My Adventures With Superman pays a touching tribute to Dragon Ball Z in remembrance of its late creator, Akira Toriyama, in a variant cover for its upcoming comic issue.
The My Adventures With Superman comic, written by show producer and writer Josie Campbell, is a miniseries that fills in the gaps between the animated series' first and second seasons. The fourth issue variant cover of the comic, drawn by Pablo M. Collar and colored by Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, depicts Superman midflight waving his hand toward the reader. The cover refers to the cover art of Dragon Ball Z volume 26 – the manga’s final volume – wherein Goku makes the same pose while saying farewell to readers.
My Adventures With Superman's referential variant cover also follows Dragon Ball Super's similar send off to the legendary creator. According to Dragon Ball Super artist Toyotarou, Toriyama's final suggestion for the series was to draw Piccolo waving goodbye before flying off into another adventure. My Adventures With Superman’s Dragon Ball Z tribute cover will release on September 9.
My Adventures With Superman experienced a meteoric rise in popularity among DC fans when it premiered last year, thanks partly to the series’ distinct anime feel. Much of this is helped by the fact that the show is animated by Studio Mir, the folks behind The Legend of Korra and Voltron: Legendary Defender. The show’s anime vibes become even more apparent thanks to social media posts from its animators revealing, in no uncertain terms, that the enemy designs and relationship dynamics for the show were inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Saiyaman arc from Dragon Ball Z.
Other hallmarks of anime that My Adventures With Superman unabashedly dipped its red boots into were giving Superman a Sailor Moon-esque magical girl transformation, recontextualizing Lois and Clark’s burgeoning relationship like a shojo romance, and emulating cutesy mannerism of anime characters.
my adventures with superman is so real for referencing DBZ. they got supergirl looking like android 18 in her first appearance. pic.twitter.com/zcfU61lmTM
— JOLLY J✨ (@DynamoSuperX) June 9, 2024
Season 2 of My Adventures With Superman shows no signs of slowing down the series’ penchant for anime-isms. Key among them is its iteration of Supergirl. Following her introduction, fans took to X/Twitter to highlight how her character design felt like a fusion dance between Dragon Ball Z’s Android 18 and Promare’s Lio Fotila.
In our review for the Season 2 premiere of My Adventures with Superman, we gave the show a 7, writing, “While the action and core antagonists remain great, My Adventures with Superman struggles a bit to find the balance between personal drama and supervillain punching in Season 2.”
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
