We’re halfway through My Adventures With Superman and I love this show a lot so far. It’s easily one of my favorite Superman adaptations and I love talking about it with my friends every week. The characters are all charming and understandable, I find the story very interesting so far, its animation is mostly solid and is carried by an art style I absolutely love, I can recommend it to just about anyone.
I will say though, one thing that kinda frustrates me about the show currently is how centered discussion is on Clark and Lois. And I get it, they’re the two main characters of the mythos as well as the show and they’re both very cute and very good characters. That being said, I feel like the other characters deserve their time to shine. Jimmy is my favorite character in the show so far and he’s (ironically) been pretty shafted in terms of discussion. The villains get it the worst though. Imma be honest, even if I can see the complaints for the villains all currently being tech based (even though that’s in favor of the story), it’s the writing on a fundamental level that I’m concerned about. And yes, I think that MAWS handles its villains far better than STAS. While STAS’s villains are very inconsistent, MAWS’s villains are all in the same ballpark in terms of writing and each and every single one of them deserves exploration. And I wanna talk about the villains that I think have the most potential: Intergang.
So let’s get stuff cleared up first since the episode keeps it vague and as such most people and the wikis don’t take this into account.
Silver Banshee is Siobhan McDougal, that’s pretty clear in the episode. Mist in the episode is simply addressed to as Kyle, and a lot assume it’s Nimbus even though the episode never really states that, nor do the credits. However, he refers to Siobhan as his sister more than once, which Albert doesn’t do. And if we look at this promotional material, the article addresses Mist as Kyle McDougal. In MAWS, Siobhan and Kyle are biological siblings. Rough House isn’t biologically related to the two, rather a very good friend. This is another thing the episode doesn’t state but in MAWS, Rough House is Albert Donovan which references how Rough House is a clone working for Intergang in the comics and Dr. Dabney Donovan is a Superman rogue also from the comics who specializes in cloning. In fact, he made Rough House in the comics. So this lays out the dynamic of the group that a lot of people seem to miss: Siobhan and Kyle are biological siblings, Albert is found family. Pretty small potatoes compared to everyone else admittedly. Onto the main point: Intergang have the best dynamic out of any of the villains in the series so far.
I feel like the best way to put it is that Siobhan, Kyle and Albert sorta mirror Lois, Clark and Jimmy in a way. Given a lot of the drama in the later episodes, Intergang acts a reflection of the intern trio: not taken seriously and barely given opportunity to rise up. Main difference is that Intergang has been doing their schtick for a lot longer, and thus their bond is a lot closer. Let’s start with Siobhan:
Siobhan acts as in a leader role not too far off from Lois. Siobhan genuinely cares for both Kyle and Albert but serves as the middle ground for Kyle and Albert’s back and forths instead. She also contrasts well with Livewire from the last episode, as Siobhan is constantly positive with the trio and searches for an opportunity to grab respect. She’s also leans harder into the leadership role than Lois does. Kyle and Albert follow her a lot more than Jimmy and Clark follow Lois (which may also have to do with their different positions) and she doesn’t exclude them from the dynamic because they all have the same end goal. Heck, Kyle and Albert burst into Stryker’s just to free Siobhan. Also, Siobhan in general just has a lot of that same energy that makes Lois so fun, just with some more punkishness to her and her respect for the people she loves is probably above her pursuit for respect itself.
And next up we have Kyle:
This may surprise you but I think Kyle mirrors Clark the most for a few reasons. The biggest of which being caution. Siobhan and Albert share a LOT of the same energy together and Kyle basically acts as the straight man to their more active attitudes. Kyle acts pretty secretively compared to the other two with a big desire to hide their real names and is really critical of Albert especially. Their back and forths are basically that small crack in the trio as Kyle’s tolerance for the slip ups is not very high at all. It’s clear that he works with Albert for Siobhan’s sake but even then their first appearance shows that they’re willing to put aside a lot for the end goal and the trio functions well because of that. I’ve seen people push him aside and him getting cut from the opening does make me a little scared for the future but either way I love Kyle. He helps balance out the trio a lot and he’s very entertaining in general.
And finally, we have Albert:
I definitely see Albert as the Jimmy of the group for… a lot of reasons actually. Rough House is the most consistently enthusiastic in the group, he’s a bit of a goofball, he can come off as frustrating to Kyle especially (while Lois and Clark more so see Jimmy as more of an oddball), and Kyle and Siobhan already have a connection that Albert’s not in, this time being the biological kind. The big difference? Albert is consistently included in the group. He’s clearly Siobhan’s best friend and Kyle brings him along to free Siobhan even while being frustrated with him. It actually makes sense to me that people refer to both Kyle and Albert as Siobhan’s brothers since yeah, Albert’s basically family to them.
Now, Intergang’s only got one episode so far and Superman’s villains are notorious for being underutilized. Whether it be Parasite, Livewire, Toyman or even Silver Banshee, they could always have room for more expansion. My hope is that MAWS will actually expand on its villains this time so how do I think Intergang can be expanded on?
First idea: contrast them with other villains. Livewire and Heat Wave both have gangs much bigger than the trio but Leslie puts her gang down and Heat Wave’s gang ditches her. Intergang functions much better as a unit even if Livewire and Heat Wave have more experience. Plus, compared to those two we haven’t gotten any glimpses on their reactions to Task Force X, mainly because they were the first ones captured after Livewire. Maybe make the trio more interested in what Waller offers compared to the other criminals. Or at least write it in a way where Task Force X, whether they oblige or resist, are their rise to fame.
Second idea: include Jimmy. I love Jimmy’s relationship with Siobhan in the Williamson run. Do I think it can work here? Absolutely! Both of them bring their respective trios together and their personalities would compliment each other well. I see it as with Clark and Lois dealing with relationship stuff, Jimmy ends up forming one with Siobhan and as a result is welcomed into the trio as a friend. Kyle would be suspicious but at the end of the day he just wants what’s best for his sister.
Third idea: SUPERPOWERS!!! Kyle and Albert I think work fine with just their tech but Siobhan’s definitely the odd one out. I feel like a storyline involving her gaining them would be really interesting, especially since we have seen what it would be like is Siobhan didn’t have control over what she ended up being capable of. Plus it could give more of Kyle and Albert working together for Siobhan and I’d be down to see more of that. Or Siobhan going solo for Kyle and Albert’s safety. Or Mist getting powers and Jimmy trying to help him out and both of them gain mutual respect, the possibilities are endless!
I’ll reblog and update this whenever we get more significant appearances from the trio, I feel like it’s pretty guaranteed we’ll see them again before season 1 ends. I made this because I love this trio, I feel like I’m the only one who cares about them and I feel like I’m the only one who’ll care if the show somehow manages to screw their dynamic up. Either way, I’m holding out hope and I also hope this little study got you more interested in the trio. Whether its fanart, fanfics, edits, what have you, show your love for MAWS Intergang if you can! I know I will.
For a while now I’ve been thinking of an idea for MAWS where after the jailbreak at the end of episode 9, Leslie and Rory would end up living with Intergang and act as parental figures to the trio. Like they don’t really have their crews anymore, might as well get to know each other and take care of 3 goobers.
I already wanna make one shots for them but thoughts?
