My Adventures With Superman looks like my kind of fun, entirely in faith with the ideals of America’s original superhero. Superman’s best narrative conflict has always been internal — Why is he even here? Why is someone this powerful bothering with our pitiful troubles? — and the secret identity, manifested as a newspaper reporter, whose job requirements have always been public service and altruism, has resonated across generations of readers and fans since 1938.
So here we have a new animated series from Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim and Max. My Adventures With Superman looks like an updated take on the classic, platonic Lois-and-Clark mystery, with Supes (Jack Quaid) as a himbo ringer playing straight man to Lois (Alice Lee), the steely-eyed investigative reporter who is still missing that one last source to nail Superman’s actual origins for the 1A exclusive. Ace lens Jimmy Olsen and grumpy editor-in-chief Perry White are also here to complete the picture.
It’s the college intern angle that seems particularly novel, though, at least as a way to help a younger generation relate to a very old story and character archetypes. (And to get old bastards like me to wax poetic about it, too.) I was a college newspaper intern, oh man, 30 years ago, and even those days were the adventure of a lifetime, at least in my memory.
So seeing the Superman mythology framed in that context, heck yeah, count me in, because it looks like Lois Lane and Clark Kent are going to have one hell of a summer working the city room at The Daily Planet.
My Adventures With Superman premieres on Adult Swim July 6 and starts streaming on Max July 7.