This serial has some great positives, but also some very strong negatives as well. First, its relation to the source material. It's based on a comic book (and supposedly the radio serial). For a movie serial, it is fairly true to its source. We have a good Superman who shows us many of his special talents -- stopping bullets, holding a bridge and building to keep them from collapsing, inhaling toxic fumes to save Lois and Jimmy (who are given actual real parts not just being 'follow behind the hero' non entities), smashing thru mountains, etc. etc. Good! We get a strong Lex Luthor (Lyle Talbot) who every chapter is displaying his evil genius for scientific inventions, nefarious activities and desire to destroy Superman. Great! It gets a plus for being close to the source like the great 'Flash Gordon' (1936).
Unfortunately the 'Atom Man' theme, except for the name, has nothing to do with the original radio Atom Man. According to Anthony Tollin, an authority on broadcast history, the evil Nazi scientist Der Teufel ("the Devil") created the kryptonite-powered Atom Man, who became Superman's greatest foe during the radio serial run. In fact, Superman needed Batman and Robin's help to finally defeat Atom Man. Perhaps here in 1950 the script writers were trying to capitalize on the radio version's popularity, but the whole concept is totally misused, confusing and needless. From his earliest appearance, we have no doubt that Luthor is Atom Man, a fact off handedly confirmed in later chapters when Luthor refers to himself as Atom Man. Atom Man has no reason for being, story wise, since he is given no rationale for his presence or purpose, and does nothing but stand around giving orders to his henchmen. The presence of Atom Man is a glaring weak point of the serial--what do we need him for since Luthor is already so capably evil? A big negative, like the 'Captain America' (1944) or 'Dick Tracy' serials (1937,1938, 1939, 1941) that also bear name only similarities to their source material.
Secondly, in movies in which the villain has a double identity, there has to be some reason for it. Beginning with Fritz Lang's 'Spies' (1928), the super criminal mastermind who wanted to ruin German's economy, was disguised as a bank president, but also as a circus clown. Usually in the serials the villain plays a double role to gain information access to the doings of the hero, often as member of a council as in 'Zorro's Fighting Legion' (1939), 'The Adventures of Captain Marvel' (1941), 'The Crimson Ghost' (1946) or 'Dick Tracy Vs. Crime Inc.' (1941). In this serial the double identity of Luthor has no convincing rhyme or reason.
A real strong point of the serial is Luthor's attempt to destroy Superman by sending him into "The Empty Doom." In other serials where the villain has a dastardly device that you know he will try to put on the hero, it operates as a cliff hanger only, with the hero escaping at the beginning of the next chapter, as in 'Buck Rogers' (1939), 'Batman' (1943) and the heroine in 'The Crimson Ghost' (1946). But not here! Luthor sends Superman into "The Empty Doom" and he's stuck there! Not until Marvel Comics in the 60s when the Red Skull captures the Cosmic Cube and uses it to miniaturize Captain America to fit in the palm of his hand do we get such a "Now how is he ever going to get out of this?" heroic predicament. The entire development of "The Main Arc" and its use to eliminate Superman takes six chapters (chapter 4-9)! This story 'arc' is clearly the best part of the serial, and is why I'd rate the serial highly despite its other glaring faults.
Some other glaring faults include: no hand to hand combat with the villain, and needless chapters (10-15) that have no continuity or purpose. You only get climaxing hand to hand battles between the hero and villain in the western and police serials. When Superman finally captures Luthor in the last chapter, it takes him about two seconds to rush over, grab and put the cuffs on him. Very weak. We have Marvel Comics to thank for re-introducing and basing their whole post 50s output on making hand to hand battles with super villains the main theme of virtually all their stories, so that now we expect to see epic battles between the Fantastic Four vs. Dr. Doom, Spider Man vs. Dr. Octopus, or the X-Men vs. Magneto. But in the old science fiction genre serials, we never see it.
Finally, since the serial really climaxes in Chapter 9, when Superman after having spent the whole chapter "Lost in the Empty Doom" finally escapes, where else is this serial to go? The 'Atom Man' theme is going nowhere, the Empty Doom is dropped, so we get Lois Lane covering a flood! Then suddenly we have the appearance of Luthor's 'flying saucers,' and an A-bomb to destroy Metropolis. The last five chapters seem like time fillers, since there is no clear continuity between them as we had in chapters 4-9.
Too bad it couldn't have been as well scripted for the entire serial as it was for the "Lost in the Empty Doom" chapters. Well, we can't get everything; especially in serials and particularly those from Columbia. So we can just be thankful that almost half of it is really high standard. I give it a 7 (as a serial).
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