Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Superman & Lois Season 3 Episode 2With The Flash in its final season and the rest of the CW’s Arrowverse shows already finished, Superman & Lois seems to be the final remnant of the DC television universe that started with Arrow (though it does not take place in the Arrowverse, as the Season 2 finale revealed). However, Superman & Lois is arguably the most unique in terms of style and quality, mixing the aesthetics of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel with the warmth and heart of Christopher Reeve’s Superman. Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch play Clark Kent and Lois Lane respectively, in roles we haven’t really seen in live-action — as parents. They have twin boys, Jonathan (Jordan Elsass in Seasons 1 and 2, Michael Bishop in Season 3) and Jordan Kent (Alex Garfin), the latter of whom develops superpowers like his Kryptonian father. The show has also introduced John Henry Irons aka Steel (Wolé Parks) and his daughter Natalie (Tayler Buck), the last survivors from an alternate earth destroyed by an evil Superman. But as much as the superhero adventures of Superman and Steel give the show its elevated stakes, the children aren’t always given the same amount of importance. Now that Jordan is already eager to use his powers for good like his father and Natalie has constructed her own mech-suit like her father, they already prove how deserving they are of becoming superheroes on their own. Instead of treating the kids of the show as normal teenagers, Superman & Lois should have let them save the world alongside their parents from the get-go.
‘Superman & Lois’ Doesn’t Need Time Travel to Explore Superhero Parenthood
Although Superman & Lois has been confirmed to take place on an alternate earth, Arrow and The Flash have already set the precedent for the superhero children of the titular CW heroes. Arrow was the show that started the DC superhero television universe on the CW, and in its seventh season, the show introduced us to grown-up versions of Oliver Queen’s (Stephen Amell) children. There is Oliver’s son William (Ben Lewis), who although doesn’t take up the mantle of the Green Arrow, still plays an integral part of Team Arrow in the future. There is also Oliver and Felicity’s (Emily Bett Rickards) daughter Mia (Katherine McNamara), who eventually inherits the bow and arrow and becomes the Green Arrow of the future. Oliver, unfortunately, doesn’t get to see his children grow up to become superheroes. In the crossover event Crisis On Infinite Earths, Oliver Queen meets his grown-up children from the future for a brief period of time, only to sacrifice himself to save the multiverse.
In The Flash, we first meet Nora West Allen (Jessica Parker Kennedy) as a “mystery girl” in the crossover Crisis On Earth X, yet the reveal that she is actually Barry’s (Grant Gustin) daughter from the future doesn’t happen until Season 4 of the show. Nora would have ties with Barry Allen’s archenemy, Eobard Thawne aka the Reverse Flash. She would stick around to help Team Flash defeat several villains throughout the series, taking up the superhero name “XS.” Later, Nora’s younger brother Bart (Jordan Fisher) also travels back in time to meet his parents, Barry and Iris (Candice Patton), and takes up the superhero name “Impulse.” Together with Iris’s younger brother Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale) aka “Kid Flash,” Barry Allen’s children complete the entire Flash family.
It’s important to note that both Oliver Queen and Barry Allen meet their children as grown-up adults from the future. Particularly in Oliver’s case, the Green Arrow doesn’t get a chance to be a full-fledged father to his children. On the other hand, Clark Kent and Lois Lane have managed to do the impossible. Clark is still Superman and Lois is still the hardened reporter all while raising their twin boys. They successfully live out their simultaneous superhero and family lives. Though, this isn’t without its challenges, especially once Jordan Kent begins developing powers of his own. In between school and football practices, Clark has to help Jordan manage his superpowers — and it’s no easy task being both father and Superman. Still, Jordan and his brother Jonathan, alongside John Henry Irons and his daughter Natalie, prove how the second-generation superheroes are essential in defeating supervillains like Ally Allston (Rya Kihlstedt) aka Parasite in Season 2. Unlike Arrow and The Flash, there’s an opportunity for Superman & Lois to explore superhero parenthood just as their children grow up to be superheroes themselves — no time travel needed.
‘Superman & Lois’ Should Take a Page from ‘Stranger Things’
With an already superpowered Jordan Kent and a highly intelligent and inventive Natalie Irons, the children of Smallville are just as capable as the children of Netflix’s Stranger Things. Part of the success of Stranger Things is how intertwined the children’s adventures are to the overall threat of the Mind Flayer and the Upside Down taking over the world. In the latest season of Stranger Things, both Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Max (Sadie Sink) have direct ties to the show’s big villain reveal of Vecna. When Eleven was still part of Dr. Martin Brenner’s initial experiments, she met Henry Creel, the very first child experiment who would go on to become Vecna. In superhero terms, Vecna is Eleven’s true archenemy. But she isn’t the only one with personal stakes against Vecna. Max, whose older brother died in the previous season, becomes Vecna’s primary victim. When she comes face to face with him, Max ultimately proves her strength with the help of her friends and her favorite song, “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush. Even if Max isn’t superpowered like Eleven, she is still fully involved in the show’s overall conflict. In many ways, the children’s storylines are more important than the adults’ — Hopper (David Harbour), Joyce (Winona Ryder), and Murray (Brett Gelman) are on the other side of the world trying to escape from Russians.
Integrating the kids into the main conflict is an aspect of storytelling that Superman & Lois can take from Stranger Things. Even though the children of Superman & Lois have demonstrated their essential skills and talents in saving the world in the previous seasons, they are still relegated to the more simple stakes of high school life. In Season 3, Episode 2, Jordan and Jonathan, Natalie, and Sarah (Inde Navarrette) leave Smallville for a day to attend a party in Metropolis. While Jordan is still having trouble accepting that he and Sarah have broken up, Jonathan is confronted by an ex-girlfriend. At the same time, Natalie strikes up a conversation with a boy who has a crush on her. While these stories might be normal for every other drama on the CW, these characters are more than just angsty teenagers full of hormones — one of them has Superman’s powers, and another is way smarter than your average high schooler. As much as Clark and Lois and even John Henry Irons want normal lives for their children, they’ll always be naturally drawn to superheroism, in the same way Oliver Queen’s and Barry Allen’s children are too.
While Superman gets plenty of CGI action spectacle, which is already impressive for a CW television show, it’s time to give the children of the show more to do. In the same way Stranger Things puts the children in the middle of the action and main story, Superman & Lois should develop Jordan and Jonathan Kent, Natalie Irons, and Sarah Cushing as central characters in the superhero spectacle — and that doesn’t have to wait until the season finale. If the central theme of Superman & Lois is family, it’s time to let the rest of the family become full-fledged superheroes throughout the show’s overall story.
Superman & Lois continues Tuesdays on The CW.
