Our Adventures with Superman

It took a while for me to see the new My Adventures with Superman series on Max.  (Kudos to good old "Skinimax" for taking the streaming name from its parent company HBO after all these years.)

 

This delay was mostly because of my irrational bias against anime. That coupled with a deep knowledge and understanding of my own personal issues with incorrect execution of this character, meant I initially chose to stay away from this version.

However, as has been demonstrated, my family's knowledge and understanding of  Superman, his supporting cast and his world is in depth through multiple generations. 

Therefore, when Anabelle praised this series for getting Superman, Clark and just about everything else right, I knew it would be worth watching.

The first illustration that the character is comprehended by those who made this series, is that they made it at all. 

Batman Beyond was created because the DCAU architects immediately recognized that the studio recommended "Teenaged Bruce as Batman" idea was terrible. Due to the differences in the nature of the characters, the Young Clark idea works much better.

The show is almost "Superboy in Metropolis."  Superman's powers are developing, he doesn't know where he's from yet, and he's a young intern. However, instead of being in Smallville, he's an intern at the Daily Planet in Metropolis along side best friend Jimmy Olsen and (eventual) girlfriend Lois Lane. To keep with their relationship standards, Lois is a more experienced, and brash intern. To highlight the friendship that Clark and Jimmy have developed through decades of the character's existence, they went to college together.

Perry is still awesome, even more of a father figure to them... and yells, "DON'T CALL ME CHIEF!"

As he should.

Because of the style influences, the villains are all powered by similar, alien, anime style tech. However, some do internalize the powers, and they all become recognizable as the DC rogues whose names they use. 

Superman's costume comes from his (anime sized, much larger than usual) Kryptonian ship, in a Sailor Moon like transformation the first time. However, proof of understanding of the mythology comes from having Martha add a belt and trunks to improve the outfit. The Kents are clearly shown to be where Clark gets his morals and desire to help others from. 

The show understands who Superman is and clearly demonstrates it. When bad guys in the story try to play up the idea that Superman is an alien, who cannot be trusted with all that power, the storylines and Clark demonstrate the inaccuracies in that belief. 

As befitting his Iconic status, Superman is a super hero because of the choices he makes, and how he inspires others, not because of his powers. It is shown that even when some citizens of Metropolis have turned against him for a perceived loss of control, the fact that he has inspired so many, means they refuse to believe this.

As his powers are emerging, they are also used to display that it is his decisions, not those powers that make him who he is. 

The reason he's able to be set up to look out of control comes from his super hearing first manifesting. This leads to him overworking himself due to the desire to help absolutely everyone.

One short scene summed up who Clark is perfectly.

As a hail of automatic gunfire from a automated sentry flew towards them, Clark instantly zoomed in front of Lois. 

She asked, "How did you know you were bulletproof?"

His unflinching answer- 

"I didn't. But I knew you weren't."

Because in these very early tales, Lois becomes his girlfriend and Jimmy is his best friend (and has been for a while) they share his secret before the first season ends. Considering many modern super hero tales get rid of the secret identity completely, the decision to expand Clark's circle of secret keepers works well with the honesty and heroism of Superman. Lois working to figure it out was a cool nod to Silver Age stories, but having Superman NOT constantly think of ways to make her look foolish because of it is more akin to the post 1986 "Clark is the real personality she falls in love with" interpretation of the character.  

While the anime style meant many things looked different, a respect for the source material cropped up constantly. The Cadmus episode brought in some of the weirdest of DC characters, and had a lot of fun with them. The Multiverse was thrown into play as well with a Mr. Mxyzptlk appearance. (Hey, I don't even have to look up the spelling for him anymore!) That episode was filled to the top with references to items and individuals from the DC universe proper, as well as other versions of our hero, good and evil. Mxy himself looked far more like an anime genie archetype, but there were shout outs to the classic version.

(Which, much to Anabelle's annoyance, I guessed well before they happened.

I do know the characters whose symbols are permanently inked on my person.)

Its a new look, its a new vibe, its a new take on the character...

But at it's core, this show understands who Superman is, why he does what he does, how he interacts with the people most important to him and that he inspires others as a symbol of hope.

Bring on Season Two!