Spoilers MY ADVENTURES WITH SUPERMAN Review Thread

We don't seem to have a dedicated thread for My Adventures with Superman, so here it is.

The show is off to an excellent start. It's a fresh take, with Clark, Lois, and Jimmy as young interns just starting out at the Daily Planet. Alice Lee's Lois is aggressive and driven to become a real reporter, and she's easily the most delightful portrayal of Lois since Superman: The Animated Series, and I say that with no shortage of appreciation for Erica Durance and Elizabeth Tulloch. Jack Quaid (Star Trek: Lower Decks' Boimler) is surprisingly good as Clark, though we haven't heard much of him in Superman mode in the first two episodes. Ishmel Sahid is okay as Jimmy, but I'm not a fan of making Jimmy a conspiracy theorist. (Though it's a cute touch that his conspiracy video blog handle is Flamebird.)

Clark's origins and powers are reinvented in an interesting way. The flashbacks in episode 2 suggest that Krypton was destroyed in a war. The ship Clark came in is some kind of self-replicating tech that's grown into a version of the Fortress right under the Kent farm. Clark has new powers kick in under strong emotional stress or need, represented by his eyes glowing and electricity sparking around his body, and there's some kind of symbiotic connection with the ship. Is he part-cybernetic? Apparently the power-up dynamic is inspired by Dragonball.

Interestingly, Clark can't understand the holographic Jor-El because he's speaking Kryptonian, like in Byrne's Man of Steel. The problem is, I'm fairly sure that Jor-El's language, which Jonathan describes as not of this Earth, is actually straight-up Esperanto. Either that's a lazy choice by the creators, or there's a joke coming about Jor-El having the wrong Earth language settings.

I love the cheeky touch that when the ship gives Clark his modern-style Superman suit (forming on his body in a magical-girl-style henshin sequence without the nudity), Martha takes one look at it and decides it needs a belt and shorts, which she proceeds to add to it.

Not sure about adding the "Newskid Legion" as significant characters, though I like the idea of Lois using them as her Baker Street Irregulars because they see everything on their paper routes. (Are there still kids who deliver print newspapers?) And Azuri Hardy-Jones is terrific as Flip, their leader.

I'm not sure how I feel about the choice of villains. Starting off with Leslie Willis/Livewire as the main antagonist is an interesting choice, but I'm not crazy about bringing in Amanda Waller and her employee Bishonen Deathstroke right off the bat.

I like the touch that Superman repaired the damage to the street after the battle. Although his ability to restore the wrecked cars to seeming intactness was difficult to credit.

The designs and animation are very anime-influenced, but distinctive. I like Superman's character design -- his face looks so kind. Although young Clark in flashbacks looks surprisingly like Ben 10 with glasses.

 

I was so pleasantly surprised by how good the first 2 were. I think they nailed the tone and characterization and the aesthetic really worked for me. Between Superman and Lois and this I’m thrilled for the small screen Superman renaissance we have at the moment.

 

Just speculating here... I hope this show takes a "modern" approach to the secret identity thing and brings at least Lois, and perhaps Jimmy, into the loop on Clark being Superman. The whole business of lying to the people close to you to hide a secret is problematical, especially when there's romance involved, because then it resembles gaslighting and abusive manipulation. And aside from all that, characters who are in a superhero's confidence are able to play a much richer role in the story than characters who aren't in on the secret, because there's really only one story you can tell about the latter. Plus Lois has been in on the secret for so long in the comics -- since the '90s -- that it's become pretty much her standard role in adaptations, to the point that Man of Steel even had Lois in the loop before Clark became Superman (which was one of the things that worked about it).

Lois's "No more secrets" line and Clark's unease about it suggests that they will address the issue, and I hope they do, rather than just fall back on the usual "Ooh, look at all my fun hijinks lying to my best friends!" schtick.

I mean, the show didn't really get overt about why Clark feels he has to hide his powers, but I got the sense that it was insecurity from not knowing who or what he was and feeling a need to pass as "normal." Maybe once he grows more confident as Superman, he'll feel less need to hide it from his friends.

 

Or maybe he decides that he has a right to keep parts of himself secret. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that approach, although in a committed romantic relationship he might eventually decide to share that part of himself.

 

As I said, keeping characters unaware of the hero's secret limits the role they can play in the story, and it would be a regressive way of handling Lois in particular, given that most modern versions treat her as Clark's equal partner.

Besides, keeping secrets is one thing, actively lying is another. Stories about Clark hiding his dual identity from Lois tend more toward the latter, given that she interacts so frequently with both his identities. Given how much their interaction in the premiere revolved around questions of trust, lies, and secrets, that suggests the writers may well treat Clark's secrets and deception as a morally ambiguous thing he struggles with. I mean, he felt betrayed when she lied to him; wouldn't he be a hypocrite for lying to her?

Also, it's just the nature of modern TV story arcs that secrets don't get kept forever. By the end of Smallville, nearly the entire main cast knew Clark had powers. At the end of season 3 of Superman & Lois, the regulars who didn't know at the beginning are now in the loop. I'd be surprised if this show didn't take a similar approach.

 

I just watched the first two. It was okay. I was expecting new take with the character and just seems like its the same. Only difference so far is Lois being a intern just like them.

 

And even that was essentially only true since for maybe ten to fifteen years as though the Earth-1 Lois (who mostly sorta became the main Lois after the mid-Eighties) didn't know between the Sixties and Eighties, the Earth-2 Lois AFAIK knew about her Clark since the Fifties.

 

IDK, for me the first two episodes honestly come across as more of The Adventures of Superboy is compared to the Adventures of Superman. But that's me. I realize the audience this show is going for so it's not hard to see why these characters are being written like and thus acting more like teenagers.

 

Alice is great as Louis, but it's going to take some used to hearing Jack Quaid (who's more familiar to me through The Boys and Lower Decks) as Superman.

The episodes were sweet, but I do find it somewhat irritating to see American animation aping Japanese art styles. When that happens, you end up with something that's a shadow of its inspirations stylistically, but the episodes themselves were very sweet and it's nice to see a lighter side of Superman/Clark.

 

*Lois. Louis is a dude.

 

I don't get either Adult Swim or Max, but I watched the first episode on YouTube. It's charming and energetic, and it seems like animation is the only place we can get Superman with a lighter touch on screen these days. (A humorous approach to Superman and his world was also seen, and welcomed, in DC League of Super-Pets.) Even Superman & Lois, which I love, errs waaaay on the side of serious. It's nice that someone remembers how to have fun with these characters, and I hope we will eventually come 'round to that again in live action.

I'll probably pick the show up and catch the rest of the season when it's released on Blu-ray.

 

Finally got to see the first two eps. It's not really my thing, but I hope it does well and that people continue to enjoy it.

 

Except that "Earth-2" wasn't reintroduced as an alternate reality until 1961, and the stories that filled in backstory like that probably weren't written until the '70s-'80s, so that doesn't count. In the comic books actually published in the real-life 1950s-60s, Lois suspected Clark of being Superman but he always stymied her attempts to prove it.

I don't see a problem with that. It's a fresh approach to the characters and the premise, and I like the novelty of it.

Well, Osamu Tezuka was emulating Walt Disney's art style, so anime/manga has always had American influence. It's only natural for it to feed back the other way, especially when so many current American animation creators grew up watching anime imports. It's not "aping," it's drawing on influences. That's how art works.

Besides, we're nearly two decades past Teen Titans and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Anime influences have been an integral part of American animation design for longer than these shows' target viewers have been alive. It's just part of the whole now.

 

To-may-to, To-mah-to.

Regardless, I enjoyed it. I've been enjoying dipping my toes into DC again after some years away.

 

Ep 3 was great Banshee is so smol and cute. that being said i hope not all the bad guys are techbased.

 

A fun episode, though I had trouble figuring out who the bad guys were. I got Silver Banshee, and they called the invisible one Mist (a name I don't recognize), but I couldn't figure out who the big guy was. And reimagining Intergang as a half-baked trio of incompetent young thieves? Weird.

Also, how did our trio of interns manage to get through prison security with badges whose photos are clearly of different people entirely?

It's weird how Clark did a better Superman voice (in terms of difference from Clark's voice) when he was Clark "pretending" to be Superman at Lois's prompt than when he was actually being Superman.

 

Classically, Mist is a father and daughter pair of villains who are based in Opal City and typically conflict with the Starman and O'Dare families who protect that city.

A heroic version of the daughter also appears in both the last full season and the tie-in comic sequel of Young Justice initially as a villian and later as a member of the Justice League's covert operations under Tigress (herself a heroic, race-swapped version of the villain of the same name) and Nightwing.

 

He is basically just playing Clark like Boilmer. That scene where he’s outraged that Lois stole (or should I say scooped) the press passes could easily be a scene in Lower Decks with Mariner.

 

Not just like him. It's recognizably Jack Quaid's voice and delivery, of course, but Boimler is more exaggerated and higher-pitched.

 

Yet it's Superman who has the Boimler hair.