Line #27 Recap/SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS3E3NewKidsInTown


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/new_kids_in_town.png]]
2	The Legion of Superheroes goes back in time to help the Teen of Steel fight a time-traveling Brainiac.
3	!!This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
4	* ButtMonkey: Kenny Braverman. Trounced by Clark at sports and Brainiac in real life.
5	* TheCameo: Kairi Tanaga from "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE44DayOfTheSamurai Day of the Samurai]]" can be seen in the crowd at the party.
6	* ChickMagnet: Clark Kent was irresistible in high school and Lana Lang even complained about his ability to attract every woman in the area.
7	* ClarkKenting: Mocked. Clark disbelieves that "a pair of glasses is going to fool anyone."
8	* ClingyJealousGirl: Lana is displeased over Clark talking to some pretty girls instead of getting her some punch as promised. She literally pulls him away.
9	* ClothingDamage: Clark Kent's clothing is burned off and ripped to shreds when Brainiac tries to ambush him as a teenager in Smallville.
10	* CompositeCharacter: Lightning Lad is [[DemotedToExtra reduced to a cameo]] and has Chameleon Boy take his place among the three Legionnaires who visit young Clark Kent.
11	* DecompositeCharacter: Lightning Lad is still a member of this continuity's Legion of Super-Heroes, but only has a brief cameo and has his role among the three Legionnaires who time-travel to visit a young Clark Kent given to Chameleon Boy.
12	* DemotedToExtra: In the comics, it was Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad who went back in time to meet Superboy. Here, Chameleon Boy takes Lightning Lad's place among the three Legionnaires who go back in tome to visit a young Clark Kent and Lightning Lad instead makes a brief cameo among the other Legionnaires, since at the time in the comics Lightning Lad was going by "Live Wire," which may have caused confusion with the similarly-named villainess.
13	* DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength: When his powers first began to manifest, Clark Kent had a lot of trouble adjusting to his newfound strength. When engaging in a "friendly" game of basketball, he accidentally threw his opponent across the court and through a refreshment table.
14	* EvilIsPetty: Brainiac's primary motivation is just to prove for all time that he, not Superman, was the superior survivor of Krypton.
15	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Despite Braniac's apparent final death in [[Recap/SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS3E2KnightTime "Knight Time"]], the time travel plot here reveals at least one copy of Braniac's program is still out there and will survive into the far future. As this episode's Brainiac's final appearance in STAS, this thread and mystery will get [[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E1And2Twilight picked up]] on ''Justice League''.
16	* GasLeakCoverup: After all's said and done, Saturn Girl mind-controls everyone in Smallville to believe that the damage caused by Brainiac's rampage came from a tornado.
17	* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: After Brainiac is beaten by Clark, [[LaserGuidedAmnesia Saturn Girl erases everybody's memories]], [[GasLeakCoverup making them think that the damage caused by Brainiac's attack was caused by a tornado that passed through Smallville]].
18	* HurlItIntoTheSun: When Braniac has teen-Clark, Saturn Girl tells him to activate Branic's teleportation belt, while Clark manages to escape in the nick of time, Braniac gets sent into space, where the sun's extreme heat causes his robot body to burn and melt.
19	* IAlwaysWantedToSayThat: Chameleon Boy always wanted to say "Up, Up and Away!!"
20	* InnocuouslyImportantEpisode: This is the first episode of the DCAU to establish the existence of time travel in the setting. ''Justice League'' will later make use of this groundwork to do its ow time travel stories about once a Season.
21	* KneelBeforeZod: "At last, the Son of Jor-El kneels before me!"
22	* KilledOffForReal: It's implied Brainiac is destroyed for good.
23	* MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight: Brainiac travels back in time to Smallville to kill Clark Kent before he can become Superman.
24	* MamaBear: When Brainiac comes after her son, Martha Kent picks up a shotgun and gives him both barrels.
25	* TheMountainsOfIllinois: As noted in the DVDCommentary, Smallville is in a part of Kansas that should not have hills in the background.
26	* MythologyGag:
27	** Clark being at odds with Kenny Braverman. In the comics, Kenny regularly lost to Clark--eventually becoming the villain Conduit and obsessed with revenge.
28	** When Clark surprises him, Jonathan remarks he almost had a heart attack, which was how he died in ''Film/SupermanTheMovie''.
29	** Brainiac has one to ''Film/SupermanII'':
30	--->"At last, the son of Jor-El kneels before me."
31	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Clark is a bit apologetic that he accidentally knocked Kenny across the court and into a table, saying he didn't mean to do that.
32	* PapaWolf: Jonathan Kent was ready to go out and clobber Brainiac with a shovel when he thought Clark was in danger, but Martha recommends a shotgun instead.
33	* RecycledAnimation:
34	** The shot where Brainiac awakens in Saturn Girl's exposition are reused storyboards from "[[Recap/SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS2E14GhostInTheMachine Ghost in the Machine]]", though the sequences were reanimated.
35	** When Brainiac blasts the two guards in the beginning, there's a full screen frame of a fire explosion, which is reused footage from "[[Recap/SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS3E1WhereTheresSmoke Where There's Smoke]]" when Volcana blasted Superman with a fire ball in the parking lot. This is recurrently used throughout the episode: when Brainiac is chasing down Clark and misses a fire, when the gas truck explodes, when Pa and Ma Kent shoot Brainiac, and finally when Clark smashes the tractor into the harvester.
36	* RiddleForTheAges: Some point between the then-present and the future, Brainiac knows Clark Kent is Kal-El/Superman. It's never elaborated in the rest of the DCAU if he had known all along.
37	* SmugSuper: As his powers began to manifest, Clark Kent became a jerk in high school. Even Lana Lang, his girlfriend and best friend, found him arrogant and hard to be around sometimes. Though to be fair, Kenny was being a jerk to him first.
38	* StableTimeLoop: Apparently Clark first got his glasses because the Legion gave him a pair identical to what he'll wear as an adult.
39	* WhatTheHellHero: Lana isn't happy with Clark showing off. Even if he didn't mean to, Clark still took up Kenny's challenge.
40	* WholePlotReference: The entire episode is basically the Superman version of ''[[Film/{{TheTerminator}} The Terminator]]'', with Brainiac as the T-800/[=SkyNet=], the Teen Clark as Sarah Connor, the Legion of Super-Heroes as Kyle Reese and the Resistance, etc.
41	* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: Clark, when the Legion show him a holographic image of himself as Superman.
42	-->'''Clark:''' Red underpants?!
43	* YouKeepTellingYourselfThat: At the diner, a sour Kenny insists that Clark got the better of him by way of a lucky break and nothing more.

Context Recap / SupermanTheAnimatedSeriesS3E3NewKidsInTown