History WesternAnimation / SupermanTheAnimatedSeries

* [=~Hulk's Cooldown Hug Corollary~=]: The episode with Lois' pet chimp, [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever which had become gigantic]].

* BuryYourGays: {{Inverted}} (That is, if [[HideYourLesbians you managed to notice it at all]]). Maggie Sawyer is blown out of her car during an attack by Intergang and the next shot has her badly burned and motionless beneath a crushing pile of rubble, ''without'' [[EyeAwaken moving her eyes]] or [[FingerTwitchingRevival her fingers]]. Dan Turpin even calls the attackers "murderers" as he screams at them, so everything seems to be indicating that she [[KilledOffForReal is really dead]]...[[NotQuiteDead except she is alive]], and she returns later on in this and future episodes. The intent of the trope, to hide or eliminate homosexuality in a work, is then reversed, as her subsequent recovery in the hospital features the very first appearance of a woman the credits and DVD commentary identify as Toby Raines, her partner in the comics.

''Superman: The Animated Series'' is an animated television series than ran from 1996 to 2000. After ''[[BatmanTheAnimatedSeries Batman: The Animated Series]]'' proved to be an enormous success, [[Franchise/{{DCAU}} Bruce Timm and Paul Dini]] turned their attention to DC's other major hero: [[ComicBook/{{Superman}} Superman]]. The new series would use the same "back to basics" approach to storyline and art stylings, [[AdaptationDistillation giving the Superman mythos the same timeless feel that they brought to the Batman mythos.]]

* MuggingTheMonster: "Knight Time" has Superman disguised as Batman, and breaks into a meeting of a VillainTeamUp between Bane, the Riddler, and the Mad Hatter, all of whom are fooled by his disguise. Superman quickly finds he fight like and Batman and does things his way. This ends about how you'd expect.

** In "Night Time", Superman and Robin notice their are some mind control machines in Bruce Wayne's house, and assume that it's probably the Mad Hatter's doing. After capturing him, he states that the technology used is beyond anything he could build, or likely anyone on Earth could. Hint hint, the real culprit was Brainiac.

* SmithWillSuffice: Variation; when Bruno Mannheim finds himself on Apokolips, he asks "Where in God's name are we?" to which Kanto replies "That depends. To which God are you referring?" right before introducing him to [[BigBad Darkseid]].

** They also note that his lips being the same color as his skin probably caused some confusion, as the DCAU usually does that for black characters, while white characters' lips are either red or not visible at all.

* CelebrityParadox: Jimmy's friend [[GreenLantern Kyle]] draws superhero comic books and gets a rejection letter from DCComics.

* RememberTheNewGuy: Dr. Fate, if you weren't also watching ''The New Batman Adventures''. And even then, we get no indication of how Superman knows him.

''Superman: The Animated Series'' is an animated television series than ran from 1996 to 2000. After ''[[BatmanTheAnimatedSeries Batman: The Animated Series]]'' proved to be an enormous success, [[Main/{{DCAU}} Bruce Timm and Paul Dini]] turned their attention to DC's other major hero: [[ComicBook/{{Superman}} Superman]]. The new series would use the same "back to basics" approach to storyline and art stylings, [[AdaptationDistillation giving the Superman mythos the same timeless feel that they brought to the Batman mythos.]]

* YouFailPhysicsForever: It is Superman, so one has to expect an elastic relationship with the laws of physics, but ''anything'' being strong enough to '''push a spaceship out of a black hole's gravity well''' is pretty hard to swallow.

* ATeamFiring: Averted throughout most of the series, except for the crossover "World's Finest," which brought Batman and the Joker to Metropolis and seemed to be trying to make up for not using the trope before. When the Joker kidnaps Lois his [[{{Mooks}} henchmen]] shoot at Bruce Wayne and, though they initially appear to be firing at his feet in a deliberate attempt to force him to fall off the roof, by the the time he actually falls they are firing dozens of shots at him from five feet away, [[KnifeOutline outlining his entire body]], without hitting him even once. When he finally does fall off the roof he lands on a scaffold and the criminals continue to shoot at him, firing so many bulets ''they knock the scaffold off the building and actually demolish the wooden floor he is standing on'', [[BeyondTheImpossible still without hitting Bruce]].

* YouFailPhysicsForever: It is Superman, so one has to expect an elastic relationship with the laws of physics, but ''anything'' being strong enough to [[BeyondTheImpossible push a spaceship out of a black hole's gravity well]] is pretty hard to swallow.

** "New Kids in Town" is one big homage to ''{{The Terminator}}''.

* The second arc concerned the character of Brainiac. [[RetCanon His origin was rewritten for the series]], tying his origin far more closely with that of Superman. Here he is the [[DeusEstMachina computer system]] responsible for the upkeep of the entire planet of Krypton and he darn well knows in the pilot episode that the planet is doomed. However, he does not want the people to know because he is too busy making provisions to save himself. After the planet explodes he becomes an [[OmnicidalManiac Omnicidal]] [[PlanetLooters Planet Looter]], determined to repeat Krypton's fate ad infinitum: collect all the data in the universe, then destroy the originals to keep his collected info from becoming obsolete. His quest brings him into conflict with Superman a number of times.

** In ''Last Son of Krypton, Part 3'' Lois tells Bibbo to have Clark call "Commissioner Henderson" if she is not heard from soon. Inspector William Henderson was a character originally introduced in the 1940's radio serial as [[TheCommissionerGordon Superman's contact on the police force]]; he was later adapted into the television series and, eventually, the comics. His role was eventually supplanted by Daniel Turpin and Maggie Sawyer, two characters who would become important recurring characters within this series, and he is currently Metropolis's Police Commissioner. He is given a small role in ''Feeding Time'' and appears in the background in ''Apokolips...Now!''

** In ''Last Son of Krypton, Part 3'' Lois tells Bibbo to have Clark call "Commissioner Henderson" if she is not heard from soon. Inspector William Henderson was a character originally introduced in the 1940's radio serial as [[CommissionerGordon Superman's contact on the police force]]; he was later adapted into the television series and, eventually, the comics. His role was eventually supplanted by Daniel Turpin and Maggie Sawyer, two characters who would become important recurring characters within this series, and he is currently Metropolis's Police Commissioner. He is given a small role in ''Feeding Time'' and appears in the background in ''Apokolips...Now!''

* CommissionerGordon:

* TheLancer: Inspector Dan "Terrible" Turpin of the Special Crimes Unit serves as the lancer to Capain Maggie Sawyer, Superman's [[CommissionerGordon contact on the police force]], and occasionally to Superman himself.

* TheRedSonja: Maxima

*** The DVD commentary suggests "king of Hell" as an alternative.

* ShootingSuperman: Obviously.

** In ''The Batman/Superman Movie: World's Finest''
--> '''Janitor''': "Evening Miss Lane. Where's Mr. Kent?"
--> '''Lois''': (sardonically) "Probably out husking some corn!"

* XanatosGambit: Darkseid pulls one in the finale "Legacy", when he has Superman brainwashed into believing he is Darkseid's adopted son and sent to Earth to take it over. The army eventually capture him, and plan to execute him, but Superman escapes, and heads for Apokolips in revenge for what Darkseid did to him. After challenging Darkseid personally, in which he barely comes on top, Superman throws him to his slaves, declaring they're now free...only for the slaves struggle to help Darkseid and carry him off to nurse him back to health. Basically, no matter what happened: whether Superman took over the Earth for Darkseid, was executed, defeated by Darkseid, or even somehow beats him, Darkseid ''still wins''.