AdvSuperman

During the 250th Anniversary celebrations of Metropolis, an experimental passenger
aircraft, the Constitution, collides with a light plane, the passenger of which has fallen
unconscious. It is helped to land by a mysterious flying man wearing a brown leather
jacket and corduroy trousers! Intrepid Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane is aboard, but
the man leaves before she can properly speak to him. Unscrupulous businessman Lex
Luthor of Lexcorp supplied many of the components used by the supersonic plane,
and uses his influence to remove the video of the 'flying man'. Martha and Jonathan
Kent, the 'flying man' Clark Kent's guardians, make him a costume that will make him
incognito while helping people. He starts work as a reporter at the Daily Planet
newsroom, and the hero (dubbed the 'Superman' by the media) is increasingly sighted
across the city fighting crime.

Lex Luthor is determined to trap
and make the new superhero his
own. He has Dr Teng develop a
tough battle armour. Meanwhile,
Lois Lane stages an accident,
driving her car into the river to
be rescued by Superman, simply
to get an interview. Luthor's new
yacht, the Sea Queen, is the
setting for a gala evening that
comes under fire from South
American terrorists. Lois and
Clark are representatives from
the press. Superman saves the
day only to learn that Luthor
knew it was going to happen and
stepped-down security to see
what would transpire. The
mayor grants Superman deputy
powers to arrest Luthor, and the
boat is flown back to
Metropolis.

As Lex Luthor is bailed and
plots his revenge against
Superman, Jonathan Kent takes
Clark to the snow-buried
capsule he had arrived in as a
baby, but it is no longer there.
Clark has no time to ponder this
as he hears multiple screams of
distress coming from
Metropolis. Dr Teng's battle
armour, financed by Lex Corp,
is rampaging through part of the
city. Lois and Daily Planet
photographer Jimmy Olsen are
cornered as Superman arrives.
However, Superman soon
discovers he is the intended
target. A fight ensues,
culminating in Superman
burning-out the battle armour's
circuitry with his heat vision. He
personally delivers the wreckage
to Lex Luthor's office in Hong
Kong, but the businessman has
covered his tracks well. There is
a war of words and Luthor
threatens to best the costumed
hero.

Luthor's plans are foiled once more after he tries to end the president's term by
demonstrating a missile guidance system to the press which goes wrong. Again,
Superman is obliged to intervene. The extraterrestrial capsule, which had gone missing
from near the Kent farm, is in the hands of a man called Schwarz, who is studying
intensely the data found within. Dr Teng has obtained cell structure samples from
Superman, taken by the battle armour, and using the information has discovered that
the flying man is not native to Earth. He has also produced a clone, but the process
partly rejects the alien cell structure which crystalises and affects the brain, creating a
Bizarro Superman. Superman finds it in a dark corner of the Daily Planet lobby,
wearing a suit and glasses over a makeshift representation of the Superman uniform.
Fearing his secret identity is about to be blown, the real Superman drags Bizarro out
on to the street where it retaliates with heat vision, and a fight is on.

As Clark Kent endures countless dreams about his origins, Schwarz uncovers crystals
from Superman's (Kal-El's) home planet in the power source he has stolen from the
capsule. The infant had been heavily shielded from them which tells him they will be a
useful weapon against the alien. He creates an android called Metallo and dispatches it
to infiltrate the reactor plant at Two Mile Island to attract Superman. When the hero
arrives Metallo opens a mechanical section of its torso to reveal a heart of Kryptonite
(the crystals from the capsule). The severely weakened Superman appears defeated
when Lex Luthor arrives and rips the Kryptonite heart from Metallo's chest cavity.
Superman makes his escape but revisits Luthor in rage after the Kents are drugged and
Clark's Smallville sweetheart, Lana Lang, is 'roughed-up' in an attempt to reveal Clark's
connection with Superman. Luthor reveals a ring he has had fashioned from the
crystal. Once again Superman is weakened, but Luthor is forced to let him go when
the reactor at Two Mile Island goes critical. Superman rushes there, rips out the entire
reactor and flies it to a height where the explosion will do no damage. As Lois berates
Clark for going missing in all the excitement, Luthor's assistant, Amanda, explains that
their computer has correlated countless data and come to the conclusion that
Superman is Clark Kent. However, Luthor refuses to believe someone with such
power would hide behind the identity of a hack reporter.

In 1988 Dirk Maggs moved from being a Studio Manager to a Producer in the BBC's
Light Entertainment department. One of the first things he worked on was Superman
On Trial. It was pitched by him as a documentary to celebrate the 50th anniversary of
the enduring comic character, but he soon realised it would work much better as a
dramatisation - a docudrama, as Dirk himself put it. It was well received by Radio 4
and kicked-off several successful comicbook adaptations. Superman was a subject
Dirk knew plenty about, so it was no surprise when he returned to it with The
Adventures Of Superman. The recording story of this one spans the years 1990 to
1994. Although the Superman character and situations were initially created by Jerry
Siegel and Joe Shuster, Dirk adapted updated versions of the original comic tales
written by John Byrne, Dave Gibbons and Jerry Ordway. Successful adaptations of
Superman On Trial and Batman - The Lazarus Syndrome paved the way for an
improved relationship with the powers at DC Comics, but by Dirk's own admission
obtaining the required rights is never straightforward.

"I read Superman as a kid. Avidly. My
parents were in residential child care, so I
was raised with the kids in care. The
downside was that I had to learn to defend
myself at an early age; the upside was that
they had all sorts of exotic relatives or
absentee parents overseas buying comics I'd
never even think existed, and so I fell in love
with DC and Marvel characters in the early
1960s. I still remember the thrill of getting a
DC '60-page special' or discovering Spidey
and how funny and inventive Stan Lee and
Steve Ditko were. Stan Lee's use of ornate
language and Marvel's lauable crediting of
artists, colourers and inkers were eye
openers to me. DC was more enigmatic; they
had all these amazing characters seemingly
drawn by invisible hands. Only later did I
discover the geniuses slaving away there!

But yes Superman was my favourite, as a kid with low self-esteem there was
something uplifting about seeing the clunky Clark Kent tear open his shirt to reveal that
big red and yellow shield.

"Rights negotiations are a nightmare, period. No matter what era the story. More
recent stuff is easier for the rights holder to dig out the legal files on. A story by Siegel
and Shuster would be harder to clear than one by Dan Jurgens, because Dan is still
around and the contracts have not been buried under years of files and transfers of
ownership from DC to Warner to Time Warner to AOL...

"Superman is tough to write for - he is genuinely a decent person who wants to build
things up, not knock them down. It's very easy to write colourless stories about
people who attempt to do good, because philanthropism - even on this scale - means
going the long way round, doing things the slow way, generally avoiding mayhem. So
to write a Superman story that has grit, you need to explore the conflict between his
Kryptonian soul and his human upbringing. And pitch him up against some genuinely
dirty fighters too. I have to say I feel about the Smallville TV series the way I felt
about Lois & Clark; nice ideas but you can't do Superman on a TV budget. Superman
is NOT a soap opera character, he's too special for that. Leave it to the people in the
biggest and most visual medium of all - radio!"

Review by Ty Power

To put things in perspective, a script for two hours thirty minutes of material can take
three to four weeks to write. It is then necessary to send the script to DC Comics for
approval, and then make changes to incorporate the received comments. It is
obligatory to show the DC quality controllers the initial script, because they are often
concerned about the possibility of 'rules' being broken. Then Dirk, as Producer, has to
ensure the finished product is fit for broadcast in terms of language and violence
censorship.

The Adventures Of Superman was originally split into two serials, the first culminating
in the character's first major confrontation with Lex Luthor and their exchange of
threats. Reheasals took place at the BBC's Maida Vale studios, and Series One
debuted on BBC Radio 4 on 18th September 1990, with Series Two following on in
1991. Each series aired as five fifteen-minute episodes. The Mail On Sunday said,
"Sheer quickfire genius in the most sensationally produced comic strip..." and
"technically brilliant." The Independent called the production "Gripping... a dense
blend of dialogue, sound effects and music." In 1992, the same year that Dirk's
production of the classic Marx Brothers radio show Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel
won the Gold Medal at the New York International Festival, the second series of The
Adventures of Superman became a finalist in the Best Use Of Sound category. Both
series were repeated on BBC Radio 5 in 1993, where they aired, together for the first
time, on Saturdays as five 28-minute episodes between 3rd and 31st July.

When Dirk pioneered what he later termed the 'audio movie' process by introducing
multi-levelled effects at the BBC, and mixing the productions in Digital Dolby
Surround, thereby revolutionising radio dramatisations over night, he went back and
remixed the adaptations he had produced thus far. Although Superman - Doomsday
And Beyond was the first to be tackled, The Adventures Of Superman was included
in this batch. The revitalised production was released in its two hour thirty minute
entirety on a double cassette by the BBC Radio Collection (ZBBC 1633) on 5th
September 1994 to tie-in with its new broadcast on the BBC Radio 1 Claire Sturgess
Programme 3:45pm Monday to Friday, with an omnibus on Saturdays at 1:00pm.
Again there is a solid orchestral score from Mark Russell.

The assembled cast of voice artists proves strong once again. Among the throng is
established actor William Hootkins as Lex Luthor, with Stuart Milligan returning to the
red, blue and yellow, and talented regular Lorelei King playing Lois Lane. Others
include Burt Kwouk as Dr Teng and Jon Pertwee as Schwarz.

Although these are generally lightweight
tales told from the character's origin,
the whole is curiously devoid of
humour. Even Batman - Knightfall,
which is intentionally dark and gloomy,
contains more, emanating from the
multitude of psychotic criminals of
Arkham Asylum. It would perhaps
have been a little more natural to
incorporate a handful of funny or glib
remarks.

The Adventures Of Superman is
competently structured, fast-moving
and on the whole enjoyable. The many
locations visited in the story are easily
differentiated between in the mind due
to Dirk's attention to atmospherics. In
other words, each setting has its own
ambience. The only thing that lets this

production down in my humble opinion is the comic character itself. I don't think
Superman has nearly enough depth; he's all-powerful unless the relevant plot and a
lump of Kryptonite dictates he isn't. Whereas Batman lives off his wits and gadgets
and Spider-Man has powers but suffers from all the problems of everyday life.
Indeed, although Dirk himself loves the character, he admits that Superman is strangely
unappealing and has some of the lowest audience figures of all the things he has done.
Having said that, the feedback can't have been that bad or the BBC wouldn't have
sanctioned Dirk's proposals for three separate Superman serials for radio!