Atom Man vs. Superman is the tenth film serial I’ve seen in my journey to see every comic book movie, and to be honest, by this point I’m really over serials. However, Atom Man vs. Superman is probably my favorite of the serials I’ve seen. My favorites up to this point have been Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941), Captain America (1944), and Superman (1948), and if nothing else I at least think that Atom Man vs. Superman stacks up against these. Don’t get me wrong, Atom Man vs. Superman IS still plagued by the general problems that I have with serials, such as recycled footage, formulaic storylines, and most importantly a very bloated runtime. Much like most of the other ones, this is 15 chapters long, with each chapter being around 15 minutes long, clocking in for a total runtime of around 4 hours. It’s obvious that it loses steam by the end, but this happens with literally every serial, because watching anything for 4 hours soon becomes a chore. But, if I’m taking Atom Man vs. Superman for what it is, I found it to be one of the more enjoyable ones.
This serial marks some important milestones for the comic book movie genre. For starters, it’s only the second superhero sequel, following 1949’s Batman and Robin. However, while Batman and Robin had a different cast, Atom Man vs. Superman is the first superhero sequel to have the same cast return in their roles from 1948’s Superman. Also, this is the first time we see an actual famous comic book villain on-screen, with the serial revolving around Superman taking on his notorious nemesis Lex Luthor. Every other superhero serial up to this point featured no-name, usually made for the serial, villains, and so it was refreshing to see a villain that I actually knew. Also, this is the first time the stakes were truly raised in one of these serials, with Lex Luthor being the first on-screen comic book villain to try to destroy the whole world. So, there is some impressive milestones to be seen here.
However, in the end, this is your typical “good guy vs. bad guy” storyline. Like I said, Lex Luthor is trying to take over the world, under the guise of masked villain Atom Man, and Superman is fighting to stop him. There’s no unique spin on it past that, and so the storyline is pretty generic. However, what always needs to be kept in mind is that these early movies were simply laying the groundwork and building a foundation for which future movies could put a spin on. It is still a generic story, don’t get me wrong, but for its time I understand why it wasn’t complex at all.
While Atom Man vs. Superman does fall into the typical formulaic serial structure, I felt like I noticed some real effort to actually have somewhat of a storyline happening throughout its runtime. Most of these serials simply have the plot of “bad guy is trying to carry out a new bad guy plan, so good guy goes to stop that plan” in each chapter. But in Atom Man vs. Superman, things actually do happen throughout the serial that keep it interesting. At one point, Lois Lane goes to work for Lex Luthor. During another chapter, Superman finds himself trapped in some weird “ghost dimension.” Don’t get me wrong, this does follow the formula of a serial structure, but there are at least some innovations to be found that kept me interested. While I usually get burned out by these serials by the fifth or sixth chapter, in Atom Man vs. Superman it was more like by the eleventh or twelfth.
The special effects and overall production quality are a bit of a mixed bag here. The movie could have easily phoned it in and try not to showcase Superman’s powers much at all, but they do make some real attempts here. And sure, when you have something like Superman flying, it does revert to animation like it did for the first serial in 1948, but they use whatever tools at their disposal to actually make Superman be Superman. There are some other decent effects, such as a nice fade-in/fade-out for teleportation scenes. However, there’s also a few really bad effects. I mainly had a problem with the overall production quality. Not a lot of effort went into Atom Man’s costume, and so he looks absolutely ridiculous. Also, the movie recycles a lot of footage, and I do understand why they did it, but it ends up cheapening the final product.
In the end, Atom Man vs. Superman does work more often than it doesn’t. It definitely suffers the typical problems that a lot of serials face, but for a serial I think it’s one of the better ones. It definitely kept my attention far more than some of the other ones have, so I really don’t want to complain too much about this one. It still doesn’t hold a candle to some of the comic book movies that came later, but for being one of the earliest spins on the Superman character, Atom Man vs. Superman is a decent effort.
4/5
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