Season 2 of My Adventures with Superman premieres Saturday, May 25 at midnight ET/PT on Adult Swim. New episodes stream Sundays on Max.
In My Adventures with Superman, the Man of Steel must manage his time wisely in order to live as both Clark Kent and his superpowered alter ego. At the beginning of its second season, the Adult Swim series faces a similar dilemma. As the series introduces a bigger cast of heroes and villains and further develops its novel version of Superman’s origin story, some of the charming dynamic between the main characters has been tossed aside like Clark’s glasses. The power level of Superman (Jack Quaid) and his enemies was relatively low in season 1, making it easier for love interest Lois Lane (Alice Lee) and best friend Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Sahid) to help Supes solve problems with a bit of creative thinking. But as the stakes increase, Lois and Jimmy become liabilities more than true allies.
The holographic ghost of Superman’s father, Jor-El (Jason Marnocha), makes light of this in the Season 2 premiere, “More Things in Heaven and Earth.” “You brought your mate here? Your fragile human mate who does not have any of our powers?” Superman’s counterargument is that he didn’t know exactly how dangerous the trip to a crashed spaceship in Antarctica would be, but that’s an excuse that’s going to quickly wear thin.
Jimmy is already largely sidelined by Episode 2, “My Adventures with My Girlfriend.” Rather than accompanying Lois and Clark on a reckless investigation of disappearances at a Metropolis prison, he has to make some videos for the Daily Planet. Season 1 didn’t always know what to do with Olsen, and the problem persists. In Season 2, he’s largely relegated to a source of funding for the heroes’ antics – a utility gauged by a graphic tracking his rapidly dwindling holdings.
The charming romance between Lois and Clark was a high point of Season 1, and while it has some sweet moments in the Season 2 premiere, they don’t quite live up to their potential. A running gag about how the couple will spend their first Valentine’s Day isn’t even paid off at the end of the season premiere. Instead, there’s a rush to the next revelation in a fairly cluttered episode that sees the introduction of numerous minor and major characters. The second episode wastes a bunch of time introducing a cadre of interns who Jimmy has to wrangle while then having to come up with a contrived reason for everyone’s plots leading to the same place.
My Adventures with Superman is at its best when it takes the time to flesh out its characters, especially its antagonists. It’s doing a great job building on the complicated dynamic between Lois’ father, General Sam Lane (Joel De La Fuente), and his former colleague Amanda Waller (Debra Wilson). Wilson manages to live up to Viola Davis’ version of the character, who in this incarnation begins her mornings with self-affirmations, then heads out for a day of justifying incredible evil. Sam, meanwhile, is so arrogant he thinks he’s in control even when he’s being held captive. Chris Parnell’s preening Slade Wilson continues to bring drama to every scene he’s in, even if he’s unfortunately overshadowed by a rotating cast of other targets for Superman’s fists.
The anime-inspired action is top notch: creative, colorful, and punctuated by a mix of playful banter and stirring music. Producers Jake Wyatt, Brendan Clogher, and Josie Campbell cite Dragon Ball Z as a major influence, and like that show and Prime Video’s Invincible, My Adventures with Superman delivers big scenery-destroying fights that pit Superman’s substantial strength against a wide array of threats.
My Adventures with Superman clearly has some big storytelling ambitions, with a plot that seems to be a hybrid between Invincible’s dark take on Kryptonians and Superman: The Animated Series’ spin on the destruction of Krypton. Hopefully the series can come up with a better balance for its characters as the world gets more dangerous for all of them.
