Superman: The Animated Series/Tear Jerker

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• As early as the first episode, with Krypton's destruction, which is made even sadder and poignant by the beautiful soundtrack.

"Not another one!"
"No. The last one."

• • "I'M NOT A FREAK!"
• The reactions to Clark being dead in "The Late Mr. Kent".
• The ending to "Apokolips...Now!" has Superman crying within the episode. Not that the ending wasn't such for the viewers as well...
• When Dan Turpin is killed. It's just so freakin' senseless, petty, and above all completely out of nowhere.

"Good-bye, old friend. In the end, the world didn't need a Superman...just a brave one."

• The otherwise nightmare-inducing Toyman's pop-up book, which details how his innocent, kind-hearted father was tricked into being arrested for mob activity, forcing his son to live a ruined and lonely childhood.

"The boy moved from foster home to foster home, like a toy that nobody wanted."

• The alternate-Superman in "Brave New Metropolis" in his interactions with Lois.

"You never knew how I felt about you. I didn't know... until you were gone."

• The first episode featuring Bizarro ends with him sacrificing himself to hold up Luthors collapsing clone lab long enough for Superman to save Lois Lane. While he didnt stay dead, it was certainly a powerful moment, especially since it meant Bizarro accepting that he wasnt the real Superman.

Bizarro: Me not Superman. You Superman... Superman...save...Lois...

(after the escape)Superman: In the end, he really was a hero...

• Superman discovering the unimaginable magnitude of Brainiac's crimes, and collapsing to his knees in a hologram of one of the dozens of worlds he's destroyed, complete with a powerful circling camera effect.
• The end of the whole series, with Superman's brainwashed attack on Metropolis having turned much of the planet against him. Thank god the DCAU continued so this didn't become the actual ending for this version of him.