This review contains minor spoilers for My Adventures With Superman Season 3 Episode 1.
After waiting two years for My Adventures With Superman Season 3, it finally returns on Adult Swim and HBO Max with its first episode that doesn’t only pack a punch but manages to touch the heart as we continue to explore Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Kiana Madeira) as a character after the fallout of Season 2. During the first two seasons of the show, we focused on Clark Kent/Superman (Jack Quaid) and what it meant for him to be a hero, and after all that time, we’ve seen him become the Superman we know and love. While Clark has a great understanding of what it means, there are a few others who still have to find their own path.
When Season 2 ended, Superman and Supergirl defeated Brainiac (Michael Emerson), with Clark bringing Kara to Smallville and officially making her a part of the family. As a diehard Supergirl fan, it was a moment that I couldn’t wait to see develop, and thankfully, from this first episode alone, she isn’t sidelined or forgotten about completely. My Adventures With Superman Season 3 follows the Super family as they confront new enemies that don’t only challenge Superman but also threaten his future. It’s a season that ultimately puts everyone to the test to see if their bond can hold them together and if they’ll be able to save the better tomorrow.
When “Into the New World” opens, we find Clark and Kara at the fortress with Brainiac’s core in hand. Kara decides that she must say goodbye to her father, which she must do alone, but even when she tries to do this, Brainiac still finds a way to taunt her and get into her head by telling her, ‘You’re still your father’s daughter after all.’ It’s seen throughout this episode that despite Kara fitting in with her new family and friends, she still struggles to find exactly what her place is on Earth.
Writer Serena Wu handles Kara’s character efficiently in this episode, taking care and also setting her up to have a long season arc that will hopefully have Kara discover who she was truly meant to be, and thankfully enough, it’s not as simple as Clark giving her a talk.
It’s Halloween, and the Super Family are spending time at the Annual Kent Farm Pumpkin Patch, where Kara and Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Sahid) are accidentally dressed up in a couple’s costume. Continuing from last season, Kara still has a massive crush on Jimmy Olsen, and if it wasn’t clear before, it’s clearer than ever now that she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. The only issue is that Jimmy isn’t reciprocating the same energy, and despite Lois Lane (Alice Lee) trying to pass on advice for him to get it together, Jimmy actually speaks wise words, highlighting how he’s matured as a character.
Kara has just begun getting accustomed to Earth, and the world is so much bigger than just Jimmy Olsen and Metropolis for her to rush into a relationship with the first man she came across. The only part that Jimmy gets wrong is that he shouldn’t be bringing himself down and putting into his head that Kara deserves someone better than him.
Just like in previous seasons, Jimmy Olsen is a huge part of the show, and the one thing that My Adventures With Superman understands better than most adaptations is that Jimmy isn’t just Clark’s friend but also Superman’s, and allowing him to be this involved with the show and having his own subplot that revolves around the family showcases how much the creators care for the story they’re telling and how they continue to respect the mythos while also making it original.
While Lois is trying to give some relationship advice to Jimmy, she needs some help of her own as Clark wants to move on to the next part of their lives, which she isn’t yet ready for as she still feels like she has a whole life to live. She loves Clark, but is she willing to drop everything to start a life far from the city? This episode doesn’t delve too much into this, but if the future episodes manage to continue this storyline, we might get some interesting conversations between the two regarding their relationship and where they’re at with it.
Later we get some intel dropped by Sam Lane (Joel de la Fuente) that reveals files surrounding a Project Caliban were stolen. This leads Clark, Lois, Kara, and Jimmy into a hidden abandoned facility where they experiment with Kryptonian DNA being used to replicate Clark. They soon discover that Project Caliban belonged to a Dr George Binder (Max Mittelman), and he managed to create a clone that caused the government to shut down his labs because of how dangerous it was.
This returns us back to Kara as she once again begins to struggle with her identity and purpose. To witness someone else created to be a weapon but instead of being taught how to bring destruction, they’ve been taught how to love really puts things into perspective for her. She’s envious of this clone because while he was taught how to nurture and grow, she wasn’t even taught how to grieve. At the same time, the messaging that Binder is spreading isn’t only just for Clark’s clone, which is surprisingly credited as Bizarro (Jack Quaid), but aligns with the type of person Kara hopes to be one day.
Throughout their journey in these facilities, a drone is following them, which eventually connects itself to a body that tries to take out Bizarro, but Clark rushes to the rescue, facing off against the drone, which eventually gets the upper hand on Clark and self-destructs, which causes the facilities to flood. It’s here that we see Bizzaro begin to understand what the symbol on Clark’s chest is when he saves him and calls him “my friend”.
At the end of the episode, we see Bizzaro in Metropolis as we hear Binder’s kind words to him about how his choices can change the future as he looks up at an electronic billboard of Superman, inspiring him. Before the episode wraps, it’s revealed that Lex Luthor (Max Mittelman) was the one that sent the drone to facilities, but after seeing Superman take it out in recorded footage, he decides it’s best to forget about Project Caliban and instead focus on Hank Henshaw, who’s merely operating on machines to keep him alive after his life-threatening incident in the last season. For Superman fans, this can only lead to one thing, and we all know what it is.
My Adventures With Superman Season 3 Episode 1 “Into the New World” is a fantastic start to this third season. While it still has Superman as the focus, this episode begins to open up new storylines about what it means to be a hero in this world and how each individual person can do good. We see Kara trying to separate herself from her father and find her place in the world which she continues to struggle with.
The introduction of Bizzaro parallels Kara in an interesting way as we get a new origin for the character that fits the world of My Adventures With Superman. They’re both weapons but were raised with completely different morals, and while it seems to reach Bizarro easier, it’ll take Kara just a little longer to discover who she really is.
The animation by Studio Mir still remains excellent work, and Serena Wu’s writing allows for the season to slowly set itself up with the individual character arcs which will hopefully naturally flow into the overarching story of the season. This is only the beginning, but it’s one that will make me tune in next week to see what else is in store for the Super Family.
