My Adventures With Superman
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Just watched episode 7... it felt like something of a cheat.
+ Their Mitzelplik works. It's very anime, but given how generic and boring the actual human villains were with anime inspiration, this at least stands out and is fun.
- But apparently he's not "of this world," which doesn't work. Are you asking me to believe there are multiple Mitzelpliks and this one's from another universe so there might be a local one, or is this a situation where canon multiverses are homages to other media, rather than the actual other media, such that there is only one Mitzelplik? "Multiverse Mitzelplik" is like "multiverse Kraven the Hunter," a mistake.
+ I liked the League of Lois thing, though obviously not them being all Superman haters because of a few bad apples. The former feels silver age, the latter feels like a "modern twist" that doesn't work.
-- Our Lois being "Loser Lois" still sucks. I take it the contention is that current generations have a much harder time making it in the workplace... but Lois Lane began as a woman working in a man's world facing gender discrimination. The fact that Lois and Clark aren't respected just SUCKS. Clark might have had an excuse if he was going around saving other people before the beginning of the series, but nope. I mean, I guess I like the fact he didn't interview "Superman" for a job (journalistic ethics!), but still.
- The big issue with this episode, though, is that it uses a multiverse story to tell us "Some Superman go bad," but in an infinite multiverse, there are evil dupes of everyone who isn't "necessarily good" (IE, God). But you don't need to have secret documents to tell you "Superman might go bad"; everyone might go bad. Superman "going bad" is a bit more threatening than most, admittedly, but my point is that if you want Lois Lane to worry about "Bad Supermen," then all you really need to do is give a situation where she fears Superman might loose control. Frankly, the clever way to do this just is to have Superman ACT like he's going to lose control, and have Lois not be in on the act.
Multiverse Secret File out of context is a terrible way to introduce this idea. Imagine if Sherlock Holmes is working to solve a solution, and a League of Holmes drops in with cheat sheet to how to solve that particular case! Now your story isn't a mystery, it's some metacommentary on unoriginality.
+ Their Mitzelplik works. It's very anime, but given how generic and boring the actual human villains were with anime inspiration, this at least stands out and is fun.
- But apparently he's not "of this world," which doesn't work. Are you asking me to believe there are multiple Mitzelpliks and this one's from another universe so there might be a local one, or is this a situation where canon multiverses are homages to other media, rather than the actual other media, such that there is only one Mitzelplik? "Multiverse Mitzelplik" is like "multiverse Kraven the Hunter," a mistake.
+ I liked the League of Lois thing, though obviously not them being all Superman haters because of a few bad apples. The former feels silver age, the latter feels like a "modern twist" that doesn't work.
-- Our Lois being "Loser Lois" still sucks. I take it the contention is that current generations have a much harder time making it in the workplace... but Lois Lane began as a woman working in a man's world facing gender discrimination. The fact that Lois and Clark aren't respected just SUCKS. Clark might have had an excuse if he was going around saving other people before the beginning of the series, but nope. I mean, I guess I like the fact he didn't interview "Superman" for a job (journalistic ethics!), but still.
- The big issue with this episode, though, is that it uses a multiverse story to tell us "Some Superman go bad," but in an infinite multiverse, there are evil dupes of everyone who isn't "necessarily good" (IE, God). But you don't need to have secret documents to tell you "Superman might go bad"; everyone might go bad. Superman "going bad" is a bit more threatening than most, admittedly, but my point is that if you want Lois Lane to worry about "Bad Supermen," then all you really need to do is give a situation where she fears Superman might loose control. Frankly, the clever way to do this just is to have Superman ACT like he's going to lose control, and have Lois not be in on the act.
Multiverse Secret File out of context is a terrible way to introduce this idea. Imagine if Sherlock Holmes is working to solve a solution, and a League of Holmes drops in with cheat sheet to how to solve that particular case! Now your story isn't a mystery, it's some metacommentary on unoriginality.
SV? Super Villain?
Yeah, all the art style references are great! Even the Timm Lois, haha. They could have pushed it more with all the multiple style Supermen from all the violent DC direct to DVD movies but that's ok. SuperCrab!!!
This Mxyzptlk is soooo anime cute, haha! Kinda luv it. His colors are the same as the classic version anyway. Luuuuuv the voice, haha. Who is it?
Also, Mxy kept falling over at times. Cuz he's physically weaker without his hat. Would be nice if they kept his collapsing at odd times for when he comes back.
Is the League of Lois part of comics?
Flamebros, haha!
Will agree that, yes, multiverse means infinite possibilities of anyone turning evil. The way they could have changed it is if the Kryptonian race was always conquerors. That way, any good Superman would be more rare. Of course, evil Kryptonians would be Saiyans from Dragonball or Omniman's race from Invincible, which are derivative of Superman's origin anyway.
Also Clark is voiced by Boimler. Scream.
The original Flamebird was... Clark Superman, right? And Nightwing was Bruce Batman? When they were adventuring in Kandor? The female Flamebird was just that heroine who was in love with Dick Nightwing but the first Flamebird was really a guy?
Also I don't watch the new Dragonball but someone said new Mxyzptlk looked like Supreme Kai so I looked up a pic.
Ooooooh!
Also I don't watch the new Dragonball but someone said new Mxyzptlk looked like Supreme Kai so I looked up a pic.
Ooooooh!
Nightwing was Clark, Flamebird was Jimmy. Becoming a Batman and Robin-esque duo when trapped in Kandor. In fact, Dick actually asked Clark about using the name Nightwing. So It would have been interesting, to me at least, if this Jimmy and Girl Jimmy being interested in other variants also being Flamebird... were for different reasons. With her having the Flamebird secret identity on her Earth. It would further play on the theme of the episode of how much varients can be different from each other, and give Girl Jimmy a bit more interest.
Ugh... I think I just put my finger on two problems that have been bugging me with regards to their jobs.
First, let's be honest, there's no reason these people are interns. Lois Lane is the kind of crazy that would write a news blog, and Jimmy is already a youtube conspiracy theorist. I know the latter is supposed to be a joke, but there are professional youtubers out there. Do I want to watch a show about professional youtubers? No. But then again, I don't want to watch a show about interns either.
Either the interns are qualified, or they're unqualified. If they're qualified, they shouldn't be interns so their situation is unfair. Are we supposed to think Perry White is an antagonist exploiting workers? That's... certainly a take, but I've seen a Spiderman cartoon or movie in my lifetime, and Perry White isn't JJJ. Hell, JJJ isn't even JJJ when the writers want to make him sympathetic or honorable; take the "I don't know who he is, his stuff comes in the mail" line (that movie is quite good, you'll notice Peter isn't there to hear the line, so he misses JJJ's courageous lie). Meanwhile if they're unqualified, is this supposed to be a comedy? Are we watching the "DC doofusverse" where everyone's a moron... or just protagonists?
Second... this reminds me of Harley Quinn. HQ's show is a comedy... and much of the "comedy" comes from crudeness and shock value. Harley Quinn runs afoul of the Penguin? Well, wouldn't it be funny... if she killed him? Like a Marvel What If?, characters die far too often and far too real. But when we get the "Action trio," part of the joke is that 2 of the 3 are every bit the @$$H013s that a HQ character is. That's 2/3ds of the best workers at the place our protagonists chose to work.
A broken clock is right twice a day; but every time this show shows me something new and interesting... the League of Loises, for example, it just reminds you how problematic the status quo is. Young Lois & Clark? Sure. But this is about 4 years too late, no?
First, let's be honest, there's no reason these people are interns. Lois Lane is the kind of crazy that would write a news blog, and Jimmy is already a youtube conspiracy theorist. I know the latter is supposed to be a joke, but there are professional youtubers out there. Do I want to watch a show about professional youtubers? No. But then again, I don't want to watch a show about interns either.
Either the interns are qualified, or they're unqualified. If they're qualified, they shouldn't be interns so their situation is unfair. Are we supposed to think Perry White is an antagonist exploiting workers? That's... certainly a take, but I've seen a Spiderman cartoon or movie in my lifetime, and Perry White isn't JJJ. Hell, JJJ isn't even JJJ when the writers want to make him sympathetic or honorable; take the "I don't know who he is, his stuff comes in the mail" line (that movie is quite good, you'll notice Peter isn't there to hear the line, so he misses JJJ's courageous lie). Meanwhile if they're unqualified, is this supposed to be a comedy? Are we watching the "DC doofusverse" where everyone's a moron... or just protagonists?
Second... this reminds me of Harley Quinn. HQ's show is a comedy... and much of the "comedy" comes from crudeness and shock value. Harley Quinn runs afoul of the Penguin? Well, wouldn't it be funny... if she killed him? Like a Marvel What If?, characters die far too often and far too real. But when we get the "Action trio," part of the joke is that 2 of the 3 are every bit the @$$H013s that a HQ character is. That's 2/3ds of the best workers at the place our protagonists chose to work.
A broken clock is right twice a day; but every time this show shows me something new and interesting... the League of Loises, for example, it just reminds you how problematic the status quo is. Young Lois & Clark? Sure. But this is about 4 years too late, no?
WELL...if we want to get REALLY nerdy about it. For a long time in the comics, there WERE two different Mxys. The purple MxyZTPlk from Earth-2 (The Golden Age Earth) and the orange MxyZPTlk from Earth-1 (The "Main" Earth). And 5th Dimensional Imps are kind of prone to making meta-commentary in general. It happens more often with Bat-Mite, but Mxy does it too. "Crisis changed you, man, you used to be FUN!" Current retcons place the 5th Dimension outside of the multiverse as the realm of Imagination.
Look, DC in particular has a weird relationship with the multiverse. Basically, it depends on the writer. Just roll with it. In this section of the multiverse, this Mxy is ALL the Mxys. But, not all Mxys in EVERY known universe is THIS Mxy. I mean, the Justice Lords Superman we see here PROBABLY isn't the exact same one as the "main" Timmverse one. 5th Dimensional Imps run on Looney Tunes logic most of the time, anyway. I wouldn't expect it to line up 100%
For context:
I THINK the implication is supposed to be that THIS particular team of Loises...Loisi...Lois-persons...are all from universes where THEIR Supermen turned evil. So, they all expect THIS Superman to turn evil too, since they've seen it happen personally.
We see three evil Supermen and there's three alternate Loises on this ship.
We really don't know anything about these Loises. And I'm not sure if we'll see them again before then end of the season. It's possible they're "rogue" Loises and not part of the "main" League?
I think it might be a bit of a commentary on Social Media, myself. How some people can feel bad about their own lives when they see the media feeds of their old friends or exes or just random celebrities. All the great food they eat and all the great vacations they take, and how it makes them feel bad about their own lives. How they don't feel as successful as all these other people online. How they don't have as great a job as these other people. But, that's all a highlight reel, and not the whole story.
And if we DO see this group of Loises again...I think we'll see their lives aren't as great as "our" Lois might think they are.
Yeah, but that's kind of setting up a bit of dramatic irony. WE, the audience, knows that not all Supermen turn evil, but Lois doesn't. Lois isn't as nerdy as we are. This Lois doesn't particularly strike me as a comic book fan. She doesn't really have any experience with the multiverse like we do. WE, the audience, know all the tropes, but this was all new to Lois. This is probably the first time she's really thought about something like this.
Not like Jimmy. Jimmy met his alternate universe counterpart like a champ! Didn't even phase the guy! I get the feeling that IF Lois gets tempted to do something bad...Jimmy will be there to talk her out of it. "Of course there are evil Supermen, Lois. There are worlds where pretzels are evil! That how a infinite multiverse works!"
The thing is...if this is supposed to be a "weapon" from "Prime" Lois...it really SHOULDN'T be Kryptonite. Kryptonite was invented for the radio show, and only got introduced into the comic later. And it never showed up in the Fleischer animated shorts. So, if Prime Lois is supposed to be "original comic book Lois" or even "Fleischer Lois"...I just have to wonder about that. I'm not sure if they'll go that meta with it, but this particular rock might not be what it seems. Prime Lois might not be as "triggerhappy" as the Loises we met this episode. I'm not sure she'd want to kill ANY Supermen, even the evil ones.
Not a big part, at least. I want to say there HAVE been some times when Lois has met with alternate versions of herself, since there are a LOT of comics. But...I'm having a hard time coming up with anything specific.
It's possible they're working for some version of Justice League Incarnate, the Multiversal Justice League? I just find it odd that Lois is one running all of this, seemingly all by herselves. With no help from any other superheroes or anything. Just...SOME Jimmies, for some reason. It's a little weird. It really doesn't make sense for a reporter to be running a interdimensional police squad. But, oh well.
But, they probably just wanted to give Lois something, since it's usually Superman getting to team up with alternate versions of himself for these kinds of stories. Like with Superman One Million. Flip the script a bit, and give Lois the multiversal team-up with her alternates for once.
I mean, it's basically just so we can watch them grow into the people we know them as. This is all a prequel/Year One type thing. Them starting out as interns gives them room to grow over a few seasons (...if we get more seasons of this show). It gives the writers a way (somewhat artificially) to get these characters to grow and change...without really changing much about them.
And hey, they're working for a NEWSPAPER! In 2023! That newspaper needs all the unpaid or lower-paid work it can get just to keep the lights on. Superman is rooted in newspapers, but it's really showing it's age. And they've TRIED to update it over the years, and give him different jobs, but it never really takes. So, this is where we are.
Sidenote: The "My Adventures of Superman" world being Earth-12 doesn't really line up with the "main" list of alternate realities in the comics. Earth-12 is the DCAU/Timmverse. So, unless they're hinting that the Timmverse had a Crisis and MYOS is the world that was recreated in it's place, New 52 style, that doesn't really make sense. The League of Lois's numbering system is probably just their own invention. That's the better assumption for right now.
Also, I really love all the references in some of the scenes. Doctor Fate's Helmet. A Mother Box. A Legion Flight Ring. Katana's katana. Overman from Animal Man. Justice Lords Superman. And even the weapons vault Mxy breaks into seems to be full of references...to anime and video games. Like Gut's sword from Berserk. Although, I can't really identify the "magic book" in the museum. I have to wonder if it's supposed to be Book of Destiny of the Endless. But, it doesn't have the chain, so I'm not sure what it is. I'm also not sure about the identity of the evil Superman with the scar over his eye. Unless he's Black Zero?
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Whoa, I feel like I should know that kryptonite was not originally in the comics. That's weird but wow, good info.
You know Black Zero? I only know it from Karl Kesel's 90s Superboy run. I assumed he invented but if other people used it as other references, good for him!
(I like Kesel's references but sometimes iffy on his dialogue. He deserves more recognition. Funny but King Shark is his breakout character and only popularized cuz of Gail Simone using him in her Secret Six in the background. Knockout could have been more famous too.)
You know Black Zero? I only know it from Karl Kesel's 90s Superboy run. I assumed he invented but if other people used it as other references, good for him!
(I like Kesel's references but sometimes iffy on his dialogue. He deserves more recognition. Funny but King Shark is his breakout character and only popularized cuz of Gail Simone using him in her Secret Six in the background. Knockout could have been more famous too.)
Yeah, I mostly know Black Zero from the ONE Hypertime story that Superboy did in the 90s. Kind of a shame he never appeared again, I have a soft spot for that design. I kind of dipped in and out of Superboy in the 90s. It was a fun book, and it being set in Hawaii was kind of a fun and different location at the time.
It's not a great match for what we see here, but he's the only "Superman" I can think of with even similar shoulder pads. Although, the name comes from a MUCH older, and more forgettable character from the 60s.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Zero_(Earth-One)
Conner actually had a moment where he used similar armor while he was having a momentary heel turn rather recently in Titans United. And THIS armor looks sort of close to what we see? Maybe? Still no match for the scar, though. So, I'm probably completely off.
And Green Kryptonite didn't actually appear in the comics until 1951. In it's first appearance in the comics, it's actually colored red, but would be recolored green in reprints.
www.cbr.com
Again, I doubt they'll be that meta about all this. It probably IS just Kryptonite. But, it's interesting if the creators did think about all this, and it's all leading to something else. There ARE a lot of green crystals in comic books, after all. It could be a translation crystal for the Fortress of Solitude so Clark can actually understand his hologram dad...who he doesn't even know is his dad at this point.
It's not a great match for what we see here, but he's the only "Superman" I can think of with even similar shoulder pads. Although, the name comes from a MUCH older, and more forgettable character from the 60s.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Zero_(Earth-One)
Conner actually had a moment where he used similar armor while he was having a momentary heel turn rather recently in Titans United. And THIS armor looks sort of close to what we see? Maybe? Still no match for the scar, though. So, I'm probably completely off.
Conner Kent, Superboy, Gets A New Name In This Week's Titans United
You know, this could always go the same way as Shazadam. Because in Titans United, Conner Kent gets a new name. Spoilers of course. Superboy also known as
bleedingcool.com
And Green Kryptonite didn't actually appear in the comics until 1951. In it's first appearance in the comics, it's actually colored red, but would be recolored green in reprints.
Superman: Every Type Of Kryptonite (& When It Was Introduced)
The standard, green-colored Kryptonite might be the most well-known, but it's far from the only variation of the substance that has appeared.
www.cbr.com
Again, I doubt they'll be that meta about all this. It probably IS just Kryptonite. But, it's interesting if the creators did think about all this, and it's all leading to something else. There ARE a lot of green crystals in comic books, after all. It could be a translation crystal for the Fortress of Solitude so Clark can actually understand his hologram dad...who he doesn't even know is his dad at this point.
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As for the numbering, keep in mind that the League of Loises clearly has a numbering system not based on the comics canon. Lois Prime is either the Earth-2 or 40s cartoon Lois, not the Earth-Prime Lois. Of course, the "we can't find it again" line doesn't fit with having a label that low in the first place, for a lot of reasons.
Regardless of Lois Prime's actual universe, there's no reason she couldn't have discovered Kryptonite during her multiversal travels and recognized it as a weapon against Bad Clarks. All of the weaponry the LLs use fires Kryptonite beams, after all.
---Dave
Regardless of Lois Prime's actual universe, there's no reason she couldn't have discovered Kryptonite during her multiversal travels and recognized it as a weapon against Bad Clarks. All of the weaponry the LLs use fires Kryptonite beams, after all.
---Dave
It kind of felt like an abrupt sprint to a finale.
Superman "trying to do too much" and "hearing everything" are two unique and interesting concepts a "new" Superman would have to deal with. And, frankly, they're things you'd want him to come to some sort of conclusion on. No cartoon Superman, as far as I can remember, has done this... because these are tough moral questions that don't arise for anyone BUT Superman.
To drop this entirely and just have the villains team up seems... bizarre.
They also waste the "Superman looks bad" vs the invisible man thing and the corrupt journalist thing. Again, either of these could be explored in detail and make for an interesting episode.
Then we get to the villain team up, which doesn't make sense. Superman hears the General, tracks down the bait, and then fights the team expecting to rescue them. But I don't care about any of them. They're all flat, boring anime characters... not interesting Superman villains.
And Perry continues to be unsympathetic and uninteresting, and Vicki uses him to... uh... speak to the same person she was going to speak to anyways?
With art imitating life... everyone seemed to have their phone out while Supes was getting stomped & Captured. I'd be surprised if Lois & Jimmy didn't go over the footage to find clues and spot daddy at that point.
That might be part of next week's episode.
If it happens, I called it! Hehe
Superman called the fire lady as Heatwave? Is that an actual comic character? I thought she'd be Volcana, which was a STAS original character. (I think. She didn't become as popular as STAS Livewire and jump to the comics?)
Heatwave is originally a Flash villain. But as someone who uses tech for their powers, the Heatwave identity fits better than Volcana. (It's possible she was pitched as Volcana but got renamed Heatwave at insistence from DC legal, to keep that name out there now that Legends is over.)
---Dave
---Dave