Podcast Cohost Lauren 8/10/2023

I, for one, think he is Clark Kent and *not* the other way around. What I mean is, I think Superman stories are the most compelling when Superman is just what Clark Kent does in addition to being a motivated reporter at the Daily Planet and huge simp for Lois Lane. Izzy and I watched the first couple episodes of the new show “My Adventures With Superman” (available on Max) to find out where it stood on the Clark Kent to Superman scale.

The “My” in “My Adventures With Superman” refers to this iteration of Lois Lane. She is in a protagonist trio with newbie intern Clark Kent and his roommate/also newbie intern Jimmy Olsen. Taking full advantage of her position as most senior intern, Lois quickly ropes the pair of newbies into her schemes to impress the Daily Planet’s chief editor and get an article of her own printed. While Jimmy seems to be all in on Lois’s daring plans which involve using child informants, putting themselves directly in harm’s way to lure out Superman, and later swiping the press badges of their fully credentialed colleagues; Clark questions her methods for endangering their lives and possibly their positions as interns. This leans into the act previous fans will be familiar with of Superman pretending to be meek as Clark Kent, but in “My Adventures”, his complaints to Lois seem more genuine and come from concern not only for himself but his companions. Later episodes do feature Superman making his non-super persona out to be if not a coward, a sensible safety-minded danger avoider, while also being inspired by Lois’s tenacity to take on some personal risk as Clark Kent.

Q: After watching four episodes, I still haven’t come to a conclusion on who the target audience is. The animation style and younger versions of these familiar characters leads me to believe it is to introduce DC Comics staples to the Saturday morning cartoon audience, but it appears unethical government agent Amanda Waller and lackey(?) Slade Wilson are the primary antagonists instead of the flashier Superman villains. Who do you think “My Adventures with Superman” is for, and do you think they’ll enjoy it?

A: Izzy here! I feel it is them trying to kind of “have their cake and eat it too” but I don’t think that its necessarily a bad thing. The Teen Titans show also had some deep themes about trauma, and while it did make Slade and Terra less dark , it balanced the Saturday morning cartoon but with complex themes things pretty well. And I think that is what this show is going for. Interesting for a younger audience and will introduce them to some staples of the universe, but there is a lot there for older fans. I personally like my DC a mix of serious and fun (more shows need the gentlemanly ghost as a villain lol) and I hope that that is what this show ends up being. After all Superman, while involved in dark storylines of course, he is “the big blue boy scout” so a young Clark starting out being like a buddy cop detective with Lois and Jimmy seems like a really great time honestly. I am curious to see how the show handles Slade and Cadmus, but with the Teen Titans shows and some of the movies I do think a lot of kids would know those characters to some extent. So hopefully it is a show that will teach something more nuance to a younger audience while still being interesting to an older audience.