Dive into a fully immersive audio-drama reimagining of Superman (2025). Experience the fall and rise of the Man of Steel as political tensions ignite, hidden enemies strike from the shadows, and Lex Luthor unleashes a threat that shatters Superman’s identity.

When Tim Maxwell of Neuverse first asked me about collaborating on an audio drama of James Gunn’s Superman, I was unsure if I wanted to join in. It would be the first non-Batman audio drama we collaborated on and while I did like the movie, I did have my own issues with it, as you’ll see in our long review of it below:

As of this writing, I’ve only watched it once (from the first time in the theater). I felt that the film had stayed true to the characters, but had so many elements that they occasionally distracted from the more emotional beats. I wanted to feel more. I wanted it to stick more with me when I walked out of the theater.

I knew Tim was more than capable of writing an adaptation of it himself and wasn’t sure if I would contribute much.

But, like in our previous collaboration of the Wachowskis’ Year One, Tim laid the groundwork with the first draft and sent it over to me for my thoughts. While reading through it, I realized that I had an opportunity to put my money where my mouth was and really add to the emotion that I wanted out of the movie.

The advantage with the audio format is that without the visuals and action, the drama has to come more from the dialogue and characters. So while we did stay generally faithful to the film, certain characters like Ultraman and the Engineer were mainly covered in narration and the big action sequences were summed up in a few lines, making everything feel more pared down. This gave us more room to expand on what we felt Gunn was intending for certain characters.

So while Tim laid the foundation and wrote most of the script, my main contributions were the following:

Lois Lane’s Story

With Lois, I wanted to track more of how she went from being unsure of their relationship to saying “I love you” at the end. The beats were all there, but I felt they should be highlighted more to give the ending more impact.

I wanted to go more into how Superman’s openness inspires her in finally bringing her walls down. So I expanded more on Lois’ reaction to Clark saying “I love you” before he flies off, as well as added a line of her catching herself saying “I love you” to Jimmy and wondering what’s wrong with her that she can say that to a friend but not Clark.

Then it was a matter of really highlighting how Superman’s near-death experience would cause Lois to really understand how she feels about him. Apparently a deleted scene gave a bigger beat to this in Lois looking over Clark as he recovers and giving him a kiss.

The Justice Gang

Similar to Lois Lane, the Justice Gang seemed intended to have a particular arc, with Superman inspiring them to take more action and intervene in the conflict between Jarhanpur and Boravia. 

But I wanted the emotion of that to hit more, which required more highlighting and tracking.

So I added narration emphasizing Guy Gardner and Hawkgirl’s guilt over abandoning Superman to the pocket dimension as well as having Metamorpho draw a connection between his son and the boy in Jarhanpur (along with another thing I added, where he promises Joey he’ll always protect him after Superman helps them escape the pocket dimension).

The way Tim edited this together with the music and the chanting of the children saying “Superman” is one of my favorite moments in the audio and really delivered what I had hoped, which was an emotional exploration of these supporting characters truly wondering, “What would Superman do?” and taking upon themselves to do it.

And yes, I couldn’t resist writing the narration, “Meanwhile at the Hall of Justice…”

As for Mr. Terrific, his motivation to help Lois just to piss off Green Lantern was mainly played as a joke. I figured something deeper could have been at play.

In the comics, Michael Holt loses both his wife and child to a car accident. I decided that would have played a role in him wanting to help Lois, considering that she was faced with losing someone she cared about herself. Hence the added line about how if there was anyone who would’ve helped him in the past, it would have been Superman.

This was probably the most creative license that I took honestly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Terrific’s origin is explored further (along with its possible role in him helping Lois) in a future installment.

Lex Luthor & The Emotional Climax

In spite of being a Batman fan, Luthor is probably my favorite DC supervillain due to how he sees himself as the hero of the story. The Michael Rosenbaum version in Smallville of course formed my love for the character and made me wish for a Lex Luthor on the big screen who could match that portrayal. 

Nicolas Hoult, by far, is the closest out of the movie Lex Luthors, but if there was one big drawback to his version, it was that I felt Gunn had taken us for granted in knowing his motivations already. 

Hoult’s Lex spends every waking moment trying to eliminate Superman, but the reasons behind his hatred felt barely explored and only briefly addressed while we were distracted by the Ultraman fight. As a result, the characterization felt a little thin, in spite of a solid performance from Hoult.

So I added narration to expand on Lex’s envy. I had always loved the Lois & Clark pilot that established how Lex gave himself the tallest building in the city so everyone would have to look up to see him. At the end, when Superman meets him, he deliberately gets under Lex’s skin by telling him that if he ever needs to find him, “All you have to do is look up!” So that inspired the narration of a man flying over Lex’s building.

I also added and restructured the climax a bit so that the character moments between Superman and Lex would breathe more. Lex does go into a long speech in the film about his envy, but it’s in the middle of an action sequence. Likewise, Superman’s speech about what it means to be human felt like it was meant to be the big emotional climax- the big “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment- yet it was immediately followed by Krypto attacking Lex and Terrific needing to close the rift.

So I expanded on Superman trying to get through to Lex, had Lex’s speech on envy take place when Superman arrives at LuthorCorp instead, and moved Superman’s speech to the very end of the scene. This felt like it would help the dialogue and characterizations sink in more, since we didn’t have the distraction of the action happening.

I also felt like the full extent of Lex’s crimes needed to be exposed, not just what he was doing with Boravia, which is why there’s added dialogue on the Hammer of Boravia being a hoax, the kaiju being grown by LuthorCorp, the dimensional rift coming from Luthor, and the pocket dimensional prisons. These were likely exposed in the film offscreen anyway considering that we see the dimensional prisoners get freed in the next scene.

It’s worth mentioning that in spite of a growing fan outcry to retcon the Kryptonian message as a Brainiac or LuthorCorp hoax, I was never tempted to weave that into the audio drama (and I don’t think Tim was either). Part of it was to stay true to the intentions of the filmmaker.

But more than that, as someone who always felt like adaptations gave Jor-El wayyy too big of a role from Marlon Brando onward, I fully welcomed the twist on the Els. It set itself apart from previous interpretations as well as lined up with how I always felt:

Krypton’s purpose in the Superman story is to blow up. 

It’s the Kents who form the true character of Superman.

From interviews, James Gunn has no plans to retcon this and I honestly hope he doesn’t. 

If there was a way for us to double down on this in the audio drama, I would have.

Becoming Cleavis Thornwaite

When Tim asked me to collaborate on Superman, he also had a role for me: Cleavis Thornwaite. Given my history of podcasting, Tim thought that I would be able to play the opinionated commentator. Other than narrating Batman 89 Shadows, it would be the first time in awhile that I would just use my natural voice, though I occasionally altered my cadence to be closer to the political commentators of today. Ultimately, I was flattered as, even though we had collaborated many times in writing and voice acting, this was the first time that Tim had deliberately written a role with me in mind (and a role that was bigger than what the original actor did in the movie)!

Notes from the Superman Actor- Brady West

When looking at the cast list, I was thrilled to learn that one of my friends, Brady West, was going to voice Superman. I knew he was a big fan of the film and that passion would expand to the performance. I thought Brady did a great job as the Corenswet Superman and I had asked him to provide some behind the scenes notes on his process:

      So when I was given a chance to audition, for the heroes, everyone but Metamorpho was available. I opted to go for Superman, Lex, or Jimmy and for some reason Guy Gardner. Tim thought I’d be good as Superman, and did warn me before I sent my audition that the role was quite extensive and he was planning to have Supes narrate a good chunk of the story, as opposed to Cleavis like in the final audio. Tim eventually sent a rough draft of the script and I began my process, figuring out how Clark would sound compared to Superman, how he talks to Lois vs how he’d talk to like Mr. Terrific or Krypto. Luckily I have an idiotic dog in my house, so that wasn’t hard. 

The thing I think I put the most practice into was the whistle for Krypto. He’s a Kryptonian dog, he’s got super hearing so I figured he’d need a specific whistle for him to know Superman is calling him. It was basically me just inhaling all the air I could and then whistling all of it out. 

I did also do some growling for Ultraman when he unmasked himself to Superman, and I wanted to improvise the line “that’s….bizarre” when the reveal happens, but I wanted to keep mostly on script for this one so the line went unsaid. as far as I can tell, the Ultraman growls went unused in the final audio but that’s completely ok. 

Anyway, I had a ton of fun doing this and I’m looking forward to what Tim and Ben have in store for the future, not just for Superman but for any character he wants me to voice. I’ll be there in a flash!

One of my favorite parts of Brady’s performance comes in a scene I wrote, a reversal of Superman’s “Take me home” with Krypto in the beginning, where he says it to Lois.  When she thinks he means the Fortress, he sighs and says “Not this time.” Brady really nailed the pain, both physical and emotional, of that line and that moment.

And yes, there was certainly a temptation to turn Ultraman into Bizarro as I felt like the movie was close to revealing that.  But considering that the character’s own future is unknown (is Ultraman going to turn into the Earth 3 Ultraman? Or is he going to get a more scarred face and end up in Bizarro World), we kept it true to his role in the movie.

The Ending

So I’m writing this part as an excuse to bring praise to a part that I had absolutely nothing to do with, which was the final scene. Other than maybe a line or two I might’ve added abut Supergirl, the main narration at the end was all written by Tim.

I was curious how this would play out as the movie’s ending is very visual with the images of the Kents and famously uses the Iggy Pop Punk Rocker song. But how would this work in audio? Would we be using a cover version? An instrumental?

What I heard in the final audio drama was a fantastic choice, keeping it to the score as well as Tim’s wonderful narration. I had always wanted a Superman movie that made you feel a sense of hope in humanity and seeing a light in the darkness. 

This ending fulfilled that wish and I have to give major props to Tim across the board here in his writing, his editing, and his music selection choices for this uplifting finale.