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The Adventures of Superman, Seasons 1-6 (Warner Home Video)

There are few, if any, more iconic fictional characters in American pop culture than Superman, and few more iconic thespians than George Reeves, the actor who portrayed The Man of Steel for six seasons during the early days of television. Reeves, whose career had gone into swift decline after a brief appearance in 1939's Gone With the Wind, was a second feature stalwart who suddenly rocketed to fame after donning the iconic cape and tights in 1951. Reeves wasn't a particularly good actor, but his chiseled good looks were tailor made for the role, and his ability to connect with the television audience each week with a knowing wink to the camera made him a star virtually overnight. Superman was both lifesaver and curse for the actor, who found himself in a creative straitjacket that ultimately led to the tragic circumstances recreated in the recent biopic Hollywoodland - and with the recent release by Warner Home Video of the final two seasons of The Adventures of Superman on DVD, we can fully explore all 104 episodes and begin to appreciate the crushing limitations placed on Reeves by the role.

The first package, Seasons 1 and 2, collects the glorious black and white episodes that most fans consider the best of the Superman series. It's difficult to mount a convincing counter-argument: there's definitely a harder edge to these adventures, with Superman trying to solve the mystery of The Haunted Lighthouse (the genuinely creepy Episode 1.2), abandoning a pair of baddies atop a snow-capped mountain (Episode 1.13, The Stolen Costume), and confronting some mighty strange characters in a rundown hotel (Episode 1.19, The Evil Three). By Season 2, the rougher edges were being sanded off the scripts, and there are more of the lightweight adventures that would dominate Seasons 3 and 4, including the insipid morality tale The Boy Who Hated Superman (Episode 2.17), in which aspiring juvenile delinquent Frankie is taught a valuable lesson by our hero, and the super saccharine Around the World With Superman (Episode 2.26), in which Supes gives a crippled girl a very special flight around the world - and some very dubious geography lessons. The first two seasons also featured Phyllis Coates as Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane, and in my opinion - which will be considered anathema by some - she's far better in the role than her perky replacement, Noel Neill.

In Seasons 3 and 4, the show made the transition to color - though the episodes still aired in black and white - and the 'kid-oriented' subject matter was ratcheted up further, alternately emphasizing the comic misadventures of cub reporter Jimmy Olsen (Episode 3.4, Superman Week; Episode 3.7, Olsen's Millions; and others) and tugging at the heartstrings via the plight of abandoned animals (Episode 4.1, Joey) or children in peril (Episode 4.2, The Unlucky Number). This mawkish turn saw the series reach low ebb, and many of the episodes also suffer from an over-reliance on routine crime-solving, begging the question: why would any gang of hoodlums, no matter how dim-witted, try to commit a crime in Metropolis with Superman lurking inside every utility closet? Though the novelty of color offers some consolation, Seasons 3 and 4 certainly suffer in comparison to Seasons 1 and 2. Nonetheless, patient viewers will be rewarded by a few sterling efforts, including the memorable Episode 4.8, The Wedding of Superman, wherein Lois nearly gets to tie the knot with Krypton's most eligible bachelor.

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