John Henry Irons is on the scene.
Last time on My Adventures With
Superman, it’s time for a prison break. Clark and Lois go looking for Lois’
missing father. Initially they have no idea where to look, but a random kid
named Billy tells them his father worked at Strikers Prison went missing and
that screams Taskforce X. They find a secret facility under the prison and Lois’
dad is being grilled by his former subordinate Amanda Waller for tech that’s
missing from their inventory. They try to free him, a situation hampered by Sam
Lane’s insistence he can make Waller fall in line behind him, a delusion broken
when she unleashes the other of her two new goons at him, Atomic Skull. They
try to escape and end up finding Billy’s dad and the missing inmates. Turns out
the non-violent offenders of Strikers were being used in human experiments to
artificially induce powers. Superman and Atomic Skull brawl until Superman tricks
Atomic Skull into blasting the ceiling and burying himself. In that fight Superman
finds the second communication beacon in Taskforce X’s vault. Jimmy, who’d been
held up by his new team Flamebird, arrives to get everyone off the island on a
boat. Team Flamebird consists of Steve Lombard and Flip Johnson and the News
Kid Legion, FYI. Superman covers their escape with his freezing breath. He
almost tells Lois about the communicator, but she’s distracted by talking to
her father. She offers Clark and Jimmy’s apartment to help hide him for the
time being. Unfortunately, in the wreckage of the facility, Alex the assistant
meets with Waller, reveals he was the brains behind a lot of Ivo’s tech and
convinces her to hire him as the new head of RND. And he’s decided to rebrand
himself, dropping the A from his nickname and calling himself Lex Luthor.
Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
We open with a building on fire.
The apartment complex of Silas Stone has been set ablaze. Thankfully, Superman
flies in to save the day. Silas is almost engulfed in flames, but Clark taps
into his super mode and hyper speeds over to Silas and surrounds them both in a
protective field of energy to save them both from the flames. He flies them out
and asks if Silas is okay, he says he is and Superman flies off to put out the fire.
When alone, Silas is approached by Livewire, who reveals she started the apartment
fire. She says that she hated that it came to this and all but says she’s going
to go after his son if Silas doesn’t do what he’s told. Silas deletes a video off
his phone and says that he deleted all of it. His son Victor means the world to
him and it’s far, far, far, far too early for him to suffer the injuries that
turns Victor Stone into Cyborg in this universe. Silas agrees to keep his mouth
shut as Livewire smirks evilly at him.
Later, we see a promo video for
AmerTek, a robotics company that’s trying to be the next Amazo Tech now that
Ivo’s company has gone under. It’s a puff piece promotional video explaining
why AmerTek is opening a manufacturing plant in Metropolis. The idea was
apparently pitched by Dr. John Henry Irons, the lead engineer at AmerTek and
Metropolis native. He wants to help improve his city and all that jazz. We pull
out to see that General Sam Lane is watching the promo on the TV at Jimmy and
Clark’s apartment. Jimmy is in their kitchenet telling Flip over the phone that
he’s not giving a ten-year-old leeway to cover stories on her own. She tries to
sell him on letting her use her new helicopter with an illegal camera attachment
to cover stories for Flamebird when Superman flies to the window and tries to
get Jimmy to covertly give him his Clark Clothes without the General noticing.
Jimmy tries to get Sam to maybe clean up around the apartment, both because it’d
be nice for Jimmy and Clark, but also would distract him long enough for Clark
to superspeed in. He doesn’t go for it because he doesn’t believe in putting his
back to the exit. Sam’s lecturing, Flip trying to get the okay to cover a robot
story and Clark trying to stealth in overwhelms Jimmy and he freaks out. He tells
Flip no, he walks to the window and throws Clark’s PJs at him, and then tells
Sam that he should really clean up after himself before storming out. Clark
slips in as Jimmy leaves, saying good luck to his buddy. Sam almost immediately
starts in on Clark, asking him where he’d been as he left sometime in the
night. Sam claims to have put some pieces together and Clark is clearly scared
he’s going to be accused of being Superman… but no, Sam has decided that he’s a
flake, a screw up, and his tardiness will get Lois hurt some day. Before Clark
can say anything to that, her realizes he’s late for coffee with Lois and runs
off.
On the street, Lois calls Clark,
revealing that she can’t make it for coffee as she’d been assigned to cover the
AmerTek press conference. Clark says that he wants to talk to her about
something, the beacon in his hand. Lois assumes that it’s about her dad and she
cuts him off saying that Sam is a lot, but they don’t have a lot of options for
him. While Clark agrees with that statement, he really wants to talk to her
about family, but the conference is starting, and she has to go. Lois promises
that they’ll talk later. After she hangs up, Clark admits today isn’t going
great but things will get better after he talks to Lois… and then speed writes an
article for Perry that he forgot to write.
At the press conference, AmerTek’s
CEO Thomas Weston begins the preparation. He reveals AmerTek’s big invention,
the Metallo, a giant security robot. He shows off its high-powered laser canon,
claims its stronger than Superman, and is 100% green. It’s powered by AmerTek’s
Amer-Fusion reactor, a tower-like structure that creates a ball of fusion
energy at it’s apex to power the robots. I don’t know why you’d build that in
the center of one of the biggest cities on DC Earth, but here we are. Weston
promises that the Amer Fusion Tower will power both the Metallos and the
factory when it’s all brought online tomorrow. But the Metallo starts sparking,
implying they have some bugs to work out. Weston quickly powers down the
Metallo and tries to shut the press conference down early. Vicki Vale reveals
herself and she and Lois have a reporter fight over who gets to talk to Weston
first. They both want to know where Dr. Irons is, as while he’s been the PR
face of AmerTek, recently no one has seen him. Weston insists he’s busy and storms
off. Lois tries to go after him, but Vicki cuts her off and compliments her for
her promotion and for her rebuttal to Vicki’s own Superman article. Lois is
happy to be noticed by her former reporter idol but tries to slip around to
talk to Weston. Weston’s assistant tells her he’s unavailable, but Vicki gets
an interview by saying she knows the hiring director at another tech firm and
that she’ll introduce Weston’s put upon assistant to them if she can get a ten-minute
exclusive. She “apologizes” to Lois but while she thinks Lois is doing great,
no one scoops Vicki Vale. Not to be stopped, Lois sees a security guard with a
keycard and formulates a plan to get in.
At the Daily Planet, Clark is
confident that he can get a story out in record time (super speed is great for
that sort of thing) all he needs to do is type. But writers block has got him
hard. Jimmy interrupts him by saying that Flip’s gone missing. He first thought
that she was just mad at him for shooting down her “Flying Newsroom” copter
idea, but then he saw a voicemail left on the Flamebird page from someone saying
there are killer robots on the street. Clark says maybe she didn’t follow up on
the very dangerous sounding story… but without looking away from him Jimmy
plays the next message. It’s from Flip… who has figured out how to trace a
call. This kid is going to be very dangerous as an adult.
Lois meanwhile has stolen a keycard,
I guess they cut that scene, and gets into Dr. Iron’s lab. She tries to talk to
him but finds the lab empty of staff and is otherwise demolished. She finds a
tattered bag with John Iron’s address in it, which is super convenient for her
and Vicki Vale who is standing behind her. Vicki reveals that Weston refused to
answer her questions so she’s looking into the Irons angle herself. Both reporters
vow to figure out what’s going on at AmerTek and have an electric stare off… right
before a guard finds them and they have to run away. Vicki gets ahead of Lois
and steals her stolen keycard, but once outside sees Lois escaping on the back
of a truck. I must admit, while there’s a serious rivalry going on between
these two, I like how the show makes it clear that this is weirdly fun for them
too.
Superman and Jimmy fly to the
coordinates that Flip sent and find her in a rather charming brownstone
apartment. Jimmy initially flips out at Flip for following a story that
involves specifically killer robots, when we meet the owner of the apartment, John
Irons. He is so thankful Superman came, as he’d followed a tip from his niece Natasha,
who’s a Flamebird follower, to use the site to contact him. After
introductions, Irons shows them what he’s worried about. He explains that he’d
been excited to be hired by AmerTek initially as it let him move back to
Metropolis and spend time with his niece. It also allowed him to build his
original idea, the Steel Mech Suit, a Mark I Iron Man style robotic suit that
was designed to help first responders. His boss Weston wanted something flashier,
so he stripped down the prototype, added weapons and rushed out the redubbed
Metallos. Irons and Stone had worked on the project together and discovered a
major flaw in their system. Turns out, if more than one robot is powered on at
once, the cores start to meld together and they cause a massive explosion when
they go off. Three robots at once destroyed the lab we saw Lois in. Irons points
out the Amer Fusion Core runs the same core but is 300 times bigger, so the
explosion will be enormous. Weston insists they can make it work despite seeing
the explosion himself, mostly because if they can do it, they can take over the
power gap that Amazo Tech left when it folded. Weston refuses to see reason and
storms off. Irons reveals that everyone they tried to talk to about this was
paid off by Weston, they were fired, and now Silas has deleted their records
and disappeared. Superman reveals that there was a fire at his Silas’ place last
night and they realize it was sabotage. Irons says that he must be next, and
then a moment later there’s a panicked moment as someone climbs into his window…
only it’s just Lois. Vicki Vale breaks in through the front door a moment
later. As the adults bicker, Flip tries to get their attention about this over
lady outside right before Livewire blows a hole in Iron’s wall. She says they
have business to discuss, but Superman grabs her arm. She throws Superman and tries
to blast him, but Superman redirects her attack. Livewire says screw it, he’s
not her target. She feigns attacking Irons but switches hands after Superman dives
in front of Irons so she destroys his computer. She runs off.
Outside, Livewire calls Weston and
says she’s not being paid enough to deal with Superman. He tries to get her to
take care of him anyway, but she hangs up on him. Weston refuses to be stopped
and powers up the plant. Superman flies Irons to the factory. Irons tries to
get Weston to stop but he’s not listening. Superman asks how they can stop the
reactor, Irons says they need Weston’s controls to do it, but then Weston
breaks the table he’s using. While Superman fights the Metallos, Irons runs
into his lab and powers up his Iron Mech Suit. Superman holds his own against the
Metallos but it’s like 15 on one, he’s just not powerful enough to handle all
of them. He gets hit to the ground and almost blasted, but Irons runs in and
hammers the Metallo off him. The two agree to work together to stop the Metallos
and the reactor. They just need to break though the Metallos and then break the
[pillars to stop the reactor. They start smacking robots around, but the cores
start merging with the main reactor. The reactor turns Red and prepares to explode.
Superman thinks he can contain it, but tells Iron’s to take out the pillars. Clark
flies up and uses his new energy field to contain the red glowing sphere but it
starts hurting him almost immediately.
Outside, Jimmy, Lois, Flip and
Vicki are locked out and can’t get in to see what’s happening. Jimmy has Flip
use her copter to see what’s happening.
Irons is able to break two of the
pillars quickly, but the reactor grows more unstable by the second. Irons
damages the lasts one, but the Metallos grab him before he can finish it. Irons
refuses to be stopped and ejects from his suit and grabs his hammer. A Metallo
tries to stop him, but Flip uses her copters glitter gun to distract it long
enough for him to get by and break the last pillar. The reactor almost goes supernova
but they’re able to stop it, though Superman is still thrown back by the
shockwave.
Afterwards, Weston insists he’s not
a bad man, he just wanted to be number one, though Flip does point out Superman
did have to stop him from blowing up the city. Irons brings Jimmy some water
and the two discuss what being a boss is. Irons tells him being a leader isn’t
about bossing others around but lifting them up. He nods over to Flip who seems
over the moon about making content for Flamebird with her copter and tells him
that he’s doing a good job from where Irons is standing. Vicki posts her story
and starts gloating to Lois, only to learn Lois posted hers ten minutes ago, as
she’d been writing all day long on her phone. Vicki is annoyed but impressed
and offers Lois a job and promotion at the Gotham Gazette. Lois is flattered but
is clearly scared at the thought of leaving Metropolis. She says that Lois is
ambitious and if she wants to move up, she’ll have to move on from the Planet someday.
Vicki gives her a card and walks off.
Lois finds Superman standing in the
ruined factory. Clark tells her that her dad is right about him being a flake
and oblivious and always being late, you know, just throwing himself a pity
party. Lois tells him to never say her dad is right again, and that at the end
of the day Superman still saved the day. He just needed some help this time. This
gives Clark the idea for his article, so he grabs Lois and does a spinning
midair kiss with her as thanks. He says he’ll tell her about it later and flies
off. The next day, we see that Clark has given John Irons the credit for saving
Metropolis, singing the praises of the everyman that stepped up to help Superman
handle a crisis. We see a montage of Irons helping get the Metallos out of the factory
and of Jimmy giving Flip the go ahead to keep using the Flying Newsroom for
stories as Clark reads his article. Unfortunately, the episode ends with Irons
getting his suit taken away and being banned from the premises. Why? Because
AmerTek and all its IPs have been bought out by a new start up with government funding,
LexCorp. Lex himself gives him the news, saying that he’d hate to have
Metropolis’ newest hero arrested for stealing. The last shot we see is of
Waller and Lex looking over their new small battalions worth of Metallo drones.
This was a fun introduction to John
Henry Irons. For those who don’t know, he’s a major supporting character in the
Superman series and has even taken up the mantel for Superman a few times with
his Steel battle suit. He was one of four heroes vying for the title of Superman
after he was thought killed by Doomsday in the comic, the others being Cyborg
Superman, Superboy (a Superman clone) and the Eradicator (another cyborg
Superman). His name and preference for using a Hammer as his primary weapon is
in reference to John Henry, an African American folk hero. That John Henry was
a freedman that once went up against a steam powered drilling machine to see who
could lay down the most steel track and won. Seeing him in a prototype of the
suit that I just know he’ll make one day is incredibly neat and seeing him get
to fight alongside Superman was fun. It was also neat to see Metallo named dropped
for the evil robots here. My tinfoil hat theory at this point is that Waller
and Lex are trying to build up some robotic guards based solely on human
technology as they’ve noticed how Kryptonian tech also reacts to Kryptonite in
this universe. They’ll then use the Kryptonite as a power source and ultimately
create either the singular Metallo that most Superman continuities have or Cyborg
Superman, depending on who gets really messed up in the finale. We’re seeing
more of the Clark and Lois lack of communication build up as Clark still can’t
tell her about the communicator and now Lois has a job offer, she’s scared to
talk about. And that’s the feeling I’m getting, that they’re both scared. Clark’s
afraid that he’s alone on Earth and that even someone that loves him like Lois
won’t understand that feeling no matter how hard she tries. He’s also rightly
scared that she’ll talk him out of trying to find Kara because of that fear. And
doesn’t *really* want to talk to her about it because he’s afraid she’ll try to
talk him out of it. And Lois now has a major step up in her career dangling
before her, something that could fast track her to be more like the wildly successful
Lois’s that she met from the interdimensional League of Lois Lane, but it could
put a massive strain on her relationship. While we don’t know how far Gotham
and Metropolis are in this universe, distance of any substantial length makes
relationships harder, so again her fear is justified. So, both are scared to talk,
both are finding excuses not to talk, and because they’re both under 25 and
this is assumedly their first real relationship each don’t realize how badly
this could blow up in their faces. Curse the inexperience of youth! Jimmy’s
arch of not being sure how to be a boss is once again the weakest, but I like
that Irons encouraged him and it seems like Jimmy is going to be encouraging
Flip more in the future. It’s just a nice little touch. Also, fun to see
Livewire again. Seems like she’s embracing being a superpowered thug for hire enthusiastically.
I’ve seen folks complain about her gear, but I think this fits the character we’ve
been given. Classic Livewire was a shock jock that said and did things for
attention, so her wearing an extremely revealing outfit makes sense. This
Livewire is a career criminal with a possible military background, so obviously
she’s going with a more army surplus look. Oh, and yes I enjoy that Sam Lane is
apparently so blinded by the father “no one is good enough for my little girl”
anger that he’s missing all the Superman context clues. See you
tomorrow.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/106969291
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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