Superman: The Adventure Begins (2023 Film)

Superman: The Adventure Begins is a 2023 American animated superhero film based on the DC Comics character Superman. The series is developed by Jake Wyatt, produced by Warner Bros. Animation and animated by Studio Mir in South Korea. The film follows Clark Kent as he builds his secret identity as Superman and explores his mysterious origins, and Lois Lane, whom Clark develops a crush on and vice-versa, who is on her way to becoming a star reporter. Teaming up with photographer and Clark's best friend Jimmy Olsen, the trio break the stories that matter and save the day against many villains in the city of Metropolis, while also contending with Task Force X.
Quote: His Greatest Adventure Begins
== Cast ==
* Jack Quaid as Clark Kent / Superman: A Kryptonian with superhuman powers and abilities, sent by his parents to Earth as an infant to escape the destruction of his homeworld, Krypton, and raised under the mental guidance of farmers in Smallville, Kansas.
* Kari Wahlgren as Young Clark Kent
* Alice Lee as Lois Lane: A reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper and the love interest of Clark Kent. 
* Ishmel Sahid as Jimmy Olsen: Clark's best friend and roommate.
* Darrell Brown as Perry White: Editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet and the boss of Clark Kent, Jimmy Olsen, and Lois Lane. 
* Kari Wahlgren as Martha Kent: Clark's adoptive mother.
* Reid Scott as Jonathan Kent: Clark's adoptive father.
* Jason Marnocha as Jor-El: A Kryptonian scientist who is Kal-El's biological father.
* Zehra Fazal as Leslie Willis / Livewire: The leader of a group of thieves whose powers are initially derived from a super-suit powered by an alien crystal before she later develops natural electrokinesis.
* Azuri Hardy-Jones as Flip Johnson: A kid who lives in Metropolis.
* Chris Parnell as Slade Wilson: A swordsman a member of Task Force X as a agent.
* Debra Wilson as Amanda Waller: The director of Task Force X and a survivor of Zero Day.
* Joel de la Fuente as General Sam Lane: Lois' father and Korean heritage and a founding member and co-leader of Task Force X and a survivor of Zero Day.
* Catherine Taber as Siobhan McDougal / Silver Banshee: A leading member of Intergang and the sister of fellow member Mist who wears a sound-amplifying helmet.
* Lucas Grabeel as Kyle / Mist: A member of Intergang and the brother of leading member Silver Banshee who possesses Kryptonian technology that allows him to turn invisible
* Vincent Tong as Albert / Rough House: An Asian member of Intergang whose real name is Albert and wields strength-enhancing Kryptonian gauntlets.
* Vincent Tong as Steve Lombard: A member of the Daily Planet's "Scoop Troop.
* Jake Green as Anthony Ivo / Parasite: The CEO of AmazoTech who is suspected of being involved in illegal activities, who created a suit of battle armor called the Parasite 1.0, which is capable of growing larger and more monstrous in appearance as it absorbs energy.
* Laila Berzins as Rory / Heat Wave: A gang leader who wields Kryptonian flamethrowers.
* Max Mittelman as Max: Ivo's personal assistant at AmazoTech.
* Melanie Minichino as Cat Grant: A member of the Daily Planet's "Scoop Troop".
* Kenna Ramsey as Ronnie Troupe: A lacks glasses and is a member of the Daily Planet's "Scoop Troop" who, unlike her fellow reporters, respects interns Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen.
* Jessie Inocalla as The Brain: A kind-hearted but short-tempered German scientist who originally worked for Project Cadmus. 
* André Sogliuzzo as Monsieur Mallah: A kind-hearted gorilla who was given greater intelligence by the Brain of Project Cadmus.
* David Errigo Jr. as Mister Mxyzptlk: A multiversal imp, self-proclaimed chaos god, and criminal with a more youthful and inhuman appearance, taking cues from impish anime characters.
* Andromeda Dunker as Vicki Vale: A college friend of Perry White's, an underhanded award-winning columnist, later editor-in-chief, for the Gotham Gazette, and Lois Lane's idol.
* Michael Emerson as Brainiac: a Kryptonian android who currently leads the conquests of different planets throughout the universe alongside a mysterious Kryptonian Warrior.
* Kari Wahlgren as Kryptonian Warrior: A Kryptonian warrior who conquers different planets throughout the universe.
== Plot ==
In Smallville, Kansas, a young Clark Kent awakens the power of flight and strength to save a woman and her baby from a car accident. Years later, in Metropolis, Clark and his roommate Jimmy Olsen, a photography student and alien conspiracy theorist, start their first day as interns for the Daily Planet. Assigned to senior intern Lois Lane, she deceives them into helping her investigate a military-grade technology theft. With a lead from Flip Johnson's Newskid Legion, the trio finds the thieves loading military robots at the docks. The thieves' leader, Leslie Willis, unleashes a robot to attack them. Clark gets out of view and returns in disguise to destroy it. As Willis activates the remaining robots to battle Clark, Lois successfully deactivates them while he awakens his super-speed to destroy the final robot. Despite their efforts, Editor-in-chief (EIC) Perry White refuses to publish the story based on Jimmy's blurry photos without real proof of the new metahuman that Lois dubbed "Superman." Once the trio become friends, Lois invites the boys to help her get an exclusive interview with Superman.
While Lois doggedly follows up on the robot theft for a lead to Superman, Clark returns to Smallville to investigate his past and understand his new powers. Digging up the space pod that delivered him to Earth, Clark activates an alien hologram and sees visions of an alien planet amid a space war being destroyed. After Clark gains new alien clothing from this, his mother Martha Kent adds a belt and shorts to complete the look. Meanwhile, Willis is hunted by the organization she stole the robot technology from, Task Force X, and arranges a meeting with leading agent Slade Wilson. When Willis threatens to detonate explosives across the city sewers if they continue hunting her, Lois and Jimmy's surprise interruption turns the meeting into a scramble for the detonator. Willis reveals her electrical super-suit to fight Wilson until Superman arrives to subdue her. Wilson damages her suit's power crystal, leading Superman to destroy it after it gives him another vision of the space war. Though Jimmy's clear photos convince Perry to publish the story, he gives the byline to uninvolved staff reporters. Later, Wilson tortures Willis at a black site for information about Superman.
While Lois attempts to interview Superman, Clark struggles to figure out how to help her while protecting his secret identity. However, the interns must also contend with the Daily Planet's established "Scoop Troop" reporters, who Perry credited for their Superman story—Steve Lombard, Cat Grant, and Ronnie Troupe. Meanwhile, Mist and his friend Rough House use technology they obtained from Willis to break his sister Siobhan McDougal out of prison and equip her with sonic tech to rebuild their small-time crew Intergang. Despite Clark's misgivings, the interns impersonate the Scoop Troop to investigate Siobhan, discovering a clue to Intergang's next heist. When Intergang attempts to rob the Metropolitan City Bank, their ice cannon's power crystal malfunctions and begins to freeze everything in proximity. Seeing Lois and Jimmy in danger, Superman awakens his heat vision and destroys the crystal, granting him a vision of an invading robot army. While Wilson's organization secretly takes the defeated Intergang into custody, Superman accepts Lois's interview and discloses he is still figuring himself out, but is committed to saving people. However, to his dismay, Lois later tells Clark that she suspects Superman is lying.
Perry assigns the interns to cover the AmazoTech gala held by CEO, Doctor Anthony Ivo. Lois is snubbed by attendees for her invasive questions while Clark stumbles upon an argument between Ivo and his chairman, Curtis, regarding the board of directors voting out Ivo. Ejected by Ivo's security, Lois sneaks Clark back inside. They open up to each other before discovering a secret technology room connecting Ivo to Willis and Intergang. An angered Ivo demonstrates the Parasite 1.0 armor and attempts to kill Curtis. Clark becomes Superman to save Curtis while Ivo traps the attendees in the Amazo Panic Room to make them witness him overpowering Superman. Realizing the armor absorbs energy from his attacks, Superman stops fighting Ivo directly as Lois and Jimmy deactivate the Panic Room. With the suit depowered, Superman removes it from Ivo, who became deformed from the suit's side effects. With Ivo under EMT care, the interns return to find the secret room empty. Lois kisses Clark, considering the night a date. Later, after submitting her exposé on Ivo, Lois finds a torn tabloid article involving Kansas miracle sightings in Clark's coat. After reworking her evidence board, Lois concludes Clark is Superman.
Hoping to confess his burgeoning feelings for Lois, Clark asks for her help in developing a story about the stolen military technology spreading throughout Metropolis and a mysterious individual kidnapping anyone using them. However, she sees it as an opportunity to expose him as Superman. Using an old dispatch scanner, she chases down Superman as he foils various crimes before eventually meeting him after he defeats Heat Wave, another criminal empowered by the stolen technology. While Superman is distracted, Heat Wave escapes, believing he is behind the kidnappings. After he drops off Lois at the Daily Planet to keep her safe, he re-confronts Heat Wave and discovers the true culprit behind the abducted criminals is an armored Wilson aided by similar robots that Willis used. Their subsequent fight soon endangers civilians, leading to Wilson's superiors, the General and Amanda Waller, ordering him to withdraw so Superman can save them. After returning to Lois, she forces Clark to reveal his secret identity to her and is left distraught. Meanwhile, Jimmy is disappointed to learn Clark and Lois failed to attend a pre-planned camping trip to investigate Bigfoot sightings with him. He goes alone, but a large gorilla kidnaps him.
After failing to locate Jimmy, Clark reaches out to Lois for help. Despite still being mad at him, she agrees. Scouring the woods, the pair find an abandoned military installation called Area 52, but upon crossing the fence, Clark's powers falter due to the area being exposed to red solar radiation before they are chased by OMAC robots. Meanwhile, inside Area 52, Jimmy meets and befriends the gorilla Monsieur Mallah and his partner the Brain. The pair reveal they originally worked for Project Cadmus, a branch of Task Force X that focused on developing futuristic technology, before the latter organization betrayed them and raided Area 52. Ever since, the Brain and Mallah have been attempting to create a wormhole to access other dimensions where they will be accepted. Eventually breaching Area 52, Clark and Lois reconcile with each other and Jimmy, who reveals he knew of Clark's secret identity, before joining the Brain and Mallah in defeating the OMACs. Successfully opening their wormhole, the Brain warns Clark that Task Force X is after him before leaving with Mallah. Concurrently, the General recruits Ivo to help him use Cadmus' technology to kill Superman.
After Clark shows Lois and Jimmy his spaceship and clarifies his incomplete alien origin, Clark and Lois plan their first date. However, he is interrupted by Mister Mxyzptlk, a multiversal imp who deceives him into helping him steal a recorder from a museum on Earth-1, revealing Clark is from the planet Krypton in the process. Meanwhile, Lois and Jimmy are recruited by the multiversal "League of Lois Lanes" to help them stop Mxyzptlk and Clark. Suspicious of their intentions, Lois searches their files, stumbling onto the redacted "File X". Upon finding them, the League attack Clark while Mxyzptlk hijacks the League's vessel and travels to their headquarters with the recorder and Lois' help. As she steals the original File X, he retrieves his hat, regains his full strength, and causes chaos until Superman distracts him, allowing Lois to depower him and Jimmy to restrain him. While the League arrest Mxyzptlk, Jimmy's counterpart, Jalana, secretly brings the interns back to their native Earth-12, where Clark and Lois finish their date. Following this, she opens File X and finds recordings of evil alternate universe Supermen and a sample of a green crystal the League used to injure Superman.
The General uses shock collars to forcibly recruit Willis, Intergang, and Heat Wave into assisting Wilson and Ivo capture Superman. Meanwhile, after developing super-hearing and hearing everyone in the city crying for help, Clark runs himself ragged helping everyone and soon becomes sleep-deprived and weakened. When Gotham Gazette journalist Vicki Vale arrives to cover his activities, Lois is starstruck to meet her, only to be disappointed when Vale runs a biased story defaming Superman as a menace to gain a promotion. Superman saves an invisible Mist from being hit by a truck but accidentally causes an accident, turning public opinion against him. Mist says Task Force X kidnapped Siobhan, and Superman offers to rescue her, only to be led into a trap and attacked by the group. Though he holds his own despite his weakened state, Superman is eventually knocked out by Ivo via his upgraded Parasite armor and Willis. The General stops Ivo from killing him as he wants to interrogate Superman. Mist regrets luring Superman into the trap as Lois and Jimmy rush to the scene but arrive to see the group carry Superman away.
In flashbacks to "Zero Day", the General, Waller, and their forces were attacked by an alien army led by a Superman-like figure codenamed "Nemesis Omega" before a mysterious event forced the army into a retreat that left their technology behind. In the present, the Newskid Legion helps Lois and Jimmy search for Superman while the General interrogates him for information on Zero Day. From Superman's anguished reaction, the General doubts his connection to it while a displeased Waller secretly helps the prisoners escape, during which Willis electrocutes Wilson's right eye. A vengeful Ivo attacks Superman, but inadvertently frees him. Flip eventually finds and takes him to safety. Clark believes he was sent to Earth to destroy it, but Lois assures him otherwise. Upon learning Ivo is siphoning the power grid and going on a rampage, Lois and Jimmy use social media to petition Metropolis' citizens to turn off their power, weakening Ivo so Superman can use his newly-awakened X-ray vision to locate and remove Ivo from the suit. As Superman and Lois declare their love, Jimmy finds File X. On Checkmate's behalf, Waller demotes the General and gives him Ivo's last invention, the Omega Cannon, with orders to kill Superman.
Haunted by nightmares about Zero Day, Clark swears to halt any invasion. After Perry officially promotes Clark, Lois, and Jimmy to reporters for their article on Ivo's defeat, they have Thanksgiving dinner with Clark's parents. Lois invited her father, General Sam Lane, who fails to recognize Clark. When Jimmy tries to talk with Lois and Clark, he drops File X, revealing the Supermen recordings to a devastated Clark and exposing him to the Kryptonite. Clark's space pod also reacts, rising and sending a signal that prompts an invasion similar to Zero Day. While Superman and Sam battle the invaders, Jimmy deduces that the crystal also hurts them. A weakened Superman takes the crystal to destroy the mothership, halting the invasion as the hologram of his father helps return him to Earth. Sam prepares to kill him, but Lois pleads for his life and reminds her father that Superman had saved them, causing Sam to leave. At dinner, Jimmy reveals he sold his Flamebird channel to the Daily Planet, becoming a millionaire. 
In the post credit scene, across the universe, Brainiac informs a Kryptonian warrior of the rebellious Earth as a new planet to conquer. The undeterred warrior vows humanity will kneel.
== Sequel ==
Superman ll: The Adventure Continues (2024 Film)