It’s Christmas time in Metropolis in this all-new comic book tie-in to the hit Adult Swim cartoon “My Adventures with Superman”, which works to fill in the gaps between the first and second seasons of the show.
As far as comic book tie-ins to animated series go, they are usually a pretty mixed bag. In some cases, you’ll get something like the Young Justice tie-in comics, which were written by Greg Wiesman, but only filled in very minor plot lines going on in the background – only to be cut short before introducing certain characters that deserved to show up. Then you have comics like the Timmverse tie-ins, with no input from the show’s creators, making them barely canon. The announcement of this series was pretty promising, since writer Josie Campbell is the Headwriter for “My Adventures With Superman” along with past experience writing comics such as “I Heart Skull-Crushing” and the currently ongoing Shazam series.
However this recent tie-in comic not only fills in some major storylines for season 2 it also proves to be quite an emotional journey. The first issue starts by talking about the joy of the holiday season and how it allows us to reflect on stressful events, and allows the passage of time to let us heal. and we see this play out as the series continues.
During the first half, the main focus is Clark, Louis, and Jimmy breaking the Amazo robot out of his prison in Checkmate. This event influences Lois to eventually reconnect with her dad, which we see in Season 2 of My Adventures with Superman. The team is soon joined by Clark’s Parents (Ma and Pa Kent) who are doing a special surprise visit to Metropolis to see their son for the holiday.
As the comic progresses, we see more and more of Amazo, a captive, sheltered robot learning from the world around him. My takeaway from this mini-series is that it isn’t just your run-of-the-mill cartoon tie-in to fill in storylines, it is actually a pretty deep meaningful story about the importance of the holiday and life. I truly love how this is a version of Superman who would risk life and limb for a robot he knows nothing about. The series ends with what I suspect is a tribute to the movie “The Iron Giant” which ironically is also a story about a mechanical being that’s influenced by Superman.
The comic also does a great job of adapting the awkward type of humor you would expect to see on the show. For example, at the end of the second issue, Clark is detained by Bloodsport, who is yet another comic character introduced here. When he has Clark detained instead of deducing that he is Superman, he awkwardly guesses he just trying to get into Superman’s good graces, allowing him to easily get out of his situation. We also get to see Ma and Pa Kent completely redecorating a secret military base for Christmas. Not only did this manage to perfectly embody the tone of the show’s humor and emotional moments, but it also did a great job at expanding the world with the introduction of Bloodsport and Amazo.
I will also compliment Pablo Collar’s art as he emphasizes the art style from the show perfectly imitating the anime-esque action scenes and comedic reactions you’d expect from the show while adding the type of shading you can’t normally do in animation.
I don’t have much else to say about the book, as when it was coming out, it was pretty easy just gloss over. Since it was a pretty action-heavy book, and I found it hard to catch onto the themes, until I sat down and read the entire series from beginning to end. I do hope the events of this comic are referenced directly within the show at some point, because Bloodsport and his crew (Team Seven) were really cool. So if you want to check out this series, I would advise trying to read the whole thing at once. It is well worth it, and has possibly turned into my favorite comic series of the year.
