Superman vs Robocop was a pretty weak episode with glaring issues with even the episode's concept
I thought this episode was really good.
We see at least something new with the guy in this kind of suit, the power of it, and him helping Superman. We actually see them work together and save some people, it was nice! Even with the thing like the handshake letting us know that yeah something is not quite right here, and he's probably going to turn into a villain.
But seeing this good guy fall to the addiction, the obsession with the suit, is interesting, and the effect it has on his girlfriend. We see his tragedy and it's interesting, as is the way he is connected to the suit, somehow becoming it, or being so connected to it physiologically.
Sure it's a bit standard in how the episode's plot goes along, but i found it interesting and entertaining.
I liked seeing Luthor stop him dead in his tracks and for him to say to his security to "take away some garbage" only to then beg for his life a minute later. I thought maybe he would make a plan with the guy but no, he stopped him to take care of the current problem. But the device to stop him didn't work, he had become too connected with the suit.
I liked the shark almost getting Luthor, i liked in the scene after that we see a door marked to enter the shark tank. I liked in the fight between Superman and the villain that it wasn't all generic action, Superman lost his sight and had to battle him that way. It captured my interest and kept me entertained.
[5.6/10] This was kind of a snooze. There’s juice to the idea of a local law enforcement officer getting an Iron Man suit and then getting way too into it. Hell, that’s basically the premise of Lock-Up from B:TAS. But there’s zero transition and next to no character development here, which makes Sgt. Mills a really boring villain for Supes.
In Act 1, he’s a total good guy. Sure, he shows off Lextech in front of reporters, which is always a bad sign. But then when there’s trouble, he works well with Superman to save a bunch of people on a crumbling building with not even a hint of evil to it. Then, just because he shakes Superman’s hand with a particularly firm grip, Supes turns it into a whole “better hope he doesn't turn that hand into a fist” routine.
The whole “be careful about giving policeman hardcore tech like this” warning might land with more force if the argument didn’t apply just as well to Superman! Maybe you could be charitable and take the episode as pointing out this hypocrisy, but it doesn't read that way. Instead, the idea that hey, maybe it’s not great to have someone with super strength flying around and deciding which criminals to take on and how, feels like a self-own from Supes and the show that goes more or less unaddressed.
But that’s really just a conceptual point. The bigger problem is that Mills goes from zero to crazy in about two minutes. The show vaguely seeds the idea that the suit connects to his nervous system and could have weird effects. Still, one minute Mills is fine and saving the day, and the next he’s brutalizing criminals, shaving his head to better attune to the suit, and wanting to be attached to it like it’s a symbiote from Spider-Man. It comes out of nowhere, and villains whose only real motivation is “I’m a madman and I’m just generally angry” are boring as hell.
The fight that follows between him and Superman is the standard punch and kick-fest that I’ve grown a little tired of from S:TAS. There’s not much new or different about it, save for Mills temporarily blinding Superman, which the episode overplays, and the silly image of Superman tossing a shark back into Luthor’s tank. Superman grabbing a high voltage conduit to stun his foe is a decent enough resolution, but for the most part, this is just the usual slam-fest between two high-powered brutes.
The episode’s also really heavy-handed about making this an origin story episode for John Henry Irons. Between him quitting, trying to help Superman disable Mills’s suit (why does Supes know who Irons is?), and practically telling him to make a suit of his own, the setup is pretty obvious. Though again, it raises the question why Irons would respond any better to that kind of power than Mills, but whatever.
Overall, this is a bit of a dud, conceptually, storywise, and action wise, but it’s inoffensive and watchable enough.
Shout by AnthonyBlockedParentSpoilers2022-01-21T11:54:54Z
Instead of making a remote that turns the suit off, Lex instead makes a stick that he has to jam into the back of the suit, which only shocks the wearer and doesn't disable the suit, genious.