My Adventures with Superman

Introduction

“My Adventures with Superman” Season 1 consists of 10 episodes featuring the voicing talents of Jack Quaid as Clark Kent/Superman, Alice Lee as Lois Lane, and Ishmel Sahid as Jimmy Olsen. It covers the adventures of Superman/Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen as they investigate strange occurrences and crimes throughout Metropolis.

The following review will contain minimal, if any, spoilers for Season 1 of “My Adventures with Superman.”

Likes

I really like Lois Lane’s personality in this show. First of all her even having a personality has not always been a given, her previous appearances in “Superman: The Animated Series” comes to mind. I think she demonstrates more personality in the first five minutes of this show than she shows in multiple episodes of “Superman: The Animated Series” combined. Even in just the first episode she demonstrates that she is ambitious, funny, and a quick thinker.

• I’m not sure if Lois coming up with the name ‘Superman’ is a deliberate homage to the previous Superman animated series, or if that commonly occurs in Superman comics. Regardless, I liked this as again it helps position Lois as a formative part of Clark becoming Superman and makes her more than just that girl that Superman saves all the time.

• There are some genuinely funny moments in this show.

• The show does a good job of demonstrating someone’s character with well-written dialogue.

• This is a difficult one to do without spoiling but one particular character does and another specific character does not appear in Season 1 which I think makes the show better overall. That said, I am biased so the show gets a million bonus points for including this mystery character who I am always excited to see and think is a fascinating character. The show’s portrayal and interpretation of the character I did not entirely love and I have liked other portrayals better. That said, I was just happy to see them at all.

• The voice acting is very well done by the main cast of characters as well as the supporting cast.

Dislikes

When Jimmy is first introduced, his quirkiness levels are set to 11 for some reason. I like the direction they are taking the character in, if nothing else in the fact that he has an actual personality and existence outside of “guy with camera”, but his quirkiness comes off a bit too strong initially. This is a fairly minor nitpick if I am being honest but it did stand out to me.

• The initial focus for one episode is a singular event for the day but the characters are immediately sidetracked by an adventure. That’s fine but after the adventure, the viewer doesn’t get to see the event itself which feels like a missed opportunity, especially for more character moments and development.

• In one episode a conflict is resolved due to a weakness that I do not think makes sense and seems to mostly serve for the sake of plot convenience.

• There are a few instances of contrivance that occur within the show that stand out to me and detract from the overall good writing. The following are a few generalized examples so as to avoid spoilers:
  - Heroes and villains on occasion just so happen to bump into each other on occasion.
  - Characters seem to be able to find each other quickly and easily regardless of whether they really know them or have any real means of contacting them. I’m not coming to a show about a flying alien with super speed and strength among other powers for pure realism, but random plot moments like this do take me out of the show a bit.
  - This is probably my least favorite trope/cliché/plot device, the old “character is about to do or say something important and is interrupted right before doing so” moment; by my counts this occurred three times in the first season to my frustration.
  - This one is difficult to do without spoilers so I will just say, characters do some arguably foolish things to protect their secrets which then end up revealing said secrets.
  - One particular misunderstanding occurs which I think could have been written so the result is the same story-wise (character X is mad at character Y) but in a less contrived manner. It’s nothing too extreme or absurd but it does feel a bit too engineered or artificial to seem like a believable occurrence in the established world.

Should I watch this show?

My recommendation of this show to you depends on if you answer yes to at least one of the following questions:

1. Do you like or have an interest in Superman, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen?

2. Do you like anime and/or animated shows which draw inspiration from anime?

3. Do you like shows with personality, charm, emotion, heart, and good character writing?

Where can I watch this show?

The show is available for streaming on adult swim and Max.

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed this show and I highly recommend it.