October 11, 2024 • 41 mins
It's a dark day for the Kent family as Lex Luthor and Doomsday descend on Smallville. How will Lois and her boys adjust to a world without a Superman?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've got you, You've got me, Who's got you?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello, come to me, SunUp, Jello nil before So.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Hello everybody, and welcome back. It is the podcast Full
of Kryptonite. I am one of your hosts, John Reid.
In fact, I am the solo host this time around
for this podcast. D and Jason we actually we got
to meet in person for the first time last week.
It was awesome. Had a great time with them. It
was so much fun. The super Friends are alive and well.
(00:56):
But with all of that going on, and with the
premiere of Superman and Lois this week, schedules were crazy.
My schedule was crazy. This episode is actually coming out
probably two or three days after I intended it to
come out, because originally the episode dropped. The first two
episodes dropped on Monday, and then life found a way
(01:18):
to get in the way of me recording this. But
I definitely wanted to get an opportunity to record some
thoughts on this. Give you a little bit of background
on this. I am excited to be back. It is
I'm excited to be a part of this. Let's do it.
It has been has it been sixteen months? I think
I counted the other day it's been sixteen months since
we had an episode of Superman and Lois. It has
(01:40):
been over a year, nearly a year and a half
since we had Superman and Lois, and we left it
on quite the cliffhanger, and in the meantime, we discovered
that this fourth season will be the last season of
the show. So that cliffhanger of season three, where Clark
is fighting the bizarro Doomsday that Lex Luther had created,
(02:01):
that is where we left things. So buckle up because
you're in for a bit of a treat. They dropped
the first two episodes together, so it was a two
hour premiere that came out. When that came back out
on Monday New Time as well or a New Day
that they had moved it to Monday, so that's a
little bit of a different change for the show. I'm
going to start by kind of just recapping a little
(02:23):
bit of the first couple of episodes. I'll go through
each episode. I've got some background information if you're not
as familiar with some of the characters with some of
the little Easter eggs in here, so I'll throw some
of that in there and hopefully that'll help fill in
any gaps. If there were some things you were wondering
about from the first two episodes. So these first two episodes,
the first one titled The End and the Beginning, and
then the second episode titled A World Without the show
(02:46):
is diving into a much darker, kind of more intense
territory with the start of this season. It is continuing
directly after the season three finale, right where we left off,
where Superman's fighting against the doomsday kind of created by
melded by Lex Luthor, and we get the sense that
(03:07):
this is we pretty quickly get the sense that Clark's
not going to come out of this one alive. We
know that this show for the last three seasons have
been loosely adapting some of the elements of the Return
of Superman storyline, couple of other storylines here and there,
but we know that these showrunners really really love the
(03:27):
early to mid nineties Superman, so not surprising that we
also have a little bit of the death of Superman.
And with the title of episode two, A World Without
a Superman, which was the World Without a Superman and
Funeral for a Friend, we're kind of the two titles
for the in between story, the bridge story between the
(03:48):
death of Superman and the return of Superman in the
early nineties, so we know we're kind of headed in
that direction. Overall, Episode one is really centering on this
just brutal battle between Superman and Doomed to in space.
Anybody who had a hard time with the destruction of
Metropolis in Man of Steel should be totally fine that
we're just up there destroying the Moon this time. Totally
(04:08):
all right. You know we've destroyed the moon before. Okay,
we've had We'll see what else has happened. We've had
the tick. I feel like in the old Tick comics
and cartoon, I feel like there was a villain that
was carving his name into the moon, and so we've
got precedence for the Moon being either messed up or destroyed.
So it's all right, no, don't worry too much about it.
(04:30):
If when I read it's direct, we're actually got a
second moon that's going to be orbiting the Earth for
the next maybe four to six weeks or so here
in late twenty twenty four. So it's all right. We
got a backup, We have a plan B. This ends
in a climacting moment where it appears that Superman has
been left lifeless. It is clearly drawing imagery from the
(04:53):
death of Superman storyline and just a super intense showdown here.
Episode two the one focus on the emotional toll of
Superman's death on his family. His allies, the town of Smallville, Kansas, Lois, Jordan,
Jonathan are all grappling with their grief differently kind of
revealing how vulnerable they're feeling. Lois is still reeling from
(05:17):
her cancer treatments. I believe she even still had some
treatments that she needed to have, but it all got
interrupted with this Lex Luthor reveal and this battle she
is in this episode, in particular her first two episodes
of the season, she is determined to confront Lex, who
she blames for everything that's going on. Meanwhile, this Lex
(05:38):
Luthor's characterization has taken kind of this darker, more personal
turn to show just how much he hates Lois Lane
for ruining his life and as he believes, taking his
daughter away from him, because as we learned in the
last season, Lois had led to him being falsely imprisoned
for something he didn't do. Now that doesn't mean Lex
(06:01):
Luthor's not a bad guy just because he is bad
guy means yes, he is a bad guy. So yeah,
so he is taking this personally. He is out to
destroy Lois's life, gave her the option to either stop
being a reporter or he would destroy everything and everyone
that she loves. So he is Vengeance is the name
(06:21):
of the game with this Lex Luthor. Overall, these first
two episodes kind of set the tone for this final season.
I mean, right now, it is a dark tone. It is.
We've seen the Kent family at their darkest before. This
feels even darker than we've ever seen. So it's gonna
get It feels like it's going to get more intense
(06:42):
before things get better. So all right, so I'm going
to dive into each of the episodes individually, and I'll
pop in here and there whenever there's some information or
background I want to share on a particular character. So
the end of the beginning episode one episode starts with
the battle between Superman and Bizarro dooms to we can
call him but Doom's Day for short, if that makes
(07:03):
sense to everybody. Picking up right where season three left off,
the fight is just as I said before, brutal, multiple
locations from the streets of Smallville to outer space, and
despite Superman's best efforts, he is outmatched by Doomsday. The
visuals are this are pretty impressive, even knowing that this
is a CW show. The visuals have always been impressive
(07:24):
in this show. All we've said before, it always has
a cinematic feel to it, and this is no different
on a show where you know this is the final season,
you know that they have cut this show short. I
really feel like this show should have had several more seasons.
We know that they have budget constraints in place, especially
for a show that's not going to be continuing, and
even with those budget constraints in place, it looks phenomenal.
(07:49):
One of my favorite live action fights between Superman and Doomsday.
But we really only have I think two others as
far as I can remember. We have the I'd barely
even want to call it they fight between Superman and
Davis Bloom Doomsday Bloomsday from Smallville. Sam Whitworth played Doomsday
in that case, and then we have the Batman v.
(08:09):
Superman Dawn of Justice, the Bivistadge, as Pat likes to
call it. We had that battle as well, So I
visually like this Doomsday. He's obviously a little bit different,
having that mixture of Bizarro in Doomsday of but Doomsday,
so yeah, really really like that. Now I'm going to
stop here and I'm going to interrupt my own little
recap because i want to talk a little bit about
(08:29):
Doomsday for a minute. If you're not as familiar with
the character of Doom's day. He debuted in Superman The
Man of Steel number seventeen in November of nineteen ninety
two as a cameo, and then he had a full
appearance the next month in Superman The Man of Steel
number eighteen December of nineteen ninety two. Created by Dan Jurgens,
but one of my favorite writers and artists of Superman,
(08:50):
as I was collecting the comics when I was a kid,
and this is really around the time I started collecting,
So this is kind of my heyday for Superman comics.
Contributions from Perior Way, Louis Simmonson, Roger Stern, a lot
of other people. Doomsday was created as part of the
death of Superman's storyline in the early nineties. Was really
designed to boost sales and generates media attention by killing
(09:12):
off Superman. That was kind of the whole purpose. Originally
Doomsday is portrayed as kind of this genetically engineered monstrosity
that came from Krypton. We learned that later on in
Superman Doomsday Hunter Prey. The mini series shows that he
was repeatedly killed and revived to make him invulnerable, which
explains this seemingly unstoppable nature and his hatred for all
(09:32):
living things in that he was killed and then cloned,
and then killed and then cloned and over and over
because Krypton was known thousands of years ago for their
cloning and some questionable practices, and so in that origin story,
eventually he becomes invulnerable and cannot be killed in the
same way twice, and he will always come back from however,
(09:55):
he has been killed again, like I said, most famous
for the Death of Superman storyline, He's been around in
various forms, resurrected or cloned to face Superman again and again,
typically used in a storyline to push Superman to his
absolute physical limits. In the New fifty two, he was
rebooted so that his origin and powers were a little
bit altered to include even more ties to Krypton. As
(10:18):
I mentioned, the Hunter of pre mini series that they
did in the nineties, expanded on this backstory. Later events
like the Doomsday Wars and Rebirth featured him in various
different forms. Another interesting thing, at one point he was
actually infused with some intelligence, and I believe, if I
remember the story correctly, that actually made him a little
bit weaker because now that he had intelligence, he could
(10:41):
think he could kind of connect the pain that he
was feeling when he would fight Superman with a desire
to avoid pain, and that made him a little bit
less intimidating, a little bit less invulnerable unstoppable, So that
I didn't particular care for that story because that kind
of messed a bit. And from what I recall, again,
(11:01):
I don't been a long time since I've read those stories,
I believe some of that intelligence or at one point
they actually inserted the intelligence of Brainiac, who I will
talk about here in this the moment, because there was
a little easter egg to Brainiac in here into Doomsday,
So it was kind of like Doomsday's body Brainiac's brain,
which if you think about it, not a bad combination.
(11:22):
I just I remember reading that story and thinking it
seems a little overkill. But and I feel like I
remember reading that story and thinking that it did not
quite turn out the way I was hoping it would.
That they really kind of maybe dropped the ball a
bit on taking that combination and really making the most
out of it. In terms of movies, he was in
Superman Doomsday, the animated movie from I Believe two thousand
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and seven, Batman versus Superman Down of Justice from twenty sixteen,
and then that one really kind of altered the storyline
as well because it turns out he was manufactured from
the dead from the corpse of General Zod. A little
similar to this because obviously we're kind of bringing about
Doomsday through the multiple killings and resurrections of the Bizarro character.
(12:09):
He did appear, as I mentioned, in Smallville, played by
Sam Whitwer, played paramedic Davis Bloom, who we find out
later on he is actually related in some way to
General Zod, basically kind of General Zodd's child, and that
he ultimately overtime kind of it almost treats him as
like a werewolf type of character, like at night, when
things go wrong or the moon comes out, he's going
(12:31):
to become Doomsday and that is very short lived moments
until finally at the end of that season there is
a battle, and I use battle in quotation marks because
I remember being really dissatisfied with it. There is I
believe a less than thirty second battle between Superman or
between Clark and Doomsday in that series of that season
(12:53):
of Smallville. So we'll leave it at then, Okay. So
that is basically Doomsday is the big physical threat to Superman,
and that is what we know about him from his backstory,
all right. To add some emotional depth to this, the
episode uses flashbacks to really revisit some significant moments in
(13:13):
Clark and Lewis's relationship, early days together, first time, his parents,
giving birth to the twins. And one of the things
that I think made this particularly powerful was when you
do this, when you have these flashbacks, you can go
one of two ways with this. It's either Clark is
using these memories to spur himself on and to give
(13:35):
himself that additional push that Clark has the humanity that
Doomsday does not have, and he's drawing on these emotions,
these memories of his life to give him the strength
he might not have physically, and so he will win
the day. The other side of that is it's TV show.
A lot of times we know that in a TV
show when a character receives extra attention, they gonna die.
(13:56):
So you don't really know, but great flashbacks. Every time
they do flashbacks to give us a little bit more
of the Clark A. Lewis backstory, I am on board
give me more of this. It's always so much fun
to see their relationship and kind of how it developed
over time. Lex is back. This last season, Lex came back,
played by Michael Kutlets. He has taken center stage here
(14:18):
really showcasing a vicious and personal vendetta against Lois. He
isn't just targeting Superman this time. I mean the typical
way this runs is it's Lex versus Superman. This is
Lex versus Lois. In fact, you know, Superman just seems
to be He wants to get Superman out of the
way so he can get to Lois, and his motivation
is being tied to his daughter, who we learn her
(14:40):
name is Elizabeth. She is not from the comics, but
is introduced specifically for this series. Now, Lex has had
a daughter in the comics before. I believe Lena Luther
was her name. There might have been other Luther children,
but that's the one that I can remember off the
top of my head. Let me pause for a moment
into a little background on Lex Luthor. He debuted in
(15:02):
Action Comics number twenty three April of nineteen forty. Created
by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, he was created as
a genius villain in an adversary who could challenge Superman
beyond those physical confrontations. He appeared originally with a full
head of red hair, portray usually as a mad scientist
with ideas of world domination. Over the years the Golden
(15:23):
and Silver Age, he kind of evolved from a generic
mad scientist to more of a sophisticated criminal mastermind. His
iconic bald head look was a result of an artist's error,
which later became one of his defining features. During this era,
Luther's motivation was kind of expanded to include his personal
grudge against Superman, believing that the hero had caused an
accident that made him bald. In the modern era, when
(15:46):
we look at the post Crisis on Infinite Earth's era,
Lex was reimagined as a wealthy, power hungry industrialist in
the nineteen eighties by Marv Wolfman and John Byrne. This
shifted Lex's character with some real world corporate eruption portraying
him as the CEO of LexCorp, public figure who hides
kind of his his villainy behind philanthropy, so we see
(16:08):
him as a as a corrupt businessman. In contemporary stories,
Lex has kind of gone back and forth between between
being a villain and being kind of an anti hero,
occasionally showing a desire to genuinely help humanity, but usually
for selfish reasons, or he's very anti alien. He's so
pro human, that's why he hates Superman. In the New
(16:28):
fifty two and Rebirth, he actually even became a hero
for a bit, using Superman's emblem and armor before returning
back to being a villain. And it's been a little
while since I picked up some Superman comics, but it
looks like Superman and Lex Luthor are kind of teaming up.
Are some issues I picked up that were in a
(16:48):
bargain bin somewhere looked like they had been teeming up
a little bit more recently, and so I maybe they're
kind of going doing them back and forth on that again.
Some major stories for him include Lex Luther, Man of Steel, Superman,
red Son, Forever Evil. He's been portrayed in several films.
Gene Hackman portrayed him in the early Superman, the Christopher
(17:09):
Reeves Superman movie is Kevin Spacey was his the version
in Superman Returns. Jesse Eisenberg had his take on him
in Batman Versus Superman Down of Justice. His characters had
a lot of different TV adaptations Smallville, where he was
played by Michael Rosenbaum awesome. I loved the Lex Luthor
(17:30):
in Smallville. In the Eero Verse he was played by
John Cryer, so a lot of different Lex Luthor's abounding there.
But eatingly go back to the old Superboy TV show
that was on during the eighties. He is arguably Superman's
greatest enemy. So the fact that we've got a Lex
Luthor with the brains, we've got the Doomsday with the braun,
(17:53):
it's a combination that is probably going to be unstoppable.
And as I said before, there's a little little teeny
tiny easter egg where the name Brainiac was dropped, so
I'll be curious to see what happens there. That being said,
there is a pivotal scene where Amanda McCoy, a new character,
is delivering some advanced technology to Luther, and she just
(18:14):
casually refers to the text developer Milton as a quote
unquote Brainiac. I don't remember if she says Milton Fine
or not. The ba at Milton Fine was Brainiac's name
in the comics and a classic Superman villain, and this
name drop was actually confirmed by the koshow runner Todd
Helbing to be intentional and said, yes, this is intentional.
(18:36):
There will be more hints to follow in future episodes.
So we're gonna get Brainiac, is what I'm saying right here,
right now. To quote my budd, my good buddy, Jason
Colvin spiked the football. We're getting Brainiac. That's it. That's
what I'm saying. All right. A little background on Brainiac
while we're here. First debuted in Action Comics number two,
(18:56):
forty two July of nineteen fifty eight, created by Auto Binder,
I don't know if it's Autobinder Autobinder, I don't know
and Al Plastino. Brainiac was introduced as this powerful alien
antagonist for Superman, designed to challenge his intellect and physical strength. Initially,
he was portrayed as his green skinned alien with advanced technology,
(19:19):
including the shrinking ray, so he could shrink the cities
that he would collect, and he actually started. There were
times where Brainiac was a little bit more human, but
as he went on he was At different times he
was an extraterrestrial conqueror from the planet Kulu who would
shrink and collect entire cities that included Candor, the bottle
(19:40):
city of Krypton. This was basically a generic alien villain,
but kind of responsible for creating that bottle City of Candor,
which became a running thing throughout a lot of Superman stories,
a Superman always trying to figure out a way to
restore the lost city of Candor so that the people
did not have to live trapped in this bottle for
the rest of Eternity. In the eighties, after the Crisis
(20:02):
on infinitet Earth's, his origin was revamped a bit Milton Fine.
The persona was introduced as a human illusionist, a magician
possessed by the koluan Ai, which expanded that from just
a physical threat to a psychological one, and this one
added some different layers depicting him as a little bit
more cunning and manipulative in the modern area. In the
(20:22):
modern era, it has kind of evolved into this hyper intelligent,
almost multiversal threat, capable of altering realities, and it's often
versions where he has some cyborg enhancements to himself a
blend of organic and machine life. A lot of the
significant stories involved his conquest attempts, obsession with cataloging and
(20:46):
controlling knowledge. He is basically the evil Librarian of the universe,
is what we're getting to here. Some notable stories are
the Brainiac trilogy Superman Brainiac from two thousand and eight,
written by Jeff John's. He appeared in the super Friends
cartoon Justice League Unlimited. He appeared as Milton Fine, portrayed
by James Marsters in Smallville. Brainiac has been an adapt adapted,
(21:10):
and animated movies, such as Superman Unbound from twenty thirteen
that was also based on a Jeff John's storyline. He
is again one of Superman's most iconic villains, and he's
got that blend of intelligence, menace, reality altering powers, so
it'll be interesting to see. I believe if I remember back,
(21:32):
if I go back to the Wayback Machine a couple
of seasons ago, I believe I wanted to start to
predict that they were going to use Brainiac in some way,
so maybe this is it. Maybe I was right. Who knows?
All right, Back to the story, The emotional core of
this episode is really focusing on the Kent family's reaction
(21:53):
to Superman's apparent death after he falls Lowis and the
boys discover his lifeless body. It's just heartbreak when you
see that Jordan's Jordan's scream. Later on, as I think
I'll get a little bit ahead of myself here, that
might be episode, that might be a different episode. There's
a point later on where they are searching for Superman's heart,
trying to get him. I think I'd mix some of
(22:14):
my notes up here. But there is an interesting little
part here. There's a character. You see some Smallville folks
watch as the family reacts to Superman dying, and you
can kind of tell people are like, hmmm, why are
Lois and her son's reacting so strongly to Superman being dead?
And a character I believe his name is Chuck, who
sees all of this here, almost intervenes in the diner
(22:38):
when Lex Luthor confronts the two boys. Chuck is big
thumbs up for Chuck. He is our hero and we
stand a legend. Chuck, thanks for being there. This part
I thought was interesting because later on we get later
on in these two episodes, we get Lana showing up
and revealing that Chuck kind of figured out the secret,
(23:00):
but he's going to keep it to himself because he
his wife passed away recently and he remembers the agony
of that, and Superman has done so much for the
town of Smallville that he is not going to say
a word. What I thought would be interesting, and I
was kind of going back and forth on this. I
thought it'd be interesting if the entire town of Smallville
really figured out the secret from here on out, and
(23:21):
the entire town made kind of an agreement to keep
it a secret. I like that idea. There's a little
bit of me that doesn't like that idea. The little
bit of me, the cynical part of me that doesn't
like that idea is nowhere in all of reality. Are
you going to find a town where every person is
(23:42):
so selfless that they would be willing to keep a
huge secret like this, And it'd be impossible to find
somebody that wouldn't take advantage of that in some way,
and that eventually it would get out. However, we are
talking about Superman and One of the reasons I have
always liked Superman and I've always liked Superman's world is
that Superman is about optimism. I like Batman, but I'm
(24:04):
always I always try to be optimistic myself. So the
fact that Superman's world is he is so optimistic. I
think of the Christopher Reeves Superman it's all about optimism. Now,
other people around him while he exudes that, and other
people I think learning from it and aspire to be
that way. It's not always the case, So it could
(24:24):
be it could be a good turn of the story
to say, you know what, that's what's special about Smallville.
This is the town that made a Superman. He wasn't
just born Superman. He was made a Superman by his parents.
He was made a Superman by the people who he
grew up around. And that's what's absolutely special about the
(24:46):
town of Smallville. So if they choose to go that
route where the entire twent where most of the town
or the entire town finds out and they continue to
live there and that's how the key secret is kept,
I am absolutely okay with that because it really showcases
the optimism that Superman tries to bring to every interaction
he has with whoever he comes across, hero, villain, whatever
(25:06):
he is. You know, he's the big blue boy scout.
So Alexi's cruelty continues when he forces Lois into an
agonizing choice, using a device that makes her choose between
saving Jordan and Jonathan. I mean, this, come on, DC,
this is really a this is a Jason Todd situation here.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Lois checked
(25:29):
out the caller id on there and it was the
same nine hundred number that got used back when it
was you know, dial this number if you want Jason
Todd to die, Dial this number if you want him
to live little. I mean, hmm, there's not a lot
of times where I'm triggered by certain things. I was
a bit triggered by that. I was feeling some Jason
Todd moments, so and oddly enough, I was trying to
(25:51):
pay attention when she does finally press a number, because
he said if you don't press a number, they'll both die.
I think she pressed two, and two is Jonathan from
what I recall. I feel like that's going to come
back later because Lex is doing what he can to
split this family apart and really torture Lois through it.
I feel like, because Lois and Jonathan have such a
(26:15):
similarities to them, that that is what she chose, that
she chose in the moment, she chose one of her kids,
and I feel like Lex is going to use that
to try to turn Jordan against her and split the
family up and do whatever, because I feel like that's
where we're headed, that he's going to continue to try
to split this family up, and that ultimately, because you're
(26:35):
not going to get rid of Clark for the last
season of this show. He's coming back. I guarantee he's
coming back. That I think is what is going to
pull everybody back together after we're going to see the
Ken family go through even more crap than they've had
to go through in these first couple of episodes. This
one concludes with Superman being taken to the fortress by Jordan,
(26:57):
entering kind of a suspended state, and you know, he
kind of left this hologram so that he could talk
to his family even though he might be incapacitated or dead,
and so we've got hollow soups, hollow Clark that is
there and available to them. But it just really shows
that he's not expecting to come back from this one.
(27:19):
A couple other things, Lana. We see Lana a bit
more as Smallville's mayor. She is vowing to use her
resources to fight Lex and prevent him from buying up
the property that he's been looking to buy in town.
It does have some Like I said, the flashbacks are awesome.
It's got light hunts, you know, adds a real nice
(27:40):
personal touch amidst all the other stuff that's going on
in this storyline. The ko SHO runner Brent Fletcher has
hinted that there are going to be more emotional turmoil
and action pack sequences as the season goes on, which
is what leads me to believe that Lex is going
to continue to try to tear this family apart. So
that is that's episode one. We've ended episode one. Episode
(28:02):
two a World Without So before I talk about episode two,
I got to talk about a world without a Superman.
World Without a Superman was a nineteen ninety three story
published by DC. It was part of the larger Death
and Return of Superman saga. It was the aftermath of
his death following the battle with Doomsday and his death
in Superman number seventy five goes across multiple issues several
(28:23):
Superman titles and explored the impact of his absence on Metropolis,
his friends, and the kind of the broader DC universe.
It shows how the world, especially Superman's close allies and
friends and family like Lois Mapa Kent Justice League, are
dealing with the grief and the chaos they kind of
ensue from all this. Metropolis is facing heightened crime rates
(28:44):
as criminals are taking advantage of Superman's absence. Loved ones
are struggling with the personal grief and uncertainty of it.
All highlights characters like John Henry Irons, who begins to
emerge as one of the heroes trying to uphold Superman's legacy.
The key component of the stories basically what does the
world look like without Superman? The presence goes into the
(29:05):
symbolism of Superman as a beacon of hope and how
the void left by his absence really impacts everybody who
had relied on him. That the city, his friends, even villains.
Storyline was conceived as part of DC's major crossover event
that was supposed to increase sales capture the media's attention.
(29:25):
I've already mentioned Jurgens Simmonson. Simmonson are assignments that I
always forget. Rogerster and Jerry Ordway. They were pivotal in
this whole Death of Superman saga and the follow up stories,
and you know, they basically came out of their whole
planning session. We're like, well, how do we shake things
up a bit? And I think somebody jokingly said, why
don't we kill Superman? Okay, so that's where that all
(29:49):
came from. Yeah, it basically it really emphasized. I think
that story really emphasized and what it brought to the
overall Superman mythos and the stories was that Superman's true
power is not just that physical strength. It's his capacity
to inspire, hope, to unify people. It reinforced that his
(30:11):
presence or absence affects the entire world. He's not just
a hero, He's a symbol, and that is abundantly clear
in all of the stories that come after World Without
a Superman and Return of Superman. Then eventually it's at
the stage for the Reign of Superman where we have
four characters emerging to fill that void, the Man of Steel,
(30:31):
the Eradicator, Superboy, and the cyborg superman. All right. This
episode starts with a shift focusing on Chunk, who we
mentioned before. Go Chuck a local resident, and he is
able to see their grief, and as I mentioned before,
you know, he talks with Lana and lets her know
(30:52):
that he knows a secret, but he's not going to
say anything. Lex continually continually ruthless in this one. The
community starts to grapple with the potential loss of the
hero who has protected them for so long. Lex is
trying to manipulate the town, trying to buy up some
property here and there as small tholls. Mayor Laa is
(31:13):
becoming an active participant in resisting Lex's influence, even though
she's warned by Lois don't get involved. He'll turn your
family apart to Sarah comes back. She steps up to
support Jonathan and we see their bond kind of forming
a little bit more. She really doesn't have any interaction
with Jordan at this point. And then not Sarah we
don't see not Sarah. I don't know where she is,
(31:35):
but not Sarah is not there. And then they have
a plan to confront Lex, and Jordan has got this
idea that without a heart, he got it from his
grandmother in the Fortress. Without a heart, there is no
chance of reviving Clark and bringing him back. So Lex Luthor,
they know Lex Luthor has the heart, they've got to
go get it. And so that's obviously going to, you know,
(31:57):
make things a little bit or a little bit more difficult.
In the midst of all of this that's going on,
there's just a really nice lowest Lata connection. They have
a conversation in their kitchen. It's just a kind of
a moment of quiet amidst all It's like the eye
of the storm, like the moment of quiet in the
midst of everything else that's going on around them. And
that's been one of the really nice things about this
show is that, yes, it's a superhero show. You're gonna
(32:20):
get some fights, you're gonna get some battles, but it's
the human characters, and it's the human moments that really
make this show shine. As I said, Jonathan and Sarah
kind of working together with each other. Jonathan is obviously
struggling with his dad's death, and Sarah's got advice to
just kind of take things one step at a time.
It's really the one about Bob advice the baby steps.
(32:40):
Lex escalates in this episode eight is I mean, this
is this episode I felt was almost like it was
a good time for October. It almost felt like a
horror movie because when she receives that phone call from Clark,
quote unquote Clark, it's creepy. And yeah, that's that's the
(33:01):
point I think I mentioned earlier. I think I was
blending someone my notes together where she has to choose
between which of the boys will survive, and then we
get as the episode kind of comes to an end,
we get the point where Jordan has gone off because
he wants to try to recover his father's heart and
it ends up being a trap and Lex crushes just
(33:21):
stomps on Superman's heart in front of Jordan, and just
you can see Jordan's absolute, as we say, heartbreak, just
absolute agony at realizing that his father is now gone forever.
I'm going to insert a little thing here and say
Lex was able to develop, he was able to make
the doomsday. So if you can make a be doomsday,
I think you could make a copy of Superman's heart.
(33:43):
So I'm gonna say that maybe that was not Superman's
heart because knowing Lex he's he's his plans have plans,
so his plans plans have plans, So I don't think
he would have destroyed something of that. I could be wrong.
This is a little bit of a different Lex, and
he's angry and he's vengeful, and he's even more so
(34:05):
than a lot of other Lex Luthors. So I could
be wrong, but that's that's kind of my guess here.
And then they show everybody, Lana, the Kent family really
kind of confronting the idea that this is it, like
Clark is not coming back. Now, I'm going to jump
in here and just give a real quick rundown of
all the other times that Superman has died in the
(34:26):
comic books, because it's been a few let's see, and
I'm going to totally miss several here, so don't I mean,
if you're listening to this, but you missed Superman number
whatever from nineteen sixty seven, that's okay, because like the
in the I feel like in the Gold and Silver age,
Superman was dying like every other week. I have some
old issues of the Superman comics, and I feel like
(34:49):
every other every other cover was well, Superman just died
of kryptonite poisoning. What do we do now or something?
So I guarantee I'm missing some, but here's a quickly
run down in case you want to go track these down.
Superman number one forty nine from nineteen sixty one. Lex
Luthor pretends to reform by curing cancer, only to later
(35:09):
kill Superman with some kryptonite rays. Doesn't affects main continuity.
It was the imaginary story Superman number one eighty eight.
In nineteen sixty six, A zunial, an alien assassin, kills
Superman using kryptonite radio waves. Superman Android sacrifices itself to
revive the real Superman. I believe that is the first
canonical death of Superman. Action Comics three sixty six and
(35:33):
three sixty seven from nineteen sixty eight. Superman catches Virus X,
a deadly alien disease. He nearly dies after attempting to
sacrifice himself, but is saved by an alien civilization that
cures him just in time. Love it when that happens.
Action Comics three eighty seven from nineteen seventy In the
distant Future, he's attacked by a drone created by Lex
Luthor nearly kills him but he is revived by a
(35:53):
futuristic healer before returning to his own time. World's Finest
Comics number two oh seven of nineteen seventy one. Light
Mind controls Superman and causes him to seek out a
magical weapon that nearly kills him. Batman intervenes, saving Superman
and destroying the weapon. Justice League of America one forty
five from nineteen seventy seven. He is killed by Count
(36:14):
Crystal's supernatural powers, but the Phantom Stranger eventually revives him
along with other fallen Justice League members. Then we get
to Superman number seventy five, nineteen ninety two. It looks
like he got a little bit of a break between
nineteen seventy seven and nineteen ninety two. This is the
death of Superman storyline with Doomsday of Course eighty six
had Action Comics five eighty three whatever whatever happened to
(36:34):
the Man of Tomorrow great story if you ever read
that one Alan Moore's story. He enters a gold Kryptonite
chamber to permanently strip his powers, disappearing without a trace,
and it's implied that he continues life as a powerless
man named Jordan Elliot. The Kingdom number one from ninety nine.
In the Kingdom Comes Sequel, Gog repeatedly travels back in time,
killing Superman each day and draining his powers with each death,
(36:57):
highlighting his highlighting kind of a multi versal threat to Superman.
Infinite Crisis number seven from two thousand and six, The
Golden Age Superman cal L spelled with just a letter L,
not the El, battles alongside modern Superman to defeats Superboy Prime.
Cal El ultimately dies after a brutal fight, sacrificing himself
to save the multiverse. All Star Superman number twelve, another
(37:20):
amazing story from two thousand and eight Grant Morrison, Superman
flies into the Sun to save the Earth, sacrificing himself.
Although he is presumed dead, his essence continues to maintain
the Sun's stability. Love that story Superman Red Sun from
two thousand and three Alternate reality Superman is presumed dead
after Brainiac's kryptonite attack sends him into space on an
(37:42):
exploding rocket. He re emerges years later, suggesting that he
did survive. Superman number fifty two from twenty sixteen, The
New fifty two Superman dies from kryptonite poisoning after fighting
an energy powered villain. This is then the pre flashpoint.
Superman takes up his mantle in the DC Rebirth era
and becomes the current Superman. In comics, the old Superman
(38:03):
becomes Current Superman. Batman v. Superman Darned Justice in the movie,
dies while defeating Doomsday with the Kryptonite spear, and then
DC Universe versus Masters of the Universe number two in
twenty thirteen, he appears to kill he Man appears to
kill Superman by stabbing him with a magical sword, as
later revealed to be a deception, and Superman returns in
(38:23):
some subsequent issues, So not really a death, but there
you go. Yeah, so we have in this one, we
have kind of we wrap up the storyline. It's it's
teased that Elizabeth is Alex's daughter is going to be
a key character here as he's trying to track her
down Sam Lame. We kind of skipped over some of
the Sam lay and stuff. He gets buried alive and
(38:45):
they are able to find him track him down. Gretchen
and Otis are her reference to the Otis is in
there too from last season. Gretchen, the one who had
pretended to be interested in Sam through the dating app.
We rescue General Lame and he is fine now. But yeah,
this character of Elizabeth Sam Laane seems to know who she is,
where she is. Lex really wants to know Sam is
(39:06):
not talking, and so clearly that is going to be
something that will continue as we go throughout this season.
But it is these two episodes really kind of balanced
grief action, the emotional storytelling we're used to with this show,
and really showing how a world without a Superman and
Clark Kent is dark, like people are, people are resilient,
(39:30):
like people are still The family is still going, all
of his friends, all the people he's touched are still fighting.
They are still going to make it through. But how
much more can they take? You know? How is this
talent going to cope? Houses family going to cope? And
I mean it is setting the stage for an intense
fourth and final season of Superman and lois really quickly.
(39:53):
I did watch the preview for the third episode titled
Always My Hero. Makes it look like Team Superman is
going to try to taking on Doomsday themselves, John Henry,
Natalie and company. Here is the official description of it.
Reeling from Failure, Jordan begins to spiral, Jonathan discovers new
found strength, General Lane recruits John Henry and Natalie Irons
before making a choice that will change everything. So that
(40:18):
is what we've got coming up next week. It is
so good to be back. I will be looking forward
to being back with Dean Jason here for future episodes.
But in the meantime, Superman's back, baby, Let's listen enjoy
this final season. I am so looking forward to all
these episodes. Would love to hear what you think, so
please feel free to reach out to us. We are
on Twitter or whatever it's called now and a lot
(40:40):
of the other socials, so please feel free to reach
out to us. Leave us a review on your favorite
podcast app of choice, and we'd love to I'll talk
Superman with anybody. Dan Jason know this. I'll talk Superman
with anybody in comics, with anybody who wants to. So
please feel free to reach out if you've got other ideas,
other theories, other you just want to check it up
(41:00):
with a fellow nerd, let me know, because I'd love to.
But otherwise, I am so looking forward to this up
up and away.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
I got a dam the shopping past. Let me got
talk about this.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
And got so baffled.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
The Suit of Dren listed the shot, up the ball
and be the proof it. Let me tell the bott
I've got you, You've got me, Who's got you?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello, come to me, SunUp, Jello nil before So.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Hello everybody, and welcome back. It is the podcast Full
of Kryptonite. I am one of your hosts, John Reid.
In fact, I am the solo host this time around
for this podcast. D and Jason we actually we got
to meet in person for the first time last week.
It was awesome. Had a great time with them. It
was so much fun. The super Friends are alive and well.
(00:56):
But with all of that going on, and with the
premiere of Superman and Lois this week, schedules were crazy.
My schedule was crazy. This episode is actually coming out
probably two or three days after I intended it to
come out, because originally the episode dropped. The first two
episodes dropped on Monday, and then life found a way
(01:18):
to get in the way of me recording this. But
I definitely wanted to get an opportunity to record some
thoughts on this. Give you a little bit of background
on this. I am excited to be back. It is
I'm excited to be a part of this. Let's do it.
It has been has it been sixteen months? I think
I counted the other day it's been sixteen months since
we had an episode of Superman and Lois. It has
(01:40):
been over a year, nearly a year and a half
since we had Superman and Lois, and we left it
on quite the cliffhanger, and in the meantime, we discovered
that this fourth season will be the last season of
the show. So that cliffhanger of season three, where Clark
is fighting the bizarro Doomsday that Lex Luther had created,
(02:01):
that is where we left things. So buckle up because
you're in for a bit of a treat. They dropped
the first two episodes together, so it was a two
hour premiere that came out. When that came back out
on Monday New Time as well or a New Day
that they had moved it to Monday, so that's a
little bit of a different change for the show. I'm
going to start by kind of just recapping a little
(02:23):
bit of the first couple of episodes. I'll go through
each episode. I've got some background information if you're not
as familiar with some of the characters with some of
the little Easter eggs in here, so I'll throw some
of that in there and hopefully that'll help fill in
any gaps. If there were some things you were wondering
about from the first two episodes. So these first two episodes,
the first one titled The End and the Beginning, and
then the second episode titled A World Without the show
(02:46):
is diving into a much darker, kind of more intense
territory with the start of this season. It is continuing
directly after the season three finale, right where we left off,
where Superman's fighting against the doomsday kind of created by
melded by Lex Luthor, and we get the sense that
(03:07):
this is we pretty quickly get the sense that Clark's
not going to come out of this one alive. We
know that this show for the last three seasons have
been loosely adapting some of the elements of the Return
of Superman storyline, couple of other storylines here and there,
but we know that these showrunners really really love the
(03:27):
early to mid nineties Superman, so not surprising that we
also have a little bit of the death of Superman.
And with the title of episode two, A World Without
a Superman, which was the World Without a Superman and
Funeral for a Friend, we're kind of the two titles
for the in between story, the bridge story between the
(03:48):
death of Superman and the return of Superman in the
early nineties, so we know we're kind of headed in
that direction. Overall, Episode one is really centering on this
just brutal battle between Superman and Doomed to in space.
Anybody who had a hard time with the destruction of
Metropolis in Man of Steel should be totally fine that
we're just up there destroying the Moon this time. Totally
(04:08):
all right. You know we've destroyed the moon before. Okay,
we've had We'll see what else has happened. We've had
the tick. I feel like in the old Tick comics
and cartoon, I feel like there was a villain that
was carving his name into the moon, and so we've
got precedence for the Moon being either messed up or destroyed.
So it's all right, no, don't worry too much about it.
(04:30):
If when I read it's direct, we're actually got a
second moon that's going to be orbiting the Earth for
the next maybe four to six weeks or so here
in late twenty twenty four. So it's all right. We
got a backup, We have a plan B. This ends
in a climacting moment where it appears that Superman has
been left lifeless. It is clearly drawing imagery from the
(04:53):
death of Superman storyline and just a super intense showdown here.
Episode two the one focus on the emotional toll of
Superman's death on his family. His allies, the town of Smallville, Kansas, Lois, Jordan,
Jonathan are all grappling with their grief differently kind of
revealing how vulnerable they're feeling. Lois is still reeling from
(05:17):
her cancer treatments. I believe she even still had some
treatments that she needed to have, but it all got
interrupted with this Lex Luthor reveal and this battle she
is in this episode, in particular her first two episodes
of the season, she is determined to confront Lex, who
she blames for everything that's going on. Meanwhile, this Lex
(05:38):
Luthor's characterization has taken kind of this darker, more personal
turn to show just how much he hates Lois Lane
for ruining his life and as he believes, taking his
daughter away from him, because as we learned in the
last season, Lois had led to him being falsely imprisoned
for something he didn't do. Now that doesn't mean Lex
(06:01):
Luthor's not a bad guy just because he is bad
guy means yes, he is a bad guy. So yeah,
so he is taking this personally. He is out to
destroy Lois's life, gave her the option to either stop
being a reporter or he would destroy everything and everyone
that she loves. So he is Vengeance is the name
(06:21):
of the game with this Lex Luthor. Overall, these first
two episodes kind of set the tone for this final season.
I mean, right now, it is a dark tone. It is.
We've seen the Kent family at their darkest before. This
feels even darker than we've ever seen. So it's gonna
get It feels like it's going to get more intense
(06:42):
before things get better. So all right, so I'm going
to dive into each of the episodes individually, and I'll
pop in here and there whenever there's some information or
background I want to share on a particular character. So
the end of the beginning episode one episode starts with
the battle between Superman and Bizarro dooms to we can
call him but Doom's Day for short, if that makes
(07:03):
sense to everybody. Picking up right where season three left off,
the fight is just as I said before, brutal, multiple
locations from the streets of Smallville to outer space, and
despite Superman's best efforts, he is outmatched by Doomsday. The
visuals are this are pretty impressive, even knowing that this
is a CW show. The visuals have always been impressive
(07:24):
in this show. All we've said before, it always has
a cinematic feel to it, and this is no different
on a show where you know this is the final season,
you know that they have cut this show short. I
really feel like this show should have had several more seasons.
We know that they have budget constraints in place, especially
for a show that's not going to be continuing, and
even with those budget constraints in place, it looks phenomenal.
(07:49):
One of my favorite live action fights between Superman and Doomsday.
But we really only have I think two others as
far as I can remember. We have the I'd barely
even want to call it they fight between Superman and
Davis Bloom Doomsday Bloomsday from Smallville. Sam Whitworth played Doomsday
in that case, and then we have the Batman v.
(08:09):
Superman Dawn of Justice, the Bivistadge, as Pat likes to
call it. We had that battle as well, So I
visually like this Doomsday. He's obviously a little bit different,
having that mixture of Bizarro in Doomsday of but Doomsday,
so yeah, really really like that. Now I'm going to
stop here and I'm going to interrupt my own little
recap because i want to talk a little bit about
(08:29):
Doomsday for a minute. If you're not as familiar with
the character of Doom's day. He debuted in Superman The
Man of Steel number seventeen in November of nineteen ninety
two as a cameo, and then he had a full
appearance the next month in Superman The Man of Steel
number eighteen December of nineteen ninety two. Created by Dan Jurgens,
but one of my favorite writers and artists of Superman,
(08:50):
as I was collecting the comics when I was a kid,
and this is really around the time I started collecting,
So this is kind of my heyday for Superman comics.
Contributions from Perior Way, Louis Simmonson, Roger Stern, a lot
of other people. Doomsday was created as part of the
death of Superman's storyline in the early nineties. Was really
designed to boost sales and generates media attention by killing
(09:12):
off Superman. That was kind of the whole purpose. Originally
Doomsday is portrayed as kind of this genetically engineered monstrosity
that came from Krypton. We learned that later on in
Superman Doomsday Hunter Prey. The mini series shows that he
was repeatedly killed and revived to make him invulnerable, which
explains this seemingly unstoppable nature and his hatred for all
(09:32):
living things in that he was killed and then cloned,
and then killed and then cloned and over and over
because Krypton was known thousands of years ago for their
cloning and some questionable practices, and so in that origin story,
eventually he becomes invulnerable and cannot be killed in the
same way twice, and he will always come back from however,
(09:55):
he has been killed again, like I said, most famous
for the Death of Superman storyline, He's been around in
various forms, resurrected or cloned to face Superman again and again,
typically used in a storyline to push Superman to his
absolute physical limits. In the New fifty two, he was
rebooted so that his origin and powers were a little
bit altered to include even more ties to Krypton. As
(10:18):
I mentioned, the Hunter of pre mini series that they
did in the nineties, expanded on this backstory. Later events
like the Doomsday Wars and Rebirth featured him in various
different forms. Another interesting thing, at one point he was
actually infused with some intelligence, and I believe, if I
remember the story correctly, that actually made him a little
bit weaker because now that he had intelligence, he could
(10:41):
think he could kind of connect the pain that he
was feeling when he would fight Superman with a desire
to avoid pain, and that made him a little bit
less intimidating, a little bit less invulnerable unstoppable, So that
I didn't particular care for that story because that kind
of messed a bit. And from what I recall, again,
(11:01):
I don't been a long time since I've read those stories,
I believe some of that intelligence or at one point
they actually inserted the intelligence of Brainiac, who I will
talk about here in this the moment, because there was
a little easter egg to Brainiac in here into Doomsday,
So it was kind of like Doomsday's body Brainiac's brain,
which if you think about it, not a bad combination.
(11:22):
I just I remember reading that story and thinking it
seems a little overkill. But and I feel like I
remember reading that story and thinking that it did not
quite turn out the way I was hoping it would.
That they really kind of maybe dropped the ball a
bit on taking that combination and really making the most
out of it. In terms of movies, he was in
Superman Doomsday, the animated movie from I Believe two thousand
(11:45):
and seven, Batman versus Superman Down of Justice from twenty sixteen,
and then that one really kind of altered the storyline
as well because it turns out he was manufactured from
the dead from the corpse of General Zod. A little
similar to this because obviously we're kind of bringing about
Doomsday through the multiple killings and resurrections of the Bizarro character.
(12:09):
He did appear, as I mentioned, in Smallville, played by
Sam Whitwer, played paramedic Davis Bloom, who we find out
later on he is actually related in some way to
General Zod, basically kind of General Zodd's child, and that
he ultimately overtime kind of it almost treats him as
like a werewolf type of character, like at night, when
things go wrong or the moon comes out, he's going
(12:31):
to become Doomsday and that is very short lived moments
until finally at the end of that season there is
a battle, and I use battle in quotation marks because
I remember being really dissatisfied with it. There is I
believe a less than thirty second battle between Superman or
between Clark and Doomsday in that series of that season
(12:53):
of Smallville. So we'll leave it at then, Okay. So
that is basically Doomsday is the big physical threat to Superman,
and that is what we know about him from his backstory,
all right. To add some emotional depth to this, the
episode uses flashbacks to really revisit some significant moments in
(13:13):
Clark and Lewis's relationship, early days together, first time, his parents,
giving birth to the twins. And one of the things
that I think made this particularly powerful was when you
do this, when you have these flashbacks, you can go
one of two ways with this. It's either Clark is
using these memories to spur himself on and to give
(13:35):
himself that additional push that Clark has the humanity that
Doomsday does not have, and he's drawing on these emotions,
these memories of his life to give him the strength
he might not have physically, and so he will win
the day. The other side of that is it's TV show.
A lot of times we know that in a TV
show when a character receives extra attention, they gonna die.
(13:56):
So you don't really know, but great flashbacks. Every time
they do flashbacks to give us a little bit more
of the Clark A. Lewis backstory, I am on board
give me more of this. It's always so much fun
to see their relationship and kind of how it developed
over time. Lex is back. This last season, Lex came back,
played by Michael Kutlets. He has taken center stage here
(14:18):
really showcasing a vicious and personal vendetta against Lois. He
isn't just targeting Superman this time. I mean the typical
way this runs is it's Lex versus Superman. This is
Lex versus Lois. In fact, you know, Superman just seems
to be He wants to get Superman out of the
way so he can get to Lois, and his motivation
is being tied to his daughter, who we learn her
(14:40):
name is Elizabeth. She is not from the comics, but
is introduced specifically for this series. Now, Lex has had
a daughter in the comics before. I believe Lena Luther
was her name. There might have been other Luther children,
but that's the one that I can remember off the
top of my head. Let me pause for a moment
into a little background on Lex Luthor. He debuted in
(15:02):
Action Comics number twenty three April of nineteen forty. Created
by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, he was created as
a genius villain in an adversary who could challenge Superman
beyond those physical confrontations. He appeared originally with a full
head of red hair, portray usually as a mad scientist
with ideas of world domination. Over the years the Golden
(15:23):
and Silver Age, he kind of evolved from a generic
mad scientist to more of a sophisticated criminal mastermind. His
iconic bald head look was a result of an artist's error,
which later became one of his defining features. During this era,
Luther's motivation was kind of expanded to include his personal
grudge against Superman, believing that the hero had caused an
accident that made him bald. In the modern era, when
(15:46):
we look at the post Crisis on Infinite Earth's era,
Lex was reimagined as a wealthy, power hungry industrialist in
the nineteen eighties by Marv Wolfman and John Byrne. This
shifted Lex's character with some real world corporate eruption portraying
him as the CEO of LexCorp, public figure who hides
kind of his his villainy behind philanthropy, so we see
(16:08):
him as a as a corrupt businessman. In contemporary stories,
Lex has kind of gone back and forth between between
being a villain and being kind of an anti hero,
occasionally showing a desire to genuinely help humanity, but usually
for selfish reasons, or he's very anti alien. He's so
pro human, that's why he hates Superman. In the New
(16:28):
fifty two and Rebirth, he actually even became a hero
for a bit, using Superman's emblem and armor before returning
back to being a villain. And it's been a little
while since I picked up some Superman comics, but it
looks like Superman and Lex Luthor are kind of teaming up.
Are some issues I picked up that were in a
(16:48):
bargain bin somewhere looked like they had been teeming up
a little bit more recently, and so I maybe they're
kind of going doing them back and forth on that again.
Some major stories for him include Lex Luther, Man of Steel, Superman,
red Son, Forever Evil. He's been portrayed in several films.
Gene Hackman portrayed him in the early Superman, the Christopher
(17:09):
Reeves Superman movie is Kevin Spacey was his the version
in Superman Returns. Jesse Eisenberg had his take on him
in Batman Versus Superman Down of Justice. His characters had
a lot of different TV adaptations Smallville, where he was
played by Michael Rosenbaum awesome. I loved the Lex Luthor
(17:30):
in Smallville. In the Eero Verse he was played by
John Cryer, so a lot of different Lex Luthor's abounding there.
But eatingly go back to the old Superboy TV show
that was on during the eighties. He is arguably Superman's
greatest enemy. So the fact that we've got a Lex
Luthor with the brains, we've got the Doomsday with the braun,
(17:53):
it's a combination that is probably going to be unstoppable.
And as I said before, there's a little little teeny
tiny easter egg where the name Brainiac was dropped, so
I'll be curious to see what happens there. That being said,
there is a pivotal scene where Amanda McCoy, a new character,
is delivering some advanced technology to Luther, and she just
(18:14):
casually refers to the text developer Milton as a quote
unquote Brainiac. I don't remember if she says Milton Fine
or not. The ba at Milton Fine was Brainiac's name
in the comics and a classic Superman villain, and this
name drop was actually confirmed by the koshow runner Todd
Helbing to be intentional and said, yes, this is intentional.
(18:36):
There will be more hints to follow in future episodes.
So we're gonna get Brainiac, is what I'm saying right here,
right now. To quote my budd, my good buddy, Jason
Colvin spiked the football. We're getting Brainiac. That's it. That's
what I'm saying. All right. A little background on Brainiac
while we're here. First debuted in Action Comics number two,
(18:56):
forty two July of nineteen fifty eight, created by Auto Binder,
I don't know if it's Autobinder Autobinder, I don't know
and Al Plastino. Brainiac was introduced as this powerful alien
antagonist for Superman, designed to challenge his intellect and physical strength. Initially,
he was portrayed as his green skinned alien with advanced technology,
(19:19):
including the shrinking ray, so he could shrink the cities
that he would collect, and he actually started. There were
times where Brainiac was a little bit more human, but
as he went on he was At different times he
was an extraterrestrial conqueror from the planet Kulu who would
shrink and collect entire cities that included Candor, the bottle
(19:40):
city of Krypton. This was basically a generic alien villain,
but kind of responsible for creating that bottle City of Candor,
which became a running thing throughout a lot of Superman stories,
a Superman always trying to figure out a way to
restore the lost city of Candor so that the people
did not have to live trapped in this bottle for
the rest of Eternity. In the eighties, after the Crisis
(20:02):
on infinitet Earth's, his origin was revamped a bit Milton Fine.
The persona was introduced as a human illusionist, a magician
possessed by the koluan Ai, which expanded that from just
a physical threat to a psychological one, and this one
added some different layers depicting him as a little bit
more cunning and manipulative in the modern area. In the
(20:22):
modern era, it has kind of evolved into this hyper intelligent,
almost multiversal threat, capable of altering realities, and it's often
versions where he has some cyborg enhancements to himself a
blend of organic and machine life. A lot of the
significant stories involved his conquest attempts, obsession with cataloging and
(20:46):
controlling knowledge. He is basically the evil Librarian of the universe,
is what we're getting to here. Some notable stories are
the Brainiac trilogy Superman Brainiac from two thousand and eight,
written by Jeff John's. He appeared in the super Friends
cartoon Justice League Unlimited. He appeared as Milton Fine, portrayed
by James Marsters in Smallville. Brainiac has been an adapt adapted,
(21:10):
and animated movies, such as Superman Unbound from twenty thirteen
that was also based on a Jeff John's storyline. He
is again one of Superman's most iconic villains, and he's
got that blend of intelligence, menace, reality altering powers, so
it'll be interesting to see. I believe if I remember back,
(21:32):
if I go back to the Wayback Machine a couple
of seasons ago, I believe I wanted to start to
predict that they were going to use Brainiac in some way,
so maybe this is it. Maybe I was right. Who knows?
All right, Back to the story, The emotional core of
this episode is really focusing on the Kent family's reaction
(21:53):
to Superman's apparent death after he falls Lowis and the
boys discover his lifeless body. It's just heartbreak when you
see that Jordan's Jordan's scream. Later on, as I think
I'll get a little bit ahead of myself here, that
might be episode, that might be a different episode. There's
a point later on where they are searching for Superman's heart,
trying to get him. I think I'd mix some of
(22:14):
my notes up here. But there is an interesting little
part here. There's a character. You see some Smallville folks
watch as the family reacts to Superman dying, and you
can kind of tell people are like, hmmm, why are
Lois and her son's reacting so strongly to Superman being dead?
And a character I believe his name is Chuck, who
sees all of this here, almost intervenes in the diner
(22:38):
when Lex Luthor confronts the two boys. Chuck is big
thumbs up for Chuck. He is our hero and we
stand a legend. Chuck, thanks for being there. This part
I thought was interesting because later on we get later
on in these two episodes, we get Lana showing up
and revealing that Chuck kind of figured out the secret,
(23:00):
but he's going to keep it to himself because he
his wife passed away recently and he remembers the agony
of that, and Superman has done so much for the
town of Smallville that he is not going to say
a word. What I thought would be interesting, and I
was kind of going back and forth on this. I
thought it'd be interesting if the entire town of Smallville
really figured out the secret from here on out, and
(23:21):
the entire town made kind of an agreement to keep
it a secret. I like that idea. There's a little
bit of me that doesn't like that idea. The little
bit of me, the cynical part of me that doesn't
like that idea is nowhere in all of reality. Are
you going to find a town where every person is
(23:42):
so selfless that they would be willing to keep a
huge secret like this, And it'd be impossible to find
somebody that wouldn't take advantage of that in some way,
and that eventually it would get out. However, we are
talking about Superman and One of the reasons I have
always liked Superman and I've always liked Superman's world is
that Superman is about optimism. I like Batman, but I'm
(24:04):
always I always try to be optimistic myself. So the
fact that Superman's world is he is so optimistic. I
think of the Christopher Reeves Superman it's all about optimism. Now,
other people around him while he exudes that, and other
people I think learning from it and aspire to be
that way. It's not always the case, So it could
(24:24):
be it could be a good turn of the story
to say, you know what, that's what's special about Smallville.
This is the town that made a Superman. He wasn't
just born Superman. He was made a Superman by his parents.
He was made a Superman by the people who he
grew up around. And that's what's absolutely special about the
(24:46):
town of Smallville. So if they choose to go that
route where the entire twent where most of the town
or the entire town finds out and they continue to
live there and that's how the key secret is kept,
I am absolutely okay with that because it really showcases
the optimism that Superman tries to bring to every interaction
he has with whoever he comes across, hero, villain, whatever
(25:06):
he is. You know, he's the big blue boy scout.
So Alexi's cruelty continues when he forces Lois into an
agonizing choice, using a device that makes her choose between
saving Jordan and Jonathan. I mean, this, come on, DC,
this is really a this is a Jason Todd situation here.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Lois checked
(25:29):
out the caller id on there and it was the
same nine hundred number that got used back when it
was you know, dial this number if you want Jason
Todd to die, Dial this number if you want him
to live little. I mean, hmm, there's not a lot
of times where I'm triggered by certain things. I was
a bit triggered by that. I was feeling some Jason
Todd moments, so and oddly enough, I was trying to
(25:51):
pay attention when she does finally press a number, because
he said if you don't press a number, they'll both die.
I think she pressed two, and two is Jonathan from
what I recall. I feel like that's going to come
back later because Lex is doing what he can to
split this family apart and really torture Lois through it.
I feel like, because Lois and Jonathan have such a
(26:15):
similarities to them, that that is what she chose, that
she chose in the moment, she chose one of her kids,
and I feel like Lex is going to use that
to try to turn Jordan against her and split the
family up and do whatever, because I feel like that's
where we're headed, that he's going to continue to try
to split this family up, and that ultimately, because you're
(26:35):
not going to get rid of Clark for the last
season of this show. He's coming back. I guarantee he's
coming back. That I think is what is going to
pull everybody back together after we're going to see the
Ken family go through even more crap than they've had
to go through in these first couple of episodes. This
one concludes with Superman being taken to the fortress by Jordan,
(26:57):
entering kind of a suspended state, and you know, he
kind of left this hologram so that he could talk
to his family even though he might be incapacitated or dead,
and so we've got hollow soups, hollow Clark that is
there and available to them. But it just really shows
that he's not expecting to come back from this one.
(27:19):
A couple other things, Lana. We see Lana a bit
more as Smallville's mayor. She is vowing to use her
resources to fight Lex and prevent him from buying up
the property that he's been looking to buy in town.
It does have some Like I said, the flashbacks are awesome.
It's got light hunts, you know, adds a real nice
(27:40):
personal touch amidst all the other stuff that's going on
in this storyline. The ko SHO runner Brent Fletcher has
hinted that there are going to be more emotional turmoil
and action pack sequences as the season goes on, which
is what leads me to believe that Lex is going
to continue to try to tear this family apart. So
that is that's episode one. We've ended episode one. Episode
(28:02):
two a World Without So before I talk about episode two,
I got to talk about a world without a Superman.
World Without a Superman was a nineteen ninety three story
published by DC. It was part of the larger Death
and Return of Superman saga. It was the aftermath of
his death following the battle with Doomsday and his death
in Superman number seventy five goes across multiple issues several
(28:23):
Superman titles and explored the impact of his absence on Metropolis,
his friends, and the kind of the broader DC universe.
It shows how the world, especially Superman's close allies and
friends and family like Lois Mapa Kent Justice League, are
dealing with the grief and the chaos they kind of
ensue from all this. Metropolis is facing heightened crime rates
(28:44):
as criminals are taking advantage of Superman's absence. Loved ones
are struggling with the personal grief and uncertainty of it.
All highlights characters like John Henry Irons, who begins to
emerge as one of the heroes trying to uphold Superman's legacy.
The key component of the stories basically what does the
world look like without Superman? The presence goes into the
(29:05):
symbolism of Superman as a beacon of hope and how
the void left by his absence really impacts everybody who
had relied on him. That the city, his friends, even villains.
Storyline was conceived as part of DC's major crossover event
that was supposed to increase sales capture the media's attention.
(29:25):
I've already mentioned Jurgens Simmonson. Simmonson are assignments that I
always forget. Rogerster and Jerry Ordway. They were pivotal in
this whole Death of Superman saga and the follow up stories,
and you know, they basically came out of their whole
planning session. We're like, well, how do we shake things
up a bit? And I think somebody jokingly said, why
don't we kill Superman? Okay, so that's where that all
(29:49):
came from. Yeah, it basically it really emphasized. I think
that story really emphasized and what it brought to the
overall Superman mythos and the stories was that Superman's true
power is not just that physical strength. It's his capacity
to inspire, hope, to unify people. It reinforced that his
(30:11):
presence or absence affects the entire world. He's not just
a hero, He's a symbol, and that is abundantly clear
in all of the stories that come after World Without
a Superman and Return of Superman. Then eventually it's at
the stage for the Reign of Superman where we have
four characters emerging to fill that void, the Man of Steel,
(30:31):
the Eradicator, Superboy, and the cyborg superman. All right. This
episode starts with a shift focusing on Chunk, who we
mentioned before. Go Chuck a local resident, and he is
able to see their grief, and as I mentioned before,
you know, he talks with Lana and lets her know
(30:52):
that he knows a secret, but he's not going to
say anything. Lex continually continually ruthless in this one. The
community starts to grapple with the potential loss of the
hero who has protected them for so long. Lex is
trying to manipulate the town, trying to buy up some
property here and there as small tholls. Mayor Laa is
(31:13):
becoming an active participant in resisting Lex's influence, even though
she's warned by Lois don't get involved. He'll turn your
family apart to Sarah comes back. She steps up to
support Jonathan and we see their bond kind of forming
a little bit more. She really doesn't have any interaction
with Jordan at this point. And then not Sarah we
don't see not Sarah. I don't know where she is,
(31:35):
but not Sarah is not there. And then they have
a plan to confront Lex, and Jordan has got this
idea that without a heart, he got it from his
grandmother in the Fortress. Without a heart, there is no
chance of reviving Clark and bringing him back. So Lex Luthor,
they know Lex Luthor has the heart, they've got to
go get it. And so that's obviously going to, you know,
(31:57):
make things a little bit or a little bit more difficult.
In the midst of all of this that's going on,
there's just a really nice lowest Lata connection. They have
a conversation in their kitchen. It's just a kind of
a moment of quiet amidst all It's like the eye
of the storm, like the moment of quiet in the
midst of everything else that's going on around them. And
that's been one of the really nice things about this
show is that, yes, it's a superhero show. You're gonna
(32:20):
get some fights, you're gonna get some battles, but it's
the human characters, and it's the human moments that really
make this show shine. As I said, Jonathan and Sarah
kind of working together with each other. Jonathan is obviously
struggling with his dad's death, and Sarah's got advice to
just kind of take things one step at a time.
It's really the one about Bob advice the baby steps.
(32:40):
Lex escalates in this episode eight is I mean, this
is this episode I felt was almost like it was
a good time for October. It almost felt like a
horror movie because when she receives that phone call from Clark,
quote unquote Clark, it's creepy. And yeah, that's that's the
(33:01):
point I think I mentioned earlier. I think I was
blending someone my notes together where she has to choose
between which of the boys will survive, and then we
get as the episode kind of comes to an end,
we get the point where Jordan has gone off because
he wants to try to recover his father's heart and
it ends up being a trap and Lex crushes just
(33:21):
stomps on Superman's heart in front of Jordan, and just
you can see Jordan's absolute, as we say, heartbreak, just
absolute agony at realizing that his father is now gone forever.
I'm going to insert a little thing here and say
Lex was able to develop, he was able to make
the doomsday. So if you can make a be doomsday,
I think you could make a copy of Superman's heart.
(33:43):
So I'm gonna say that maybe that was not Superman's
heart because knowing Lex he's he's his plans have plans,
so his plans plans have plans, So I don't think
he would have destroyed something of that. I could be wrong.
This is a little bit of a different Lex, and
he's angry and he's vengeful, and he's even more so
(34:05):
than a lot of other Lex Luthors. So I could
be wrong, but that's that's kind of my guess here.
And then they show everybody, Lana, the Kent family really
kind of confronting the idea that this is it, like
Clark is not coming back. Now, I'm going to jump
in here and just give a real quick rundown of
all the other times that Superman has died in the
(34:26):
comic books, because it's been a few let's see, and
I'm going to totally miss several here, so don't I mean,
if you're listening to this, but you missed Superman number
whatever from nineteen sixty seven, that's okay, because like the
in the I feel like in the Gold and Silver age,
Superman was dying like every other week. I have some
old issues of the Superman comics, and I feel like
(34:49):
every other every other cover was well, Superman just died
of kryptonite poisoning. What do we do now or something?
So I guarantee I'm missing some, but here's a quickly
run down in case you want to go track these down.
Superman number one forty nine from nineteen sixty one. Lex
Luthor pretends to reform by curing cancer, only to later
(35:09):
kill Superman with some kryptonite rays. Doesn't affects main continuity.
It was the imaginary story Superman number one eighty eight.
In nineteen sixty six, A zunial, an alien assassin, kills
Superman using kryptonite radio waves. Superman Android sacrifices itself to
revive the real Superman. I believe that is the first
canonical death of Superman. Action Comics three sixty six and
(35:33):
three sixty seven from nineteen sixty eight. Superman catches Virus X,
a deadly alien disease. He nearly dies after attempting to
sacrifice himself, but is saved by an alien civilization that
cures him just in time. Love it when that happens.
Action Comics three eighty seven from nineteen seventy In the
distant Future, he's attacked by a drone created by Lex
Luthor nearly kills him but he is revived by a
(35:53):
futuristic healer before returning to his own time. World's Finest
Comics number two oh seven of nineteen seventy one. Light
Mind controls Superman and causes him to seek out a
magical weapon that nearly kills him. Batman intervenes, saving Superman
and destroying the weapon. Justice League of America one forty
five from nineteen seventy seven. He is killed by Count
(36:14):
Crystal's supernatural powers, but the Phantom Stranger eventually revives him
along with other fallen Justice League members. Then we get
to Superman number seventy five, nineteen ninety two. It looks
like he got a little bit of a break between
nineteen seventy seven and nineteen ninety two. This is the
death of Superman storyline with Doomsday of Course eighty six
had Action Comics five eighty three whatever whatever happened to
(36:34):
the Man of Tomorrow great story if you ever read
that one Alan Moore's story. He enters a gold Kryptonite
chamber to permanently strip his powers, disappearing without a trace,
and it's implied that he continues life as a powerless
man named Jordan Elliot. The Kingdom number one from ninety nine.
In the Kingdom Comes Sequel, Gog repeatedly travels back in time,
killing Superman each day and draining his powers with each death,
(36:57):
highlighting his highlighting kind of a multi versal threat to Superman.
Infinite Crisis number seven from two thousand and six, The
Golden Age Superman cal L spelled with just a letter L,
not the El, battles alongside modern Superman to defeats Superboy Prime.
Cal El ultimately dies after a brutal fight, sacrificing himself
to save the multiverse. All Star Superman number twelve, another
(37:20):
amazing story from two thousand and eight Grant Morrison, Superman
flies into the Sun to save the Earth, sacrificing himself.
Although he is presumed dead, his essence continues to maintain
the Sun's stability. Love that story Superman Red Sun from
two thousand and three Alternate reality Superman is presumed dead
after Brainiac's kryptonite attack sends him into space on an
(37:42):
exploding rocket. He re emerges years later, suggesting that he
did survive. Superman number fifty two from twenty sixteen, The
New fifty two Superman dies from kryptonite poisoning after fighting
an energy powered villain. This is then the pre flashpoint.
Superman takes up his mantle in the DC Rebirth era
and becomes the current Superman. In comics, the old Superman
(38:03):
becomes Current Superman. Batman v. Superman Darned Justice in the movie,
dies while defeating Doomsday with the Kryptonite spear, and then
DC Universe versus Masters of the Universe number two in
twenty thirteen, he appears to kill he Man appears to
kill Superman by stabbing him with a magical sword, as
later revealed to be a deception, and Superman returns in
(38:23):
some subsequent issues, So not really a death, but there
you go. Yeah, so we have in this one, we
have kind of we wrap up the storyline. It's it's
teased that Elizabeth is Alex's daughter is going to be
a key character here as he's trying to track her
down Sam Lame. We kind of skipped over some of
the Sam lay and stuff. He gets buried alive and
(38:45):
they are able to find him track him down. Gretchen
and Otis are her reference to the Otis is in
there too from last season. Gretchen, the one who had
pretended to be interested in Sam through the dating app.
We rescue General Lame and he is fine now. But yeah,
this character of Elizabeth Sam Laane seems to know who she is,
where she is. Lex really wants to know Sam is
(39:06):
not talking, and so clearly that is going to be
something that will continue as we go throughout this season.
But it is these two episodes really kind of balanced
grief action, the emotional storytelling we're used to with this show,
and really showing how a world without a Superman and
Clark Kent is dark, like people are, people are resilient,
(39:30):
like people are still The family is still going, all
of his friends, all the people he's touched are still fighting.
They are still going to make it through. But how
much more can they take? You know? How is this
talent going to cope? Houses family going to cope? And
I mean it is setting the stage for an intense
fourth and final season of Superman and lois really quickly.
(39:53):
I did watch the preview for the third episode titled
Always My Hero. Makes it look like Team Superman is
going to try to taking on Doomsday themselves, John Henry,
Natalie and company. Here is the official description of it.
Reeling from Failure, Jordan begins to spiral, Jonathan discovers new
found strength, General Lane recruits John Henry and Natalie Irons
before making a choice that will change everything. So that
(40:18):
is what we've got coming up next week. It is
so good to be back. I will be looking forward
to being back with Dean Jason here for future episodes.
But in the meantime, Superman's back, baby, Let's listen enjoy
this final season. I am so looking forward to all
these episodes. Would love to hear what you think, so
please feel free to reach out to us. We are
on Twitter or whatever it's called now and a lot
(40:40):
of the other socials, so please feel free to reach
out to us. Leave us a review on your favorite
podcast app of choice, and we'd love to I'll talk
Superman with anybody. Dan Jason know this. I'll talk Superman
with anybody in comics, with anybody who wants to. So
please feel free to reach out if you've got other ideas,
other theories, other you just want to check it up
(41:00):
with a fellow nerd, let me know, because I'd love to.
But otherwise, I am so looking forward to this up
up and away.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
I got a dam the shopping past. Let me got
talk about this.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
And got so baffled.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
The Suit of Dren listed the shot, up the ball
and be the proof it. Let me tell the bott
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