20 years ago, WB & Cartoon Network decided to experiment.
Teen Titans didn't have the standard look of DC's animated fare of the period. Instead, the character designs were made with Japanese chibi anime in mind. The series was a huge enough success, such that fans are still waiting for the series to be revived as an alternative to the current cash cow, Teen Titans Go!, which CN continues to spam into the ground on a daily basis.
My Adventures With Superman, which premiered this morning on [adult swim], and is streaming on Max, with replays on [as]' Toonami block starting Sunday morning, also uses anime influences in its designs. Based on what we've seen so far, you could make a case for WB acquiring the rights to do an American version of Dragon Ball Z, as some of the designs are similar.
Second generation actor Jack Quaid (The Boys), son of Dennis Quaid & Meg Ryan, has the title role as the Man of Steel and his alter-ego, Clark Kent. Clark, along with Lois Lane (Alice Lee) and Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Salhid), is an intern at the Daily Planet, which places the three on equal ground, a refreshing change from traditional canon. Flashbacks to Clark's youth show Clark (voiced by Kari Wahlgren in these segments) already sporting glasses, which he didn't get until years later in traditional canon.
Plans call for Superman to encounter an iteration of Task Force X, aka the Suicide Squad, as well as Monsieur Mallah (Brotherhood of Evil), Deathstroke (Chris Parnell, ex-Saturday Night Live), and Brainiac (Michael Emerson, ex-Arrow, Person of Interest). Livewire figures into the first two episodes, but, as with Jimmy and Perry White, has a new look. Subsequent episodes will premiere at Midnight every Thursday night/Friday morning, and will continue into the end of August.
Long time fans will love the almost immediate meet cute between Clark & Lois, so they're not wasting any time there, plus the fact that this Lois, as a 20-something, is cute as a button.
Rating: A.
5 comments:
Just saw it on Max. Pretty good, but it really doesn't belong on [adult swim]. This could easily be a Cartoon Network show, except WBD is bent on shoving every show made for ages 10 and up under the [as] banner because a) that block gets the lion's share of the channel's ratings and b) they believe, or pretend to believe, that kids don't watch animated series on TV anymore, preferring streaming, video games and social media. Nevermind that Nick and Disney are still doing well and the former signs off at 9PM.
This is because David Zaslav is an idiot. You or I could do a better job programming Chumptoon Network.
FWIW, the opener was posted on Reddit via YouTube, and I watched the 2nd episode on [as]' website. This belongs in primetime, not at midnight.
@Silverstar Can you at least explain why it doesn’t belong on [adult swim]?
Season 2 announced.
Saw a headline on Reddit about that, Steve. In answer to your inquiry, Silverstar already outlined it in his initial comments.
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