Welcome to the thirty-fourth edition of Adventure(s) Time, where we examine a beloved animated series and an issue of its tie-in comic with a similar theme. This week's entry comes from a suggestion by Gravity Falls Poland, who contacted me on Twitter to suggest two stories of Superman's enemies taking on his powers and acting as heroes.

Originally airing on September 15, 1997, "Identity Crisis" is the nineteenth episode of Superman: The Animated Series, featuring a script by Robert Goodman and novelist Joe R. Lansdale, and direction from Curt Geda. This is the episode that introduces a figure prominently associated with Superman's Silver Age, so perhaps it's fitting that the story opens with a montage of the most Silver Age of all Superman story beats. Within the first three minutes, we witness Superman saving a frightened boy who's climbed to the top of an electrical tower, aiding the police in a chase, saving Lois and Clark when they drive off a cliff, and finally asking Miss Lane out on a date.

It's a lovely intro, presenting the classic version of Superman, doing all of the things you'd expect to see him do on a Saturday morning cartoon of the character. (His opening lecture to the boys making a game out of climbing the electrical tower seems cribbed from the G. I. Joe PSAs, years before the Internet made a game of mocking them. For readers too young to remember these days, those G. I. Joe PSAs are how we learned the dangers of petting strange dogs and eating paint chips.)

The closing line of a kid in the crowd is telling -- "What a dork." The series tended to avoid such an ultra-traditional take on Superman, precisely to escape the stigma of the character being an uptight authority figure. The animated series' Superman is still Superman, but he doesn't spend a lot of time lecturing kids or saving cats from trees. There's usually some Kirby monster he needs to be punching.

As for Superman and Lois going on a date? It's another element from the Silver Age the producers chose to ignore, instead only hinting that maybe Lois and Superman have crushes on each other, but avoiding the old Clark-Lois-Superman love triangle, and even treating Clark and Lois as friendly rivals/bickering brother and sister. This, arguably, removed a lot of personality from the series and circumvented some dramatic possibilities, but that's a discussion for another time.

So, why is Superman acting so off? And how did he end up saving his alter ego from falling off a cliff? That's what the real Superman wants to know, and soon enough, we discover the truth. This second Superman is actually a clone, created in a lab by Lex Luthor and his scientist Dr. Teng. The alien DNA used in his development is unstable, however, causing the clone's intelligence to fade and his physical appearance to deteriorate. (Why his costume also degenerates into a parody of Superman's when there's nothing organic about is...a question best left unasked.) Lex's bodyguard sarcastically gives the clone the name "Bizarro," the last piece of the puzzle required in this revamped origin.

The confused Bizarro continues to cause some havoc around Metropolis, and actually goes through with that date with Lois, before Superman tracks him to Lex Luthor's lab. Convinced the clones are utter failures, Lex arranges for his entire lab to be destroyed. When Lois is caught under debris and left for dead by Lex, Bizarro realizes Superman is not his enemy when he witnesses the hero save her life. Bizarro makes his own sacrifice in order to help Superman and Lois escape the lab, and the cloned hero's final fate is left ambiguous in the midst of the ensuing explosion.

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While it's easy to make Bizarro the butt of the joke, "Identity Crisis" manages to go through the standard Bizarro beats while also giving the character some real integrity. Months later in the Superman Adventures tie-in comic, the creative team of Mark Millar and Aluir Amancio had their own ideas about how one of Superman's foes could replace the Man of Steel.

Superman Adventures #24 (October 1998) features the Parasite as the villain, an antagonist who seemed to fit the series' reality better than Bizarro, who even with an origin borrowed from John Byrne's modern revamp, will always be closely associated with a simpler era. Parasite isn't that much younger as a character, but he was conceived by a teenage Jim Shooter during his days of cribbing the Marvel approach to comics and selling it to DC. The villain (inspired by his 1980s revamp under John Ostrander) is less fanciful and more of a grounded opponent for Superman, making numerous appearances in the cartoon and tie-in comic.

"Power Corrupts, Super Power Corrupts Absolutely!" opens with Superman rescuing an unlikely skydiver, only to discover he's fallen for the Parasite's trap.

Having stolen Superman's powers, the Parasite goes on a crime spree throughout Metropolis, pulling major robberies, even as Lois questions just where "a man with a purple body and radioactive eyes" is going to spend his millions. Superman, as Clark, calls in sick with the flu as he recovers, leading Lois to suggest he try the crystal healing expert who lives in Jimmy Olsen's neighborhood.

This leads us to one of the strangest cameo appearances in the DCAU/Adventures continuity. This crystal healer is Rainsong, the flaky owner of the Dancing Hobbit bookstore from Dr. Fate's Superman episode, "The Hand of Fate." What the heck is she doing in this story? As it turns out, Rainsong crossed paths with another figure from Superman's life years earlier.

Parasite claims his entire career in robbery has been to acquire the funds he needs to start a new life with Rainsong, who he hopes will leave Metropolis with him. Taking her to his own "Fortress of Solitude," (an old nuclear power station) he reveals that he'll use his collection of gold, cash, boats, and rare antiques to fund the operations necessary to escape his purple bodysuit and have a normal life with his longtime love. ("Do you appreciate how cool it is having a nose?" he asks.)

Superman, still recovering from the loss of his powers, advises the city police to stand down and give him the opportunity to take in Parasite. In the ensuing battle, we discover Parasite has not only Superman's experience with his powers, but also his knowledge of the hero's secret identity (the animated series always seemed to dance around Parasite's ability to do this.)

With Superman nearly unconscious, Rainsong steps up and finds a way to distract Parasite.

And with the SWAT team, rather foolishly, firing explosives into the nuclear power station, Parasite is left to act as the hero of the day. He saves Superman and Rainsong from falling equipment and orders Superman to fly the woman he now realizes doesn't love him to safety, while he stays behind in the ensuing explosion.

No one's sure if Parasite survived the explosion, leaving Rainsong to question if maybe the villain wasn't such a loser after all. The art clearly depicts her placing her hand on Superman's chest emblem when saying this, implying that the portion of Superman's decentness Parasite absorbed is what enabled him to commit this final heroic act. As for Rainsong and Parasite, turns out they were never even a couple. He had a crush on her in the third grade, while she always thought he was creepy.

The Wrap-Up

Design-y

The treatment of the Parasite's skintight costume always looked cool, especially the way shading was used to indicate his mouth. Also nice is the design of Dr. Teng's lab, with its army of Superman clones.

Continuity Notes

Every aspect of Rainsong's appearance here is odd. Creating connections between the characters the show wasn't able to explore is fun, and one way to make the tie-in comics feel legitimate, but pulling in an obscure comedic relief figure from one totally unrelated episode is beyond weird. Also, "The Hand of Fate" establishes her name as Doris, and "Rainsong" as her identity in her Wiccan coven. If Parasite only knew her from the third grade, he'd be calling her Doris.

Hey, I Know that Voice

Tim Daly himself did double-duty as both Superman and Bizarro in these episodes. Later, on Justice League, Daly's replacement George Newbern followed the tradition and provided the voices of both characters.

Battle of the Heroic Sacrifices that End in Massive Explosions

Admittedly, I wasn't expecting much going back to "Identity Crisis." I remembered it as a decent intro for a silly character I didn't care much about, with serviceable but nothing-special animation. Turns out, the animation was about as good as I remembered (it looks fine, outside of that bizarrely frog-like Lex Luthor), but the story was honestly surprising. Bizarro is the easiest character in the world to treat as a joke, a very thin joke that maybe made kids laugh fifty years ago, but making him sympathetic seems like a futile exercise.

"Identity Crisis" manages to work in many of Bizarro's signature bits, but there's more humor just in the opening, where we see a lazy 1980s animation writer's idea of what a Superman show should be. The dialogue between Superman, Lois, and Bizarro is legitimately clever (Joe R. Lansdale's ability to turn a phrase is what attracted the producers' attention after he was hired to write a Batman novel), and the story is able to make Bizarro more sad than silly. Nice work all around.

"Power Corrupts..." falls in line with many of Mark Millar's stories. The plot can't withstand real scrutiny, but there's an energy there, and at least one scene that manages to get to the heart of Superman. In this instance, it's the idea of Superman inspiring someone to do good, even when that someone is a supervillain who's robbed him of his powers. Just a stolen portion of Superman's essence is enough to change you -- it's a powerful statement, actually. Portraying Parasite as more pathetic than anything isn't a huge leap from the show, and if this turned out to be his final DCAU appearance (it of course isn't), this would be a memorable way for him to go out.

So, Parasite and Bizarro, both "dead" after imitating the Man of Steel. A cynic might say the stories are actually endorsing not following Superman as a role model, if we're going with the kind of interpretation popular on certain YouTube channels. Bizarro's sacrifice probably plays better, but the clever spin Millar puts on Parasite "absorbing" Superman is pretty cool. Many people view these Superman Adventures comics to be Millar's finest superhero work, so maybe we'll see more of them in the future...

That’s all for now. If you have any episodes of an animated series you’d like to see paired with its tie-in comic, just leave a comment or contact me on Twitter.