La Ron S. Readus
patreon
Parasite: Superman's BEST Villain (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2020-09-03 02:33:40 +0000 UTC
Warner Brothers Animation just told us with their whole-ass chest who Superman’s best villain is, and it’s not Lex Luthor.
________
Readers, even though I still have like...HALF of them to watch, I think that the connected universe of DC animated movies inspired by the New 52 and Rebirth comic launches was an experiment that had mixed results.
Some of the movies were good, others weren’t.
Some classic comic stories adapted to fit the timeline worked, while others lacked the proper development for them to fit.
And then there’s Batman: Hush
So when DC announced that they’ll be taking their animated movies in a different direction after Justice League Dark: Apokolips War wrapped up said universe, I was excited to see what they’d bring to the table
/Especially since they announced that their first would be a wholly original Superman movie with a new art style unassociated with the precedent set by Justice League War, called Superman: Man of Tomorrow/
And I...LOVE this movie.
It has the heart of the first Richard Donner Superman, and the animation is WAY more fluid than what I’ve seen associated with the movies in the same universe as Justice League: War
But one thing I think that’s just as important is that the movie shows us what truly makes Superman Superman with both the selection and characterization decision it made for its main villain: Parasite
What’s that? You thought I was gonna say Lobo? Why would you ever think I would say Lobo? I fucking HATE Lobo...
I’m not gonna lie, Readers. I always classified Parasite as in-between B and C Tier when it came to Superman’s Rogue gallery. And that’s mostly due to seeing how he was portrayed in the Bruce Timm-verse
Compared to his high-tier villains like Brainiac, General Zod and Lex Luthor, I looked at the others like Metallo and Parasite in the same light that the majority of people like to look at Scorpion, Beetle and Rhino in Spider-Man’s rogues gallery; very “villain of the week” mentality.
/Because in Superman: The Animated Series, the motivations for Parasite always felt so hollow. All he cared about was getting stronger and using Superman as a battery once he found out what he could do after the accident./
Even the way that Superman first encountered him in the animated series matched Spider-Man’s villain of the week formula; a new villain appears with a gadget or ability he can’t immediately overcome, struggles a bit, then figures out a way to take them down by the end of the story.
/In Superman’s case, it was fighting him in a suit made out of a material that Parasite couldn't absorb his abilities through, and getting him to absorb the energy from a chunk of Kryptonite to subdue him./
But then I saw Superman: Man of Tomorrow and realized that you could do so much more with the character.
He has the same backstory and origin as his animated series and Post-Crisis comic book counterparts; a janitor for Star Labs named Rudy Jones. As a matter of fact, the only real big change considering the story was that it's Lobo responsible for his origin this time around.
But one of the main differences between how we saw him in Feeding Time versus how he’s depicted in Man of Tomorrow is that we see him in a more sympathetic light.
/He’s a janitor at Star Labs because its the only job he could get after being discharged from the military, because the US government sucks at taking care of our veterans, among other things. And he has a wife and kid with another one on the way, which to be fair, him deciding to share that info out loud should’ve been a CLEAR indicator that something terrible was gonna happen to him soon./
Nevertheless, that shit worked. At least for me.
Because even if you didn’t immediately remember his real name because you never really considered Parasite that big of a threat considering how he was depicted in the past...
/I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t see Rudy go through what he went through during Supes fight with Lobo, realized that this was how he was gonna turn into Parasite, and let a very sympathetic “Damn” come out of my mouth./
Because while the movie did display what he could do to regular human beings -- which was absolutely terrifying, by the way...
/We also saw him at his most vulnerable when he went to visit his wife and child post transformation. We felt sorry for him because he couldn’t go back to the life he once had now that he’s the way that he is -- both physically and ability-wise/
With Parasite, Tim Sheridan -- the writer of Superman: Man of Tomorrow -- was able to accomplish what Sam Raimi was able to accomplish with Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 and Sandman in Spider-Man 3, and take an antagonist previously displayed in a one-dimensional light and successfully add multiple layers to him in a way that not only makes him stand out on his own, but also help establish Superman’s true nature
I say that because true Superman fans know that just because he has all of these abilities at his disposal -- some that the movie didn’t even depict because it only focused on his origin -- it doesn’t mean they’re the answer to every solution he has.
Parasite is a fantastic villain for Superman in that regard -- especially early career Superman -- because it takes said situation out of the equation, forcing the writer to find alternate ways for him to save the day outside of using super strength, heat vision and ice breath.
Yes, you could go the route that he went in Superman: The Animated Series and find alternate ways to protect him and still have a display of his strength.
Or you could do what Man of Tomorrow does and play into Superman’s sense of morality
Because what’s just as impressive about Superman than being more powerful than a locomotive, is being able to talk a teenage girl down from committing suicide
It's seeing the potential in and being a mentor for a young Billy Batson who just acquired the magical abilities of the wizard Shazam.
/And it’s being able to successfully find and reveal the remaining humanity of the broken and tortured soul of Rudy Jones, so that he doesn’t destroy all of Metropolis/
This movie does such a great job displaying every aspect of what makes Superman the beloved hero that he is, that I’d say it's on par with the 2009 animated Wonder Woman movie as far as proper representation of the character.
I have a link in the description below if you wanna get a copy of this movie yourself and financially want to help the channel out as well, but I HIGHLY recommend you give it a watch if a good Superman story is missing in your life.
They dun did good with this one. Especially since they found a way for me to look at Parasite in a different light than the one Bruce Timm originally shined on him
But, I digress Readers; your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what YOU think about where Parasite ranks as a member of Superman’s rogues gallery.
And if you disagree with why I think he should be taken more seriously after what this movie did for him, let me know who you think SHOULD be considered Superman’s best villain.
Either way I’d love to know your thoughts.
