Thursday, July 25, 2024

Viewer Log: My Adventures With Superman ep 18

Few things more dangerous than the dreams of the Black Mercy. 

Last time on My Adventures With Superman, Jimmy and Lois needed to find a way into space to go after Clark and Kara. A situation complicated by General Amanda Waller having the whole city under lockdown and declaring Superman an enemy of the state.  Using the last 2 million dollars to his name, Jimmy and Lois hire Livewire to help them break into STAR labs and steal their jump drive starship. Her girlfriend Heat Wave decides that the heist is too risky for her and leaves. Our two reporters, Livewire, and a returned Monsieur Mallah and the Brain formulate a plan and head out. Their plan is almost immediately screwed up by Amanda Waller and her crew arriving to do an inspection. The group is split up when they’re discovered hacking into the system, the Brain and Mallah going one way and the humans going another. Livewire ultimately ditches the two reporters, saying that she does know when to walk away. Lois and Jimmy evade Taskforce X and end up in the hanger, only to discover that the ship is still under construction and unflyable. Lois is distraught by all this, thinking she’ll never see Clark again and fix what she broke while she was scared. The Brain and Mallah arrive, having stolen stuff from STAR Labs vault and do their best to quickly get the ship up and running. They have to work fast as the new Kryptonite powered Metallos are out to get them. The group is ultimately saved by Livewire and Heat Wave. The superpowered lesbians reveal that this whole plan was supposed to cover up Heat Wave and her crew breaking into STAR Labs and stealing back her armor and other tech weapons. But Livewire heard Lois’ talking about messing up with Superman and decided she couldn’t kick Lois while she was down. She advises Lois that Love isn’t for cowards and if she wants it she has to fight for it. All the while, she and Heat Wave beat back bots to give our team a clear path. They fly out into space and then jump towards where they think Clark is, finding Kara waiting. Enough Recap Let’s get to it.

 

We open on the Kandor Space Station, Clark unconscious and floating as Brainiac flies in. He attaches a device to Clark’s head, and the two enter Clark’s mind. Brainiac explains that this is a specialized version of the memory scanner that he gave to Kara. It’s called the Black Mercy (a nod to the Superman story ‘For The Man Who Has Everything” by Alan Moore) which lets him see Clark’s memories and tinker with them. Brainiac explains that Kandor is falling apart and that the mainframe housing his AI is also damaged. He needs a body if he’s to resurrect the Kryptonian Empire, and unfortunately for Clark, his body will do. Clark says that he won’t let him do that and that he’s leaving with Kara. He flies at Brainiac, who shifts them to a memory. We shift to Superman’s first fight with Livewire, the electrical villain blasting him hard as Brainiac announces that the son of Jor-El’s death will herald the rebirth of Krypton. He then adds, “So let’s find your weakness… so I can kill you.” Clark’s eyes go out of focus at that point, and he seems to go into a trance as he continues to fight Livewire.

 

We cut to space where Kara meets with Clark’s crew. Jimmy tries to flirt with Kara just a little bit, saying he came to find her, but Lois isn’t having any of this and demands Kara take them to Clark immediately. Jimmy cuts her off and says Kara should come aboard so they can explain. Lois tries to object, but Kara gets on before Lois can stop her. Kara and Jimmy have an awkward bit of flirting before Lois forces them to focus. Lois points out Kara kidnapped Clark, and Kara counters by saying she’s the one from Kal-El’s memories that rejected him. That clearly hurts Lois, but she rallies and says she’s here to make things right. Kara explains that she brought him to meet her father, but something went wrong. And since, she’s been to the other planets of the “Empire” only to find graveyards.  She thinks Brainiac is malfunctioning and wants their help to fix him and save Kal-El.

 

Clark battles Livewire while Brainiac watches, fast forwarding to whenever he’s hurt. He watches as Clark disables Livewire’s harness and stops her, determining that fight was grueling but not enough to be considered his weakness. He jumps them to Clark battling the Kaiju Parasite. He notes that this is one of Superman’s lowest moments against one of his strongest opponents and yet he still won. He wants to know where this last reserve of strength keeps coming from as Clark beats back Parasite. He then hears Jimmy and Lois’ call to Metropolis to turn off their lights to help Superman. Brainiac is curious about these two and decides to investigate. We shift to Clark battling his ship’s defenses and Brainiac drones in the season one finale. He’s confused as to why Clark is fighting his own ship, only to realize that’s the wrong question, but “who” is he fighting for. Clark tries to strike him but Brainiac holds him back with his control of the Black Mercy’s world, determining that Clark is so strong because he’s fighting for them, meaning Lois and Jimmy. He asks who these people are to him.

 

Back on the Jump Ship, Kara explains her plan to infiltrate Kandor. She says that Brainiac has to cycle his consciousness thought the station’s power core once per day and while doing that the drones are offline. Mallah and Brain ‘volunteer’ to stay with the ship while the others infiltrate the station and get Kal-El back. Kara says she’ll stay behind to try to fix her father, but Jimmy doesn’t like that answer and asks what she wants to do. Kara says that she’s always been a warrior for the empire and asks what else is there. Jimmy says there’s a whole universe out there, as they pull up to and into Kandor. Inside the drones seem to be offline already. Kara says she’ll go to Brainiac’s throne room to speak with him while the other two go to the observation deck and get Kal-El. Lois leaves immediately, but Jimmy stays behind to wish Kara good luck. Kara holds him back to say that she has feelings of… admiration for him, as leader of his planet before hugging him and flying away. Lois, who overheard everything, asks him what Kara means by “leader of the planet.”

 

In the Black Mercy, Brainiac observes Jimmy and Lois, noting that Clark is mentally trying to hide them from Brainiac, but there’s… anguish in Clark’s eyes as he does it. He determines that Clark is trying to hide them from himself. Brainiac says that he knows Clark loves them but is afraid they don’t love him back. To prove this, he makes Clark see Lex declare Earth for Humans and Jimmy not standing up for him, Lois agreeing with her dad that he’s different, and Jimmy seemingly ignoring him to hang out with Kara, saying that everyone knows Clark doesn’t belong on Earth. He makes Clark relive Lois jumping from the Daily Planet building, saying that Clark’s love for humanity is his weakness, that his love for these people makes him vulnerable. He deletes Lois from the fall so Clark can’t save her. Brainiac dubs him weak mentally, even if he’s strong physically. Clark denies that’s true, so Brainiac decides to test that. He takes Clark back to his fight with Kaiju Parasite and makes Lois say that she hates Superman and that he’s a freak.

 

Lois and Jimmy reach the observation deck but find it just full of broken drones.  The drones come back online suddenly and start chasing them. Kara finds Clark under the Black Mercy’s control and demands to know what Brainiac is doing. He tells her it’s not her concern but she won’t be brushed off. She thinks he’s malfunctioning, that’s why the planets were destroyed and why he’s hurting Clark. Brainiac is disgusted by her calling him anything besides Kal-El and says that she’s constantly disappointing him, disobeying orders, finding weak, rebellious worlds unfit to be part of Krypton. Kara and Brainiac together say, “I did everything you ask, father,” to show how often they’ve had this conversation. Brainiac says he’s tired of it, revealing that Kara tried to convince him to spare the worlds she found, even against direct orders to destroy them, so he had to make her. He uses some kind of implant to make Kara scream in pain for a moment, making her realize he’d been erasing here memories repeatedly, for years. He says he was trying to mold her into a true Kryptonian. He says that she was easy to ‘direct’ as a child but has grown unruly as an adult. He says they found Kal-El at the perfect time and that with his body, Brainiac will build a better Krypton that will outshine all those before it. Kara, hurt and betrayed and pissed off, swings at him, saying she won’t let him.

 

In the Black Mercy, “Lois” says they don’t need an outsiders help. She shutters a bit, revealing herself to be a construct. Clark refuses to believe this is real, despite Brainiac whispering that it’s all real. Brainiac tries to take them to another memory, but Clark… stops him. Brainiac is horrified by this, saying Clark shouldn’t be able to manipulate the Black Mercy like that. Clark forces the memory to shift to the fight on the League of Lois Lane ship against Mxyzptlk and when Lois and he first said they loved each other. Clark declares this as real, not Brainiac’s twisted version of it. Brainiac asks if he’s so sure and shifts him to a twisted memory of Lois shooting him with her father’s red sun gun, then the LoLL’s shooting him, and Lois telling him they’ll never accept him and that it bothers her that he’s not human. Clark still refuses to believe this is real, Brainiac asking if he’s sure. He shows Clark the memory of Lois breaking up with him and asking if this is real. Clark does agree this is real, and Brainiac drives the knife in, saying that no one wants Clark, not even the woman he loves most. Clark breaks down and starts screaming in pain.

 

Outside, Kara is trying to stop Brainiac, the deranged machine saying that this is why he needs to do this, because Kara keeps disobeying. In his Mind, Clark tries to drive Brainiac out as Kara gets a solid punch in, cracking Brainiac’s skull. Clark gets up and rips off the Black Mercy. We cut to him running to the farm calling for Ma and Pa… only for Kansas to bleed into Krypton, Kandor floating above the house of El. Kal-El announces he’s home before transforming into a child and joining his parents, his uncle Zor-El, and a young Kara.

 

Kara, meanwhile, examines Brainiac’s damaged form. She’s distraught at hurting him, saying she’s sorry, while Brainiac asks if she’s sorry for being weak. He raises up in Clark’s body, morphing it into a new outfit that shows off the Brainiac trinity on his chest. Jimmy and Lois run from the drones only to find Kara being hit through a wall. Brainiac says she disappoints him again. Lois demands to know what he did to Clark. Brainiac announces that there is no Kal-El, only “The machine who is empire.’ He tries to rush her, but Kara stops his punch and tells him to leave them alone. Brainiac tosses her aside, saying this is the fall of Krypton all over again. He pontificates that Kryptonians are built, not born, that each generation tinkered with their DNA to make themselves stronger and how he was supposed to be Krypton’s greatest mind.  He was supposed to protect them, but they grew weak. He says that the weakness even infected him, making it hard for him to fight Kara, as even as they fight, he sees a baby reaching out to him from an escape pod. He says he loves her, before slamming her into the ground and saying love must be purged for the empire to rises. Before he can do anything else, Jimmy steps in the way and tells Brainiac to back off and leave Clark’s body or else. Or else being the sphere containing Kryptonite. While Clark’s body starts reacting to the glowing green rock, Kara starts screaming and showing symptoms much more severely. Brainiac deems them unnecessary and opens a window, dragging them all out into space. Jimmy drops the Kryptonite sphere as he’s sucked out. Once the interlopers are gone, Brainiac grabs the sphere and then warps Kandor away.

 

Kara quickly grabs Jimmy and Lois, which is good because their helmets were cracked when they were sucked out. They’re all then grabbed by the Brain and Mallah, who added grabbing arms to the jump ship. They ask about Clark, the others confirming that Brainiac has him. Lois reveals she grabbed the Black Mercy in the scuffle and says she’s going after Clark. She puts it on, screams in pain and passes out. Oh no.

 

Overall, a solid episode. Some folks were upset with the use of the name Black Mercy for the headband that messed with Clark’s mind, but I don’t get it. The name is clearly an homage to the parasitic plant and the famous Superman story, not a direct adaptation. I swear, some people talk as if using a name for something that isn’t a 10/10 perfect recreation of its source material puts the whole thing at risk. “For The Man Who Has Everything” is one of the most famous Superman stories and got an incredibly close adaptation in the Justice League: Unlimited cartoon from the early 00s. It’s so good that Alan Moore, the writer for “For The Man Who Has Everything,” complimented it and that man hasn’t had a positive thing to say about adaptations of his work before or since. Anyway, using the device to peer into Clark’s head and edit his memories to make him lose hope and make him susceptible to Brainiac’s control was well done. I like that the show made it clear that Clark is still strong enough to fight Brainiac, it’s just that the evil computer is pushing the right buttons to make him question his resolve and makes him vulnerable. I personally would have added a bit of Brainiac specifically sectioning off and repressing Clark’s memories of the Kents, just to explain why knowing without a doubt that those two loving people think the world of him and love him unconditionally didn’t help him out of this situation. I know, romantic love is what the American media love, I’m just saying that I know my mom loves me and that thought alone has pulled me out of slumps before. Seeing Clark almost brute force his way free, just to end up in the trap is just incredibly sad. The Black Mercy has it’s tentacles around him and he might never know. I overall like the design of possessed Clark. Housed in black armor, his face distorted by Brainiac’s shadows, the bright Brainiac trinity on his chest, Superman hardly looks like himself anymore. I do question why his shirt needed to be open and why he doesn’t have shoes, but that’s nitpicks. The speech he gave to Kara as they fought was devastating. Brainiac has shown just enough emotion that even I’m questioning if what he said to Kara about caring about her was real, or just the calculated words of an unfeeling machine designed to cut this child who only ever want its love. The fact he blew her into space and then left almost immediately suggests the latter, but who knows? Oh, and I want to specifically shout out Brainiac’s voice actor, Michael Emerson. Dude has a very robotic drone to his voice but he’s able to add just enough personality to it to make it not monotonous. It’s a similar performance to Corey Burton, the DCAU voice actor, without being a copy of it. Which is impressive as most of the time he just raises or lowers his voice to get points across. Lois and Jimmy were obviously much smaller in this episode, but I like that Lois is going so hard to try to save Clark. She used an unknown alien device to try to get her boyfriend’s mind back, that’s love right there. Shame the situation isn’t that simple in the Black Mercy.  But more on that tomorrow. Have a good night. 


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