Review: My Adventures with Superman “The Machine Who Would Be Empire”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Clark awakens in deep space with Kara, who takes him to see her “father”, Primus Brainiac, an AI who worked to preserve and continue Krypton’s empire his own way.

OUR TAKE

I’ve been pretty clear that there’s been some lukewarm feelings towards this season on my end so far. This mainly because it’s felt like these portrayals of often adapted DC characters, while getting the basic points down rather well, haven’t really done much to stand out from other versions besides have an anime-esque coat of paint. And aside from the extra emphasis on Lois a couple episodes ago, it seemed like that was all we were going to get. I’m happy report that I was wrong in that assessment as this week gave us a pretty good deep dive into this Kara, aka the eventual Supergirl, and how she has been essentially indoctrinated into not just the Kryptonian imperial doctrine, but apparently a version bolstered by Brainiac. Brainiac has often been portrayed as a manipulator who collects power (and sometimes whole chunks of planets), though having conquests like running an empire seems like a relatively fresh take, or at least one that’s not handled this way usually. As for Kara, recent portrayals have leaned into her being a bit more headstrong and tied to her planet’s culture, as she was more aware of it than her cousin Kal-El/Clark), though not usually starting as a pawn of a bad guy first.

Since Jor-El’s hologram got into explaining the more power hungry version of Kryptonians earlier this season, people have made unfavorable comparisons to Invincible’s Viltrumite race (not helped by them all being dressed in white), though I don’t necessarily think this is a problem YET as long as they’re able to still be their own thing in the end. In fact, on top of Clark and Kara bonding in a pretty wholesome way as they get to know each other, this feels like a major test for Clark’s character in standing up for what he’s learned from being raised on Earth to be responsible with his abilities, as opposed to Kara retorting with what she’s been taught, that might makes right and that they should take what they want, which is what Brainiac has pushed her to believe. We know where this is going, especially since we’ve seen a clip from the trailers of her already in Supergirl colors, but this still looks like it will be a nice arc of getting her to that point. Also probably the first time in awhile that the character designs have felt like they meant something beyond just being blandly techy. I’d probably give this a slightly higher score if the build up to this had been better, but it’s just nice to see that we seem to be finally on the right track. Also some nice subtle easter eggs in the training programs that didn’t draw too much attention to themselves, so that’s always a plus.