He. Called. It. The. Parasite. WHY??
Last time on My Adventures With
Superman, Clark and company go the Superman story scooped by Cat Grant,
Steve Lombard, and Ronnie Troupe. Lois was extremely annoyed by this but Clark
tried to use this as an opportunity to redirect his friends into investigating another
tech weapon situation. Local smalltime gang Intergang, Kyle and Albert, used
their tech to free their boss/sister Siobhan McDougal from lockup. Clark and Co
investigate, Lois admitting to Jimmy that this is part of plan to find Superman
by following the crime. After investigating the jail cell Siobhan was in, they
discovered that Intergang decided to rob a bank to gain respect. They use a
freeze ray combined with their invisibility, strength enhancing, and sonic
scream tech to break into the vault. Clark uses an ice wave to swap clothes and
comes back in as Superman. He is able to stop Intergang once the freeze ray
starts overloading thanks to his newly acquired heat vision. Because Lois and
Jimmy stayed behind to help people get out of the wave of the ice wave,
Superman decides to trust Lois with an interview. He flies her to the Daily
Planet roof to talk. He basically can only tell her that he doesn’t know what
he is, what his powers are from, but he assures her that he’s there to help. He
leaves and comes back as Clark. He excitedly asks Lois what she thinks of
Superman and she, to his shock, says Superman is a liar. Enough recap. Let’s
get to it.
We open at the Daily Planet; Lois
loudly complains about the interview with Superman. See, while WE know that
Superman answered all her questions with as much honesty as he could, from Lois
perspective he gave her several nothing answers and then a campaign slogan.
Yeah, I can see her being annoyed by that. She rests her head on Clark’s
shoulder and asks who IS Superman. Superman, and by that, I mean Clark, says
that maybe Superman is just a nice guy with powers trying to help as people as
he can. Lois laughs and gives Clark a shoulder bump, saying that’s what HE’D do
with powers, but obviously Superman has an agenda, because he’s not Clark. …
She’s going to feel really silly about this assessment at some point. Jimmy
arrives with a stack of magazines. Turns out, Lois’ new strategy is to
investigate the “Superman is an alien” angle. And because no reputable news
source believes in aliens, they’re going to dig through tabloids. … Again,
knowing that Aliens are in fact real in the DC universe just makes all the
skepticism all the funnier to me. Lois believes that they’re close to an
answer, together they will find the answer. “Together we will-” she beings
before Perry, who’d walked in during the angle change of that shot cuts her off
with “Come upstairs with me.”
In Perry’s office, he tells them
they’re not in trouble for being in the newspaper morgue. In fact, he’s got a
big opportunity for them. Because they keep begging to be real reporters, he’s
giving them a shot. He shows them a picture of Dr. Anthony Ivo, CEO of Amazo
Tech, builders of all the advanced tech we’ve seen in this show, from robot
cleaners, the various hologram displays and so on. Clark points out that he’s
accused of clearing out a low-income housing area to build his corporate HQ
using mob connections, and lots of corporate espionage, but Perry tells him
without proof they can’t talk about that. They’re doing a “Most Eligible
Bachelor” article for Ivo in the paper and Cat Grant… doesn’t want to go, (which
I think should tell them something,) so Perry’s giving them the assignment. He
stresses it’s just for tonight, but that can’t dampen Jimmy and Lois’
enthusiasm. He tells them to dress up for the black-tie event and tells Lois
specifically to impress him.
That night, they meet in the
newspaper morgue. Jimmy shows off the various cameras he’s bringing to the
gala, knocking over the tabloids as he does. Clark picks up the magazines, only
to find the Metropolis Star. This magazine is important because its front-page story
is “15 Year Anniversary Of The Kansas Flying Boy!” Figures that one of these
tabloids would have the one completely true story on its cover. He quickly
opens the magazine and rips out the story and stuffs it in his pocket as Jimmy
finishes explaining why he’s bringing a UV light. Lois arrives and shows off
her outfit, befuddling Clark something fierce. They get swept up in the romance
of the moment, saying that this moment is almost like a date. Well, they almost
say it, before Jimmy “third wheel” Olsen slides in and says it’s an awesome
night out with three best friends. Dude, read the room, you KNOW there’s a
mutual attraction here and you just keep killing moods.
They arrive at the party, Jimmy
immediately peeling off to get some canapes. Clark wants to get started on
interviewing people for the article, but Lois tosses the notes and points out
that the CEO of Galaxy Communications, the Mayor, and her opponent in the next
election. This is a gathering of the most corrupt and powerful in Metropolis and
Lois refuses to just ask questions for a puff piece. Clark reads the first of
Lois’ prepared questions, “Do you have a comment on your recent bribery
charges” and rightly points out questions like this are gonna get them thrown
out. Lois thinks that this’ll impress Perry, Clark tries to point out that
that’s probably not what will impress Perry but drags Clark after her. This, by
the way, I think is adorable, Lois lugging Clark around like the big emotional
support animal he is to her. Oh, and they totally forgot about Jimmy, who comes
back like two seconds after they left.
Lois gets in the face of a senator
asking about him taking bribes, but he walks off. Lois drags Clark after him.
Jimmy almost catches up but is pulled aside by Stephen Root. Well, not by
Stephen Root but by a character played by Stephen Root. Look him up, you’ve
seen him in something. Anyway, Stephen Root drags him off to take photos of him
and his grandchildren. The Roots are all impressed by Jimmy’s cameras and UV
light, so he’s having a great night. Lois and Clark are not having a great
night, as Lois’ extremely blunt questions are putting people off. Clark brings
her cake and suggests going back to Cat’s questions. He wants to stick to the
assignment and build up to the big stories. She’s insistent they do something
that matters, but Clark says he’s going back to the questions and that he’ll
cover the next person that comes in. The next person who comes in is none other
than Anthony Ivo. The bookish, sweater wearing old nerd of most series has been
altered into a tech bro that is REALLY trying to be Tony Stark. He hypes
himself up as he rises on stage and is just a general prick. He thanks his
assistant, Alex, a ginger in glasses that looks super pissed to be there, for
setting up the spread. Ivo tells everyone to be prepared for his big
announcement later tonight. Lois tells him that Ivo is all his.
Ivo meets with Curtis, one of his board
of directors. Curtis tells him that the vote is happening tonight and that
whatever Ivo is going to unveil won’t change anything. Ivo pulls him aside and
insists that his new product will change everything, but Curtis says it won’t.
Ivo is broke and the Board is going to vote him out. Ivo grabs him and tells
Curtis that his latest product will make all the money problems go away and
redefine humanity, so he just needs to keep the rest of the board happy until
the end of the night. Clark walks up looking to get the interview going. Ivo,
realizing that what he just said could be bad for his image, promises to give
Clark all the details for the bachelor article and if Clark forgets what he
might have overheard, he’ll set Clark up with one of the most eligible
bachelorettes. He sees Lois and specifically says not one like her, which is the
wrong thing to say to Clark Jospeh Kent. Oh, and he also says some other
vaguely misogynist things, like how he’d rather talk to a “bro” like Clark than
Cat and stuff like that. Clark starts grilling Ivo about the allegations he was
talking about earlier, the displacing a community to build his headquarters and
the espionage allegations. Ivo laughs it off and says that he’ll see Clark
escorted to the press section. He’s immediately grabbed by goons and allows
them to throw him out. Think about that, Clark is literally thrown into the
garbage, by choice.
Lois followed Clark down and
teasingly said that she probably shouldn’t let him back in. He doesn’t follow
the cards or the assignment, and according to Clark he doesn’t even fit the
dress code anymore due to his torn coat. Lois tells him she can fix that,
taking off her outer jacket and revealing she’s got a sewing kit. She’s damaged
a lot of clothes looking for leads, so she’s always prepared for spot repairs.
Lois is rather impressed by Clark’s physique, as Clark is by hers, and she sets
about fixing the tear. Her dad suddenly calls but she ignores it. She explains
to Clark that she and her dad don’t talk due to Sam Lane being the
stereotypical emotionally distant army dad that he is. She seems to hold the
fact he’d kept how sick her mother was before her death against him the most.
She says that she doesn’t want to share her screwups with him. We learn here
that part of the reason Lois is so driven to become a real reporter is
basically to show her dad that she can do work that matters. Clark tells her
that while she has almost gotten him killed multiple times since he met her,
she did change his life for the better. He begins to tell her he’s Superman,
but she cuts him off by saying that it’s Superman’s fault she’s been off
lately. She knows he’s keeping something from her, and she hates being lied to.
They’re interrupted by a scientist lady running out of a secure room, crying.
They go to investigate, but the
door is locked. Clark breaks the security lock, pulls it again and says that it
must have just been jammed. They go in and find a whole bunch of the alien tech
that Intergang and Livewire were using. They find Ivo suiting up in some kind
of device, his assistant Alex telling him that this is a bad idea. The machine
he’s using is still in prototype and it was shown to make test subjects
extremely aggressive. Ivo tells him to shut up and say that this thing will
show up Curtis, the “baby” reporter, and everyone. He rises to the stage again
to show off his device, the Parasite 1.0. Ivo, terrible name. He activates the
suit, causing a weird, fleshy substance to cover him head to toe before
hardening into armor. He claims that
Metropolis is amid a crimewave, and that Superman can’t be trusted. He promises that the Parasite can help anyone
become their own Superman. He grabs Curtis to demonstrate and dangles him out a
window. Lois and Clark arrive in time to see this, Clark slipping out with the
crowd to do the Superman thing. Jimmy finds Lois, and the two end up trapped in
the ballroom when the security doors shut.
Clark races to the ground floor and
does the open shirt thing to show off his logo. He flies up and catches Curtis
as Ivo drops him. He flies up and drops Curtis off and faces off against Ivo.
Ivo orders Alex to begin. Alex hits a button and activates a network of robotic
probes that fly around and form a cage around the room. Ivo says that Superman
is going to show them all how his Parasite works. He claims the Parasite makes
him as powerful as Superman. It can absorb any energy and redirect it back to
the target. He says kinetic energy specifically, but he seems to also be able
to redirect Clark’s heat vision at him. He takes punch from Superman and sends
him flying back with a tail he just grew. The suit comes coupled with the
“Amazo Panic Room” the probes I just talked about, which can also draw energy
from the target and power the Parasite for longer. I should note that with
every hit of energy the Parasite takes, it seems to get noticeably bigger and
more lizard-like in appearance, growing a tail and stretching out Ivo’s neck
with each upgrade. Jimmy and Lois see that Alex is controlling the show from
the control room and go to stop him. Ivo, seemingly driven mad by the Parasite,
attempts to throw people into the Panic Room barrier to drain them for energy,
but Superman stops him. Ivo grabs Superman and throws him into the wall,
draining him of his strength. Jimmy and Lois enter the control room. Alex tries
to stop them, but Lois punches him out, and apologizes, saying his life seems
hard. Jimmy uses his UV light to find which of the buttons Alex pushed, and
they push it, disabling the Panic room. Ivo sees them in the control room and
shrieks that they Cheated and goes to attack.
Superman knocks him aside, saying
this isn’t a game. Ivo accuses Superman of being afraid that Ivo is better than
him. He tries to attack Superman several times but Superman dodges and notes that
as he doesn’t fight back, Ivo’s suit loses power and shrinks. He realizes that
he doesn’t have to fight Ivo to stop him, and just keeps dodging until Ivo
drops down to the suit’s original form. Ivo tries to strike again, but the
Parasite runs out of juice and starts trying to drain the only source of power
available, Ivo. The suit constricts around him, clearly breaking Ivo’s bones as
it absorbs his strength. Superman rips Ivo clear, to find that the suit drained
him of his vitality, severely scared him and left one of his eyes darkened.
Superman flies him down to ground level and gives him over to the EMTs. Ivo
demands to know what Superman’s angle is, why he’s doing this. Superman shakes
his head and asks “is it really so hard to believe that some people just want
to help?” They take Ivo away.
Superman switches back to Clark and
leads everyone to the lab. He knows that the only explanation for all that tech
is Ivo got it from his criminal connections. But they’re too late. Turns out,
during the fight someone slipped into the lab and stole all the tech. Clark vents
his frustration to Lois, who ends up kissing him on the cheek, saying it’s cute
to see him obsess over a story. She leans back and says that she spent all
night wondering if this counted as a date before shivering a little from the
cold. Clark gives her his coat and asks what she decided on. She gives him
another cheek kiss and tells him to walk her back to the Planet. Jimmy comes
over, excited about the photos he took, only to see Lois and Clark walk off
without him, leaving him feeling a bit left out.
At the Planet, Lois finishes her
exclusive on the collapse of Amazo tech in the newspaper morgue, still wearing
Clark’s jacket. She sends the story in, notices the magazines still on the floor
and goes to clean them up. She notices one is open and has pages ripped out. She
goes over to their murder board, tears it down and starts over. Her new board
is simply a Now side, filled with pictures of Superman, a Then side, filled
with articles from the Metropolis Star, and a missing link in the middle. She’s
frustrated by this situation again, goes into her pocket for something and
finds the page Clark ripped out. The piece starts coming together, all the
miraculous saves, all the moments where Clark has shown unusual strength, and finally
she just kind of thinks about Superman and realizes he’s literally just Clark
without his glasses and his hair styled. She rather angrily announces that
Clark Kent is Superman. Ho damn.
I think this is another very
well-done episode. Framing the conflict of the week around an opportunity for
Lois and Clark to get closer to each other, and inadvertently push Jimmy away,
was a good drama choice. We got good insight into both of them as reporters,
Lois being the more in your face of the two but Clark doing the research and
not being scared to use it in interviews when he feels it necessary. I think the
comments about Lois’ father will probably be important. In my experience, Sam
Lane isn’t brought up unless he’s going to be making things difficult for Lois
at some point. The update to Professor Ivo, an evil old college professor in
most continuities that I’ve seen, to a Tony Stark wannabe Tech Bro feels like a
modern interpretation of his character. He’s a toxic asshole that clearly
doesn’t completely understand the tech he’s using or marketing as his own. Had
he listened to Alex he might not have been turned into a pretzel by the end.
Sidenote, not the biggest fan of handsome villain gets made ugly by their
reckless use of powers trope. It feels… ableist. But who knows, maybe Ivo will
recover a bit before his next appearance and I’ll feel better about it. The
transformation of the Parasite is probably even more drastic than Ivo’s
reimagining. The Parasite is usually one of several human characters that gets exposed
to unusual or alien chemicals that turn him into a monster that needs to feed off
the life energy of others and can steal the powers of metahumans and aliens he
touches. Turning him into a suit of armor is… a choice. It seems like most of
this season is focusing on the alien tech as the route of all powers, so taking
some of that tech into the power draining monster and combining it with one of
DC’s villains capable of making it does make sense to me. Most Parasites are…
not the sharped knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean. I believe the old
Animated Series had him be a janitor that got covered in chemicals. I
assume that Ivo will return and debut his Amazo Android, that copies powers
used against it, later once there are more interesting powers to copy and combine
beyond Clark and Livewire. You may be wondering why I drew specific attention
to Alex’s hair. Do you know who the biggest character tied to Superman who had
red head and whose legal name is Alexander is? Lex Luthor. Yes, I’m saying that
I think this assistant is Lex Luthor getting his start just like Clark and co
are. Crazy? Maybe. But there’ve been crazier interpretations of Lex. Looking at
you Smallville. Finally, I liked that Lois figured out Clark’s identity
on her own. Often, they just have Clark tell her and that feels just less
interesting than the investigative reporter investigate a situation. Combining
the weird coincidences with Clark always disappearing right before Superman
arrives and the circumstantial evidence of Clark hiding a magazine article from
her is all in her wheelhouse. There’s also the nice bit of blending plotlines
here, in that while Clark got closer to Lois in this episode, it was that
increased closeness that ultimately gave her the last piece to fit the story
together. The fact she seems legitimately angry with this discovery does not
bode well for the big blue boy scout, but we’ll see more of that later. Next
time, Lois tries to get the truth out of Clark or Superman while a new enemy gets
to work.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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