Atom Man vs. Superman

There are few sequels that are ever as good as the original. This is one of them. The only real difference between the two is that the special effects in this one are better. The story leaps right into the action, with the city of Metropolis being hit by a crime wave. One man is behind all this crime, the evil Lex Luthor. Superman battles Lex Luthor and his alter ego the Atom Man through 15 fun and exciting chapters.

Superman does a lot in this serial. Can he save Metropolis from a deadly flood? Can Superman escape the Empty Doom? Will Superman's real identity be released to the public? Will Lois Lane go to work for the Lex Luthor? Find out this and more in ATOM MAN VS. SUPERMAN

I give it 10/10. It's perfect.

(Note: Look at the close-up shots of Kirk Alyn flying as Superman. The 'S' on the Superman uniform is backwards.)

Favorite Movie Quote: "The kindest thing that I ever did was not bumping you off right away, Miss Lois Lane."

This classic Superman flick from 1950 contains some of the most hilarious, unintentional humour that I've ever come across.

In this flick things get blown up, real good, especially trucks and cars. And with the added bonus of super-cheap special effects, it all serves to heighten every minute of the B-Grade Fun.

In Atom Man Vs. Superman we find Lex Luthor (secretly Atom Man) once again blackmailing the city of Metropolis. This time Luthor threatens to destroy the entire community by carefully aiming his powerful Thermo Gun (with its suction ray) on the city's skyscrapers.

Perry White, editor of The Daily Planet Newspaper, assigns Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Clark Kent to cover the story. Naturally, it's our hero Superman who ends up saving the day.

I know that this movie/serial is better than the first. First of all, some of the flying sequences are more realistic and actually involve Kirk Alyn. Unlike the Captain Marvel serial where a dummy is used in flying sequences. Out of 10 stars, I give this movie 11. :)

"Atom Man vs. Superman" was quite hard to obtain on video, back in the heyday of that format. I had already seen the 1948 serial of "Superman" and that one is great. My expectations for the above production were only half met. The actor who played Lex Luthor was perfectly satisfactory. It was good to see Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill reprise their respective characters. However, the story as a whole didn't interest me all that much. I found it a bit hard in keeping up with what was happening. That is usually a sign that the writers haven't done a very good job. As before, there are 15 chapters that compromise the whole story but it felt longer than that to me. There is still some fun to be had with this one.

I found a 4-disc set of DVDs of 1948 Superman episodes "The Theatrical Series Collection" released in 2006. They were the short (typically 15 to 16 minutes) serials intended to be shown before movies, one each week, presumably the Saturday matinee that kids attended.

The 1950 movie "Atom Man vs. Superman" is on one of the discs. It too is presented in short episodes, and has new characters like Lex Luthor and Atom Man.

I watched a few episodes but found them uninspiring. Even though it was released a couple of years after Superman the audio and video are not as good. And, the stories with the new characters just not very interesting. So I didn't watch all of them.

At home, on a set of DVDs from my public library.