Recap / Superman: The Animated Series S1 E5 "A Little Piece of Home"

Superman interrupts a robbery at Lex Luthor's new Natural History museum. He has an easy time of it, even toying with the robbers a bit — until he suddenly gets weak and keels over, allowing the robbers to escape. Luthor, reviewing the security tapes, notices that it happened when Superman stood in front of a display containing an odd green rock. He sees an opportunity to get the hero out of his way, permanently.

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This episode provides examples of the following tropes:

• Achilles' Heel: This is the first time that Kryptonite appears in the series, and is promptly identified as Superman's only weak point.
• Affably Evil: Sam Corali, who comes across as almost endearingly excited about the museum loot and shows concern for Superman (who was just trying to arrest them) upon seeing him collapse due to the kryptonite.
• Ambiguous Situation: Luthor recognizes Sam and Nito, the two museum thieves, and says to make sure they're "dealt with." It's unrevealed whether (assuming his men were able to track the pair down) he meant to turn over to the police, have them killed, or simply extort the money they escaped with.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Luthor visibly grimaces in anger when Lois asks him about his response to accusations of his museum being a large tax shelter for LexCorp.
• Bad Boss: As far as Luthor's concerned, the debris of an alien planet's only value is how he can use it to humiliate Superman. He berates a scientist working for him for suggesting otherwise.
• Bodyguard Babes: Lex Luthor is shown to have one of those.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: While laying a trap for Superman and Lois at his museum, Luthor didn't bother to check if there were any items made of lead, which contain kryptonite's radiations, and to get rid of them. As such Superman and Lois are able of finding an ancient cup made of lead and to use it, to allow Superman to grow strong again and defeat the robotic T-Rex controlled by Luthor and escape.
• Chekhov's Lecture: The museum guide's lecture about a civilisation wiped out by "metallic poisoning"...aka lead poisoning.
• Chekhov's Skill: Lois being able to make baskets with paper wads. It comes in handy later to neutralize the Kryptonite.
• Deadly Euphemism: Luthor orders that the Corelli brothers be “taken care of”, after identifying them as the museum robbers.
• Dumb Muscle: The moron Lex hires to exploit Superman’s Kryptonite weakness, who forgets that it’s the only thing that give him the advantage against Big Blue.
• The End... Or Is It?: In the next-to-last scene, Supes throws the lead-encased chunk of Kryptonite into space. In the very last scene, a Luthor-sponsored team searches for more of the green rocks, and the camera pans to show one lying nearby.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Clark is visibly weakened when Lois enters the diner. Turns out, she's carrying a piece of kryptonite in her purse.
• I Thought Everyone Could Do That: After hearing the explosion in Luthor's museum, caused by the robbers' tunneling, Clark asks Lois if she heard the noise, only remembering that her hearing isn't as good as his after she assumes that he talked about Luthor's speech.
• Kryptonite Factor: Yep.
• Last Chance to Quit: After demonstrating his new advantage, Luthor offers to refrain from attacking Superman if he'll stay out of Luthor's way. Superman rejects the deal.
• The Mole: Professor Petersen tells Lois about the kryptonite discovery, and their phone call implies that he is a regular source of hers.
• No OSHA Compliance: The building the thug robs is programmed to locked down in the event of a fire. This would be massively unsafe, even in a universe with super-powered Nigh-Invulnerable beings.
• Shame If Something Happened: When Luthor finds out what Dr. Peterson is doing, he tells Mercy to escort the terrified scientist home, talking about how it's such a dangerous city, and he'd hate to wake up tomorrow and find out "something terrible" happened to the scientist. Whether or not this is meant to order Petersen murdered, hospitalized or just scared out of betraying Luthor again is unclear, although the first option is implied.

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