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“Superman’s boring.”

Still here? Cool. For the record, that isn’t my personal opinion, it’s straight from the show. Let’s be honest, even the most die-hard fans of Supes has thought this at one point or another. It’s an unfortunate byproduct of having an invincible hero who, 80 years in, is still discovering new powers. Well, luckily for all of us, this isn’t a Superman show. Not really.

Before you start the class action suit against the CW for false advertising, understand that we’re not talking about the Godzilla movies where he (she) only appears for a few minutes in the whole shebang, while we’re left following all these regular ol’ humans who don’t even breathe atomic fire. But we are closer than you’d think. If you came in expecting this to be your traditional superhero fare, then I’m sorry (not sorry) to disappoint.

After the obligatory (and likely studio mandated) origin story that we’ve seen umpteen times already, we’re introduced to the new, post-Crisis status quo for Lois and Clar…er, um, Superman and Lois. She’s still a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and he gets some great excuses to be missing for hours or days at a time through the same job, but now they’re married with twin, teenaged sons. So, thanks Barry. (And yeah, I know he’s not really responsible this time, but I’m still blaming any weirdness related to kids appearing out of nowhere on Flashpoint.)

The boys, Jordan and Jonathan, are fourteen years old and about to start their very first day of high school. But not like, real life fourteen. More like the CW’s image of fourteen, where the boys are rapidly approaching six feet tall and will sport five o’clock shadows by the end of the filming day. I suppose this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise from the Arrowverse, since William was at least thirteen while passing for *checks notes* ten years old? Anyway, the CW in general and the Arrowverse in particular have issues with time and age that could be the topic of an entire article on their own, but I needed to stress the point so that when you see the boys do something dumb, you remember that they’re essentially oversized middle schoolers.

Jonathan is more or less what you’d expect from a son of Superman; handsome, athletic, and popular. Jordan, on the other hand, is basically the polar opposite. He comes complete with the loner kid starter pack of long dark hair, emo music, and video games (shout out to the subtle Injustice 2 product placement.) More interesting though is the fact that Jordan has been diagnosed with severe anxiety, with therapy and prescription meds to help combat it. This is not something we see in many network TV shows, and definitely not in a superhero property. The writers will need to work hard to not fall into too many mental health stereotypes, but the decision to include this was a welcome surprise.

Along with the normal challenges of raising two kids, Clark and Lois also have to deal with the huge question that’s crossed the mind of every comic fan at some point in time: what kinds of abilities would Superman’s kids have? While one might simply assume both (fraternal) twins would have all the same powers as their dad, genetics would laugh in your face. For instance, my father stands a whopping 6’3” in height (think Brandon Routh or Tom Welling) while I…well, let’s just say I’m not anywhere near that. Do both have powers? Neither? Clark and Lois aren’t sure either, but Clark is vehement on not wanting them to know his identity. 

Beyond the practical reasons for this, Clark’s concerned what effect it will have on Jordan if it turns out his already nearly perfect brother is also a metahuman. At the same time, how much more alienated would he feel if it turns out that he’s actually half alien? And what about Jonathan? He openly displays some rather jerkish qualities already, so how much worse would he be if he found out he was invincible? Would he lose his drive to excel if he discovered his brother has abilities that he can never match? Or what if neither have powers and are essentially the DC version of Michael Jordan’s sons? These are great questions that wouldn’t come up if there were only one son, and it seems like much of the show will be spent addressing them. 

After a few major life changing events, some of which too many of us have dealt with ourselves in the past year, the Kent-Lane family find themselves in Smallville for a bit. Once again, the temptation is strong for the writers to fall back on that other show about the place Clark was raised (whose name escapes me at the moment), but they do an admirable job of reflecting the issues real small towns in middle America have been dealing with for decades. Owning an independent farm isn’t an easy task in today’s world, and communities that aren’t suburbs or exurbs are feeling the effects of dwindling populations. 

If all of this sounds rather heavy for a property famous for a guy who wears his underwear on the outside, well, it is. Not quite as dark as Arrow or Man of Steel, but I do mean this both visually and tonally. Balancing that darkness with the inherent camp of the character isn’t always easy, so props to the producers and crew for pulling it off. 

There’s a lot more to discuss with this two-hour episode, including the mysterious Stranger, a villain who knows a lot about Superman, and maybe even more about Kal-El. Since we want to be able to continue giving you good people early looks at your favorite content, said discussion will have to wait for the full review. In the meantime, we’d love to hear what you folks want to see from the show, and your expectations for its place in the larger Arrowverse as a whole. SUPERMAN & LOIS premieres on Tuesday, February 23^rd on your local CW station, or streams free the next day in The CW app.

L. Johnson-Biddle
weapons201@comicattack.net