Ruby-Spears Superman

Ruby Spears SUPERMAN

Studio: Warner Brothers/Cartoon Network

Year: 2009

Rated: Not Rated

Film Length: 5 hours, 9 minutes

Aspect Ratio: Standard (1.33:1)

Audio: English Dolby Digital Mono

Subtitles: English SDH

Release Date: November 3, 2009
 

The Series
 

The Superman cartoon series produced by Ruby Spears debuted in 1988 to coincide with Superman’s 50^th Anniversary. This series aired on ABC on Saturday mornings during the 1988-1989 TV season and has been seen since only rarely. This series may not be the best animated version of this character (most critics agree that the theatrical shorts produced by the Fleischer Brothers in the early 1940s are still the best) but it is hardly the worst incarnation either.

Just a few short years before this series aired, DC Comics published Crisis On Infinite Earths, a 12 issue comic book series that revamped the DC Universe and cleared away 50 years or so of inconsistent continuity. In 1986, DC hired acclaimed comic creator John Byrne away from Marvel Comics to start fresh with the new Superman. Byrne worked in concert with comic writer Marv Wolfman and artist Jerry Ordway to start a new Superman mythology, including such changes as having Kal-El’s adoptive parents, the Kents, still alive after Clark Kent goes to Metropolis. The new Lex Luthor was no longer a mad scientist, but a more threatening multi-billionaire whose power and wealth seemed to put him above the law, perhaps even beyond the reach of Superman. When Ruby-Spears produced its Superman cartoon several years later, the series hewed closely to the new version of Superman created a few years earlier.

This series benefitted from the contributions of Marv Wolfman as story editor and occasional writer for the series, as well as the assistance of comic book legend Gil Kane in creating character models for the characters. The result was an entertaining Superman cartoon that parents would not be bored with while watching with their children. Each episode consists of 2 stories, a longer serious adventure story from Metropolis followed by a brief "Superman Family Album"detailing short, humorous stories about Clark Kent’s life in Smallville. This 2 disc set contains all 13 episodes of Superman produced by Ruby-Spears.

Video
 

The series appears on DVD here in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. This is a very nice transfer without any of the "jaggies" or compression artifacts suffered by some animation releases. There is occasional debris on these prints but it so minimal as to be almost non-existent. The video here is definitely a step above in video quality over the Superfriends cartoons that have already been released by Warner Home Video. In comparison to the Superfriends DVDs, which have source material that is admittedly a few years older than this, these episodes are pristine and look great on a big screen.

Audio
 

The English Dolby Digital mono is of a quality to be expected of a Saturday morning cartoon from 20 years ago that apparently never aired in stereo at that time. Dialogue is fully intelligible and does not suffer undue interference from music and sound effects.

Special Features
 

The special features are located on both disc 1 and disc 2. The special features on disc 1 consist of the following:

Corporation of the Corrupt: The Rise of Lexcorp (13:31): The cast members are in character as they talk about themselves in video messages.

Green Lantern: First Flight (3:13): Trailer for the direct to DVD animated cartoon movie.

The special features on disc 2 consist of the following:

Harry Potter Wizarding World: Trailer for the DVD game.

Secret Saturdays: Trailer for the series on DVD.

Conclusion
 

The Ruby Spears Superman is an excellent super-hero cartoon series that really paved the way for the superior Superman series from 1996, which has been available on DVD for some time.  I compared the video quality of this release to the Superfriends cartoons already released on DVD to confirm that the video quality is superior on this release;  although I expect some disagreement, I believe that the overall quality of this series is well above and beyond anything in the Superfriends cartoon series.

The combination of the then-new Superman mythos with the John Williams music score and character designs by Gil Kane created a terrific and entertaining cartoon series that adults can enjoy. Why this series did not air for more than one season, I will never know, but fans of Superman are sure to enjoy this DVD set containing all 13 original episodes from the series.