Recap / Superman: The Animated Series S2 E3 "The Prometheon"

While preventing an asteroid from hitting Metropolis, Superman discovers a powerful alien robot named the Prometheon, which ends up falling into Metropolis in the asteroid's place, and causing trouble because of course. General Hardcastle tries to destroy it with missiles, which has about as much success as you'd expect, while Professor Hamilton wants to try using heat-absorbing chemicals (like the kind in ice packs) to take advantage of the fact that the Prometheon is powered by thermal energy.

Superman lures it into a reservoir using a red-hot iron bar so Hamilton can freeze it properly, and the crisis is averted.

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This episode includes examples of the following tropes:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Prometheon was built by aliens for heavy labor, powered by the heat from their sun. It turned on them, craving more energy, and was banished to deep space far from the light of stars.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The Prometheon wasn't built to be intelligent and can be easily distracted with a heat source.
• Fantastic Racism: General Hardcastle doesn't hide how much he distrusts Superman.
• Feed It with Fire: Hardcastle and the military fire a storm of munitions at the Prometheon, and while Hardcastle thinks they're wearing it down because it's not moving, Superman tells him that it's letting them shoot at it because they're actually feeding it.
• Implacable Man: The Prometheon can withstand nearly anything, able to endure entry to Earth's atmosphere, walk along a seafloor with no issue, and shrug off everything the army can throw at it.
• I Warned You: When Hardcastle is about to fire a pair of XL Gel missiles at the Prometheon, Superman tries to warn him that he'd only be feeding the creature, but between his racism and the fact that Superman and Hamilton inadvertently unleashed the thing on Earth, he refuses to listen. Naturally, Superman has something to say when the Prometheon absorbs Hardcastle's "barbecue."
  Superman: [dryly] Better hold off on the marshmallows.
• Innocuously Important Episode: The first appearance of General Hardcastle, who will reappear in the series finale and then be retroactively integrated into the Cadmus storyline in Justice League Unlimited.
• Kill It with Ice: Superman and Hamilton plan to freeze the Prometheon, taking away the heat it uses to power itself.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By pushing the Prometheon's asteroid in the direction of the sun's rays, Superman inadvertently revives the creature.
• Shout-Out: The design of the Prometheon is a fairly direct lift from a page in New Gods.

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