My Adventures With Superman Is The Boys Antidote We All Need

Before I can give My Adventures With Superman its day in the sun (Kal-El just can’t get enough of it!), it’s important to talk about why the fandom has been turning on The Boys. Certainly, the show has annoyed the fiercest keyword warriors of the culture wars with plot developments like Frenchie getting a boyfriend.

This has led to an ongoing narrative that the only ones who really have a problem with the show are the right-wing fans it has mocked from day one and that the poor reception for the recent season is nothing more than these fans suddenly realizing Homelander is the bad guy.

Certainly, there is some of that going on, but likely not as much as Amazon’s own spin doctors (who I imagine are more than a bit like Ashley) would have you believe. In reality, the show’s constant hatred of everything “super” has gone beyond a gimmick and just become annoying.

Sure, the show may have sanded the roughest spots off of the original Garth Ennis comic, but the blunt fact remains that we’re watching nothing but miserable people doing bad things, and the cynical charm of this has long since worn off.

That’s the bad news…the good news is that My Adventures With Superman is the wholesome superhero antidote that fed-up fans of The Boys need. Homelander is, of course, the dark mirror of Kal-El, a character who forces us to witness just how screwed up a god-like being would be with nobody to reign them in. But the Clark Kent of this cartoon embodies the real fantasy of Superman: that someone with absolute power will not be absolutely corrupted and will instead use all of his powers to create a better world. 

Another reason to check out My Adventures With Superman is that its smaller ensemble of heroes is more entertaining to watch than those on The Boys. The latter show has assembled a group of broken people who think the only thing that will make them whole is to hurt those who hurt them.

However, this lighthearted cartoon presents Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen as a trio driven by endless optimism, and instead of episodes with drama that tears the group apart, almost every story brings these characters back together.

Plus, while it’s easier to pull off in a cartoon than in live-action, My Adventures With Superman consistently gives us the kinds of killer battles that only appear in season finales of The Boys.

Even if you’re just in this for the action, it’s great to see Superman fighting everything from killer robots to government-sanctioned villains in his quest to keep Metropolis safe. Plus, it’s fun to watch a character with such selfless motivations, especially when compared to characters like Butcher, who do things mostly out of arrogance and self-interest.

If you’re still on the fence about checking out My Adventures With Superman as a fan of The Boys, you should know that the two shows have something highly important in common. Jack Quaid, who plays Hughie in The Boys, is also the voice of the Man of Steel in this hit cartoon. There’s a fun symmetry here for those who watch both shows…Quaid goes from fighting Homelander in live-action to embodying Superman, Homelander’s complete opposite, in animation.

Obviously, this isn’t a binary choice, and checking out My Adventures With Superman doesn’t mean you have to stop watching The Boys. But after you watch episode after episode of this cartoon filled with action, humor, heart, and romance, you might start wondering how much more of The Boys’ gritty misery you really want to take.

That Amazon show’s endless cynicism has proven to be its Kryptonite, and fans who are feeling the effects need to head in another direction for their superhero needs: specifically, up, up, and away.