Superman has always had a strong pop culture presence, but in the last decade and change, Warner Bros. has put a greater focus on the character’s live-action prospects (for both film and TV). The character’s appeared in several animated movies over the years, but it’s been a long time since he had an animated TV show where he was the headliner. The last show to properly do so was (arguably) Legion of Super-Heroes, and the series that have followed—such as Young Justice and Justice League Action, to name a few—have had him as a featured player among many.
Because of the weird way WB has handled the character over the last decade, My Adventures with Superman comes at an interesting time. Originally meant for Cartoon Network before being bumped to the Adult Swim block, the new series is running on the most surprisingly obvious take one could have on the hero—“What if the Man of Steel and his longtime love Lois Lane were basically the stars of a romantic comedy?”—and runs with that to its fullest extent. The end result is a show that offers an endearing spin on its title character and his slice of the DC Universe, and feels like it’s right at home with the YA line of graphic novels DC started in 2018.
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When I say “rom-com,” it’s not at all derogatory: early on in the premiere episode, 20-somethings Clark Kent (Jack Quaid) and Lois Lane (Alice Lee) cross paths at a bakery and become smitten with each other basically right away. Their banter early on feels very much like it’s pulling from that particular genre (back when they were more of a thing than they are now), and Quaid and Lee play off each other incredibly well. For a genre that can often exhaust its romances for one contrived reason or another, Adventures’ strongest move is just letting Clark and Lois’ relationship evolve without feeling the need to complicate things beyond the natural secret of him being Superman.
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Feeling like an outsider has been one of the core pillars of Superman’s character for a long time, and Adventures doesn’t stray from that characterization or his fears of not being able to lead a regular life. This version of Clark still harbors those same worries, but what further drives his fears is how the show alienates him from humans and his own Kryptonian heritage. It takes its gradual time revealing what Krypton even is to him; an early encounter from his childhood with Jor-El’s hologram (speaking a language Clark doesn’t understand) was traumatic enough to make him avoid digging into his own past. Though Quaid plays him as charmingly dorky and someone who feels like he’s struggling at all times to not draw attention to himself (he’s an amusingly bad liar), it’s the writing that makes this version of Clark worth watching.
Lois and Clark, along with his best friend/roommate Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Sahid), are Daily Planet interns looking to work their way up the employment ranks. Having the three of them be all the same relative age, and with their own odd quirks, like Jimmy being a bit of a conspiracy nut, gives the show a sillier vibe that also’s further elevated by the show’s overall visual design. Outside of its shonen-esque fight scenes, the show has a “soft” anime aesthetic that feels in line with something like Neflix’s She-Ra cartoon, where expression is prioritized more over detailed character design. It works well for the show, and means that when the show employs a little visual flourish, it means something. (For example, Clark gets a magical girl transformation when he dons the Superman suit for the first time.)
WB provided seven episodes of My Adventures with Superman, and the word “adventures” really becomes fitting in that second half. After the first few episodes work to establish a handful of human villains and some of the supporting cast from the Daily Planet, later episodes go in a completely different direction as Clark, Lois, and Jimmy get pulled from one extreme to another. It isn’t bad so much as it is very sudden, and it may feel like the show is kicking into a new gear after being so fairly grounded in earlier episodes. The shift manages to feel completely right for the show, but there is the worry that two different overarching threads for the trio may threaten to undermine the vibes the show has spent so much of its time billing itself as being.
What works in the show’s favor, though, is that it’s very secure in itself and what it can bring to the table. This is probably the most confident piece of Superman media in years, and it’s hard not to be charmed by everything thrown into a single episode. It’s consistently funny, and the way it threads everything through the lens of its two romantic leads, or Clark himself, helps ensure that it never fully loses sight of what it’s all about.
Episodes of My Adventures with Superman premiere Thursday nights on Adult Swim, followed by a release on Max the following day.
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