  • The Cape (trope)
  • Clark Kenting
  • Cool Old Guy: In Batman Beyond.
  • Determinator
  • Evil Me Scares Me: After the Justice Lords saga.
  • Eye Beams
  • Fight Off the Kryptonite: A couple of times.
  • Flying Brick
  • The Hero: When part of the Justice League's Five-Man Band.
  • Human Aliens
  • I Am Not Left-Handed: In the grand finale of Justice League Unlimited, he unleashes all his strength on Darkseid after giving him the World of Cardboard Speech.
  • Nigh Invulnerable
  • The Other Darrin: Tim Daly was replaced with George Newbern in Justice League. The older Superman in Batman Beyond was voiced by Christopher McDonald, but this was due to the idea of Superman sounding more like his father Jor-El as he got older; McDonald was the actor who voiced Jor-El in Superman: The Animated Series.
  • Physical God: Becomes part of the conflict with Cadmus, post-Justice Lords.
  • Power Loss Makes You Strong: Memorably in "Hereafter".
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning
  • Robot Me: It's emphasized in "A Better World" that Superman has robot duplicates of himself to keep things in check when he's not around. His Justice Lord counterpart uses his robot duplicates to maintain order at Arkham Asylum (and presumably elsewhere as well).
  • Shooting Superman: "Question Authority" provides one of the more blatant examples of this.
  • Superpower Lottery
  • Super Speed: Though he's not quite as fast as Flash.
  • Super Strength
  • Timeshifted Actor: Superman on Batman Beyond.
  • The Worf Effect: Got hit with this pretty bad when starting out in Justice League. The writers actually apologized for it and did their best to make up for it later on.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: Becomes a problem during the Cadmus arc due to the fact that his Justice Lord counterpart broke this code.
    • Darkseid, as stated above, is an exception. After their last encounter in his previous series, Superman has no problem killing him.
  • World of Cardboard Speech: His speech at the end of Justice League Unlimited is the Trope Namer.
  • X-Ray Vision

Allies

Supergirl (Kara In-Ze/Kara Kent)

Voiced By: Nicholle Tom

Lois Lane

Voiced By: Dana Delany

Jimmy Olsen

Voiced By: David Kaufman


Antagonists

Lex Luthor

Voiced By: Clancy Brown

A genius, multi-billionaire living in Metropolis who is the chief executive of his own company, LexCorp. In reality, he's a sociopath with a thirst for power and control, which he will gladly go to any length to have. He's an A-lister among Superman's rogues and constantly flexes his Villain with Good Publicity as much as he possibly can. He later takes on various exploits to hamper the Justice League and out them as threats to global security so he may do as he pleases unopposed.

Brainiac

Voiced By: Corey Burton

A supercomputer AI from the planet Krypton who survived the planet's destruction. Now it seeks to gain as much knowledge from the galaxy as it can, by any means.

Darkseid

Voiced By: Michael Ironside

The absolute ruler of the wasteland planet Apokolips. Stuck in a truce with the neighboring planet New Genesis, Darkseid is always scheming about how to put the entire universe under his fist. Seeking the 'Anti-Life Equation', a powerful tool that could easily submit the entirety of existence under his thumb, he is a constant threat to planet Earth. He is Superman's most hated enemy for his many transgressions committed on Earth and Superman is willing to stop at nothing to see his end.

"I hope you appreciate, Kal-El, everything that happens from this point is on your head. The skies will rain fire, the oceans will boil, the streets run red with the blood of billions. Only then, when your last pitiful hope has been vanquished, will I end your life. Let's go."

Kalibak

Voiced By: Michael Dorn

Granny Goodness

Voiced By: Ed Asner

Metallo (John Corben)

Voiced By: Malcolm McDowell

Livewire (Leslie Willis)

Voiced By: Lori Petty, Maria Cannals Barrera

  • Absolute Cleavage
  • Canon Immigrant
  • Dumbass DJ: Before gaining her powers, she was a popular DJ who spent all her time insulting Superman in order to boost her ratings.
  • Goth
  • Jerkass
  • Never My Fault: Her transformation was due to her stupidity of hosting a concert in the middle of a storm, Superman tried to get her to cancel it as she was both putting herself and the audience in danger. Typically she wouldn't listen and got hit by lighting. She blamed Superman for the mess, mostly from seeing on TV a reporter interviewing Superman accusing that he deliberately didn't push Leslie out of the way when the lightning struck.
  • Psycho Electro
  • Shock and Awe
  • Straw Feminist: At times.
  • Vapor Wear
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Water.

Toyman (Winslow Schott, Jr.)

Voiced By: Bud Cort, Corey Burton

Luminus (Edward Lytener)

Voiced By: Robert Hays

Edward was an engineer at LexCorp who specialized in light and laser manipulation. He was a mole for Lois and was fired. So he decided to kill her in revenge. Then Superman got involved. Lytener took up the persona of Luminus and decided to get his revenge on Superman by bringing him down to normal. That failed too. Luminus is last seen fighting the Justice League after a jail break.

Parasite (Rudy Jones)

{{quote:Voiced By: Brion James (Superman: The Animated Series), Brian George (Justice League)}}

Rudy Jones was a janitor at STAR Labs and an Extreme Doormat, who was exposed to an experimental drug during a robbery attempt. He gained the ability to absorb the memories and abilities of anyone he touched, and he quickly put it to use by absorbing Superman's powers. Though his absorption wears off after a few days, Parasite made several more attempts to gain power and get revenge on everyone he feels wronged him.

  • Affably Evil: He’s amiable to everyone, even when absorbing their abilities. He can even be reasonable and easy to negotiate on a good day.
  • Evil Is Petty: Parasite would rather use his powers to get back at the world for pushing him around rather than use his power to it’s full potential. Of course, this makes him easy to negotiate with, and on a good day he can be satisfied with a plasma screen tv and a load of books.