“Adventures of a Normal Man”
What They Say:
My Adventures With Superman follows Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen discovering who they are, and what they can accomplish.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I can still remember fondly as a kid in the 70s getting my hands on one of those plastic baggies that had three comics inside. The DC bag was one that introduced me to Superman and Batman with some classic creators and I specifically remember both, where the Superman story involved the Parasite and a roller coaster. These things become imprinted and a few years later you see the Superman movie, get into comics more, and before you know it, you’re following the triangle-era of the comics as a teenager and young adult. Everyone has “their” Superman and for many it’s still the Christopher Reeves one and I understand that as the most mainstream of them all and the allure for the Gen X kids like myself as adults in seeing something with such straight clarity of vision and ideals in this modern world.
This new animated series, slated for twenty episodes across two seasons of ten each, has largely gone under the radar for many and has launched with the first two episodes on Cartoon Network with Max streaming it afterward. This one gives us something where we’re basically getting early twenties-aged Lois and Clark characters in the big city of Metropolis where Clark is just trying to be normal for his first day of work. That leads to an awkward initial encounter with Lois without knowing who she is but he’s just excited to get to work with his best friend Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy’s amusingly blissful about his surroundings in a lot of ways but a pal like Superman incognito certainly helps. Suffice it to say, the way this trio gets pulled together moves quickly – modern animation can’t spend time just easing into things anymore, not that it ever did it well – and it’s fun to see as Lois gets the pair as her new interns.
This quick deluge of information and setup comes with Lois investigating a story about missing combat robots and them possibly being stolen, which Clark stumbles across unknowingly at first. Amusingly, one area where they get information is from the newskid legion, a very fun update on the newsboy legion, which shows how Lois keeps her ear to the ground with a lot of sources to follow up through. It’s a lot of breezy fun and Lois being super into handling this and figuring it out – while withholding some truth from Clark since Mr. White didn’t authorize a lot of this – gets us into who these characters are pretty quickly. It’s not exactly done in shorthand but it helps to show how Lois is at this point, who Clark is in playing by the rules, and how Jimmy tends to just get caught up between both of them. Lois’ need to find the truth is a good motivator and driver for her, and at this age, it definitely works well with her enthusiasm.
One thing I’m a bit less keen on is that it looks like her big break will come from discovering Superman in a sense as we see Clark having to deal with the giant robots as Lois and Jimmy stumble upon them and get attacked by them. He’s not suited up and is going for the whole low-key approach, but it allows Jimmy to get the picture of someone flying and fighting robots that Lois can work with. I do like previous works where she was a lot more established and this was a big feather in the cap thing. But by going somewhat younger here and coming with Clark becoming more of who he truly is (as we see him “activate” in the right when Lois is threatened) is an interesting approach. Lois’ story feels a little closer to Iris from the recent Flash TV series but it’s not a bad one to rework here.
The show will play with the whole discovery of who this mysterious “super man” is while the two-parter also goes into the robot story and enjoys playing with its technology and the like so that it’s mostly real-world but expands beyond that as well. It’s also solid with its cast as Jack Quaid definitely captures this incarnation of Clark but there’s just a little too much Boimler in there for me at the moment because of the pacing of everything. Alice Lee works well as Lois as she balances the enthusiasm and clarity in a clean way while Ishmel Sahid does well with Jimmy but Jimmy is going to need a bit more development, which he does get some of in the second episode here in working with just Lois. The show has a pretty solid cast across the board for what we’ll see this season and I appreciate that it doesn’t go for big Hollywood names for it but rather long-term voice actors that have honed their craft for a lot of years. I’m not against the big stars thing and I understand why it happens for films, but for series like this, I want folks like what we get here.
In Summary:
I will always be happy about having more Superman animation and definitely Warner Animation projects. As much as I love Batman and the stories from it, the Superman stories are far more important to people and especially to kids to be able to have. The story of Clark and his life, his family, his hopes, and how he has to fit in appeal and resonate with so many people. This modern update – one of many across different media in the last decade – is busy in its first two episodes as it tries to establish a lot and hit the ground running – and it does it well overall. It leaves you with interesting questions about this incarnation with how Krypton works, his birth parents, and to see more of what Metropolis is like and his adoptive parents. The core of Clark working with Lois and Jimmy while hiding his secret and discovering what he can be to people has so many parallels to everyone’s life as well. My only hope is that as the season goes on its able to take a breath just a bit more but otherwise I am over the moon with this as a start.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Max
