Freedom Reborn

I think the Working Title Superman & Lois Lane(or Superman and Lois), which isn't far off from a previous Lois and Clark, will have a similar focus. Instead of simply focusing on the Super heroics and the titular character himself, the show will focus on the intertwined lives of Lois Lane and Clark Kent as Superman as(and here's the kicker) PARENTS. Apparently, yes they will have a kid in the show because:

Spoiler

The couple will be given a kid in the 5-part Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover in a few months. I suppose that shouldn't be too surprising since Lois was pregnant I think in Elsworlds. Which considering the timeline of Supergirl's show, I really didn't expect them to go with an origin story, but they're skipping competing reporters, courtship, married life and accelerating to parenthood even before the show starts. That's because there will be a "backdoor" pilot(and this is why there needed to be another spoiler tag) in the final season of Arrow... at least that's what I read from a source of mine. It could be an inaccurate conflation of this show and the 'Birds of Prey'(I dunno, I guess that's what they're doing) show, which seems to be a more likely spinoff of Arrow, which has like 7 episodes to go(and coincidentally has seven weeks to go(excluding the Crisis). It's more likely that'll get the backdoor treatment as last episode or a Pre-Crisis(not sure how much of a pun I intended here) show. Which means if BOTH BoP and S&LL are using Arrow for piloting purposes, they're taking up a chunk a valuable real estate, so I assume the source is wrong. Now sure how they were planning to fit in a whole different character(Superman) from not just another show but in the show, another Earth... which I suppose confirm what we all inevitably knew...

Spoiler

The Earths are merging.

What with Arrow travelling around universes looking for stuff for the Monitor, the backdoor pilot could easily be Green Arrow being send to Superman and Supergirl's earth and teaming up with Superman (and Lois) to find whatever MacGuffin he is there to fetch.

I love the montage style opening going through the backstory.

The Kents finding baby Clark. Pa Kent's passing and funeral. Clark moving to Metropolis. So good, and the music... so epic!

And then we get the 1st appearance of Superman. And he's wearing the Golden Age costume!! OMG! So awesome! Even if it's for just a few seconds. And "Thanks, my Mom made it for it. " Such a great call back line to the first episode of 'Lois & Clark'.

Then we get the first meeting of Clark and Lois. And yes! Yes! He's all stutters and bumbling in front of her. So good. We get to see the twins, who are named after both Clark's dads. We also get hints that Jon Kent might be the next hero in the family, seemingly showing signs of emerging powers. Jordan on the other hand, we learn has anxiety problem and has to go to therapy.

Skip forward to present day, and the power plant is gonna blow! Oh nos! But Superman saves the day. And it was a nice way to show off his powers WITHOUT destroying 1/4 of a major city. Yeah, Synder, taped to your chair, I'm looking at you. And it showed he doesn't have to go all punchy punchy to save the day. We also learn Gen. Lane knows Superman's secret ID and this is the second time we've had a near meltdown. Oh, and through the montage the costume updates. And while I've never been a fan of the trunkless look, I can get into this one. A solid belt breaks up the outfit like I said in another post.

Superman arrives home, and told by Lois that he missed Jordan's therapy session. And Jon has news. Jon is supposed to be the starting QB, even though he's a freshman. Clark goes to apologize for missing Jordan's therapy. And, yes.... Jordan is CW angsty teen approved. But this has one of my favorite laugh out loud moments. He's playing 'Injustice 2'! It's Superman Vs Raiden on screen. And when Clark comments Jordan makes a good Superman, Jordan replies 'Superman's boring'. Oh how deep the knife goes! :lol:

We skip ahead to the Daily Planet and find out that Morgan Edge has bought the Planet. People are getting let go left and right. And so is Clark. As Clark and Lois begin to talk about this, Clark's phone rings and he at first thinks it's his Mom. But it turns out it's a Doctor. Clark takes off flying at super-speed and heads home... too late. 😥 Ma Kent has passed away from a stroke. And Tyler Hoechlin makes you believe a Superman can cry.

We have the funeral, and then the gathering at the Kent farm. We meet Lana Lane, now Cushing, and her husband, Tool. Okay, his name isn't Tool, but it should be. He is a grade-a Tool. He's the local fire chief, and he might just be acting that way because he's jealous that Clark is Lana's HS sweetheart. We also meet Lana's oldest daughter, Sarah, who is seemingly set-up as a possible love interest for Jordan. Cell/Wi-Fi reception is 'teh suck' down on the farm, and Sarah, Jon, and Jordan go into the barn to reset the router. Okay, this part I gotta question. Why is the router in a hard to reach place in the barn and not someplace easy to access? Anywho, Clark has warned the boys to stay out of the barn. That it's dangerous. And it is, a load of pipes fall on the Kent boys, with Jon apparently saving the duo.

Lois's dad visits the farm, showing evidence linking nuke plants with a blurry figure caught on camera, along with Kryptonian micro-etching. Her dad tries to order Clark into action, but Lois countermands her dad, stating that Clark needs to be with family right now, but if an emergency happens, Superman will be there. GO LOIS GO!

The next day at the Smallville bank we learned that Ma Kent has the farm on a reverse mortgage. And she has been helping out all the neighbors. Gee, makes you wonder where Clark got it from. While this is going on the twins are curious about how they weren't hurt and investigate the barn. They find the cellar and Clark's ship, and confront their parents when they get home. Clark reveals who he is, and that they assume Jon has inherited Clark's powers. Both boys are upset and storm off. 

That evening Lois and Clark are talking and Clark asks Lois if he's a bad father. OMG! Yes! "The man is more important then the super!", so far they are getting it. This is how to handle Superman. He projects this core of confidence to the world, but he needs Lois to lean on, to ground him. Inside he has the same self-doubts that we all have.

Suddenly another nuke plant is under attack. And this looks like a.... you know where it's going. Meanwhile the twins go to a bonfire that Sarah invited them to.
Superman meets the baddie, who has been doing this because the plant is lead lined and he could hide and observe Supes. Superman attacks and the baddie is wearing armor. In all honestly, it looks somewhat like the 'MoS' kryptonian armor. Oh, and he keeps calling Superman Kal-El. So I kind of think it's going to be Zod or some such. Bleh, we did Zod already in the movies. Please no. But anyway, the two fight, and we see Superman keeping this super powered fight away from cities and such.

*SMACKS Synder* Are we paying attention Mr. Destruction Porn?!?

The twins go to a bonfire Sarah invited them to and Jordan misreads a secret sharing talk with Sarah and kisses her. He gets slugged by Sarah's boyfriend. Jon jumps in to save the day, only to lead to both boys getting butts handed to them. Jordan and Jon are on the ground getting kicked and hit, and Jordan gets angry and *FOMPH* HIS heat vison causes an explosion. I hate to say, I kind of saw this coming. That, or somehow the twins would 'split' Clark's powers. They lead in just a bit too heavy handed on it being Jon to have the powers. Plus, I guess it was meant to be a swerve for comic readers, who expected Jon to be like his comic book counterpart.

Back to the fight, they are in mid-orbit, and Baddie asks if Supes wonders how he knows so much about him. He says something about he's also from a doomed planet (or he could have said destroyed), not unlike krypton. Okay, so he's not kryptonian. Good. Anyway, he says the villainous diatribe that all bad guys must spout. (It's in the Bad Guy Handbook) And then he stabs Supes with a kryptonite knife embedding in his chest and Clark plummets towards earth.

Lois sees about the explosion on TV and uses a little pager-like device to call to Clark. As Clark hears the signal, he pulls the kryptonite out, and stops his fall in the nick of time. He flies off and arrives at the explosion area. Jon is okay, just beaten up, but Jordan looks like hell. His eyes are super-bloodshot, and red and somewhat swollen. The family have a talk and it's realized that Jordan has the powers. He was the one that saved his brother from the pipes in the barn earlier. Jon is actually okay with this, as it means his athleticism is natural, not from powers. I like this! I like they didn't go the whole "I hate you cause you got powers and I didn't" route. It's refreshing.

Clark and Lois have decided to keep the farm, and they're going to move the family there. Clark admits to Jordan that he hasn't been there for him, and he's going to be from now on.

Cut to Baddie in a snowy mountainous area entering his ship. Blah, blah, blah, bad guy monologuing to ship's AI. AI calls him 'Captain Luthor'. Bwa? Okay, this takes place in the Arrowverse, and we already have a Lex Luthor over on Supergirl. So I'm going to lay my guess out right now. This is a future Luthor, not Lex, but A Luthor. And he's traveled to the past because he believes Superman does, or doesn't, do something that dooms the Earth. Hence, him coming from a 'doomed' planet.

I LOVED the opening few minutes. It was like an entire long-running Superman series in the span of several minutes, and I fanboyed out when I saw him in the Golden Age costume.

Am I the only one who thinks it's a bit weird to have Superman's kids crushing on the daughter of his ex-girlfriend? I mean, it's not technically wrong. It just seems weird to me, like if Smallville had Clark's son dating the daughter of Kristen Kreuk's Lana.

Lana's husband is a real heel in this. The firefighter job did level things off in a way that can make things interesting (several of these supporting characters are series regulars) but every single other thing he said, and the southern hic voice the actor gave him really marked him as a jerk who seems like he could be a real troublemaker in future stories.

"Captain Luthor" made a very impressive showing. I liked the look of the warsuit, I liked the actor's voice, and the story tease seems intriguing (he's apparently an alternate universe Luthor, which can be a lot of fun). I can't wait to see more of him, he cemented himself as a bad$$ Luthor in far less screentime than even Jon Cryer did in Supergirl (not counting the trailer for those episodes, which did the job in about 2 minutes or less)

QuoteOkay, so he's not kryptonian. Good. Anyway, he says the villainous diatribe that all bad guys must spout. (It's in the Bad Guy Handbook) And then he stabs Supes with a kryptonite knife embedding in his chest and Clark plummets towards earth.

"Hey? That an RPG? YOU GOT AN ARR. PAY. GEE?

Wha-wait wait wait, can't we talk about this? You ain't going to monologue or nothing, give the bad guy speech?"

Samuel L. Jackson, Afro Samurai.

I was totally expecting it to be Luthor. I think the Kryptonian armor (perhaps he got actual Kyptonian armor and repurposed it for himself) was a red herring.

What I liked about that fight (other than the actor's speech and the gorgeous action) is that this really feels like the most stressful time in Superman's life. Not worst, most stressful.

Future Luthor is possible. I'm reminded of Kyrpton, which featured the often great Colin Salmon as a time displaced General Zod, and he was pretty great in that.

Legion of Superheroes also featured "Alexis Luthor".

Just one thing, I'm not going to be going beat by beat like I did about the first show. I'm going to just cover some of my thoughts on it.

Okay I was wrong about Captain Luthor. He's not from the future, but an alternate Earth. We get to see some flashes of this world. He served in a military unit under his world's Gen. Lane, who evil Supes kills. I never considered that idea because I thought all the Earths merged at the end of Crisis. They might have alluded to there still being other Earths and I missed it. But they brought back the black suit for evil Superman too. (As a Goth girl, I have to object to this. Black isn't evil, it's just moody. Goatees are evil, Star Trek has shown us that.)

We get to see Clark take Jordan to the fortress of solitude (FoS, henceforth). Okay, a couple things here, nitpicky things that are silly and don't take away from it. I understand him having Jordan bundle up for the cold, but he's Superman. Why's he wearing a toboggan and all? He's Superman. Next, the FoS is wayyyyy different from how they had it in Supergirl. Couldn't they just used the same set? We get to see Jor-El's AI, and we see the crystal Jordan got from the space ship last episode. I do love that later on Jordan and John are talking and Jordan refers to the AI as 'HoloGramps', that just struck me as funny. (Hologram, HoloGramps :lol:) And we also find out that Jordan apparently can't focus and use his powers at will. Also, Clark and Jor-El can't say 'heat vision', it's 'occular projection'. I didn't know 'super-grammer' was a power. Jordan gets upset at hearing he will never be as powerful as his dad.

Okay, I'm going to have another couple theories. These are about Jordan's powers. Jordan and John are twins, yet only one has shown powers. I think a way this may work is John is the battery and Jordan is the outlet. In the comics, when Superman died, the Eradicator (the Visored Last Son of Krypton) wasn't able to properly store and convert solar energy like Superman. So he used Superman's body to collect and convert solar energy, and he absorbed it to 'run' his own powers. I think this is how the twins might be working. Both times Jordan did any power stunts, he was very close to John. So when I mentioned in my last post, I thought they might split their powers, I may have been close. And I think part of what happened is due to Crisis. Before Crisis, Lois and Clark had one child, and afterwards became twins.

Back to the show. I said it looked like they took some of the 'Clark and Lois' comic too, and they did. Lois digs into why Morgan Edge is buying up property in Smallville. She never left the Daily Planet, only Clark lost his job. We get to see some more of Lana and Tool. (I declare from now on his name is Tool, until such time as he earns a proper name) and another lady that seems to be interested in watching Lois. Lois attends a town meeting that Morgan Edge happens to be attending, and we find out the lady works for the local paper. Lois, being Lois, kicks up a hornet's nest, by tossing uneasy questions out to Edge. She writes an article on the shady goings on for the Planet, but it gets re-written. And she gets massively POed. She ends up quitting the Planet and going to work for the local paper to continue investigating Edge. She also has another good scene with Clark that shows why he needs her so much. She doesn't treat him like a god, or hero, but like a person. She's his grounding rod, the north on his compass so to speak. She's not eye candy, she's the rock that Superman needs to lean on sometimes. And to be that kind of force of personality is alot, and they have been showing that with Lois. When he needs comfort and direction, she's there for him. But she's also there when he needs his course corrected too. 

We get to see Superman and Luthor go at it again. And *GASP* another Super fight where cities WEREN'T leveled. I didn't think such things were possible! (She says sarcastically) The fight was really good, and Luthor loses his ship to distract Superman so he can escape. He also makes contact and tries to convince our Gen. Lane that Superman might not always be good.

And now, onto the twins. They keep swerveballing me. They keep making me think they're going to go into the classic 'bro vs bro' standard, but then they pull back out. John lashes out at Clark and Jordan, because they moved away for Jordan, upending his love life, his athletics, etc. He bonds with Lois, as they are the 'normal' ones that get left behind and have to give up everything. *Sigh* No, not the OMG DRAMAS! But then they do something nice, something refreshing. Jordan ponies up to this fact, and apologizes to his brother. And not only does John accept it, he tells Jordan that they'll figure out how to get his powers working. I love this! I love the fact that they argue, call each other names, get mad, but at the end of the day, they have each other's backs. Please CW, don't change that! Cain and Abel might be an interesting pair of siblings, but not all of them have to hate each other. 

QuoteBut they brought back the black suit for evil Superman too. (As a Goth girl, I have to object to this. Black isn't evil, it's just moody. Goatees are evil, Star Trek has shown us that.)

It is a bit of a tradition though, and a way to use a different Superman costume they might not get to use otherwise.

QuoteI understand him having Jordan bundle up for the cold, but he's Superman. Why's he wearing a toboggan and all?

Maybe he just likes dressing like that? He's done it in other things, one of which was BvS when he goes up into the mountains. It also helps make him look less suspicious if anyone happens to be up there for some reason.

QuoteNext, the FoS is wayyyyy different from how they had it in Supergirl. Couldn't they just used the same set? We get to see Jor-El's AI, and we see the crystal Jordan got from the space ship last episode.

Now this one I DO have a serious answer for. I'm going off the assumption that this takes places several years later compared to the rest of the Arrowverse, as I mentioned last week (the kids are noticeably older, after all), so maybe he upgraded the FoS or had to rebuild it after some supervillain altercation that resulted in it looking different? Yeah, that's me making up an explanation, but I do think it's a legit possibility in this world.

You may very well be right about Jordan and John's powers. I saw someone online joke that they're the Wonder Twins, which, yeah, pretty much.

QuoteWe get to see some more of Lana and Tool. (I declare from now on his name is Tool, until such time as he earns a proper name)

I'd been going back and forth on how much of a tool Tool is in this show, but no, he indeed a massive heel.

Quoteanother lady that seems to be interested in watching Lois. Lois attends a town meeting that Morgan Edge happens to be attending, and we find out the lady works for the local paper.

That's Beppo, the character named after the Super-Monkey.  ^_^

QuoteWe get to see Superman and Luthor go at it again. And *GASP* another Super fight where cities WEREN'T leveled. I didn't think such things were possible! (She says sarcastically) The fight was really good, and Luthor loses his ship to distract Superman so he can escape. He also makes contact and tries to convince our Gen. Lane that Superman might not always be good.

Yeah, I'm still rather impressed with the fights and with this version of Luthor. We still don't know much about him, but what we do know is he is a very sound tactical mind, and fortunately the writers aren't making Superman an idiot to stack the deck in his favor unfairly.

Supes even outright said what I said last week - that this stage in his life has been especially stressful.

I agree with the kids. One scene I'll be tempted to write them off, then by the end of the episode I'll be like "Yeah, they're all right."

The 'Daily Planet take over' story has been done many times in the past. Lex and Edge have done it in the comics. Tess Mercer did it in Smallville. Darkseid, Batman, and even Marvel's Kingpin have owned it. And in alot of those, it was either Lois or Clark that found shenanigans to get the Planet back in the right hands.

And in the 'Clark and Lois' comic, pre-52 Clark and Lois survived Flashpoint/Convergance, and were living on a farm under the last name White. Lois worked at the local newspaper, and wrote books that exposed Intergang under another alias. She even had a super-pager in the comics, just like in the show.

And I have no problems with the black suit.... as long as we don't get THIS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-4qCX1ty-Y)!  :blink:

I like the explanation on the FoS. I can totally see that having happened.

And yeah, Capt. Luthor is good. He's not evil for evil's sake. He's basically seen 'Injustice' Superman wipe out his world. (Which as I type this, I realize we got to watch Jordan play last episode. HOLY SCHNICKY!! They pretty much laid it right there in front of us, and we didn't get it! Well played sirs and ma'ams!) He legitimately thinks he's saving our world.

I'm also glad they do give Clark credit in not being a big ol' dumb hero. Alot of people make the mistake that Superman is all brawn, no brains.

"I'm Sooperman! I make punchy-unchy with the laser eyes! Up, up, and I'm outta here!"

He's not a tactician on the level of J'onn J'onzz or Batman, but he has smarts. He's a world-renowned journalist and he's had years of practice with his powers. 

No Captain Luthor whatsoever in this episode. This week the threat comes from superpowered individuals working for Morgan Edge.
The way the show has a nonchalent approach to metas for hired and/or experimental metas feels like it knows the audience watching this knows how this whole business works by now, which is cool.

Superman....well, on the one hand, that fight scene was amazing! And once again, Superman isn't an idiot when he goes into action, using his freezing breath at the perfect time for a tactical advantage. Also they're calling it heat vision again, yay.

On the other hand, Clark making a lot of dubious decisions in this episode had me checking the writers for all three of these episodes to see if someone else wrote this (different writers each episode) because that's something I do these days. Clark had to have known some of the stuff he said and did wouldn't go over well with the kids.

On the other other hand (Oh no, three hands!), Jordan's infamous line "EVERYTHING YOU DO IS A MISTAKE" from the promos DOES make more sense in context, even if it's still an awful thing to say (Dude, it's Superman)

This show makes me go "Poor Clark" every few minutes. Guy's trying so hard to be a good husband and father. To paraphrase the theme song to Scrubs, even Superman's no Superman.

Also at this rate Clark and Lois are going to have a drinking problem with how often they break out the wine.

Biggest diss to Superman though...Jordon dropping Injustice for the X-Box Killer Instinct. Cold blooded.

Speaking of family drama....there's also Lana's family.

One of the things about this show is criticizing the teenage angst in the show feels extremely....inappropriate? Because two of the kids (Jordan and Sarah) are being saddled with some very serious mental health problems, and so it's not wrong, but it is extremely awkward. The diner scene had me asking why Jordan and Jon didn't try to get the heck out of dodge.

"Sophie bullies all the kids in her class." Assuming I heard that line correctly, Sophie actually has a personality in this show? Because it's hard to tell with how little screentime she has. She's like Anthony from Cobra Kai or Chris from Homeland, the sibling who has basically nothing to do in the show.

What was up with that one kid at school? I got a bit distracted during the episode, so I might have to rewatch that stuff, but I didn't really follow that at all.

The most recent episode brought back Kate Kane, who will be recast with Wallace Day from Krypton (a casting I and other people online are very pleased with). This pleases me greatly because Batwoman has really slipped in S2 as a direct result of having to write out the main character.

This makes me giddy as a schoolgirl as well because it means the once-promised (Kate Kane) Batwoman/Supergirl team up and her teaming up with the other characters could be back on the table.

Also they're about to do Black Mask, and after a pitch perfect Victor Zaszz appeared this season, I'm optimistic.

*Hard comedic cut to Cisco seeing Caitlin and Frost now separated as two people, and Cisco freaking the heck out.*
ME [within a split second of seeing this] YES THEY DID IT!!!

Captain Luthor is actually John Henry Irons, aka Steel.

He has a daughter that's based on Nastasta Irons, who helped him build his power suit in a environment that looks like a steel mill, he uses the alias John Henry Irons, and he builds a high-tech hammer to fight Superman with.

I like this a lot. More of this please.

In an interview with his actor Wole Parks, he reveled they planned from the start for Captain Luthor to have a "redemption arc" and they decided a bit later "what if we made him John Henry Irons?". So it wasn't planned from the start.

This I actually kinda like. In episode 3 or 4, Luthor is d*cking around in an RV, and getting upset and smashing his future Skeets-like computer device. I disliked this as it made Luthor seem cool and collected, and it's a pet peeve of mine when character smash their equipment (though Luthor did that in an episode of JLU as well) but at the beginning of this episode he completely repairs the computer and the computer voice calls him out on smashing her.

This works more for me for Irons as he's always been more of a working man underdog. I like how this has shaken out.