This is a Dynamike Network podcast. Hi and welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Marvelous Joe. And I'm his twin brother Johnny DC. And in this episode
we are going to review season one of My Adventures with Superman. which is an animated television series that debuted on Cartoon Network and Max. It was 10 episodes long and it was pretty good.
Can't wait to talk about it later on this episode. Before that, we're going to break down the latest comic book movie news to come out this past week, of which we got news about some release date changes for Marvel shows on Disney+. As always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to
a particular topic. As our listeners may know, our dual simulator is so advanced that it's gained sentience, and it's named itself the artificial life form for running extensive duels, just a rather very intelligent Simulator 9000 or Alfred Jarvis 9000. Here's a quick message for our listeners, so listen up. Why hello there. Do you love listening and chatting about Marvel and DC? Then become a part of the dynamic dual community on Patreon, where you
can choose from three tiers. The dynamic two-o tier lets you listen to this podcast without ads and gives you access to its discord chat group, where you can chat with Johnny DC and Marvelous Joe. The Fantastic Four tier gives you that and more with two bonus episodes each month, including bloopers and top ten shows where Johnny and Joe count down your favourite
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Thanks AJ9K, and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast. Be sure to tune into the Max Destruction podcast, which is part of the Dynamike Podcast Network, to witness the bare-knuckle across film and television. This week on Wednesday September 6th, you can learn who would win in a battle between B.A. Baracus from the A-Team against Action Jackson. Also, anime fans tune into Senjou World, another Dynamite Network show featuring your favorite anime characters
that drops episodes on Thursday. If you tune in this week, you'll find out who'd win in a fight between Tire Harabelle from Bleach and Hoshigaki Kasami from Naruto. I am horrible at pronouncing these names. Damn it, Zach. But no, I'm actually blown away by your character selection. I don't know who these characters are half the time, but it's always fascinating to learn about these anime characters in the show. Yeah, totally. Makes me want to watch
all the shows if only I had time. Visit dynamicpodcast.com or click on the link in our show notes to listen to all the shows in our network. But with that out of the way, quick to the no prize. A no prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Duel No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram and in our email newsletter for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week we asked you guys to
pitch us your perfect Marvel vs. DC video game and to tell us what it would be like. We only got two eligible answers. To be fair, we are recording this episode early due to Labor Day weekend. Right, right. But still, that's not a whole lot of participation. For what I thought was a pretty interesting question, like just describe the most awesome Marvel versus DC video game you can think of. Yeah, like Rampage, but with Lestaro or Fing Feng Fum. That's just
off the top of my head, guys. Fucking bejeweled blitz, but it's Marvel versus DC. I don't know how you would do that, but you can imagine it'd be pretty awesome. It would be Infinity Stones and Green Lantern Rings. Boom, off the top of my head, it just happens. It's that easy, guys, to call in. We did get pretty solid answers for the two answers we did get, so let's go ahead and run down our honorable mention and the no prize winner. Our first honorable mention
goes to Colby Hentges, who said, Hey boys, Colby Hentges. I could have any Marvel vs DC video game. It would play like Skullgirls. Batman Robin vs Caveland Deadpool, Three Teen Titans vs Spider-Man, Rocket and Groot vs Bane, any one-on-one or three-on-three matchup or anything in between. It would be awesome. Okay, I've never actually heard of Skullgirls, but I looked it up and it looks pretty interesting. Basically, the premise of the game is you're a bunch of
goth schoolgirls that are fighting against each other that have like magic powers. The gameplay style is very much in the vein of Marvel versus Capcom, but like way more insane and you can choose any combination of up to three fighters per matchup, kind of like how in Marvel versus Capcom, you select two fighters and they fight back to back or you can switch off in between them. during the course of the fight. It looks like a pretty damn cool game. It would be incredible
to have a Marvel vs DC video game like this. Yeah, with the appeal really being that you don't have to select just one character to fight with, but up to three or maybe more for this game. Like give me the entire seven roster member Justice League to fight with. That'd be dope. I would do it. I'd play the shit out of that game. That would be dope. I do love how you're comparing it to Marvel vs Capcom though, instead of just Street Fighter. Just say Street Fighter.
Well, I always thought of Marvel vs. Capcom as being a much more over the top, crazy video game than Street Fighter. Although, you know, Street Fighter has gotten pretty over the top as well over the years. But yeah, they're both great games. Great answer, Colby. We do have to give a shout out to Christopher Manotti, who recorded an answer, but he described a Arkham style nightcrawler video game with no DC element to it. So it didn't qualify, unfortunately,
but thank you for taking the time to record your answer. The winner of this week's snow prize though is Matt Lamb who said, Hey guys, Matt Lamb here. So my idea for this game would be in the style of injustice and mortal combat. Um, I think it'd be a good way to show off their powers and abilities. I think it put in a, uh, Finisher, not a fatality, but something
special to, uh, in the match for the winner. Um, and I was thinking storyline, this could all start off where Mr. meets Mojo and they decide to have a fun game between both universes. Yeah, considering Ed Boon made comments regarding a Marvel vs. DC video game last week, and Ed Boon is the head of NetherRealm Studios who makes the Mortal Kombat and Injustice video games, it seems most likely that if this game were going to be made, it would be in that
same Mortal Kombat style. And they're great games! Yeah, they're fantastic. I love NetherRealm's storytelling. You know, they created Injustice, which is just fantastic. They also have incredible character designs. They've gotten much better at that than they have in the past, I feel. So I would love to see them render all of the Marvel and DC characters that they would have on the rosters. It would be insanely cool and brutal AF. It's fricking Netherrealm. Right.
If I'm being honest, I actually do like the moral combat renders more than Capcom's, which tend to be a little bit cartoony, you know, like in the Street Fighter vein. Right. Mortal Kombat approaches the characters almost like if they were live-action movie costumes, you know? Right. And I think that would be really cool to see in a video game for Marvel and DC. I think they'd have to brighten up their palette a bit, because a lot of their games
feel like very dark. Mm-hmm. But yeah, it could totally work. I think it would be fantastic. Now I know Matt Lamb said that the characters wouldn't have fatalities but special finishers, but screw that, what would Batman's fatality be? He would just run your ass over with the Batmobile. That's pretty good. What about Spider-Man? Spider-Man's Mortal Kombat fatality, he would totally like mark of Kane your shit up. Like he'd stick his hand onto your face and then
just rip your face right off. Oh damn! And then he'd web up your entire body and then web swing you and slam you into the ground until you're just like bag of mush. I will accept that. Great answer, Matlam. Congrats for winning this week's No Prize. If you, the listener, want a shout out winning your own No Prize. Stay tuned till later on in this episode where we'll be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done, on to the news!
Alright, this past week we heard from the Hollywood Reporter that Marvel is shuffling their TV calendar, setting new dates for The Agatha Show, Echo, X-Men 97, and What If. Initially we were supposed to get all of these shows this year in 2023, considering it's already September. It seemed highly unlikely that this was all going to happen this year, especially due to the ongoing writers and actor strikes. Disney Plus is still going to release Loki Season
2 this year, starting on October 6th. But the first show to get pushed back was What If, which is now going to debut around Christmas time of this year, so the very end of the year. Echo was originally supposed to drop in November, all the episodes were going to drop at the same time, but that got pushed to January of 2024. The animated series X-Men 97, which is going to be a continuation of the classic 1990 series from Fox, that's going to come out sometime
early 2024, around springtime. And then finally... Agatha Coven of Chaos has been renamed to Agatha Darkhold Diaries, and it's going to drop in the fall season of 2024. It's crazy because the Agatha show was originally named House of Harkness, then it got renamed to Coven of Chaos, and now it's called Darkhold Diaries. It's like pick a name, holy shit. Seriously. But I do think that like right around Halloween time is a perfect time to drop an Agatha television
series. Do you like the name Darkhold Diaries? I mean, sure, it works just like the rest of them worked. I think they all were fine. I liked Covenant of Chaos, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, I liked that one too. But considering that we now have a show dropping early 2024 in Echo, spring 2024 in X-Men 97 and autumn 2024 in Agatha Darkhold Diaries, it makes me think that other shows that have been filmed or partially filmed such as Ironheart, Daredevil Born Again and
Wonder Man. are all getting pushed into 2025, which is possibly a good thing. I know there's a lot of concern going around that Marvel is producing too much content that people aren't able to keep up with and therefore are kind of losing interest in. And so I think the aim is to focus on the quality and make sure that the release dates are staggered to hold audience interest. Yeah, I think it's a smart move. Bob Iger pretty much admitted that there was too
much Marvel content on Disney+. This gives them some breathing room to kind of reevaluate what they want to do with each series and make sure it's a little bit more cohesive, I think, going forward, hopefully. But speaking of all of these shows, in particular X-Men 97, that brings us to our question of the week. 90s kids, what was your favorite Marvel or DC cartoon from the 90s and why? Basically, if you're listening to this and you were born after the 90s, you can still answer but also you're
too young. You're just too young. You're too young. Be older, because we're looking for 90s cartoons. It was the best era for Marvel and DC cartoons, in my humble opinion. Yeah, I think it was definitely like the Renaissance after shows like Super Friends and stuff like that, you know? Yeah. Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a
voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to Instagram and our email newsletter. Be sure to answer before September 9th.
But I think that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and move into our main event, where we review the DC animated series on Cartoon Network and Max, My Adventures with Superman, Season 1. Adventures with Superman is a 10-episode animated series made for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block and the Mac streaming platform by the series' showrunners Jake Wyatt, Brandon
Kloffer, and Josie Campbell. The series explores Clark Kent's early career as both a journalist for the Daily Planet and as the superhero Superman, as well as the burgeoning relationship with his colleague Lois Lane. It was a fantastic series. that modernizes Superman in a way that has never been done before. I definitely recommend watching it. It's available on Macs. Once again, please watch it before listening any further to this spoiler review. Yeah, even as a Marvel
fan, I highly recommend this series. It actually turned out better than expected when the executive producers requested that we review the show. I was kind of a whiny bitch about it. I didn't want to do it. I feel like we've seen this story done well before in the Smallville television series and even in animated form recently with the Man of Tomorrow movie. But this show ended up blowing all my expectations away and when I first started watching it I was like, what's
this cartoony shit? By the time I was done, I considered it one of the best interpretations of Superman's origin story that has existed. Way better than Man of Tomorrow, honestly. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no question. Like you, when this cartoon was first announced... I can't say I was looking forward to it, and I was also surprised when it was decided that
we were going to review it, because we don't usually review Cartoon Network shows. You know, considering the fact that the episodes were dropping on Macs shortly after their Cartoon Network debut, and because the episode count was relatively short, we figured we'd review it, and I'm really glad we did, because like you mentioned, the show was way better than I thought it would be, and it's definitely a far cry from the character that we've seen
on the big screen for the past decade, I would say. When My Adventures with Superman was first announced in early 2021, based off the title, I was under the impression that it was a series that focused on Lois Lane specifically, and you know, like her perspective regarding Superman and life in Metropolis. Right away, I assumed I wasn't the target demographic. And you know, I'd probably watch it with my daughters, but probably wouldn't enjoy it. I was totally wrong.
I enjoyed the shit out of the show, because I forgot how much I could relate. to the romantic side of the Superman story, which is an element that has been there since the very beginning of the character's introduction since 1938. Jerry Siegel, one of the creators of Superman, said that one of the inspirations for Clark Kent as an alter ego was because he had crushes on girls who didn't even know he existed. And he thought to himself, what if, secretly, he
was really great? What if he was super? The love triangle of sorts that stemmed from Clark Kent loving Lois Lane, but Lois Lane loving Superman, was this tragic component that allowed readers to connect with these otherwise perfect characters. And it's a component that was noticeably lacking in Zack Snyder's take on the character, or from any other medium other than maybe Smallville for decades. I would argue that this show nails the romantic aspect between Superman and Lois.
than any film or television series in history because of the novel approach they take with the Clark Kent alter ego. His awkwardness in this show isn't necessarily an act like it was for the Christopher Reeve version of the character. It's often been debated amongst comic readers whether Clark Kent should be an act, and in this show we see that Clark Kent
and Superman are essentially the same person. It's just that Clark Kent is clumsy, due to having to control and hide his powers at all times, which is difficult to do when his attention is on a pretty girl like Lois. I'm not usually one for romantic media, I'll admit that. I think my tastes as a hyper-masculine dude is pretty much in the vein of, you know, I like to see the action aspect of these superheroes. The romantic side never really interested me.
But You know, I think that Superman actually has one of the most interesting romantic angles out of all superheroes in general. Yeah, I mean, his romantic relationships, and I guess not just that, his relationships in general are the source of his vulnerability, right? And plus, like Superman's really only loved one girl for the most part. I think he's had some a few other romantic interests in his history, but for the most part, Lois is Superman's girl
ever since the 1940s, you know. Whereas I think most other male superheroes have quite a number of romantic interests, like another prime example is Spider-Man, but he's had Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane, Felicia Hardy, you know? Spider-Man's a ho! It's much more wholesome, I think, with the Superman-Lowes relationship. Absolutely, yeah. Now, there was a lot of length, but that was in high school. You know, since becoming an adult, Superman is primarily a wood woman
man. Now, the show is so well written. And the chemistry between the characters of Superman and Lois is so well realized that even though Lois discovers Clark Kent as Superman less than halfway through the series, it doesn't ruin the dramatic flow and tension between the characters. And it even helps address a criticism many have levied at the writers of Lois Lane for decades in that if she's such an intelligent investigative journalist, why
didn't she deduce that Clark Kent was Superman early on? Here she does. and in a more believable and natural way than, say, Amy Adams' version of the character. The way the showrunners approached the relationship between Clark and Lois wasn't the only novel aspect of the show, however,
the most blatant being the anime animation style. We saw shades of the anime style in the DC animated movie universe that began with the Justice League The Flashpoint Paradox animated film, but my adventures with Superman is, for the most part, a shounen anime in terms of both animation and story style. Shounen animes are geared toward teenage boys and include tropes such as growing in power like leveling up, having a romantic rival, themes of teamwork,
and the power of friendship, many of which are found in this show. I love that for almost every villain that Superman went up against, Lois and Jimmy were on the sidelines figuring out how to help Superman, whether it was pushing buttons on a crate or... you know, finding the off switch for a high tech panic room. Yeah, the anime art style was pretty well done here. I never knew how well suited the character of Superman was to the anime style until I saw
it. And it works really damn well. Yeah, there's a lot of visual anime tropes on the show as well. You know, such as Superman sparking with electricity like Goku or the Majoko style transformation into a super suit. There's a teaser for the next episode at the very end of the one you're watching. And you know, overall the fast action and exaggerated facial expressions. I don't watch a lot of anime, but I do know that some of my favorites, like Neon Genesis Evangelion,
My Hero Academia, and Sword Art Online, would be considered shounen. And recognizing some of those anime tropes, both story and visual, was part of the fun of watching this show. I never would have thought, like you, that Superman would have worked in that style, but he totally did. For sure. And going back to the romantic angle, I think for some reason, the anime art style does a really good job of expressing that sort of like shy, flirtatious behavior between
characters. Yeah. You know, with like the blush cheeks and everything like that, it just worked really well in selling their romantic back and forth in an endearing way. Yeah, totally. Japanese shounen don't really shy away from romance in the same way that I think Western cartoons geared towards young men do. It was like, oh, they love each other. I was like, he likes her, oh no. No, my daughter loves this series as well. She's 12 years old. She's in middle
school. She watched the new episodes before I did. She was like really into it. Girls love anime, I found. Yeah. And I think a large part of it has to do with, yeah, they don't shy away from things like romance. Now, as a Superman fan, one of the things I loved most about this
show was the approach it took with Superman's origin and how it resulted week to week. and a who's who of supervillains from DC Comics. In a similar way to how Kryptonite was responsible for creating many of Superman's villains in the Smallville television series, in this show, many of them are powered by repurposed Kryptonian technology. Superman doesn't realize this until the very end of the season, so he doesn't have like that same guilt that Clark did in Smallville,
but I'm sure that's coming next season. Some people got tired of the Kryptonite villain of the week, Shtick from Smallville. But since my adventures with Superman was only 10 episodes, I didn't feel that aspect overstayed its welcome. And it helped story-wise in coming up with
a simple solution for why all of these superpowered beings emerged for Superman to fight. We got to see Livewire, Silver Banshee, Mist, Rough House, Dr. Ivo, Parasite, Heatwave, Deathstroke, Mixi Spidlic, Amanda Waller, Lex Luthor, Omac Robots, General Lane and even Matsumura Mala
and the Brain. At the very end, we even get teases of Brainiac and Zod. None of these characters get much character development, and it shouldn't work because of that, but it somehow does because of the way all of the villains get their powers and because the show is so focused on Superman and his friends. Yeah, I think the tech aspect goes a long way in making the show feel modern. as well. A lot of the bad guys almost seem like Iron Man or something like that, you know?
But it doesn't feel untrue to the characters themselves. Like Livewire, I think she was actually a villain introduced in the Superman animated series from the 90s. But her origin here, I think is actually better than the one they introduced in that old cartoon. And you're right, it was fun going like, oh, that's Livewire. Oh, that's Deathstroke. It's funny how like, I was so ready to write off the show in the beginning. Cause I thought that was lame. I
was like, what the fuck are they doing? Like reinventing all these characters. And I was like, this is just some else world's bullshit. But by the end I was like, man, this would be a great angle for a film adaptation, honestly. Oh man, don't even get me started. Like I liked this show so much that it actually got me a little depressed by how good it was. Because like most DC animations, I don't understand why Warner Brothers couldn't adapt this approach
for live action, you know? Like each of these episodes were only 22 minutes long. This could have easily been a pair of films, maybe even a trilogy. And that would have been amazing. Like whatever James Gunn is doing with the Superman legacy film, the bar has been set for how well you could introduce Superman already right now. It does have its work cut out for it in telling Superman's early years better than this show did. Right. Exactly. And it's been said that,
you know, it's not focusing on Superman's early years as Superman. but it is supposed to focus on his early years in Metropolis with Lois Lane and stuff like that. So, I don't know. Maybe he could go like the Superman birthright route in that regard, but we'll see, I guess. For my money, this was a better modern adaptation of the character of Superman than the Man of Steel movie, which I thought was an interesting, you know, alien sci-fi approach to the character.
You know, I love Man of Steel. It's one of my favorite DC movies, and I would agree with you. That's why I'm depressed. But moving on to the character breakdown, there's really only three main characters to talk about. Of course, starting with Superman, aka Clark Kent, he was voiced by Jack Quaid, who's the son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, and is probably best well known for playing Huey and the boys. It's a lighter, more comedic take on Superman,
but I thought Jack nailed this version of the character. I've never heard or seen Superman to be this expressive on screen. Oh, he was incredible. I didn't even know that was him. And now I'm kind of blown away by that. Yeah, yeah. I didn't realize it was him either. He's pretty talented. Now, the show asks numerous times, who is Superman? Superman asks himself that question. As we see each of Superman's powers activate during the course of the show,
he learns that he's a hero who simply does what he can to help others. A good example of this is when he steps in front of Lois. to shield her from a barrage of lasers without thinking,
without even knowing that he was invulnerable to them. Superman being a hero isn't the most shocking answer to the question of who he is. The bigger shock comes from the angle they took in showing us that not only are some supermen across the multiverse seemingly evil, but they also make us believe for a time that Yeah, there's an aspect to the show that was kind of reminiscent of the invincible comic book series and animated show on Amazon, where they portrayed the Kryptonians almost like
Viltrumites, where like they're these super powerful beings. And I think Jor-El in this show can almost be seen as an analog to invincible's father Omniman. I thought that was really fascinating, even though we know that Jor-El is ultimately going to be a good guy. But then you have Zod at the end. Right. Yeah. So cool. I can't wait for season two. And I think that's a testament to just how good this show is. I spoke earlier about how like this show does a better job
of bringing the character into modern times while making him feel like Superman. Yes, like a young classic version of Superman in the modern day. And they never thought that they would be able to do that as successfully as they did here. I think that's really why I was so happy with the show by the end of it, because it proved that it could be done. Right. Like Henry Cavill's Superman was a little bit dark for some people's tastes. He was a little bit brooding. You cannot
say that about this animated version of Superman. Should have been live action. Damn it. Moving on to Lois Lane, she was voiced by Alice Lee, a singer and actress from Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist. I never saw the show. Alice is of Korean descent and her version of Lois Lane. is also of Korean descent and I believe this is the first time we've ever seen the character
depicted that way. And I don't mind it, you know, they also race-bent Jimmy Olsen to match his voice actor, and we'll talk about that character in a bit, but I think matching the ethnicity of the voice actor best suited for the role is admirable. And I have to say, I loved the voice work for Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. Oh yeah, they did a perfect job. Now, Lois's arc
really revolves around her relationship with her father. She disdains him for keeping secrets from her growing up about his classified work and her mother's cancer, and she struggles to find success in part due to feelings of neglect from him ignoring her growing up. I think it was brilliant that they made her father, General Lane, the primary villain. I thought it was going to be like Lex Luthor or maybe Brainiac, but having it be General Lane added a whole
other layer of conflict to the relationship between Superman and Lois. I mean, who didn't see that coming? But also, yeah, brilliant idea. I mean, I didn't initially until we actually saw him. I was like, oh, shit. Nice. I did kind of roll my eyes when we learned that there was a multiversal league of Lois Lane's because we've seen that done so many times by this point. Like Council of Rick's Council of Reed Richards, you know. But after a while, I realized
it was a clever way. to not only add further tension to Superman and Lois's relationship and introduce Kryptonite, but also to qualm any haters who may have an issue with this adaptation of the world of Superman, or even the race-bending, by saying that this is its own thing, its own world. Your classic Superman world still exists, but this is our interpretation
and our stance. There's a little bit of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl characterization here, especially in the early episodes for Lois Lane, but Lois Lane is kind of like the OG Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She's always been this like borderline insane woman who will always be impulsive and go out and do the dangerous thing. Right. And that's also an anime trope, you know, the wild impulsive anime girl. And I really liked how they kind of blended that characterization
into this version of Lois Lane. For sure. Yeah. She was really well done. As was Jimmy Olsen. He was voiced by Ishmael Saheed, and I have to say I haven't enjoyed Jimmy Olsen this much in a long while. It's always been hard to sincerely say that Jimmy Olsen is Superman's best pal in the comics, because he's always been like this dimwitted and somewhat annoying peon of sorts. But here they made Clark and Jimmy bros, like equals, who were friends even before they
arrived at the Daily Planet. And on top of that, they made Jimmy a conspiracy theorist vlogger. which was a brilliant way to add tension to him and Clark. Yeah, at first I thought it was just like this random character trait that was done for comedic relief. And I was prepared to be really annoyed by Jimmy Olsen actually. And then I kind of saw how all the pieces fell together as Clark always found himself nervous around Jimmy because Clark is an alien, you
know? Right. So it was pretty interesting. Again, you know, there's an anime trope of like the comedic relief character that this version of Jimmy Olsen fell squarely into, but uh... The way that the show was able to fill those molds while still staying true to the Superman mythos was just brilliant. Yeah, I mean, tropes and cliches exist for a reason. And when they're
well done, they're really well done. Now, I don't know how I feel about the reveal that Jimmy recognized that Clark was an alien early on as roommates, but I guess it makes sense considering they were living together. And it also shows how true of a friend Jimmy was in
that. as a vlogger about aliens, he wouldn't expose Clark as one. Like if that isn't the sign of a true friend, I don't know what is. My impression is that it was his realization that Clark was like a super strong alien guy that manifested his whole conspiratorial nature to begin with. Oh interesting, maybe. He's like holy crap this guy's like superhuman, the fantastical must exist, and I must learn all about it. I love that, that's great. Let's move on to the story highlights.
In episode 1, titled Adventures of a Normal Man, part 1, in Smallville, Kansas, a young Clark Kent awakens the power of flight and strength to save a woman and her baby from a car accident. Years later, in Metropolis, Clark and his roommate Jimmy Olsen, a photography student and alien conspiracy theorist, start their first day as interns for the Daily Planet. Assigned to senior intern Lois Lane, she deceives them into helping her investigate a military-grade technology
theft. With a lead from Flip Johnson's News Kid Legion, the trio finds the thieves loading military robots at the docks. The thieves' leader, Leslie Willis, unleashes a robot to attack them. Clark gets out of view and returns in disguise to destroy it. As Willis activates the remaining robots to battle Clark, Lois successfully deactivates them while he awakens his super
speed to destroy the final robot. Despite their efforts, Editor-in-Chief Perry White refuses to publish the story based on Jimmy's blurry photos without real proof of the new metahuman that Lois dubbed Superman. Once the trio become friends, Lois invites the boys to help her get an exclusive interview with Superman. Now, I'll admit this first episode I did not love. When it came to the wacky, you know, Jimmy Olsen hijinks, the manic characterization of Lois
and like the kids' newspaper brigade or whatever. I was like, God. I didn't... Why are we reviewing this? Like, I would have rather have reviewed the live-action Superman and Lois television series is what I thought to myself or something like that, you know, because I've heard that's good. But to the show's credit, as the show progresses, it gets more serious along the way, which I think resulted in nice growth for the characters. Yeah, true. Like you, I wasn't
thrilled by this first episode. Like, I didn't think it was the greatest adaptation ever for Superman. I didn't really feel that way until maybe episode three or four. But episode 2 was pretty good. That was titled Adventures of a Normal Man, part 2. While Lois doggedly follows up on the robot theft for a lead to Superman, Clark returns to Smallville to investigate
his past and understand his new powers. Digging up the space pod that delivered him to Earth, Clark activates an alien hologram and sees visions of an alien planet amid a space war being destroyed. After Clark gains new alien clothing from this, His mother, Martha, adds a belt and shorts to complete the look. Meanwhile, Willis is hunted by the organization she stole the robot technology from, Task Force X, and arranges a meeting with leading agent Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke.
When Willis threatens to detonate explosives across the city sewers if they continue hunting her, Lois and Jimmy's surprise interruption turns the meeting into a scramble for the detonator. Willis reveals her electrical super suit to fight Deathstroke until Superman arrives to subdue her. Deathstroke damages her suit's power crystal, leading Superman to destroy it after it gives him another vision of the space war. Though Jimmy's clear photos convince Perry
to publish the story, he gives the byline to uninvolved staff reporters. Later, Deathstroke tortures Willis, now Livewire, at a black site for information about Superman. I've seen a lot of flack online for the transformation scene in this episode, and I really feel like early on when the show's first episodes were coming out, there was a lot of antagonism towards it. But I am happy to see more and more people admit that they liked the series online. Well,
I mean, it just made sense for the context of the scene, right? Clark activating the ship for the first time and going down into it and seeing partial visions of the Kryptonian. story and you know getting a suit from that I think worked really well. And yeah like it's kind of a funny anime cliche for the characters to suit up in this overtly grandiose fashion but considering it only happened once in the season and it had that context to go with it I thought
it was spot on. Yeah I don't even think it was that over the top either. It literally only lasted five seconds, maybe not even that long. Yeah. I do love the fact that Martha helped contribute to the suit in some way because in the comics... She did, you know, she helped him make it and design it. Yeah. So that was cool. It really only took me up until this
episode to start getting into the show. Once you kind of saw what they did with LiveWire, something kind of like clicked for me and I understood what they were going with in terms of bringing in the larger DC universe. Right, yeah. We've begun to episode three, titled My Interview with Superman. While Lois attempts to interview Superman, Clark struggles to figure
out how to help her while protecting his secret identity. However, the interns must also contend with the Daily Planet's established Scoop Troop reporters, who pericredited for their Superman story. Specifically, Steve Lombard, Kent Grant, and Ronnie Troop. Meanwhile, Myst and his friend Ruff House use technology they obtained from Livewire to break his sister, Chauvin McDougal, out of prison and equip her with sonic tech to rebuild their small time crew, Intergang.
Despite Clark's misgivings, the interns impersonate the Scoop Troop to investigate Chauvin, now Silver Banshee, discovering a clue to Intergang's next heist. When Intergang attempts to rob the Metropolitan City Bank, their ice cannon's power crystal malfunctions and begins to freeze everything in proximity. Seeing Lois and Jimmy in danger, Superman awakens his heat vision
and destroys the crystal, granting him a vision of an invading robot army. While Deathstroke's organization secretly takes the defeated Inter Gang members into custody, Superman accepts Lois' interview and discloses that he is still figuring himself out, but is committed to saving people. However, to his dismay, Lois later tells Clark that she suspects Superman is lying.
Now, when I first saw Inter Gang pop up here, I was guessing that the main villain was going to be Darkseid and that this was apocalyptic tech, but that turned out to not be the case. Right, because traditionally, intergang is supplied with new god technology, right? I do like the way they kind of flipped it here so that it was Kryptonian tech though. I think it still worked. Yeah, I agree. I also think it's interesting how crystals power Kryptonian tech. You know,
Sunstone is a thing in the comics. We saw that in the Superman movie as well. where like all the architecture and stuff is created from crystals. So it was nice that they found a way to incorporate crystals and even kryptonite as a crystal into Superman's mythos. Yeah, when Superman destroyed the ice crystal with his heat vision, that's when I recognized the shonen tropes of him like leveling up to face new challenges throughout the course of each episode. I thought that
was really neat. It's really interesting. It's still not entirely clear how his. new powers were unlocked, he kind of just like sparked with electricity and then boom, had a new power. But I thought it was cool and I thought it worked. I have a feeling maybe Jor-El was kind of keeping tabs on his son and would unlock new powers as he needed them. Episode 4 was titled, Let's Go to Ivo Tower, You Say. Perry assigns the interns to cover the Amazotech Gala, held by
CEO Dr. Anthony Ivo. Lois is snubbed by the attendees for her invasive questions. while Clark stumbles upon an argument between Ivo and his chairman, Curtis, regarding the board of directors voting out Ivo. Ejected by Ivo's security, Lois sneaks Clark back inside. They open up to each other before discovering a secret room with technology that connects Ivo to Livewire and Intergang. An angered Ivo demonstrates the Parasite 1.0 armor and attempts to kill Chairman
Curtis. Clark becomes Superman to save Curtis, and while Ivo traps the attendees in the Amazo Panic Room to make them witness him overpowering Superman. Realizing the armor absorbs energy from his attacks, Superman stops fighting Ivo directly as Lois and Jimmy deactivate the panic room. With the suit depowered, Superman removes it from Ivo, who became deformed due to the suit's side effects. With Ivo under EMT care, the interns return to find the secret room
empty. Lois kisses Clark, considering the night a date night. Later, after submitting her expose on Ivo, Lois finds a torn tabloid article involving Kansas' miracle sightings in Clark's coat. After reworking her evidence board, Lois concludes that Clark is Superman. Now, Ivo was the one villain, I think, that they really didn't do justice, or I should say parasites. Professor Ivo in the comics, of course, is a mad scientist of sorts who is responsible for the creation
villainous robots such as a mezzo. Parasite is his own villain. For some reason, they decided to merge the two here and I really didn't care for the character design. I don't understand why it needed a tail of all things. It was weird. Yeah, Parasite has never traditionally been depicted as a tech. I mean, a lot of Superman's villains are not tech based, although you could rationalize a lot of their abilities as tech oriented. Take for example, Silver Banshee,
which I thought was Well done. Parasite, I'm not quite so sure, successfully makes the transition over to Tech Villain. Although, you know, the whole power draining aspect of it made sense for me, but the weird, like, tail and insectoid elements of the armor didn't quite make sense. I also thought that they really played a little bit probably too heavily off of Tony Stark for Ivo, making Kim like this. you know, celebrity CEO on Playboy. I don't know, I think they
could have done a better job although I do appreciate the effort, I suppose. By this episode, with Alex making an appearance, you know, Ivo's like scientist assistant, I totally thought that the main bad guy of the season was going to be Lex Luthor. What are your thoughts on the show kind of like positioning Lex Luthor as more of a secondary villain type? I don't mind it, honestly. Like, if you want to build up Lex Luthor as a major antagonist, over a season
or two, that's fine by me. Like give next season to General Zod, maybe have Lex Luthor help defeat him in some way, but become bald in the process and then have him be like the main villain by season three. That's that's fine. Yeah, I think that totally works. I assume that they're going to have Alex take over his former boss's company. Essentially, he's going to take over a Mazotech and turn it into Lex Court or Lex Tech, one of those episode five
was titled. you will believe a man can lie. Hoping to confess his burgeoning feelings for Lois, Clark asks for her help in developing a story about the stolen military technology spreading throughout Metropolis and a mysterious individual kidnapping anyone using it. However, she sees it as an opportunity to expose him as Superman. Using an old dispatch scanner, she chases down Superman as he foils various crimes before eventually meeting him after
he defeats Heatwave. another criminal empowered by the stolen technology. While Superman is distracted, Heatwave escapes, believing he is behind recent kidnappings of inter-gang members who have used the high-tech weaponry. After Superman drops off Lois at the Daily Planet to keep her safe, he reconfronts Heatwave and discovers the true culprit behind the abducted criminals is an armored Deathstroke aided by similar robots that Livewire used. Their subsequent
fight soon endangers civilians. leading to Deathstroke's superiors, the General and Amanda Waller, ordering him to withdraw so Superman can save them. After returning to Lois, she forces Clark to reveal his secret identity to her and is left distraught. Meanwhile, Jimmy is disappointed to learn that Clark and Lois fail to attend a pre-planned camping trip to investigate Bigfoot sightings with him. He goes alone, but a large gorilla kidnaps him. I thought this was a pretty good
episode both action wise and like drama wise. I was actually surprised by the amount of drama they were able to milk out of the whole Superman Clark Kent reveal to Lois Lane. Right? Yeah. This is one of my favorite episodes. There's often criticism that, oh, you know, Lois Lane should know that Superman is Clark Kent because Superman is just Clark Kent without glasses. But I think this episode does a decent job of sort of showing that Lois doesn't really get
the best. looks at Superman. He's never around enough for her to interact with him the way that she wants to. I mean, that all depends on what version of Lois Lane you're talking about though, because like, if you look at Richard Donner's movie, they had a whole like date night interviewed together, so she got a pretty good look then. Margot Kidder should have known better. It's fair. Well, she did figure it out in Superman 2 on her own. That's true. To be
fair. Episode 6 was entitled, My Adventures with Mad Science. After failing to locate Jimmy, Clark reaches out to Lois for help. Despite still being mad at him, she agrees. Scouring the woods, the pair find an abandoned military installation called Area 52, but upon crossing the fence, Clark's powers falter due to the area being exposed to red solar radiation before they are chased by OMAC robots. Meanwhile, inside Area 52, Jimmy meets and befriends the gorilla
Matsumala, and his partner, the Brain. The pair reveal they originally worked for Project Cadmus, a branch of Task Force X that focused on developing futuristic technology, before the latter organization betrayed them and raided Area 52. Ever since, the Brain and Mala have been attempting to create a wormhole to access other dimensions where they will be accepted. Eventually, breaching Area 52, Clark and Lois reconcile with each other and Jimmy, who reveals he knew of Clark's
secret identity all along, before joining Brain and Mala in defeating the Omacs. Successfully opening their wormhole, the Brain warns Clark that Task Force X is after him before leaving with Mala. Concurrently, the General recruits Ivo to help him use Cadmus' technology to kill Superman. This is one of the lesser episodes, in my opinion, largely because of the characters amongst your Mala and the Brain. I know them as Doom Patrol villains from the Brotherhood
of Evil. Right. And they weren't very evil in this reality. Well, no, I think a lot of the villains that were under the hands of Grant Morrison were reinterpreted in a way that made them less evil than they were prior, I would say. Like he's the one who made Munsu Ramallah
and the Brain lovers to begin with, which just struck me as really weird in this show. Yeah, especially considering that the brain was a scientist that helped give Monsier Mala the gorilla his genius, and then fell in love with him, which seems like a weird case of bestiality going on. Like, was he fucking that gorilla the whole time? I hope not. I don't know if we want to be... He better not be. Right? Yeah, like I didn't feel like comfortable with some
of the implications of this episode. There's definitely like a breach of ethics there somewhere. Anyway... Yeah, I didn't love what they did with the Brandon Manseuramala. They're Doom Patrol villains again, so I'm not sure why they were here in this episode. There are other villains from Project Cadmus that I think could have worked here just as well. Can you explain
why the area was doused in red solar radiation? Cause I guess I didn't quite get that part or like why there were booby traps around as the OMAX were chasing Lois and Clark through the jungle. Well the booby traps were set up to protect Mansuramala and the brain from Task Force X should they ever return to the base of Area 52. I don't know what the red solar radiation thing was about, I also didn't catch that. Again I don't think it was a great episode
because of unexplained things like that. I did think the omacs were cool, and I was actually surprised to see them so soon after watching Blue Beetle. Yeah they're like everywhere now. Episode 7 was titled Kiss Fallen Portal. After Clark shows Lois and Jimmy his spaceship and
clarifies his incomplete alien origin, Clark and Lois plan their first date. However, he is interrupted by Mr. Myxhospitalik, a multiversal imp who deceives him into helping him steal a recorder from a museum on Earth-1, revealing Clark is from the planet Krypton in the process. Meanwhile, Lois and Jimmy are recruited by the Multiversal League of Lois Lanes to help them
stop Mixy Spitalik and Clark. Suspicious of their intentions, Lois searches their files, stumbling onto the redacted File X. Upon finding them, the League attacks Clark, while Mixy Spitalik hijacks the League's vessel and travels to their headquarters with the recorder and Lois' help. As she steals the original File X, Mixy Spitalik retrieves his hat, regains his full strength, and causes chaos until Superman distracts him, allowing Lois to depower him
and Jimmy to restrain him. While the League arrests Mixius Spidelik, Jimmy's counterpart, Jelena, secretly brings the interns back to their native Earth-12, where Clark and Lois finish their date. Following this, she opens File X and finds recordings of evil alternate universe Superman and a sample of kryptonite that the League used to injure him. I actually really like this interpretation of Miksi Spedulik, and I never know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.
Well, that's how they pronounced it in the show. Yeah, it was very different from other iterations of the character that I've seen. Typically he's portrayed as like this impish looking character, but here he definitely had like mystic alien influences. I thought he was more like a feline genie, which kind of made sense to me considering that fifth dimensional imps in DC comics are often interpreted as genies like the thunderbolt. I liked it. The hat didn't make sense, but
I liked it. No, yeah, and the fact that he got his powers from his hat, I thought was a little bit convenient. But no, there were a lot of great references in this episode to alternate animated universe Superman that I appreciated. I don't think he got his power from his hat. I just think he was in toll without his hat. Okay, yeah. Episode 8 was titled Zero Day Part
1. The General uses shock collars to forcibly recruit Livewire, Intergang, and Heatwave into assisting Deathstroke and Ivo in capturing Superman. Meanwhile, after developing Superhearing and sensing everyone in the city crying for help, Clark runs himself ragged, helping everyone, and soon becomes sleep deprived and weakened. When Gotham Gazette journalist Vicky Vail arrives to cover his activities, Lois is star-struck to meet her. only to be disappointed when Vail
runs a biased story defaming Superman as a menace to gain a promotion. Superman saves an invisible Mist from being hit by a truck, but causes an accident, turning public opinion against him. Mist says Task Force X kidnapped Silver Banshee, and Superman offers to rescue her, only to be led into a trap and attacked by the group. Though he holds his own despite his weakened state, Superman is eventually knocked out by Ivo, via his upgraded parasite armor and livewire.
The General stops Ivo from killing Superman as he wants to interrogate him, Mr. Egress luring Superman into the trap as Lois and Jimmy rush to the scene but arrive to see the group carry Superman away. And this was cool, like this was a way to introduce the Suicide Squad without actually naming them as such. Just repurposing all of the villains that they showcased throughout the season. I thought was pretty well done. Yeah, and seeing Superman going up against
all of them was a lot of fun to watch. It's like that video game that's never coming out. Suicide Squad killed the Justice League. Right, right. The angle they took for this episode where his super hearing kind of creates this vulnerability in that he struggles with being everywhere at once and therefore doesn't sleep and therefore is less effective playing upon people's fears that are being stirred by this new biased reporter. It all works really well
together. The show can be really well written at times. Most times, I would say. Yeah, I agree. Episode 9 was Zero Day Part 2. In flashbacks to Zero Day, the General, Waller, and their forces were attacked by an alien army led by a Superman-like figure codenamed Nemesis Omega before a mysterious event forced the army back into a retreat that left their technology behind. In the present... The News Kid Legion helps Lois and Jimmy search for Superman, while the
General interrogates him for information on Zero Day. From Superman's anguished reaction, the General doubts his connection to it, while a displeased Waller secretly helps the prisoners escape, during which Livewire electrocutes Deathstroke's right eye. A vengeful Ivo attacks Superman, but inadvertently frees him. Flip from the News Kid Legion eventually finds Superman, and takes him to safety. Clark believes he was sent to Earth to destroy it, but Lois assures him otherwise.
Upon learning Ivo is siphoning the power grid and going on a Kaiju rampage through the city, Lois and Jimmy use social media to petition Metropolis's citizens to turn off their power, weakening Ivo so Superman can use his newly awakened x-ray vision to locate and remove Ivo from the suit. As Superman and Lois declare their love, Jimmy Fine's File X. On Checkmate's behalf, Waller demotes the General and gives him Ivo's last invention, the Omega Cannon,
with orders to kill Superman. And again, I didn't love Ivo in this episode. The whole Kaiju parasite thing was recently done in Superman Man of Tomorrow. So it wasn't like novel to see it done again. No, it was pretty cool how Superman's newly gained ability of X-ray vision assisted in Parasite's defeat though. That was cool. Yeah, I agree with that. I actually thought this was the season finale. I knew that there was 10 episodes, but for some reason I was like,
oh, it must be a mistake. I think there's actually only nine. So I was surprised and pleased to see that there was episode 10 because I thought episode 10 was great. Episode 10 was called Hearts of the Fathers. After having nightmares about Zero Day. Clark is promoted, along with Lois and Jimmy, to full reporters for their article on Ivo's defeat. They have Thanksgiving dinner with Clark's parents, and Lois invites her father, Sam Lane, revealed to be the General,
though he fails to recognize Clark. In private, Clark finds File X and the Kryptonite Shard, which hurts him. His space pod reacts to the Kryptonite, and releases a signal that prompts an invasion similar to Zero Day. Superman and Sam battle the invaders, with Jimmy learning the kryptonite hurts them as well. Superman takes the kryptonite and, despite being weakened, uses it to destroy the mothership, halting the invasion. A hologram of his father helps return
him to Earth. Sam prepares to kill him, but Lois pleads for his life and reminds him that he just saved them, causing him to leave. Jimmy reveals he sold his social media platform, Flamebird. to the daily planet for over 5 million dollars and is now rich. On a distant world, a robot seemingly brainiac informs his Kryptonian master about the halted invasion. His master, seemingly General Zod, says that the rebellious world will soon kneel. I thought this was a
fantastic finale episode. The stakes were incredible. The sacrifice of the hero, I thought, was profound. Great arc resolution. All around well done. The action of this episode was fantastic. When he started throwing down in that spaceship corridor with those robots, right, I was like, kick their asses, Superman. Superman gets his own hallway fight scene. Yeah. I mean, the action overall is not really comparable to some of the better anime action I've seen. I think
that could have actually been done better in the season. But I did really enjoy seeing Superman throw down with all these robots. That's what the character is good for. You know, these larger than life fights. Exactly. Yeah. Superman has battles that no other superhero really can have. It's top tier for sure. I also loved seeing Jor-El like help his son fight alongside him in the hallway, just like short circuiting all those robots by zapping through them as
a hologram. I was like, you go, Jor-El, you go. I wasn't quite sure why Jor-El's recognition of the Kryptonite initiated a Kryptonian invasion, but I am super interested in seeing why all of that happens the way it happens in season two, when we get reintroduced to characters like Brainiac and General Zod, and get the whole missing side of the story there. Exactly, yeah, for sure. It almost seems like the ship woke up in a response to the kryptonite for some
reason, and there wasn't much that Jor-El could do about it. I'm not sure. I did love the final line of Jimmy Olsen when he was like, oh yeah, I'm rich now. My mouth went open just like everyone else's around the table, just like what, what? It's definitely a fun angle for Jimmy Olsen, I think. For sure. Really interested in seeing where that goes. Yeah, I'm interested in seeing where all of it goes, because this series is just so refreshing as a DC fan and
a Superman fan in particular. It modernizes the character in a way that, again, I didn't think could ever be done. It was this perfect blend of anime action and romance, and the show's sleek character designs and charming animation just successfully modernized Superman and his friends. so well that I'm giving this season four and a half out of five stars a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah I have to agree with the four and a half star rating.
I wasn't going that way at the beginning of the season but one of the most impressive things about the show is how it managed to turn me. My mind on what it was completely changed from beginning to end. Like at the start I was like oh this is like some kid's show you know. I thought the characterizations were too and the universe was too unrecognizable. But the characters really grew throughout the season, and I think the universe that they built here came to be
one of the more compelling iterations of the Superman story ever. I agree. To me, it was near perfect. I think the worst thing you could say about it is that the show doesn't do the best job of adapting lesser known Superman villains, but they are lesser known Superman villains. It's not like they botched Zod or Brainiac or Bizarro or something like that. These are Livewire and Heatwave. So I didn't mind the creative liberty they took with the characters. And
overall, fantastic show. Yeah, I hope the show does well because I think that this version of Superman will be to the 2020s that Smallville's Clark Kent was to the early 2000s. I hope so. I hope so because Smallville was insanely popular. And I hope for all the people who were maybe thinking about this show the same way we were going into it, that it was, you know, just this kiddie show. Take the time to watch this and really find something to admire like we
did. But that does it for this review. Let us know what you thought about season one by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast.gmail.com or by visiting us on Instagram or X. You can find links to all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website at dynamicduel.com.
And on our site, you can also find a link to our Patreon page where you could join our Dynamic Duo tier and chat with us and fellow listeners, our Fantastic Four tier, which gets you bonus content each month, our X-Force tier that makes you an executive producer of the podcast, or our newest tier that lets you join our Dynamike Podcast Network. If you can't join Patreon, you can still support the show by signing up for our e-newsletter also at dynamicduel.com.
Or you could also rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, and Facebook. or on our website. Our next episode is going to be a duel episode and lead up to our big team duel event between Doom Patrol and Guardians of the Galaxy. That'll be in two weeks. But next week, we're going to find out who'd win in a fight between Dorothy Spinner and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Yeah, this is going to be a pretty interesting match. The story of Dorothy Spinner is pretty
tragic. I don't know much about Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, but I'm definitely interested in seeing them throw down. But that does it for this episode, we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers Ken Johnson, John Sturowski, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Balcom, Miggie Matten-Geehan, Brandon Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Nick Abonto, Austin Wazilovski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, and Adam Spies for helping make this podcast possible. And
we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers. Save me, Pooper Man.