My Adventures with Superman

Given WB’s strange handling of the character over the past decade, My Adventures with Superman comes at an interesting time.

Twenty-somethings Clark Kent, the bright and driven Lois Lane, and their best friend Jimmy Olsen begin to discover who they are and everything they can accomplish together as an investigative reporting team at the Daily Planet.

Originally intended for Cartoon Network before being moved to Adult Swim, this new series relies on the most surprisingly clear interpretation we can have of the hero: “What will happen?” If the Man of Steel and his long-term love interest Lois Lane are essentially the stars of a romantic comedy?» – and take this to the extreme. The end result is a series it has a lovely feel for its main character and its DC Universe arc, and is a series that seems to fit in well with the YA graphic novel line that DC launched in 2018.

At the beginning of the first episode, Clark Kent (Jack Quaid) and Lois Lane (Alice Lee), aged 20 and up, meet at a bakery and are immediately infatuated with each other. Their banter at first really felt like it was inspired by that particular genre (they were bigger then than they are now), and Quaid and Lee play off each other extremely well. For a genre that can often run out of romance for one pretentious reason or another, Adventures’ strongest move is simply letting Clark and Lois’ relationship develop without feeling the need to. had to complicate things beyond the natural secret of his Superman status.

The feeling of being an outsider has long been one of the fundamental pillars of Superman’s character, and Adventures doesn’t deviate from that trait or the fear of not being able to have a normal life. This version of Clark still has the same concerns, but what scares him even more is the way the movie alienates him from who he is and his own Kryptonian heritage. It takes time to reveal what Krypton even is to him; a childhood encounter with a hologram of Jor-El (who spoke a language Clark did not understand) was traumatic enough to make him avoid delving into his own past. Even though Quaid plays him as a charming idiot and someone who seems like he’s always struggling not to draw attention to himself (he’s a funny bad liar), it’s the way The writing makes this version of Clark worth watching. Lois and Clark, along with best friend/roommate Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Sahid), are Daily Planet interns looking to advance at work.

The fact that all three of them are around the same age and have their own idiosyncrasies, such as Jimmy being a bit of a conspiracy theorist, gives the series a more humorous feel which is also enhanced more so thanks to the overall visual design of the series. Outside of Shonen-style fight scenes, the series also has a “soft” anime aesthetic similar to Neflix’s She-Ra cartoon, in which expressions are prioritized over detailed character designs. . This works well for the show and means that when the show uses a little visual effect, it means something. (For example, Clark undergoes a magical transformation into a girl when he dons the Superman costume for the first time.)

WB has delivered seven episodes of My Adventures with Superman, and the word “adventure” really becomes appropriate in this second half. After the first few episodes tried to establish some of the human villains and some of the Daily Planet’s supporting cast, subsequent episodes went in a completely different direction as Clark, Lois, and Jimmy were brought into the fold. from one extreme to another. Not bad