Superman & Lois stars Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch who return as the titular characters. They will, in turn, be joined by Emmanuelle Chriqui as Clark’s ex-girlfriend, Lana Lang, Erik Valdez as Lana’s husband, Kyle Cushing. Dylan Walsh will portray Lois’ father, General Sam Lane. Jordan Elsass and Alexander Garfin also co-star in the series as Superman and Lois’ sons, Jonathan and Jordan Kent.
Synopsis
Clark makes a startling discovery about Morgan Edge.
Review
After the previous episode’s major battle against the Kryptonian possessed humans leading to Clark being weakened and stranded at the Fortress we’re treated to a more grounded episode exploring Earth Prime Superman’s origins.
The Superman story is heavily known throughout the world, regardless of age or location you are more than likely to find someone who knows Superman’s origins as well as they know Bruce Wayne’s.
Regardless it’s a story we are presented with in different forms every decade or so. Smallville gave us a Clark who learned his powers and responsibility slowly while trying to maintain a normal life while the Snyder Superman learned of his powers while exploring the world as a nomad.
This time however we’re shown a follow up from a previous flashback when a young Clark left Smallville behind to get answers. Here we find his origins at creating the Fortress of Solitude and meeting Jor-El where we’re led to believe he then spent years training and honing his powers before a much older Clark ends up in Metropolis. This then too connects to the opening of this series where we’re shown the iconic first public appearance of Superman in all its glory!
Since first meeting them both in Supergirl and then in their own show, its obvious from the actors performance that Lois and Clark deeply love each other and as we all know their story its fine to accept they had a ‘paint by numbers’ story which lead to where we see them now but to see their story play out in one episode was a beautiful treat. A bumbling Clark trying to keep up with Lois to their first baby scan! It was really sweet to see these moments we otherwise never got to witness.
Not all is what it seems however as Clark keeps spotting a glitchy human popping in and out of these moments before we’re shown it was all a trick by Edge using some technology to find out everything about his half brother putting Clark at a huge disadvantage.
Elsewhere in present day we get more growth from Kyle who apologised to Lois for how he has been with her since the start of the show and now we could be seeing him really become the good man he can be. Hell even Sarah and Jordan finally ditch the ‘friend zone’ and couple up! (it’s about time!)
Sadly we also saw the fall of Jor-El as Edge destroyed his crystal, meaning Clark has now lost his final parent in his life.
Returning to the farm that night the family is caught off guard by Edge and it was great to see Jordan use his powers to protect his family, even if he was ultimately no match for him, just seeing him step up to the plate was a huge step forward for his character, before now he used it for either personal gain or revenge and lets hope by the end of Season 2 we can see him maybe even suit up!
Superman, not wanting to lose any more family, finally submits to Edge and they fly off to Edge’s Fortress where he is subjected to the Eradicator and ‘converted’ to the other side.
Knowing what this could mean Lois calls the only person she can who can help, Steel himself. Which again brings me to the same issue I had in the previous episode, the lack of the other Earth Prime heroes is really what limits the show now. This should be where Supergirl and the DEO are brought in to help, if we’re looking at a world ending scenario I’m amazed no one has thought to bring in the Justice League that was being created at the end of the Crisis special. While it’s understandable that filming during Covid would have made such epic crossovers impossible, an acknowledgement of other potential heroes to enlist in the fight would go a long way. Even a minor cameo from Mehcad Brooks as Jimmy Olsen during the flashback would have been a great moment but it was just a minor name drop.
I absolutely love this series but the lack of utilising the potential acknowledgement that Crisis left for these shows is a major let down even after understanding of the limitations they have.
We’re left with a minor break now before the final 4 episodes air but with Clark most likely running on the evil team the Superfam along with their allies will need to bring everything they have if they are to prevent John Henry Irons’ world mimicking his own.
Verdict
It was brilliant seeing the flashback and origins of this version of Clark and while it never really broke new ground with his origins, it shone more of a light on why this Superman is as pure as he is.
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