My Adventures With Superman is reinventing DC villains faster than a speeding bullet
25.08.2023 - 13:29
/ polygon.com
Adapting a comic book superhero into a cartoon can be an intricate process, especially when it comes to translating the army of antagonists that the character has amassed over time. Do you start with the most famous ones and just kinda run down the list? Do you pick the ones that were least served by cartoons in the past and present your new take? Do you open with your most inspired ideas and hope that audiences latch on, regardless of whether you’re working with the A list or the Z list?
The creative team behind My Adventures With Superman seems to have taken that third option, and it’s been a real success. A hero is only as good as his villains are nasty, and MAWS has put an exciting spin on Superman’s rogues through a surprising technique of mix and match, combining classic foes like the Parasite and Professor Ivo until they’re more than the sum of their evil parts.
Taking two villains and mashing them together isn’t necessarily new in superhero cartoons. All modern DC cartoons inevitably sit in the shadow of the DC Animated Universe, a beloved collection of series that began with 1992’s seminal Batman: The Animated Series and concluded with 2004’s Justice League Unlimited. The DCAU may not have invented the reinvention of comic book supervillains, but it certainly set a high bar for the exercise.
So to stand out, The Batman gave the heat-obsessed Firefly a nasty accident and turned him into the radioactive Doctor Phosphorus, amplifying his trigger-happy temper. The Spectacular Spider-Man killed two birds with one, um, vibrational wave by eventually dressing Montana, leader of the mercenary group the Enforcers, in the garb of the classic lackey the Shocker. Montana was saved from having to use his original abilities (in his 1963 debut, his powers were “has a lasso” and “Yep. That’s it. Just the lasso”) and Shocker was given Montana’s Southern drawl and hard-nosed personality. He was now a full-fledged character and a real threat, instead of just being the guy who fills in when Electro is in jail.
My Adventures With Superman takes this slow at first, working with personalities and characters in a way that fits the overall arc of the series, one where mysterious high-tech weaponry has been appearing in the hands of flamboyant criminals. Livewire begins as the leader of a gang instead of a shock jock radio host, fitting in with Deathstroke, whose first appearance is as a relatively unassuming agent before we get a glimpse at his full Task Force X badassery. The first incarnation of Intergang has none of the most famous members from the comics — instead it’s assembled from people a little deeper in the DC encyclopedia (perfect for a rookie Superman, though.)
By episode 4, though, we get the most