Three seasons into My Adventures With Superman, the actors behind Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Kara Zor-El are no longer simply finding their versions of some of DC’s most familiar characters. Their performances have started influencing how those characters are written.
Jack Quaid, Alice Lee, Ishmel Sahid and Kiana Madeira reunited at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 alongside showrunners Jake Wyatt and Brendan Clogher and writer Karen Graci. With Season 3 already underway, the conversation wasn’t about introducing this animated Superman universe for the first time. Instead, the cast and creators could look at how the characters and performances had evolved since the series premiered in 2023.
The distinction is particularly noticeable with Lois and Kara. Wyatt explained during an SDCC interview that the writers have reached the point where they aren’t writing generic interpretations of these famous characters anymore. They know what Lee and Madeira bring to them and can write specifically for those performances.
For a series built around younger and less established versions of Superman’s supporting cast, that familiarity has become increasingly important as Season 3 pushes Clark, Lois, Jimmy and Kara toward questions about relationships, adulthood and their futures.
Jack Quaid’s Superman Starts With Clark Kent
Jack Quaid entered My Adventures With Superman with the difficult task of finding space for another Superman performance within a character that has accumulated decades of recognizable interpretations.
The series found that space partly by reversing a familiar question about Superman’s identity. This version is fundamentally Clark Kent first. Superman is the person Clark is learning how to become rather than Clark being a disguise worn by an already fully formed superhero.
That idea has allowed Quaid’s performance to retain a nervousness and emotional openness that might feel unusual for a more established Superman. Clark is immensely powerful, but he is also a young man concerned about hurting people, unsure of his place in the world and still learning how to navigate his relationship with Lois.
Season 3 complicates that relationship by making Clark increasingly concerned with the future. After the events involving Brainiac, he begins trying to plan the life he wants with Lois, including marriage, children and the kind of future he imagines they could build together. Lois is considerably less comfortable confronting those possibilities.
The arrival of Jon Kent pushes that anxiety even further. Jon appears from the future claiming to be Clark and Lois’ son, forcing two people still figuring out their own relationship to suddenly confront evidence of a life they haven’t reached yet.
For Quaid, that kind of material moves the performance well beyond establishing the basic contrast between an awkward Clark and heroic Superman. Three seasons of experience with the character mean his Superman can become more confident while Clark remains emotionally vulnerable, particularly when the danger involves the people closest to him.
The creators have continued to embrace that vulnerability rather than treating it as something Clark must eventually outgrow. Their Superman is powerful because of his compassion, while much of the tension comes from his fear that those powers won’t always be enough to protect the life he wants.
Alice Lee and Ishmel Sahid Made Lois and Jimmy Their Own
Alice Lee initially considered Lois Lane a long shot when she auditioned for My Adventures With Superman. By Season 3, however, the creative team was describing the character specifically in terms of Lee’s performance.
Wyatt explained during the Comic-Con interviews that the writers no longer approach Lois as an abstract version of the character assembled from decades of Superman history. They write for the Lois that Lee has established.
That evolution removes some of the pressure that comes with performing a character associated with so many previous actors. Lee’s Lois can retain the qualities that make the Daily Planet reporter recognizable while developing mannerisms, emotional reactions and comic timing particular to this series.
Season 3 gives her increasingly personal material. Clark’s enthusiasm for planning their future causes Lois to pull in the opposite direction, with the prospect of marriage and parenthood forcing her to confront her complicated family history. The unexpected appearance of their future son makes avoiding those questions considerably more difficult.
The season even gives Lee an opportunity the series hadn’t previously explored through a musical sequence involving Lois and Kara. The unexpected number turns Lois’ fear of change into part of the performance rather than simply another conversation about her relationship with Clark.
Sahid has experienced a similar progression with Jimmy Olsen. He said at Comic-Con that hearing himself as such an established DC character can still feel surreal, particularly when he encounters fan reactions to the series.
Jimmy’s voice also presents Sahid with some of the show’s more physically energetic recording work. He discussed enjoying the character’s high-cadence screaming during action sequences, while Season 3 increasingly requires him to shift from that frantic comedy into quieter scenes involving Kara.
That relationship gives Jimmy a different emotional role within the ensemble. His feelings for Kara are obvious, but he hesitates to commit to what their relationship could become. The same character who can react to danger with frantic vocal energy therefore needs considerably more restraint when the story turns toward vulnerability and romance.
Kiana Madeira Found Both Sides of Kara Zor-El
Kiana Madeira joined the ensemble later than Quaid, Lee and Sahid, but Kara has rapidly become one of the central characters in My Adventures With Superman. The series is also part of a broader animation landscape creating opportunities for performers from increasingly varied backgrounds, from established screen actors to a professional black female voice actor whose training and experience may span animation, commercials, narration and other areas of voiceover. That range of professional experience has become increasingly valuable as animated productions ask performers to move between comedy, action and emotionally grounded material.
Her introduction placed her in a very different emotional position from Clark. While he was raised on Earth by loving human parents, Kara’s experiences left her more guarded and disconnected. Madeira has had to gradually open the character up without losing the toughness established when she first appeared.
At Comic-Con, Madeira described Kara as someone whose heart initially isn’t open to love. Her growing relationship with Jimmy consequently requires the character to discover vulnerability rather than simply acknowledge feelings that were always there.
That development has also allowed Madeira to move between very different types of voice performance. She spoke enthusiastically about recording Kara’s action sequences, particularly the intense vocalizations accompanying her most powerful attacks. Those sessions can be physically demanding enough to leave her voice raspy afterward.
The contrast with Kara’s quieter scenes is significant. One moment may require the vocal equivalent of an anime battle sequence, while another asks Madeira to play someone tentatively learning how to connect with Jimmy or experience ordinary life on Earth.
The show’s anime influence makes those extremes feel natural. Wyatt and Clogher have openly discussed growing up with series including Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon, and that influence extends beyond the visual design into the scale of the performances during action scenes.
At the same time, Kara has become increasingly integrated into the show’s softer relationship-driven storytelling. She can deliver an enormous battle cry in one episode and participate in a musical trip to the mall with Lois in another.
That range is part of why the creators now write specifically for Madeira’s version of Kara rather than treating Supergirl as a fixed character template.
The Cast Is Now Shaping My Adventures With Superman
The evolution of the performances reflects a broader change in the series itself. When My Adventures With Superman began, the creative team was establishing how its Clark, Lois and Jimmy differed from the many versions that had come before them. Three seasons later, those distinctions no longer need to be continually explained.
The actors have accumulated enough history with the characters that the writers can build on their specific strengths. Lee’s comic and emotional rhythms become part of this Lois. Sahid’s energetic delivery helps define Jimmy. Madeira’s ability to shift between vulnerability and explosive action becomes part of Kara. Quaid’s warmth and uncertainty remain fundamental to a Superman who is still becoming the hero audiences know.
Season 3 has used that familiarity while expanding the cast around them. Darren Criss joined the series as Connor Kent, while Auli’i Cravalho voices Jessica Cruz, adding more DC characters to a world that continues to reinterpret familiar comic book mythology through the show’s younger perspective.
The season premiered in June on Adult Swim, with episodes subsequently streaming on HBO Max. By the time the cast arrived at Comic-Con in July, viewers were already well into storylines involving Jon Kent, Jimmy and Kara’s relationship, and Lois’ fears about the future.
That made the SDCC appearance less about teasing what these characters might eventually become and more about recognizing what the performers had already built. Quaid, Lee and Sahid have spent three seasons developing their interpretations, while Madeira has taken Kara from an outsider to an essential part of the ensemble.
Perhaps the clearest indication of that progress comes from the writers themselves. They may have started with Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Supergirl, characters whose histories extend far beyond this animated series. But after years of recording and collaboration, the scripts are increasingly being written for Jack Quaid’s Clark, Alice Lee’s Lois, Ishmel Sahid’s Jimmy and Kiana Madeira’s Kara.
At that point, the actors aren’t simply stepping into famous roles anymore. Their performances have become part of what defines this particular version of them.
