Review: My Adventures with Superman “Mobile Suit Toyman”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Clark, Jimmy, Lois, and Kara head to SuperCon to help Kara get out there and meet more people as Supergirl, but multiple convention shenanigans ensue, leading to chaos.
OUR TAKE
With a pretty promising season premiere last week, I was looking forward to seeing how this second episode would follow up on that momentum…and left this week’s episode feeling pretty concerned for the next eight weeks. I mentioned last week about my potential misgivings on how they’re handling Bizarro, which this week didn’t do much to soften (also apparently there are Teen Titans cosplayers? Does this mean that the Titans exist in this universe?), but we also got further examples of how this series struggles with its tone sometimes, mostly through Lois’ subplot about confronting Toyman, a staple of Superman’s rogue gallery. Viewers of this show specifically may remember him from last season when he sold out Lois’ dad while he was on the run. I guess he didn’t do anything illegal since he was turning in a fugitive to the government at the time, but Lois is understandably pissed at him, which leads to her harassing him for most of the episode until she uses reverse psychology to make him bring out a knock-off Gundam/Zaku that starts putting everyone in danger. Great job, Lois! As I mentioned in my reviews of the first two seasons, I don’t mind them making references to popular anime along with the general anime-esque aesthetic of this show. Clearly the creators are fans of the medium and want to show that off. My problem is, and has always been, when they don’t say anything with those references other than “here’s a reference!” or even worse use it to wallpaper over nonsensical writing choices, like Lois being really stupid this whole episode.
But speaking of stupid, there’s also Jimmy, who continues to dodge Kara taking the initiative with him romantically and trying to dissuade them from getting together because he thinks she’s too good for him. We’re only on the second episode of this subplot and I’m fairly certain they’re going to get together anyway, but if he keeps this up too long, I would honestly hope for Kara to move on and find someone who has the confidence to be with her. I see the “if you’re not gonna play, pass the controller” meme a lot lately, but this would be one of the times I would say it’s fully applicable. There’s also Jimmy making and selling comics based on Superman’s adventures which also seems pretty irresponsible. Yeah, Superman can handle himself, but having him and Lois as characters in them really just puts a bigger target on them as powerless civilians, as well as raising the possibility of others finding out Clark is Superman. There’s also a small cameo by Jessica Cruz, someone who will definitely become important later even if you don’t know her comic origins, so we’ll talk about her another time. And then there’s the ending, where Hank Henshaw makes his Temu Superman debut cleaning up Lois’ mess. Hank wasn’t super developed in the last season when he first showed up, so here’s hoping this gives us a chance to have some nuance. Overall, not a great episode, but hopefully not a sign of things to come.
