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"Ruby-Spears Superman"
Review by Zach Demeter "Bird Boy"


Click Here!Ruby-Spears Superman
Release Date: November 3, 2009
Format: DVD
Studio: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

Synopsis: As a 50th anniversary gift to fans, DC Comics' Man of Steel was given a brand-new Saturday morning cartoon in 1988. The Ruby-Spears Superman series brought back some familiar foes and new unfriendly faces for battles against our favorite hero. In addition to the thrills of Superman's weekly adventures, each episode also includes a mini-segment - a continuing series called Superman Family Album. These featurettes tell the real story of what it was like to grow up as the most powerful boy in Smallville. Watch young Clark Kent deal with not only the normal trials and tribulations of youth and adolescence, but learn to balance them with his newfound super powers.

Special Features:
-"Corruption of the Corrupt: The Rise of LexCorp:" A fascinating glimpse into the Decade of Greed, when Americans were growing more and more distrustful of corporate leadership. From the headlines of the day to the pages of Superman arose a new vision of an old villain, Lex Luthor and his conglomerate, LexCorp.

Statement:
"These celebratory episodes not only take fans through the expected, yet exhilarating, adventures of Superman, but they share the untold story of his youth," said Amit Desai, WHV Vice President of Family, Animation & Sports Marketing. "Warner Home Video is absolutely thrilled to release Ruby-Spears Superman just in time for the holiday season."


Ruby-Spears Superman DVD Review
by Zach Demeter

The Feature:

DC animation has been slowly trickling onto DVD over the past few years and the whole time fans were wondering when the fabled 1988 Ruby-Spears Superman show would ever see the light of day. With the DC well running dry, however, Warner Home Video eventually scraped the bottom of the barrel...which is apparently where this series was located. Sure there are other DC shows that haven't seen DVD yet (or lately, at least), but to hold back a Superman series for so long left fans baffled.

The Ruby-Spears Superman series has long been clamored for on DVD and as a kid I can remember seeing random VHS tapes at Wal-Mart with one or two episodes. I never did see any of them, however, simply because I was more of a Batman-oriented kid and thought Superman was, to put it frank, stupid. I've since grown out of that mindset of course, but the Ruby-Spears series was still something I'd never had a chance to see, simply because the series was never put out in any form. Despite this being a barebones set (aside from a short extra), I was really quite impressed by what this series had to offer.

What made the series stand out was how diverse it was. It had guest stars (well, Wonder Woman at least), a much more serious tone than something like the Superfriends series and was even capped the end with a history of Superman's life in Smallville. What was so interesting about this series was that at a scant thirteen episodes it was very short lived…yet the way the end segments of each episode were set up, it was almost as if the series ended where it was supposed to, simply because the last bit focused on the first time Clark Kent became Superman.

This series really is an interesting marriage between the comic book mythos and the Christopher Reeve films, as it cherry picks from both to create its own continuity. In many ways the series is reminiscent of the one that followed in 1996 from Bruce Timm and Co., as both were much more serious in nature than past outings and both had similar elements such as the company owning Lex Luthor, which played heavily into both series. In addition the animation on the Ruby-Spears series was really quite wonderful; dated by today's standards, sure, but still full of great detail and solid animation throughout. On top of this the series features one of the coolest intros, with a nice mix of John Williams Superman score mixed with composer Ron Jones own half of the theme.

I'd heard how good the Ruby-Spears series was from those who grew up with and watched it, but I had no idea just how strong it was. The series had few weak points and while the stories aren't always the most memorable, it was really just a blast to watch a cartoon from the 80s that wasn't pure corn. There were thirteen episodes produced of this series in all that aired over a four month period on CBS...and then that was it. Included on this set:

Disc #1
Destroy The Defendroids / The Adoption
Fugitive From Space / The Supermarket
By The Skin Of The Dragons Teeth / At The Babysitters
Cybron Strikes / The First Day Of School
The Big Scoop /Overnight With The Scouts
Triple-Play / The Circus
The Hunter / Little Runaway

Disc #2
Superman and Wonder Woman VS The Sorcerer Of Time / The Birthday Party
Bonechill / The Drivers License
The Beast Beneath These Streets / First Date
Wildshark / To Play Or Not to Play
Night Of The Living Shadows /Graduation
The Last Time I Saw Earth / Its Superman

Overall, Ruby-Spears Superman truly is a "lost gem" that I'm glad finally made its way to DVD. It's not perfect and I may have enjoyed the shock that this series was genuinely good more than the series itself but nonetheless it comes Recommended.

The DVD:

Click Here!Warner Home Video packages the set up in a standard two-disc Amaray case that is then housed inside of a cardboard slipcase. I always enjoy it when studios do this as it blends in better with your other TV shows that are in box form-a simple DVD case just looks odd at times...but then I'm just overly anal about those types of things so chances are it doesn't matter to you.

Video is a standard 4x3 transfer and given that this series is now twenty years old, it looks pretty solid. Some cel dirt/damage is present but overall it's a strong transfer and one that won't disappoint the majority who watch it. Audio is a DD2.0 track that is similarly strong with a nice and loud dialogue with mildly dated sound effects.

The only extra on the set is:

Corruption of the Corrupt: The Rise of LexCorp - A fascinating glimpse into the Decade of Greed, when Americans were growing more and more distrustful of corporate leadership. From the headlines of the day to the pages of Superman arose a new vision of an old villain, Lex Luthor and his conglomerate, LexCorp.

While this is a solid piece, it really doesn't have much to do with the Ruby-Spears show itself. It focuses more on the history of Luthor and the way he was presented in this series, but it doesn't really talk about this series specifically. Which is a shame, but Warner seems to like making extras that are incredibly ambiguous (none of the DC Universe titles have movie-specific extras either, which is strange).

Overall Ruby-Spears Superman is a Recommended release, if only just to see the episodes for the first time (in my case, anyway).


Ruby-Spears Superman arrives on DVD on November 3rd, 2009 from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.


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