Adventures of Superman Last Knight Television 

Five Thoughts on Adventures of Superman‘s “The Last Knight” and “The Magic Secret”

By | November 26th, 2020
Posted in Television | % Comments

One of the most enduring memories of my childhood, which is odd as it only happened four times, was watching the ‘Superman Festival’ on local station WWOR Channel 9, based out of Seacaucus, NJ and serving the New York metropolitan area. The festival, hosted by Adventures of Superman‘s Jimmy Olsen, Jack Larson, featured a number of Adventures episodes aired on Thanksgiving Day after the end of the Macy’s parade. You can watch some of Larson’s bits on YouTube.

Carrying on that tradition, we will be posting three of our Adventures of Superman double shots today, acting as a ‘Superman Festival’ of our own. For all those celebrating, Happy Thanksgiving.

Well, the sixth, and final, season of Adventures of Superman is upon us. Despite this being hyped as a ‘more serious’ season, so far we’ve seen multiple people levitate Lois and a bunch of old men pretending to be Knights of the Round Table. Let’s get to it.

1. WOAH LOIS WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HAIR?

It would be fairly accurate to say that Noel Neill had red-ish hair. Well, with the start of Season 6, she was essentially Lucille Ball, but even brighter (as seen above). Holy shit did this hair color take me by surprise. I know that very few folks, at the time, saw these in color, but I can’t imagine the shock they would’ve had if they saw her hair color change so immensely. I know that, in the grand scheme of the show, this is a small thing, but it sure feels weird, and was quite the start to the new season.

2. Criminal LARPing

So, the plot of “The Last Knight” revolves around some old, rich men who start a secret society that allows them to dress up as Knights of the Round Table. They want to get suits of armor to further this LARPing business, and so they stage a fake robbery of a jewel at the Metropolis Museum, to act as a diversion to allow them to steal the suit of armor. It seems to me like there were easier ways to do this, but whatever, I wasn’t a writer on this show.

Of course, there’s something nefarious at stake here, and when the plot begins to unravel, through some truly weird circumstances, Clark, as Superman, poses as one of the knights and gets himself thrown into their dungeon, where Lois and Jimmy are already being held. But here is one of the weirdest unanswered questions in the entire series: why does Superman wait until they’re almost dead to reveal himself? It’s not as if he’s dressed as Clark, and so taking off the helmet would incriminate him. It’s not as if there wasn’t a reason to do so earlier; if he had acted earlier, he could’ve saved some pain for the other knights, and never let Sir Arthur take this ruse as far as he let it go.

But no, he waits until the last possible second and reveals himself. It’s very odd.

3. Superman is not opposed to burning a dude’s ear off, apparently

One of the shocking parts of this ‘wholesome’ series is just how quick to violence Superman is. Not the violence you’d expect; rarely, if ever, does Superman punch someone out. He usually allows them to run into a wall, or bonks them on the head or neck with a judo chop. But we’ve seen him do things like toss an explosive to a crook last week or, this week, use his x-ray vision over radio waves to set a radio receiver on fire, potentially burning the person on the other end. I know that we don’t see the grizzly effects of this, as the guy just tosses it in the garbage can, but Superman is defined by being the all kind, walking embodiment of ‘do no harm.’ It’s so weird to me how often this show is ok with him not being that.

4. Jimmy Olsen, public lover of magic

I tried. I tried really hard to understand how a crook would know that Jimmy Olsen is a magic nut. I know that this whole plan is predicated on tricking Jimmy and Lois into peril so that Clark can call Superman, and then they can use the Kryptonite ray to de-power Superman. And so, they had to do some research on Jimmy, but how, in 1957, would this sort of research come about? The main crook, Griswald, actually says something along the lines of “Everyone knows that Olsen is crazy about magic!” I imagine Jimmy just strolling through the streets of Metropolis yelling shit like “GIMME MAGIC. I WANT MAGIC.” Does he place personal ads in the Planet? “Cub reporter looking for some magic, no questions asked.” Has he been arrested for soliciting magic in the less classy parts of town?

Continued below

5. Okay seriously, what the fuck?

Just last week, I mentioned that sometimes this show gives their characters sudden interests that they’ve supposedly had for years. Now, I think we can all buy that a rube like Jimmy would be easily taken in by magic, and he’s enough of a child to get that. But when we find out that Perry White is part of some sort of magician’s guild, I burst out laughing. When I stopped laughing was when he wasn’t making quarters appear behind Clark’s ear or guessing Jimmy’s card, but when he straight up levitated Lois with no explanation. Now, they cover this up by saying that Perry could be kicked out of the guild for revealing the secrets, and if that’s plausible enough for Arrested Development, that’s good enough for me.

Except for one thing: Lois doesn’t remember being levitated. She’s put into some sort of trance by Perry, and that’s not a simple parlor trick. Just to up the ante a bit, Superman later does this exact trick later to Lois, but instead uses it to make Lois a brace in a collapsing room. So not only does she go into a trance, but she’s either stiff enough to stop thousands of pounds of pressure, or Superman doesn’t care about her life, and is willing to sacrifice her to stop the walls from closing in at least for a couple of minutes.

Be back shortly!


//TAGS | Adventures of Superman

Brian Salvatore

Brian Salvatore is an editor, podcaster, reviewer, writer at large, and general task master at Multiversity. When not writing, he can be found playing music, hanging out with his kids, or playing music with his kids. He also has a dog named Lola, a rowboat, and once met Jimmy Carter. Feel free to email him about good beer, the New York Mets, or the best way to make Chicken Parmagiana (add a thin slice of prosciutto under the cheese).

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