Taskforce X has been busy while under new management.
Last time on My Adventures With
Superman, it was a rough Valentines Day. Clark’s plans to just eat ramen on
top of the Daily Planet are thoroughly shot down by his coworkers before he and
Lois get assigned a story about a meteoroid. He, Lois and Jimmy head to STAR Labs.
As they arrive Jimmy sees Alex, Dr. Ivo’s old assistant, get turned down for a
job at STAR Labs and gives him a quick pep talk before being pulled away. They interview
Lois’ college friend Hank Henshaw, who tells them they were tracking this weird
meteoroid until it disappeared over Antarctica. Clark sees a picture of it and
realizes that it’s the remnants of his ship. Jimmy charters a plane for them to
reach the Antarctic. There Clark is drawn to his ship and meets with the
hologram inside. The hologram confirms it is an AI copy of his father, Jor-El
of Krypton, and that the AI has figured out English in the last few months. He
gives Kal-El, Clark, a brief rundown on the fall of Krypton, saying the Empire spread
across the galaxy until it picked a fight with someone much tougher than them.
In the last moments before the planet’s destruction, Clark was sent to Earth,
but Jor-El says Clark’s infant cousin Kara was sent off as well and might be
alive. Their conversation is interrupted by the Kryptonite destroying the ships
core, and Taskforce X raiding the ship for parts. Clark faces off against the
newest member of Taskforce X, Damage a Hulk like soldier with cybernetic arms
and Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke. They’re able to fend them off long enough for
Jor-El to reclaim control of the ship and warp it away, shapeshifting it into a
crystal tower. Jor-El is able to tell Clark to find the communication beacon
from the portal arch sent to Earth 20 years ago to find Kara. Clark and Lois
have a nice moment watching Aurora Borealis together before she asks him for
his help. She heard from Waller that her father is being held captive by
Taskforce X and she needs him to save her dad. Clark agrees and decides not to
burden her with the info about the beacon just yet.
This episode opens with Amanda
Waller waking up and doing her daily routine. Weirdly, the literal first thing
she does upon waking up is chant to herself that she is the master of her own destiny,
and she controls the outcome of this day. She prepares breakfast and coffee before
taking an elevator down to the new Taskforce X prison system. As she strolls
through, breakfast tray in hand we see Ivo in a cell and him raging uncontrollably.
She enters a special cell that’s holding Sam Lane. She offers him his coffee
and says that today is a special day, as it’s the day he talks. Oh my.
We cut over to Clark and Lois
walking about the city. Lois is gung-ho about finding her dad. She’s already
deduced that Taskforce X probably has a new base somewhere near the city as
Clark and the OG Taskforce X villain team wrecked the old one in their escape.
She wants to search the whole city, but as she realizes that he might not be IN
the city any more gets discouraged in real time. Clark perks her up, saying
that there’s nowhere that can be kept hidden from the ace reported Lois Lane.
He begins to tell her about the communicator and Kara, but they’re interrupted
by a young boy that needs Superman’s help, he knows they know him and that they
can get in touch with him. The boy, Billy, says that his dad has gone missing.
His Dad is a volunteer librarian at Strikers Prison and just before he disappeared,
he’d said weird things were happening at the prison. Namely, inmates
disappearing. Clark agrees to help. Lois realizes that disappearing people
sounds like Taskforce X, so this might be a “two birds, one stone” situation.
Clark says he’ll call Jimmy and they should head to prison.
At the Daily Planet Jimmy agrees to
meet them there but is immediately cut off by Perry. Perry tells him that he
needs to focus on his division, Flamebird, and takes him to the Newspaper
Morgue to show him his new team. Well, the team is a bit of a stretch, the Flamebird
division now consists of Jimmy, Steve Lombard, Flip Johnson and the News Kid
Legion (Gabby, Big Words and Patty). I guess he’d hired the News Kid Legion as
the new interns in the time skip. Jimmy is against having a team, but Perry insists
the Daily Planet needs multiple videos every day if they’re going to get one
over on Vicki Vale. Jimmy yells at Patty for chasing a cat and then says to
Perry that the interns don’t listen to him. Perry starts laughing uncontrollably
at the irony of that statement coming from James Olsen and walks off.
At Strikers, Clark tells Lois that
Jimmy said to head in without him. Lois proposes a plan to sneak into the
prison, they pretend to be a wealthy gorgeous widow and the bodyguard that
secretly pines for her and they’re here to make a large donation to the library
wing, they grab a key card and then run. Clark says they don’t have time for that,
and they should just go with his plan. Which is to switch to Superman and fly through
the bars and into an empty cell. Gotta love the “no secret identity” thing between
these two. They head out and find every cell in the library wing is empty. Lois
finds a wall that’s been freshly painted, and Clark uses his X-Ray vision to
confirm that it’s a door. He rips the door open and discovers there’s an
elevator shaft. Clark says that shaft goes for miles, and he can’t see the
bottom even with his super vision. They have a quick pretend fight of Clark
trying to convince Lois to not jump down the shaft before she ‘slips’ and
falls. He shakes his head and rockets down after her, catching her. He teases
that she seems to like jumping off things, to which she replies only because
she knows he’ll catch her.
They drop lower and find the elaborate
prison complex. They sneak past some guards in hazmat suits and Slade Wilson. Clark tries to see through the walls but the
walls are reinforced with something that blocks his X-Ray vision. They decide
to go to Lois’ infiltration plan, grabbing some hazmat suits and trying to
blend in. The plan doesn’t work as Lois is a bad actress, and the control room
guards pull their guns on her almost immediately. Superman knocks them out with
a tap to their skulls. They check the cameras and see some of the cells, including
Ivo’s. Superman also notices the fragment of the gateway from Zero
Day, with the beacon clearly on it. He quickly explains to Lois that his cousin
also escaped Krypton and is on Earth, and that with it he can find her. Lois is
not super jazzed at the thought of calling up more Kryptonians, but they’re
interrupted by the feed switching to Waller interrogating Sam with a knife in
hand. She say they’ll talk about it later
as they need to save him.
The knife was just to slice a chunk
of apple off as Waller tries to get him to spill where his weapon stash is.
Waller says that she has half the tech she’s supposed to, and she knows Sam
stashed it somewhere. They take a few verbal jabs at each other before Sam
reveals that he knows what happened in Antarctica, saying that he ran Taskforce
X for 20 years, and while he might be locked up he’ll always know what is
happening. He says Taskforce X is still his. Waller implies she’s going to go
after Lois to break Sam and then walks off. Lois herself then walks in and says
she brought Superman to rescue him. He’s surprised at the first part of that sentences
and furious at the second.
Back at the Planet, Jimmy is trying
to get his team to finish a video. He says he has one mostly finished of the
Mermaids of Metropolis Bay, I guess Arthur Curry is visiting, but no one is
listening. Steve pitches a series of videos starring him on a yacht and Flip cuts
in wanting to do a volleyball video. I feel like no one explained to them their
job was tracking cryptids. Jimmy notices that his last text to Clark didn’t go
through and decides that his team needs to do a bonding exercise. Like, say,
going out to Strikers Island for… reasons! He realized that if the whole team
goes with him then Perry can’t get mad at him, the devilish genius.
At Strikers island, Clark leads the
Lanes out of the prison. Sam starts yelling at Lois for rushing blindly into danger
trying to save him. He hits a door panel and reveals a cache of guns, to show
that he knows this facility well and that he was in prison because he didn’t
want to escape. He then asks where that Weirdo Kent is and how can that boy
call himself her boyfriend if he lets her go into danger alone like this. Lois,
making obvious eye contact with Superman, says Clark was busy and that Superman
volunteered to help him, but Sam says he didn’t want to be found. He says that
he has it under control, but Superman disagrees. Lois pulls Superman aside and
tells him to stop picking fights with her dad while they’re trying to rescue
him. Superman rightly points out that as Sam kidnapped him, he’s the one that
literally started it. Superman says that they need to find Billy’s dad and that
they also need to find the beacon. Lois blurts out that she isn’t sure if they
should. She says that the beacon was from Zero Day, a failed invasion,
and that they don’t know anything about his cousin or what sort of person they
are. It’s at that moment that they realize that Sam left.
Waller is walking with a squad
consisting of some goons, Wilson and a new guy in green armor, demanding to
know how Sam escaped his cell. Wilson points out he ran this department for 22
years so he must have some backdoors they don’t know about. Waller insists that
he can’t have them here, as she built this place. A door then drops, separating
Waller from her men. The new guys eyes and fist start glowing, and he says he’s
got it. Sam faces off against Waller. He says that she can’t run Taskforce X
without him and that they can still protect the world together. Waller says
that she isn’t going to play second fiddle to him again, and behind her the
wall melts from the touch of Joseph Martin aka the Atomic Skull. While he looks
normal at rest, when Martin uses his powers, his head is engulfed in flaming
green energy and shows only his skull. She orders Agent Martin to finish him. Martin
fires off an energy blast as Sam runs.
Lois wonders why someone would try
to un-rescue themself, to which Superman says “An egotistical man that’s used
to getting what he wants.” Lois wants to know why he’s so upset with her dad
and Superman says it’s because of how Sam talks to her. Superman says that she’s
amazing but Sam makes her feel small, he can forgive a lot but not that. Sam
comes running up, saying they need to get out of here. Superman rushes over
carrying Lois and takes the blast from Atomic Skull. They fly off as Skull keeps
chasing them. They break through a wall and find a bunch of prisoners from Strikers
in the mess hall. Many of them have deformities and burns on their bodies,
suggesting they’ve been experimented on. Superman asks what Taskforce X is
doing to them and Sam says he doesn’t know. They find Billy’s dad and Superman
asks what happened. Billy’s dad says things were fine for a while until he
realized that inmates were disappearing. He says that most of the inmates of
Cell Block C are mostly non-violent offenders, the folks who can’t pay bail,
and that after asking too many questions he ended up there. Superman thinks
they must be trying to induce powers in people, like with Livewire but on
purpose. Lois realizes they’re testing Kryptonian tech on these inmates to make
soldiers like Damage and Atomic Skull. Superman says this stops now, and he
highspeed flies around to open the cells. Sam asks how Waller could do this.
Waller comes in and says easily, and that after she thanks the civilians for
their service to the US of A. Superman flies into Atomic Skull and they start
battling, and Sam fires off some shots from his energy rifle to cover their escape.
Waller orders them after the test subjects as Martin will handle Superman.
At the pier, Jimmy and co just
missed the last ferry to Strikers. There’s a sudden explosion at the prison and
Flip says that they found their story. Jimmy, being a responsible adult, says that
the interns are staying at the pier, and he asks Steve about the boat guy he
knows. We see the Jimmy Olsen net worth tracker drop to 3.7 million. This
episode takes place in May, so he’s spent about 2 million dollars since
Valentines day. Damn, dude is blowing through cash.
Superman is blasted into the beacon
room. Atomic Skull marches in and says the Man of Steel has no idea what he’s
up against. He claims to be designed to destroy Superman and that Superman can
consider himself obsolete. He blasts Superman around, pinning him against a
wall. Superman outwits Skull, though, using his own energy blasts to slice the
ceiling above them and burying Atomic Skull in rubble. Superman grabs the beacon
and flies off.
The prisoners make it to the pier
but are cornered by Waller, Wilson and some goons. Sam tries to appeal to Waller’s
humanity, saying that experimenting on civilians is going against their code.
Waller admits to having freed Livewire and the other inmates to show their
superiors in Checkmate that Sam was too Soft to stay in charge. Sam says that
she betrayed the mission, betrayed him, but Waller says that he is mistaken in
thinking those are the same thing. She believes in sacrificing the few to save
many. Sam tries to get Wilson to stop her, but he says that Lane should have
let him take the shot against Superman. Jimmy and Steve come around the bend
with a boat, and Superman super speeds over, disarming the goons and smashing
their rifles. One of the goons clearly says “dammit, Superman” and that made me
chuckle. Lois, Sam and the inmates jump onto the ship, and Superman super breathes
Waller and her people over to cover their escape. As Waller gets up we see news
copters in the sky, so she’s beaten for now.
On the ship, Superman switches back
to Clark and meets up with Lois. Clark begins to talk to her about the beacon,
but she’s distracted by her dad. Sam is rattled by Waller willingness to use civilians.
He thought he knew the people he was working with. He wants to go off the grid for
a while. Lois says he can stay with her, but Sam points out that he’s been
compromised so her place is one of the first places they’d look. Lois then
offers Clark and Jimmy’s place, to keep him close but not in her apartment. Sam
is okay with this, as it’ll give Clark a chance to make up for sending Lois
into danger alone. Oh boy.
At Taskforce X’s base, Waller gets
chewed out by her superiors at Checkmate for exposing their covert operation.
She claims to have everything under control. The official says that Lane used
to tell them that she needs to get it together or she will be replaced. A guard
suddenly screams. He’s been attacked by Ivo who’d gotten out of his cell. Ivo
is stopped by Alex; he had a kill switch for the parasite armor. He introduces himself
to General Waller as the one that built the suit. He says that was behind most of
Ivo’s tech as his ‘assistant’ and that he’s worked on the alien tech before. He
says that he’s going to carve his own path, like Jimmy told him, and offers his
services to help Waller protect Earth from all alien threats. Aliens and Supermen.
Wilson runs in to tell Waller about the containment breach, but she says he’s 45
seconds too slow and asks Alex for his name. Alex begins to introduce himself,
but decides it’s time for a rebrand, introducing himself as Lex Luthor, her new
chief scientist. Well… shit.
So, a big recurring theme this season
is going to be communication, or lack thereof. Lois and Clark clearly love each
other a lot, but they’re already falling into the trap I think just about everyone
in a relationship has fallen into at least once, avoiding talking about things.
It’s a lot of “We can talk about it later,” and “it’s not important,” and “this
is more important,” between them this season. It’s a common problem and I give
the show props for making it the first big relationship hurdle for Clark and Lois
since they became official. Can it be annoying? Yes, but only because it’s a
level of realism I don’t think we’re used to seeing it on TV. It’s impressive
to see how much Waller has been doing in the six months since her takeover of
Taskforce X. A new facility, new weapons, and two new super powered agents at
her disposal. And as much raw destructive force as Damage can dish out, Atomic
Skull is on a whole other level. As his name implies, he fires off atomic
energy in those blasts, melting metal in seconds and irradiating the very air
around him as he uses his powers. He’s in a class similar to Livewire, where while
he can’t hit as hard as Superman his powers sort of bypass invulnerability and
go right into “causes extreme pain.” Clark using his powers against himself was
a nice touch. The weak link in this episode was Jimmy and his new Flamebird
crew. I’m sure Jimmy will need to learn leadership skills to help by the season
finale but watching him try to corral four kids and Steve was just kind of
dull. Oh, and the Lex Luthor reveal. Okay, some behind the scenes talk.
According to interviews, for the first season, the show runners were barred
from using Brainiac and Lex Luthor. But, taking a page out from X-Men: The
Animated Series, they took that to the literal extreme of “we can’t use the
name” and just made a very similar looking character and call them something
else. So, Dr. Ivo got a red headed assistant named Alex, and if maybe they were
allowed to use Lex Luthor next season then this guy’s full name would be
revealed as such. And that’s what they did. It’s funny, because of that rule
they were able to set Lex on a similar trajectory as the main trio, being a
younger version of himself that is just starting out but rapidly uses his
intellect and cutthroat nature to rapidly develop as a power in Metropolis. We’ll
be seeing a lot of Lex this season, hope you’re ready. See you later.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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