Who Is The General in ‘My Adventures with Superman’ & What Happens to Him?

DC really ramped up their game lately with incredible animated content – not that they didn’t have any before. However, I’m really captivated by a new animated show that’s currently streaming on Max – ‘My Adventures With Superman.’ I love the storyline so far – and you’ll just love to hate The General. But, who is The General, and what happens to him in the show?

The General is the main antagonist of ‘My Adventures With Superman’ and the leader of a secret group known as Task Force X. After Leslie Willis steals advanced government technology and weaponry, The General is looking to bring it back and kill Superman afterward, seeing him as a major threat to Earth.

We also saw The General work with well-known characters that’ll be a part of the DCU as well – like Amanda Waller. Now, that doesn’t me we’ll get to see The General in the DCU, too, but it’s always better to be prepared and have at least an idea of what to expect. So, without further ado, here’s everything you need to know about The General.

Who is The General?

We don’t actually know much about The General’s past – or his real name, to be honest. We do know, however, that his methods are far from legal or moral. The General is a military extremist who committed mass kidnappings and mass murders while torturing his victims without as much as a blink of an eye.

If it leads him to his goals, he will not hesitate – which makes The General so dangerous. He won’t shy away from working with paid mercenaries like Agent Slade Wilson, who, at some point, became the prime black ops agent for Task Force X. But, let’s backtrack a bit and piece together what we do know about The General and his past.

We know that The General mentions witnessing an event known as ‘Zero Day’ in his youth – although we don’t know virtually anything about the event itself – which made The General commit to join the army and become such an extremist.

Originally, his mysterious group, Task Force X, worked closely with a science division called Cadmus. Together, the two groups worked on advanced technology and developing weaponry of immense power. The government, however, decided to halt investing in advanced weaponry and instead focused Cadmus toward altruistic technology.

The General didn’t like that, so he ‘shut down’ Cadmus by eliminating every single scientist who worked there. Only two survived and went into hiding, not to be found by The General.

Later, Leslie Willis raided a storage facility where most of the advanced weaponry was located and stole most of the technology. The General sent Slade Wilson to kidnap Leslie, after which The General and Amanda Waller tortured Willis to reveal everything she knew about the weaponry, Zero Day, Superman, Task Force X, etc.

Little by little, Slade tracked down the missing technology and kidnapped every person who was involved or in possession of it, bringing them to The General. He, of course, ‘eliminated’ them.

The first encounter with Superman

Superman was engaged in a battle with Heat Wave, trying to get information about the recent kidnappings and the missing advanced technology. During their battle, Slade Wilson – now in a super-advanced suit of armor – gets permission to engage in combat with Superman from The General. That’s when Clark Kent first learns that they are the ones behind the kidnappings.

He asks The General who he is, to which the murderous villain responds that he is the one who ‘keeps the Earth safe.’ Although, they didn’t really see each other face to face. The fight ends when Slade slices through a support beam and endangers civilians, so Superman stops fighting to save them.

Waller instructs Wilson to shoot Superman down while he can, but The General reminds her who’s in charge and gets Slade to step down, not to endanger civilian lives.

Later, Superman, Lois Lane, Brain, and Mallah search for Jimmy Olsen at an old Cadmus facility. They find him but accidentally activate several OMAC robots. It alerts The General, who arrives at the facility after Supes and his crew are long gone. 

He decides to repair and advance the technology with the help of one of his captives, Dr. Anthony Ivo, telling him that they have the same goal – destroy Superman: ‘To rip him from the sky and to bury him so deep the world won’t even remember his name.’

What happens to The General?

At the time of writing this article, we don’t know what will happen with The General next. Superman found out that he is planning something big, and the synopsis for the next episode – ‘Zero Day: Part 2,’ which airs on August 25, 2023 – suggests that they’ll finally come face-to-face.

There are a few very important things I’d like to point out, though, because I believe they’ll play a crucial role in the show’s future. First of all, The General wants Superman gone, but he ordered his subordinates to step down from taking Supes down two times already -once with Slade Wilson, and once with Dr. Ivo, who he had to electrocute to follow his orders and step down.

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Secondly, we never learned The General’s real name – at least not yet. However, there have been strong implications throughout the show that he is actually Samuel Lane – aka the father of Lois Lane, Clark Kent’s partner.

I won’t make any predictions, but I do believe that these pieces of information will definitely be important in the resolution of this particular season of ‘My Adventures With Superman’ and will determine what happens to The General in the end.

The second season is already confirmed and expected to arrive in early 2025. Meanwhile, the first season is currently coming out one episode a week, first airing on Adult Swim and then becoming available to stream on Max.