The visual design of hard-as-nails straight-arrow cop Dan Turpin (created by Kirby in Detective Comics #64, June 1942) has always been a broad, short, tough guy, but never was that look more apt than when Superman: The Animated Series producer Bruce Timm redesigned Turpin slightly for the series in order to make him resemble...Jack Kirby. Voiced by veteran character actor Joseph Bologna, here's a Turpin-centric 1997 episode (in two YouTube parts) of Superman: "Tools of the Trade" (written by Mark Evanier, directed by Curt Geda). Enjoy!
In the episode "Apokolips...Now!", Dan rallies his fellow Metropolisians (Metropolitans?) against Darkseid, frees the captive Superman, and delays the Apokoliptean (Apokoliptolistists?) army until the New Gods arrive with backup...and Dan is killed by Darkseid simply to pour salt in the wounds of Superman.
He is buried with full honors and saluted by his friends and companions—but you're not seeing them all in this clip. In the original funeral scene, edited out in rebroadcasts and on DVD, his services were attended by his many creations, "including Nick Fury, Fantastic Four, Big Barda, Scott Free, Orion and others, alongside Kirby's friends and fans Mark Evanier, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Alex Ross, his father Norman Ross and Stan Lee. These characters and persons were later removed and the scene pacing was re-edited for subsequent airings and its DVD release." (Wikipedia: Superman: The Animated Series. Accessed 2009-08-28.)
Farewell, Dan. You'll be missed. Farewell, Jack. You'll be missed.
I remember that episode; I never liked the Superman Animated Series but after watching that episode I was quite moved (I was 10 years old but still) and even then I knew that Dan Turpin was a badass. Now that I know that Dan Turpin was based on Jack Kirby I appreciate the character even more.
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