What A Cartoon! - Superman: The Animated Series "The Late Mr. Kent"
Added 2025-08-04 13:39:06 +0000 UTCLook! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's another podcast about Superman! (Please have your eyes examined.) Yes, we last checked in on the Man of Steel's '90s adaptation during the dawn of COVID, but with Superman fever currently sweeping the nation, there's never been a better time to discuss one of this underappreciated series' finest episodes. So listen in as Superman goes toe-to-toe with one of his most insidious foes: the carceral state!
Comments
**SPOILER ALERT — DONT EXPAND IF YOU HAVENT SEEN IT** I want to offer a different frame of reference to anyone comparing Gunn’s take on DC with Snyder’s, and that’s Venture Bros. The latest Superman is set in a universe where super powers, super science, and fantastical intergalactic beings coexist with ordinary people and have for centuries. It’s a movie in which Mr. Terrific can show up the same way that Boba Fett can show up in Empire. The movie tells you what you need to know about him and fleshes him out enough that he feels real and has an interior life. YMMV if that works for you, but I’d caution against “rounding down” any background character or setting into some tired “corporate synergy” crap. Sometimes, a movie has characters to bring a story to life, not to pre-sell you on the next installment. (That would be Supergirl’s cameo, but even that is a satisfying punchline IMO… and holy shit, I’m pre-sold on an adaptation of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow because that series rules!)
John Halski
2025-08-05 16:15:28 +0000 UTCbut that's a drop in the bucket compared to the whole genocide thing, which was also shouted down. I work in higher ed and told everyone last summer that if we didn't put pressure on the schools to support their students right to self expression and assembly, then a year from now they'd be deporting anyone who got arrested at these protests. And that's exactly what happened. It sucks so hard. I've lost pretty much any respect I had left for higher ed and academia and there wasn't much there. I still have to hear people talk about "how they care about kids" and its just too gross sometimes. I won't forget what everyone said last year.
Andrew Giachetti
2025-08-05 13:59:16 +0000 UTCFor what its worth, which may not be much, a lot of us were really mad about the death penalty thing, but were shouted down in the wave of "vote blue matter who". To be clear, it wasn't a "don't vote for them" anger, but pointing out the extent to which the dems were going right at the expense of their base BEFORE the election. And for some more context, the podcast kind of undersells how baffling it was for the dems to be silent on the death penalty. And it was the entire dems, not just the candidates. The DNC dropped it as a part of their platform for the first time since 2004. Here's an excerpt from before the election: "This year marks a striking contrast. So far Democrats have been silent about capital punishment. To date, Kamala Harris, its 2024 nominee, has said nothing about capital punishment. Moreover, as an article in The Huffington Post points out, “This year’s platform marks the first time since 2004 the platform has not mentioned the death penalty.” In fact, the only mention of it in this year’s Democratic National Convention was made by four members of the so-called ExoneratedFive. They were convicted of a crime they did not commit in 1989, and they reminded the delegates that Donald Trump had called for their execution." https://www.salon.com/2024/08/31/the-end-of-the-abolition-era-democrats-quietly-drop-their-opposition-to-the-penalty/ I was super mad and did not shut up about this. There was no room for criticism, which shouldn't surprise us, there was no primary. There hasn't been even the lame excuse for one in a long time.
Andrew Giachetti
2025-08-05 13:54:14 +0000 UTC
