#cadmus generates | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

historyhermann · 7 months

Text

My Adventures With Superman Season One Spoiler-Filled Review [Part 1]

My Adventures with Superman is animated superhero series which mixes the romantic comedy, action-adventure, and sci-fi genres. It's the latest adaptation of Superman, a DC Comics character. DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation produce the series. Studio Mir was contracted for animation services. Studio Mir, a South Korean animation studio, is known for its work on The Legend of Korra, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Dota: Dragon's Blood, and Harley Quinn season 3. Jake Wyatt, Brendan Clougher, and Josie Campbell developed the series, with Campbell as producer. Wyatt and Clougher are executive producers along with Michael Ouweleen and Sam Register. This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, My Adventures with Superman being reviewed here wouldn't exist.

Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs and Wayback Machine. This was the forty-ninth article I wrote for Pop Culture Maniacs. This post was originally published on September 21, 2023.

The first episode begins with a bang. As a little kid, Clark Kent (voiced by Jack Quaid) discovers he has superpowers. In the present, he tries to be "normal." He and his his friend Jimmy Olsen (voiced by Ishmel Sahid) go to The Daily Planet. Along the way, he meets Lois Lane (voiced by Alice Lee) and develops a crush on her. As it turns out, Lois is also applying to be an intern. All three get the job. Their boss, Perry White (voiced by Darrell Brown) shoots down Lois' ideas for stories. Lois ignores this. She meets her "source," a newspaper girl named Flip Johnson (voiced by Azuri Hardy-Jones). The reality is more terrifying: Livewire activates robots which Clark barely defeats. He only survives due to his powers and Lois's quick thinking.

At the end of the episode, Lois declares she wants an exclusive interview with Superman, where she will expose all his secrets, terrifying him. That's only the first episode! In later episodes, Clark tries to find out more about his past. He talks to Jor-El (voiced by Jason Marnocha), who speaks Kryptonese. Despite the fact he is Superman, he works with Lois and Jimmy on an investigation into Superman. He even has a magical transformation sequence. Some said it was inspired by magical transformations in Sailor Moon. Other fans argued it resembled Pretty Cure.

Storyboarder Diana Huh confirmed that Superman's transformation sequence was based on the part of Kaido Minami's transformation into Cure Mermaid in Go! Princess Pretty Cure, "specifically the part in her transformation when her back ribbons and hair were formed." She noted that she watched it on "repeat for inspiration." As for Clark, he grows closer to Lois. In fact, she even gives Superman his name. Clark's adopted mother puts together his superhero costume. All the while, those who call themselves "good guys" torture people.

This focus on identity is not unique to My Adventures with Superman nor is the relationship between Lois and Clark. The latter is key in many Superman series, including Justice League Unlimited. In that series, their romance is even known by other superheroes. They never kiss in that series, from what I remember, but the closeness between them is apparent. Another difference is that Jimmy is a Black man and Lois is a Korean woman. She also calls Clark by the nickname "Smallville."

Clark struggles with his powers. In other depictions he is older and fully aware of his superpowers. In this series, his identity struggle is complicated when Lois calls Superman a liar. It weakens Clark's resolve to tell her the truth about himself. Clark continually tries to cover his tracks that he is Superman, even ripping out a key piece from the tabloids. After she tells him that she hates being lied too, he chickens out, again, in telling her the truth. Their relationship development is better paced than dragging it out across the season. It gives them more time together.

The push-and-pull between Lois wanting to find out about Superman, and Clark's determination to ensure that Lois doesn't realize the truth defines the early part of the first season. Both have identity crises. In fact, in the second episode, he is traumatized by his adopted parents almost being killed when he visits a spaceship which is supposed to show his origins. They face challenges along the way. They fear that The Daily Planet's star reporting team (Steve Lombard, Cat Grant, and Ronnie Troupe) will scoop their story. These characters are voiced by Vincent Tong, Melanie Minichino, and Kenna Ramsey respectfully. Even so, Lois is persistent. She swipes the keycard of the warden (also voiced by Minichino), allowing them to see a prison cell.

At first it seems that the fifth episode might not be the big confrontation between Lois and Clark. He shows Lois his "murder board"/investigation board, and plans to say he likes Lois. She even goes to the extreme and chains herself to him, but he breaks free. This is dashed quickly. Later, she falls off a building to see if he will catch her! While this generated some online discourse about how she was "wrong" and Clark was "right," the truth is simple. Clark was lying to her and her reasoning makes sense. At the same time, Clark understandably held back, as he was afraid.

Social media has a key role in the series. Jimmy has a secret YouTube channel named Flamebird which covers conspiracies in Metropolis and beyond. This comes to a fore in the fifth episode: Jimmy gets a response video for every single video he has posted. Some internet troll attacks him, and it turns out that star reporter Steve is behind it all! This focus also gives Jimmy character depth, as a sort of social media influencer, and makes you sympathize with him when Lois and Clark leave him behind.

There an interesting secondary plot in My Adventures with Superman. Mist/Kyle (voiced by Lucas Grabeel) and Rough House/Albert (voiced by Vincent Tong) break out Mist's sister, Siobhan/Silver Banashee (voiced by Catherine Taber), the leader of Intergang. They accomplish this thanks to weapons Livewire (voiced by Zehra Fazal) and are able to escape. Using these weapons, they rob Metropolitan City Bank. Superman saves them all when one of their machines goes haywire. This is interlinked with the tech plan of Ivo (voiced by Jake Green), the founder of Amazo Tech. He creates a super suit named Parasite and markets it as something which turns people into their own personal Superman. Of course, this doesn't work, since the prototype is unstable.

youtube

Superman takes extreme risks to protect those he cares about and support justice. Often, he saves people across Metropolis. He fights villains like Heat Wave (voiced by Laila Berzins) and supposed "good guys" like Agent Wilson (voiced by Chris Parnell). The latter only stops at the urging of Amanda Waller (voiced by Debra Wilson). The General (voiced by Joel De La Fuente) wants Agent Slade Wilson / Deathstroke (voiced by Chris Parnell) to eliminate Superman once and for all.

While writing this review, I can't avoid comparisons between My Adventures with Superman and previous series, like Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. The latter's end marked the end of the DC Animated Universe (DCAU). Some fans call DCAU the Timmverse, after animator and director Bruce Timm. It comprised eight animated series, four feature films, four short films, and two digital series between 1992 and 2006. While I haven't watched all the series within DCAU, I see some similarities, especially with the two Justice League series, when it comes to Amanda Waller. She's a Black woman who's continually skeptical of superheroes. She even partners with Lex Luther to fund a research center supporting a superhero-hating metahumans.

In this series, Waller gives Task Force X one mission: to take down Superman. This differs from the two Justice League series, where her goal is broader. She intends to ensure that Earth can defend itself if the superheroes go "bad." Waller, in this series, along with the General and Agent Wilson, believe that Superman will bring the end of the world. They remember how someone like him killed many during an event they call "Zero Day." This military slang means a day in which a Basic Combat Training company "picks up Soldiers." I think The General meant it to be equivalent to a D-Day or "Invasion Day." The General is misguided. Superman is not like the marauding Supermen he (and Lois) sees on a record from the League of Lois Lanes.

In another major difference, My Adventures with Superman depicts Cadmus more positively. Lois and Clark go through the forest to save Jimmy. He was kidnapped by Monsieur Mallah. The latter is an intelligent ape, voiced by Andre Sogliuzzo. He is working with Brain (voiced by Jesse Inocalla). Like the two aforementioned Justice League series, Cadmus is a secret government project. In this series, it was begun 20 years before. It is where Mallah and Brain fell in love. However, Task Force X came to eliminate them. The Task Force believed that no one survived the unstable Black hole.

The reality, obviously, is very different. Mallah and Brain are almost trapped. A nearby minefield, drones, and a protective bubble stop anyone from leaving, or reaching, Cadmus. Task Force X wanted to ensure that no one could discover Cadmus. At one point, Lois and Clark are chased by robots. They are only saved when mutants, created by Mallah, attack. Thanks to Clark's actions, the black hole maintains its power and a containment field stabilizes it.

In a heart-felt scene, Mallah and Brain step through the wormhole, wanting to reach a world where they can live freely. The Brain warns them that once the person who is trying to get Superman (The General) sees him as a threat, they will never stop. This is clear from a final scene, in that episode. The General asks Ivo to help him figure out where the technology is, and to help him take down Superman. The Brain nor Mallah is evil. The former is exclusive to the continuity of this series and is an adaptation of a character which first appeared in Volume 1 of the comic book Doom Patrol.

The sixth episode of My Adventures with Superman is one of the strongest not only because of the action-packed sequences or the romance between Lois and Clark, with Clark saving Lois from dying. It shines because Clark tells Lois the truth. He admits to her (and Jimmy) that he didn't want to reveal his true nature due to a fear that Jimmy and Lois would see him as an "alien" and treat him differently. Instead, he wanted to be "normal." Jimmy, who already knew Clark was Superman, reassures him they are friends because of who he is. Lois says they want to be open with him. In the next episode, he declares there will be no more secrets, so he brings them to a spaceship, the same one which brought him to Earth, which surprises Lois and Jimmy.

By the seventh episode, it seems that the romance of Lois and Clark, is moving forward. Both lose their minds over a date, having charts, maps, and other ways to ensure it goes perfectly. These plans never come to pass. A so-called international "peacekeeper," Mxyzptlk (voiced by David Errigo Jr.), asks for Clark's help and declares that Clark is a Superman is in every universe. Meanwhile, the aptly named League of Lois Lanes, peacekeepers tasked with saving the Multiverse, come to save Lois. They declare that Clark is in danger, and Jimmy comes along. In the process, Lois and Jimmy become skeptical of the League. Clark realizes that Mxyzptlk lied to him and only wants chaos. Clark tries to do the right thing and stop Mxyzptlk from stealing.

The episode focuses on what Lois sees on a computer screen: a restricted file about Superman only accessible at League headquarters. Not only is this suspicious, but the centrality of a classified record drew me into the story. I say this is a person who indexes such records for my day job and someone who has written about archives and archivists in popular culture for many years. I liked how Lois even works with Mxyzptlk to get to the League headquarters, despite being wary of him. While there, she accesses a mainframe and gets the restricted record. Of course, her temporary ally-of-sorts is only there for his own benefit. He gets what he wants, allowing him to villainous "again." On the whole, the episode is so absurd, it's a bit funny.

The League sees Superman as evil, shooting him with guns filled with kryptonite. In some ways, the episode ends well. Lois, Jimmy, and Clark work together to take down Mxyzptlk. However, he later escapes prison. He sees Lois looking at the file which has the "truth" about Superman. He soon leaves, declaring it will be "more fun" to watch her figure it out. Lois doesn't consider possible manipulation of the record or that it only shows one "truth."

youtube

The eighth episode goes a different direction. It begins with Ivo collecting former villains and saying they need to fulfill their "debt" to society. Lois and Clark both face villains of sorts. Lois meets a reporter she idolizes, named Vicki Vale (voiced by Andromeda Dunker). She soon sours on Vale. It is revealed that Vale has an anti-Superman bias. Clark becomes obsessed with finding The General, thanks to his new power of super hearing. He ignores the pleas from Lois and Jimmy, going off on his own to face "the evil." In a local park, he takes a beating. He is kidnapped and The General calls him the "end of the world." Due to the splintering of the typical friend squad (Lois, Jimmy, and Clark), the ending sequence is different. It features the cityscape and none of the characters.

In the ninth episode, everything goes off the rails. Lois and Jimmy enlist the help of the Newskid Legion to find Superman. In actuality, he is in custody of The General. Falsely, The General believes that Superman is the enemy. He tortures him with electricity and declares that he won't let any more of "his kind" invade Earth. While Superman tells him what he knows, this isn't the "right answer." There is a powerful scene in this episode in which Clark sees what happened on Zero Day, 22 years before, as The General terms it. Many of Superman's kind come through, attacking people on Earth, until a light shines and the attack ends. Due to this incident, it makes sense he, and Waller, created Task Force X, and used the tech left behind to create new U.S. government weapons.

Superman empathizes. He realizes that not all Supermans are good, and asks why Supermen would do this. His responses takes The General back and makes him realize that he is making the wrong call. He begins to ask if Task Force X is wrong. Arrogantly, Waller shows her commitment to the task force: she claims that it is never wrong. As The General even admits, Superman was too young to be part of Zero Day and implies he is innocent. To make matters worse, Waller deactivates a camera, encouraging the villains to get out of their cells, including Ivo, who wants to "finish off" Superman, in revenge for what happened in the past.

He somehow escapes in a weakened state. He makes his way back to Lois and Jimmy. Thanks to assistance from his two friends, he defeats the Ivo Kaiju monster, which is attacking Metropolis. They call on everyone in town to turn off their power so that Ivo cannot suck in any more electricity. As a result, Superman is victorious. Jimmy lets Lois and Clark have time alone, together. Clark proceeds to carry Lois into the sky and kiss her. The General stands against Waller. She relieves him of his duties. Waller becomes head of Task Force X. The General gets a new mission: to track down and terminate Superman.

The season one finale of My Adventures with Superman goes further than showing Superman as the immigrant, "the adoptee living in a world that says being different is bad." He embraces his differences every day, with his weirdness and strangeness as his strength, as Campbell put it. Everything comes full circle. Clark becomes a full-time reporter with Lois and Jimmy. He dreams about being an evil Superman and learns something about The General: he is Sam Lane, Lois' dad! While Clark is, understandably, nervous about telling Lois this reality, Jimmy pushes him to do the right thing, causing Lois to come to his aid.

This all happens during Thanksgiving. There's family drama between The General and Lois. Clark's adoptive parents are also there. This all falls to the wayside when kryptonite inside the record weakens Clark. Although none of them are entirely sure what kryptonite is, Jimmy rightly realizes that the rock is causing the problem and puts it back. The entire scene echoes part of the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series finale. Clark risks his life to ensure that the portal can be closed. He puts the kryptonite on the ship core, causing it to explode, and Jor-El saves him. Lois also saves his life, after he ensured that she (and everyone on Earth) wouldn't die. She stands in front of her dad, stopping him from killing Clark.

While The General listens and follows the pleas of Lois, he does not stay for Thanksgiving. It is only Lois, Jimmy, Clark, and his adoptive parents. In a funny scene, Jimmy announces that he sold Flamebird to the Daily Planet for $5.6 million and is "super rich now," surprising them all. The series ends with one final scene:, a kryptonian warrior declares they have found a new planet (presumably Earth). One commander tells him that it doesn't matter whether they destroy the ships and close the portals, saying they will kneel ultimately. That sets the stage for a season 2, which Campbell confirmed.

My Adventures with Superman somehow survived corporate fuckery. It had an uncertain future through various corporate mergers, the pandemic, and a thin budget. But, the passion of the writers and crew showed through, as Campbell noted. Such a message can't be more apt, considering the continued twin strikes by writers and actors, regardless of efforts by some to break the strike and fill their fat pockets with wads of cash. Previously, Drew Barrymore withdrew her plan to restart her show after intense criticism. Bill Maher sneered at the strike by writers. Thanks to backlash, he decided to put his show on pause. He has made Islamophobic and anti-Chinese statements, supports NSA surveillance, dislikes critical race theory, and opposed accepting Syrian refugees into the U.S., in the past.

A second season will include more moments between Clark and Lois, shipped by fans as Clois, generating fanart and fanfics. In fact, many of the over 130 stories on AO3 focus on this ship. In the words of Campbell, the second season will "blow people's minds." It will consist of 10 episodes, like Season 1. It is likely that the Kryptonian warriors will attack Earth. Spider-Man, Lux Luthor, and Lana Lang might appear. Hopefully, a second season has more outward LGBTQ+ representation in the main case. In this season, there is only, directly, a lesbian couple helped by Superman (he returns their child) and a gay couple (Mallah and Brain).

Fans who enjoy Clois are undoubtedly looking forward to another season. As for others, they may believe that the second season will reveal the truth behind Clark's birth father or infuse strong sci-fi elements "with heart," and make viewers love Superman all over again. Whether viewers see Lois as adorable, enjoy the fluid animation, humor and character designs; see Superman for gays and girls, or compare Lois with Luz, there are many reasons to enjoy this series, especially for those who like shonen action or shojo romance. Furthermore, it is relatable that Superman has been training, but doesn't have hold of his powers.

youtube

My Adventures with Superman is very animesque, from opening and closing credits which resemble anime series in more ways than one. Clark's voice actor, Jack Quaid, described it as "some anime influence...that is just so fun." Along with the aforementioned magical transformation of Superman, some said there was a reference to Ouran High School Host Club opening sequence ("Kiss Kiss Fall In Love") in the title of the seventh episode: "Kiss Kiss Fall In Portal."

As part of a thread on X/Twitter, producer Josie Campbell confirmed this. She noted other influences on the series from Pokemon's Team Rocket, the anime Gurren Lagann, and many other media. While Sailor Moon likely didn't influence the series, the fact that a Pretty Cure transformation influenced Superman's transformation has caused interesting results. For instance, some social media users called on people to watch series within the ongoing anime franchise.

In a strange coincidence, this series is airing at a time that a character, Sora Harewata-ru, in Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure, transforms into Cure Sky in a manner which resembles Superman's transformation. Cure Mermaid's transformation likely inspired both. The My Adventures with Superman ending sequence is meant to resemble "old anime EDs with the softer palette and slow pan while time passes." In Crunchyroll News, Briana Lawrence wrote an article about the similarities between Usagi Tsukino in Sailor Moon and Clark. Others pointed to Dragon Ball and Kill la Kill references, and anime tropes.

The anime influence isn't the only factor influencing My Adventures with Superman. While fans have pointed out that some of the Crew-Ra, the name for the crew of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, worked on the series, this was more limited in reality. Campbell, a co-producer, was a story writer and staff writer on She-Ra. Writer and co-executive producer of one episode, Brendan Cougar, was a storyboarder on She-Ra. He also storyboarded on Young Justice and on The Legend of Korra. Storyboarders Jasmine Goggins, Karen Guo, Diana Huh, and Jessica Zammit all worked on She-Ra.

More of an influence on this series could be, in some manner, Harley Quinn. 17 crew members of this series worked on that series, including animator Yew Yung, writer's assistant Sari Cooper, production executive Audrey Diehl, and executive in charge of production Jay Bastian. In addition, nine crew members did work on Young Justice, including prop designer Austin Reinkens and storyboarder Chris Palmer. Another eight worked on DC Super Hero Girls. The latter included effects animator Jason Plapp and storyboarder Michael Nanna. Other crew members worked on Dogs in Space, The Casagrandes, Glitch Techs, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and the Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes and Huntsmen Part 1 film.

The co-executive producer for My Adventures with Superman, Jake Wyatt, was a background designer for Steven Universe. Art director Jane Bak was a background designer on the same series. Bak did the same on Steven Universe Future and Adventure Time: Distant Lands. Animator Edward Artinian worked on Steven Universe too. Online listings show that some crew members were part of the crew of Pantheon and Final Space. Series composer worked on Nomad for Nowhere. Others contributed their time and labor to series ranging from Chicago Party Aunt to Invincible, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal to High Guardian Spice. The title sequence animator, Yves Bigerel, better known as Balak, is the director and writer of Peepoodo & The Super Fuck Friends.

Continued in part 2

8 notes · View notes

godsofhumanity · 2 years

Text

Zeus: Well, aren’t you all a rag-tag group of adventurers with unclear goals and good hearts! Oh, let me guess: you’re out to save the world! Heracles: Well, actually, that sounds like a pretty fair assessment. Jason: More or less, I guess… Cadmus: That sounds awesome! Let’s do that! Achilles: I’m new here, but I am open to the concept. Perseus: I thought that’s what we were doing, guys, come on!

#greek heroes hanging out together :))))))#i was gonna do this with different mythical heroes from other pantheons. but i thought i was projecting too much.#zeus #heracles #jason #cadmus #achilles #perseus #greek heroes #greek gods #greek mythology #incorrect greek heroes #incorrect greek mythology #incorrect greek gods #incorrect mythology #mythology #s: incorrect quotes generator #queuetzalcoatl

62 notes · View notes

outwithlantern · 8 months

Text

True image of the false mirror something something the comodification of kon's personhood because of his clone status something something

#there's a panel right before the second one where guardian asks him to come back to cadmus #generally this entire issue is very rough on kon #and very clear on how little people perceive him as being out of his depth despite being both the world's most inexperienced 16 years old #and also anywhere between 3 weeks and a month old #happy birthday baby everyone's got you issues❤#superboy #kon el

8 notes · View notes

baambastic · 8 months

Text

Man, can’t wait for the CADMUS wormhole to connect to the Phantom Zone and let Zod and his army through.

#prediction #maws spoilers #maws #my adventures with superman #cadmus #phantom zone #general zod #🐍

7 notes · View notes

diocletion-aint-shit · 5 months

Text

When I notice a possible satire of the Augstan regime in Ovid's metamorphosis and the timeline works out just right

#it was the sons of Cadmus constantly dying being analogous to the heirs of Augustus constantly dying #the whole theban cycle is generally regarded as paralleling the Aeneid with the legendary founder of a city fighting the wrath of Juno thing #Aeneas is already equated with Augustus in a lot of his propoganda so that's not much of a leap #and Augustus' heirs had been dropping like flies for 20 years by the time Ovid came along #classics #ancient history #tagamemnon #ancient rome #roman empire #just roman memes #Augustus #ovid #metamorphoses #ovid's metamorphoses #mythology #ancient history memes

6 notes · View notes

geaibleu-gaming · 9 months

Text

Dala being a weirdo:

Cadmus, probably:

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fnv #old world blues #owb #oc: cadmus #my screencaps #gaming #videogames #see cadmus has no problem with the fact that dala may have a little crush on him simply because he's human and has a body and all that jazz #it's the fact that she's such a fucking weirdo about it #also she gets up all in his business over it to the point of boundary pushing #which he hates #this also leads to him really questioning a lot of legion stuff in general

3 notes · View notes

vertigoambrosia · 2 years

Text

feel old and sad every time i have to remind myself that “dc animated universe” isn’t exclusively referring to the bruce timm cartoons

somebody talk justice league unlimited with me :(

#dcau #timmverse #i guess that's what they're calling it now?#current DC in general makes me feel old and confused #i remember when jason todd and hal jordan were both dead!#i actually watched the cadmus arc as it was airing #WALLY WEST

13 notes · View notes

cadmusfly · 5 months

Text

Anyway now that I’m done with my uni project about finetuning AI models which was annoying and frustrating, I’m going to go back to finetuning an AI model on my writing

(I still arrogantly believe that I can write in a much more interesting and sophisticated way than AI at the moment can, or at least I’ve developed a style and interest in subject matter that I can “weave” together into something that I personally enjoy engaging with - so I’m very disinclined to post AI generated or assisted writing without declaring it to be such, and none of my posted fanfics are AI assisted or generated-

but also I think that AI generated and assisted writing can be interesting as a medium that doesn’t necessarily have to displace other forms of writing, with points of interest being stuff like dataset bias, conceiving of textual data in unforeseen latent dimensions, ultimately being a reflection of the user and the training)

Previous models finetuned on my work enjoy talking about things like gender, surrealism, sci fi military and narrative constraints, as well as hyphenated caesuras for dramatic effect, which I found hilarious as a callout on my laziest writing tendencies, so let’s see what happens here - the dataset is mostly my 2016 - 2021 stuff too, but I do still engage in many of the same themes, motifs and tendencies

#cadmus rambles #cadmus generates

4 notes · View notes

gingerbredman1989 · 4 months

Text

Another Bing Image Creation with help on the prompt from ChatGPT.

Compose a tasteful and evocative Paul Cadmus-inspired painting featuring an exceptionally muscular construction worker on a job site. The worker should be depicted wearing only work boots, cutoff denim shorts, and an open construction vest, showcasing his robust physique. Emphasize the play of light and shadow to accentuate the details of the muscular form. Pay careful attention to the worker's facial features, giving him dark hair and a bushy mustache.

#ai generated #ai image #bing ai #bing image creator #ai muscle #chatgpt #paul cadmus #construction workers

20 notes · View notes

bet-on-me-13 · 7 months

Text

The Ghost King's Son

So! Cloning is a difficult process.

It takes time, lots of time. Sure, it's possible to accelerate the Growth of a Clone to make them older in a shorter time frame, but that often leads to Destabilization within weeks of completion.

And Cadmus didn't want to take any chances when designing their Kryptonian/Human Hybrid. They started growing him much earlier than they originally did, and let him grow at a semi-normal rate for most of his life.

This comes back to bite them in the butt however, when an asset breaks out of containment and ruins their Internal Power Generators. This causes a blackout that takes hours to resolve, and by the time they fix it all and reestablish the Security Systems, they notice one of the Clones is missing.

The Kryptonian/Human Clone has escaped.

...

Kr-1 is confused. He had woken up in a tube a few hours ago to some alarms, and decided he didn't like it, so he broke out. Then he wandered around until he ended up outside, and just kept on Wandering.

It had been hours, and he didn't know where he was. It seemed to be some type of Forest, but he didn't know what kind.

He just kept on wandering. It started to get boring though, the trees all looked the same and there weren't even any animals around. Then, something interesting happened!

A green thing appeared in the air! It was glowing and swirly and had a kind of pull to it. So, he touched it. And it sucked him in. And now he wasn't in the Forest. And this place seemed much more interesting!

There were a bunch of floating rocks, and the sky was green, and everything else was purple.

And there was a man. Looking at him hurt his eyes, he seemed to be a kid and then an man and then an old man and then a kid again whenever he blinked. He was saying something, but Kr-1 didn't understand him. He didn't think he had been taught language yet? What was language?

The Kid/Man/Old-Man lead him to a big building made of bricks and mortar. It looked like a big spiky building with towers and walls and stuff. Inside it looked cool, with candles and carpets and even more stuff.

He was taken to a room with a guy who didn't hurt his eyes to look at. He had white hair and green eyes, but his skin wasn't blue like the old guy. He had a piece of ice on his head, it looked like a crown but it was glowing.

The Guy walked up to him and pointed to himself, and kept repeating something. "Danny".

Eventually Kr-1 realized that it was his name. He then pointed to Him and said "name?"

He tilted his head confused, and the guy, Danny, let his head fall with a sigh.

"This is gonna be harder than I thought."

He wondered what those words mean?

...

It had been a few years since the newly dubbed Conner had begun to live with Danny.

He had been hesitant to adopt the Living 9 yr old Child when Clockwork had brought him to his Castle, explaining that he had run into a Natural Portal, but he had accepted in the end.

It took a while to teach Conner how to understand Language. He seemed to know very little for a kid his age, but after Clockwork had dug around his personal timeline they figured out that he was a Clone. He probably hadn't reached the Information Planting Stage of development when he escaped.

After learning about this however, Danny began teaching him everything he should have learned in his early life, such as Elementary level education and some social interaction. He even brought around Ellie to see if she had any advice for helping him develop into a healthy young boy.

She did help a bit, but was mostly preoccupied with spoiling her new Nephew rotten.

Eventually, Conner had caught up to the level he should have been at his age, and started living in both the Realms and in Amity.

He was having a good life, had some great friends, and was even starting to learn to use his Kryptonian Powers now that they were coming in.

He loves his new Family, his Dad is goofy and fun, his Aunt Ellie likes to spoil him rotten, his Aunt Jazz is the responsible one but still loves him, and even his grandparents are great in their own Insane way.

But not all great things can last.

...

It was supposed to be a normal Field Trip. Conner was 15 and his school was taking a Trip to Washington DC, to see the sights or to learn about history or something.

But stuff happens. They just so happen to pass by a certain lab, that lab just so happens to be testing out a new Yellow Sun Energy Detector, and one of the Scientists who worked on Conner just so happens to see him in the bus as it passes by and the detector goes off.

In the end, they manage to recapture him and place him back into his Pod, beginning to prep him for Reeducation. (Let's say they mamage to repress his memories)

Cut to 1 year later and a team of Sidekicks break into the Lab and successfully steal away the Clone again.

The Clone who knows he had a dad who had black hair and blue eyes, who helped him use his powers, who looks a lot like Superman.

Conner, in his slightly Amnesiac state thinks he has already met Superman and that he had raised him. Which makes it so much more hurtful when Superman outright rejects him. He thinks his Dad just rejected him, the Dad who he thinks he remembers loving him very much.

(Danny had been frantically looking for his son for over a year now. Where is he? Is he Okay? What happened to him? He knows at least that he isn't dead yet, but he really wants to find his son)

#Dp x dc #Dpxdc #Dc x dp #Dcxdp #Danny Phantom #Dc #Dcu #Ghost King AU #Conner Kent #Kon-El #Conner is the son of Danny #Since he was made much earlier on he had a chance to escape earlier in the timeline #Amnesia #Conner vaguely remembers his life with Danny but thinks that it was Superman cause they look similar #Angst #I wanted to let Conner still join YJ #This is how I decided it would work

2K notes · View notes

noisilyscreechingsong · 1 year

Text

Dp x Dc Crossover

Danny and Ellie somehow get tangled with Cadmus and frozen for study later. Obviously it comes to the JL’s attention and they all go ‘oh no another clone’. Anyone’s choice of who they think it is or if it’s a collection of people they took DNA from and meshed together to make these two sassy children.

Would be funnier if they came to DC universe by accident and didn’t have time to really learn about it before capture. The result being they have no idea superheroes are a thing and the heroes just thinking ‘these kids were traumatized and held captive, they don’t even know who Superman is!’ and cue another layer of hilarious misunderstanding.

When confronted about the whole clone thing, Danny immediately defends and protects Ellie. Obviously. Then they notice he was not defending himself, to which Danny goes ‘I’m not a clone!’ The heroes look at each other in clear doubt. ‘Oh he was in denial or seriously didn’t know who he was made from. That will make this harder.’

I may have started something though…

They found a discrete laboratory hidden in plan sight, underneath an office building. When researched, they found connections to Cabmus.

Considering the last encounter they had with the organization, they wanted to be prepared. Hence why when the small team noticed Batman walking down the stairs, Superman followed behind with a tight expression.

“Report.”

Red Robin stepped forward.

“Two cryo-stasis containers holding two nearly identical people. The first a male, approximately 13-14 years of age. Stable. The second a female, younger, approximately 10-11 years of age. Also stable, but her stats are lower than the boy’s.”

“What do you know?”

“Virtually nothing,” Connor says casually. “There are no documents left behind, digital or physical, and there are zero labels on these things.”

They arrive toward the back of the basement where the two frozen containers were sitting upright. One unit obviously smaller than the other most likely holding the girl. Batman has to peer down into the larger unit to see the boy’s face. Frost collected on his eyelashes and black hair like a forgotten doll. No movement from either forms, not even breathing.

“So we don’t know who they are made from,” Superman pushes, clearly displeased.

Batman keeps looking at their faces. The curve of their noses, the shape of their jaws, the positioning of their cheekbones. They didn’t look like Connor. No, they reminded him of someone else.

“We suspect hybrids of some sort,” M’gann contributes. “A mixture of different heroes if I had to guess, but there is no way of knowing with our lack of information without waking them up.”

“Can’t you look into their minds?” Clark questions.

M’gann squirms at the directness and Connor steps forward to defend her. Tensions rise.

“No, sir. They are frozen so there is hardly any brain function except to keep them alive. They aren’t even dreaming.”

She looks them over sadly, obviously distraught with not being able to connect to their minds in anyway.

Batman turns to Red Robin, the younger already watching him.

“You see it too, right?”

Batman grunts. Yes, he saw it.

“Is there a way to move them?” Batman brings back the focus.

“The containers are connected to the buildings power and then a back-up generator in case of emergencies. We’d have to switch the power to something mobile and there’s no telling what kind of effect that would have on the kids,” Connor explains, against the idea of moving them.

“It’s six in the evening. Most everyone in the building above as gone home for the day,” Red Robin helpfully adds.

“Evacuate the rest. Then call a medical team.”

“Wait,” Superman interrupts as the three younger heroes jump to do as instructed. “You’re not thinking about waking them up now, are you?”

“You have a better idea?”

Batman doesn’t even look at him as he studies the stats on the old screen connected to the nearest pod. This one holding the boy. He’ll be the first one out seeing as he’s the more stable one.

“They could be dangerous. They could try to attack us.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Batman deadpans. He didn’t state the obvious that they were children who had been frozen for who knows how long. If anything they’ll need reassurance that they were safe, not weapons in their faces as soon as they wake up.

Clark was not happy with his decision, but as long as he didn’t antagonize them Bruce left him alone.

It wasn’t long before they were ready to begin. Three medical personnel stood several yards back behind the heroes. Red Robin begins the defrosting procedure and they have to wait maybe an hour before the door slides open. There is a breath among them as they wait for his eyes to open. Instead they hear a cracking of thin ice and the boy falls forward without the door holding him in place. Connor is the one to catch him before he hits the floor face first.

Superboy turns him to lay him flat on the floor, the boy’s body still stiff with cold. Frost makes his hair and eyelashes brittle. His lips are a faint shade of blue.

“He isn’t breathing,” Connor informs quickly.

One of the medics push forward first, oxygen mask in hand.

“Bring the thermal blankets. We need to get his core temperature up,” the woman urgently instructs.

They get to work quickly in warming up the boy who is too small and fragile. After several minutes of the medics squeezing air into his mouth and rubbing his limbs and chest to get the blood flowing, the boy takes a breath. Then another. He coughs roughly, his throat scratchy, and starts to shiver.

“There we go.”

He whimpers and tries to move his hand, but the action is jerky and unpracticed.

“His eyes,” M’gann informs them, finally able to get some brain activity. “He can’t open his eyes. The ice-“

Connor takes a water bottle the medics brought and poured the room temperature water over his eyes to melt the ice holding them together. The boy jumps in surprise and tries to turn his head away but Connor continues until he can manually wipe away the ice and water from his eyelids.

Blue eyes. The boy has bright sky blue eyes. They aren’t the Krytonian blue, but they were still familiar.

He blinks and squints and looks around, breathing picking up at the people surrounding him and the unfamiliar environment. M’gann, sensing his distress, kneels down and sets a warm hand on his leg.

“It’s okay. No one here will hurt you. You’re safe now.”

He doesn’t relax, but he seems to at least understand her. He studies their uniforms and then her face before his eyes flick to something behind her and they widen. His breath stutters in his chest, making him wheeze out on the exhale.

They look behind the green skinned girl to see the smaller pod still holding the little girl, no change in her status.

The boy reaches out a shaky hand toward it, scraping against the cold concrete in his lack of energy to lift it.

“She’s okay too.”

He opens his mouth to speak, licks his lips, tries again.

“-ou-,” he rasps. His breath hitches and he’s coughing again. They help him onto his side.

“You want us to get her out?” Red Robin interprets.

The boy squints through the tears from the lack of oxygen at the hero. His expression is scrunched in discomfort and worry. As enthusiastic as he can manage, the boy nods.

“Okay, we can do that. You just have to wait, she needs to thaw out, just like what we did with you,” Red Robin explains to the boy.

He nods again in understanding, his eyes glued back to the girl in the pod. He still shivers harshly and his breathing isn’t regular but he’s not panicking and in no shape to attack them, so it seems like they were in the clear with that one.

While the girl is thawing, they get him more comfortable with warm blankets and get him to drink some water for his throat. He still wasn’t moving much except to curl up on his side and breathe on his colorless fingers. Every time he swallowed he cringed like he was drinking acid, so talking was off the table for now.

The boy was fighting sleep by the time the container door slide open. Connor was there and holding her before she could fall like the boy had.

Superboy lays the girl down close to the boy, seeing the pale hand reaching for her. As soon as he backed away the medics were on her to get air in her lungs and warm her body same as they did for the boy.

The boy watches, quietly holding her hand. Siblings it looks like it. Seeing them side by side was startling. They seemed to be clones of each other, one just younger and the opposite gender, but they were the same.

It was concerning as the number of minutes increased and there was no change. She didn’t breathe or move. She looked dead.

“Get the defibrillator,” the medic ordered, urgent.

The boy surprisingly wasn’t panicking, instead he held a hard determination that made some of the heroes curious.

Pushing himself up onto his elbow, he leaned over the girl and started weakly pushing the blankets out of the way. Thinking he was just helping to make the medic’s job easier, M’gann helped until her torso was exposed.

“You need to back away so they-“

She stops when she sees him tug at the girl’s white shirt to get into direct contact with her skin, hand pressed to her chest.

“What are you-?”

He narrows his eyes in concentration.

Red Robin unconsciously takes a step back when the boy’s blue eyes change into a glowing toxic green, illuminating the girl’s face, frost shining in the light. The hand pressed to her chest also starts to glow the same green until it seeps into her skin like she’s absorbing this weird energy. It reminded them of Starfire actually.

The green in his eyes fades as soon as the unknown green energy is lighting up her entire torso just under the skin. He pulls away and looks expectantly at the medic holding the defibrillator. She flinches into moving, setting the machine down and charging it. She’s hesitant to touch the green energy but the boy nods in encouragement, not looking concerned for anything but the girl’s health.

“Clear!”

It takes one shock for the green energy to disperse through her body and cause her to gasp. The girl starts coughing harshly and the boy pulls her to lay on her side facing him. Connor quickly helps the boy to cover her in blankets. The boy goes as far as tucking them around her and taking one of his own blankets to pile on top. He was moving more easily now even if it was sluggish.

M’gann gasps quietly just as the girl starts sobbing, whining when the act of crying hurt her throat. The boy pulls her close, wrapping his arms around her and tucking her under his chin so they could barely see her. They watch as he calmly comforts her until they are both eased into unconsciousness.

Batman give Superman a pointed look as he passes him. Clark doesn’t respond.

“Get them to the Watchtower med bay,” he orders.

It’s Superman who picks up the pile of two children tangled together and wrapped in layers of fabric, nearly throwing them at how light they both weighted. The three younger heroes follow behind, Tim mumbling about “Lazarus pits” and “Jason”, M’gann twisting her fingers in anxiety, and Connor keeping a close eye on the two kids being carried by his original.

It’s unsurprising that it’s Connor who volunteers to say with them when they are settled down in the med bay, still clinging to each other in sleep.

#dp x dc #dc x dp #dp x dc crossover #danny fenton #elle phantom #batman #superman #superboy #red robin #story ideas #thoughts #funny #anyone is welcome #to continue #danny phantom

5K notes · View notes

zahri-melitor · 3 months

Text

In terms of trying to transplant how Dick’s generation grew up to independent adult heroes onto Tim’s generation, one of the significant issues is that the two groups have very different backstories.

The Fab Five and their generation were largely cared for children with present guardians during their teen years. Their ‘growing up’ rebellion moments were about wanting to establish their own identities separate to their parent/guardian. Then once NTT occurred and new young adult characters were added to it, you had a bunch who were escaping overbearing guardians with expectations the young adult didn’t want to fulfil, and leaving trauma behind.

The Core Four and other 90s heroes, in contrast, were mostly latchkey kids. They had loving but absent parents and parental figures. They were largely expected to grow up and show they were independent in their early teens. The arcs of their stories were not about growing up and finding themselves and ‘be your own person’, but about learning to trust others and interdependency and working together.

Like the shape of a Fab Five story is ‘in my preteens or earlier a Disaster Happened and I was taken in by a hero who cared for me and taught me the business as their sidekick. Then around 18-20 I moved out to live in a sharehouse with my friends as I wanted to find who I was outside of the shadow of being a sidekick’.

While…Tim’s generation largely aren’t sidekicks in the same sense. The shape of THEIR stories are of ‘teenager with largely absent adults is expected to grow up and show emotional maturity too early’. It’s actually notable that Tim, Kon and Bart all have long term story arcs that involve gaining a stable household right near the end.

Kon’s entire solo is the story of how he is neglected and exploited by every adult around him. He doesn’t have parents. He’s Peter Pan, the little boy who cannot grow up, who lives without parental expectation. He’s a celebrity kid exploited by Rex Leech and by CADMUS, who’s expected by those around him to act in an adult manner and held to that standard while simultaneously specifically being underage and not having the right to make his own decisions. His final arc in Superboy is about being so abandoned he doesn’t even have CADMUS to depend on anymore so he has to find an apartment and a job (the building superintendent) and is expected to act and function like an adult in that position. Superboy #59 (FIFTY NINE) is when Kon finally gets his own name. Superboy #100 is ABOUT Kon moving in with Jonathan and Martha Kent and finally having a stable home environment where he can be a child. Heck Kon’s already had a story where he’s ‘married’ and responsible for a kid. He’s had solo space adventures.

Bart’s solo is about Bart and Max learning to be a family together, but also: Bart’s childhood didn’t contain parents. Meloni turns up occasionally through his solo and loves him but also has to disappear away back to the 30th century at the end of each appearance. The final arc of Bart’s solo is about him moving in with Jay and Joan Garrick for more stability, because Max has disappeared (and stays disappeared). And then, post his solo, Bart even already has HAD an arc where he had to grow up and assume the Flash mantle (which went horribly wrong and led to his death).

Tim? Tim’s entire solo is about upheaval and change. The first time he’s expected to behave as an independent hero, not a sidekick, is literally Robin #1 when Azbats kicks him out of the Cave. Jack threatens to send him away to boarding school on multiple occasions and DOES for the Brentwood arc. He loses Jack, he loses Dana, he moves out to be a hero caring for his own city at 16, in Bludhaven post War Games. Bruce’s adoption of Tim was all about giving him back that sense of stability and support so that Tim had people backing him up again in his personal life and not only as a hero. And then he does the ‘leave and get a new identity’ thing during Red Robin.

And Cassie? Cassie starts with a loving mother and her story arc over becoming a hero is about periods of operating on her own. She moves away from her mum to go to Elias School. Due to operating as a hero under her own name she eventually has to come up with the alias of Drusilla Priam to give herself a non-public identity to retreat to (and isn’t living with Helena Sandsmark but renting on her own during this period to protect Helena).

This is a set of characters for whom it makes no narrative sense to tell a story of them growing up by ‘moving out and finding their own identity as separate heroes’ because their entire PAST is about being alone and looking for connections and people to rely upon. They haven’t been looking for their mentors to accept them as independent adults, they’ve been looking to their mentors to be present and work with them.

They have already all BEEN through the steps of moving out (while underage) and learning to look after themselves as nobody else was there to support them. Growing up for them is about learning to trust and be respected for the skills they already have and trusted to know what they’re doing, rather than leaving to show they can operate independently.

And that’s a harder narrative to show, because it’s a less common growth story in our culture. But in the Core Four’s case, I’d argue a lot of the traditional signifiers of adulthood (moving out; moving away for education; taking responsibility for a city on their own; travelling for quests) are things they were already expected to do while still significantly underage, and so sending them through that plot again isn’t showing anything new to allow them growth. What they need is the adults around them to treat them as adults for the things they already can and do do.

#dc meta #core four v fab five

705 notes · View notes