Recap / Superman: The Animated Series S3 E3 "New Kids in Town"

The Legion of Superheroes goes back in time to help the Teen of Steel fight a time-traveling Brainiac.

This episode contains examples of the following tropes:

• Butt-Monkey: Kenny Braverman. Trounced by Clark at sports and Brainiac in real life.
• The Cameo: Kairi Tanaga from "Day of the Samurai" can be seen in the crowd at the party.
• Chick Magnet: Clark Kent was irresistible in high school and Lana Lang even complained about his ability to attract every woman in the area.
• Clark Kenting: Mocked. Clark disbelieves that "a pair of glasses is going to fool anyone."
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Lana is displeased over Clark talking to some pretty girls instead of getting her some punch as promised. She literally pulls him away.
• Clothing Damage: Clark Kent's clothing is burned off and ripped to shreds when Brainiac tries to ambush him as a teenager in Smallville.
• Composite Character: Lightning Lad is reduced to a cameo and has Chameleon Boy take his place among the three Legionnaires who visit young Clark Kent.
• Decomposite Character: 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.
• Demoted to Extra: 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.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: 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.
• Evil Is Petty: Brainiac's primary motivation is just to prove for all time that he, not Superman, was the superior survivor of Krypton.
• Foreshadowing: Despite Braniac's apparent final death in "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 picked up on Justice League.
• Gas Leak Cover-Up: 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.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: After Brainiac is beaten by Clark, Saturn Girl erases everybody's memories, making them think that the damage caused by Brainiac's attack was caused by a tornado that passed through Smallville.
• Hurl It into the Sun: 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.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: Chameleon Boy always wanted to say "Up, Up and Away!!"
• Innocuously Important Episode: 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.
• Kneel Before Zod: "At last, the Son of Jor-El kneels before me!"
• Killed Off for Real: It's implied Brainiac is destroyed for good.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Brainiac travels back in time to Smallville to kill Clark Kent before he can become Superman.
• Mama Bear: When Brainiac comes after her son, Martha Kent picks up a shotgun and gives him both barrels.
• The Mountains of Illinois: As noted in the DVD Commentary, Smallville is in a part of Kansas that should not have hills in the background.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Clark being at odds with Kenny Braverman. In the comics, Kenny regularly lost to Clark—eventually becoming the villain Conduit and obsessed with revenge.
  • When Clark surprises him, Jonathan remarks he almost had a heart attack, which was how he died in Superman: The Movie.
  • Brainiac has one to Superman II:
    "At last, the son of Jor-El kneels before me."
• My God, What Have I Done?: 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.
• Papa Wolf: 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.
• Recycled Animation:
  • The shot where Brainiac awakens in Saturn Girl's exposition are reused storyboards from "Ghost in the Machine", though the sequences were reanimated.
  • When Brainiac blasts the two guards in the beginning, there's a full screen frame of a fire explosion, which is reused footage from "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.
• Riddle for the Ages: 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.
• Smug Super: 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.
• Stable Time Loop: Apparently Clark first got his glasses because the Legion gave him a pair identical to what he'll wear as an adult.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Lana isn't happy with Clark showing off. Even if he didn't mean to, Clark still took up Kenny's challenge.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The entire episode is basically the Superman version of 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.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Clark, when the Legion show him a holographic image of himself as Superman.
  Clark: Red underpants?!
• You Keep Telling Yourself That: At the diner, a sour Kenny insists that Clark got the better of him by way of a lucky break and nothing more.

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