Everyone tries to adjust to the new normal.
Last time on My Adventures With
Superman, Clark faced off against Hank Henshaw. The dangerously unstable
Cyborg Superman proved to be one of the hardest fights of Clark’s Superman
career, as he utilized a small army of robots and his technopathic powers to
wreak havoc across Metropolis. Kara and a late arriving Jon did their best to
help but were also quickly overpowered. Lois and Jimmy raced to Metropolis,
Lois leaping from Pa Kent’s truck and decking Lex across the face before
convincing the sore loser to try to stop Hank. For fear of his own safety for
what the cyborg will do to Lex after he’s done with Clark. This proved to save
Clark’s life, as Hank had revealed he was powered by a heart of Kryptonite and
the green rock was killing Superman. He sensed Lex’s hacking attempt and rushed
over to stop him. Jon reveals to Kara after trying to get her to leave again
that he’d been so cold to her this whole time was because he was still grieving
his Kara’s death. She took over as his mom after Clark and Lois died and her
recent death at the hand of Henshaw was still messing with him. She tells him
that they have to fight together to stop Hank, and Jon finally sees that as the
right call. They split pieces of his Kryptonite Shielding armor and are able to
do a lot of damage to Hank, but he replaces the arms they rip off and upgrade
them using his powers. He gets Jon in a head grab and prepares to execute him.
Seeing his son in danger causes Clark to dig deep and super charge his powers,
allowing him to temporarily be immune to Kryptonite. He saves Jon and rips
Hank’s Kryptonite heart out. Hank is a sore loser, though, and tries to set off
a bomb. Thankfully, he asks why Superboy doesn’t seem to be as affected by
Kryptonite as Supers Man and Girl. Clark tells Hank that Jon’s mother is human.
This seems to give Hank an epiphany that the future isn’t human supremacy but
coexistence with the children of Krypton and he disarms his bomb before
shutting down. Jon goes back to the future, but not before giving his parents
(all three) his love and assuring Lois that the future will be better just by
the nature that they’ll all be together. Unfortunately, we learn that
overclocking his powers like Clark did cause them to burn out, he’s basically
human now. Lois puts on a brave face and encourages him that they saved him,
and that’s what matters. The future is better off, she assures him. We see it
isn’t though, as now instead of Hank Henshaw’s evil future, we see an evil
Future Lex ruling the world, and a more edgy version of Jon is held prisoner
after he tried to take the time watch. Well… damn. Enough recapping, lets get
to it, shall we?
We open with the ending minutes of
last episode, Clark announcing to Lois that he’s lost his powers. We get a bit
of text that lets us know that this was a month ago for the characters. Clark
is pulled out of his flashback by Jimmy calling to him, he’d been staring off
into space. In the present, the Super gang are headed to an award ceremony.
Clark takes a pic of Jimmy and Lois, who’re up for an award for their reporting
on the Cyborg Superman attack. Jimmy tries to get a shot with Clark, but he
insists he’s fine, this is their night. Lois insists that Clark was nominated
too, but he points out that SUPERMAN was, he wasn’t. He says it’s fine, he’s
fine. Before they can discuss this more, Steve Lombard pulls up in his wolf
van, he’s playing chauffer tonight. He jokes asking who gets to ride up front
with him, laughs, and then says the back is for nominees only, so obviously
Kent is up with him. They head out. As they drive, Steve asks Clark if he
thinks Superman is going to show up. Seems like the gang has lied to the public
and said that Superman is ‘out of town’ for reasons unknown. Clark says that
he’s sure Superman wants to be there, and that he misses the city as much as
the city misses him. He laughs awkwardly. In the back, Jimmy and Lois both know
that Clark is going through an identity crisis, but don’t know how to help.
Lois asks how long it takes to open up after your worldview is shattered. She
resolves to talk to him tonight. Jimmy changes the subject and asks if Kara is
bringing a date to the gala. Lois says no, as Kara has been full-time Supergirl
for the last month… and then realizes that Jimmy is asking because HE is
bringing a date. He says that he’s contractually obligated to go on one more
WORMS date and he just so happened to pick the absolute worst situation to
bring one. Lois points out the stupidity of this, “You’re bringing a date to
the gala where Kara is receiving an award??” and when Jimmy is blasé about it,
she says she’s looking forward to his date turning him into an octopus or
something equally horrible. And Jimmy jinxes it by saying that nothing will
happen tonight.
We jump to the red carpet, where
Jimmy insists that nothing will happen tonight, right before he’s tackled by
Flip Johnson. Flip says that she and the other interns are being featured
tonight, and Perry said that they’re the squad’s problem for the night. We see
Perry toast them before he gets back to schmoozing. Clark offers to be primary
babysitter, Lois tries to tell him that he doesn’t have to, but then he
hiss-whispers, “I need something to do!” Jimmy offers to go find Kara, right
before she flies in. She’s in a very elegant blue dress and looks divine. Jimmy
keeps saying that she’s moved on, but Lois points out that Kara is dateless.
Lois draws Kara over to them, but before she can reach her friends, a car pulls
up and Jimmy’s date gets out. This is Princess Marina Maru… this is bad, but
I’ll save the reveal of why it’s bad for later. Cat Grant literally leaps over
the car to get a soundbite from Marina, as only Cat Grant can. Kara, realizing
that Jimmy brought a date, is furious and looks like she’s about to start
wrecking the place.
Lois is flabbergasted that Jimmy’s
on a date with an actual princess, but Clark just shrugs and says that Jimmy
has a boyish charm. Lois tells Clark that she hopes they can talk tonight, but
they’re interrupted by Flip setting another guest’s dress on fire. Clark rushes
over to corral the News Kids. Lois leans back on the car and immediately met
with Vicki Vale. She just comes into frame, like she’d been there the whole
time. Vicki, being cattier than Cat, mocks Lois for turning down the job offer
Vicki gave her for the Gotham Gazette to stick with her boyfriend. Lady, Clark
is an emotionally intelligent, kind, smart, and adorkable man in the body of a Midwest
farm hand. The amount of women that would rearrange their entire lives for that
could fill a city the size of New York. She says that Lois is wasting her
potential. Lois counters by saying they’re nominated in the same category, so
she’s doing fine. Vicki counters the counter by saying Lois is ‘co-nominated’
and that she can’t do anything without one of her ‘boytoys’ helping her out.
That pisses off Lois to no end, and she takes the bait when Vicki suggests
whoever wins the award is the better reporter. Lois, angry and not thinking who
might be overhearing, says that ‘what matters is what you can do.” Not the best
thing for an emotionally vulnerable and depressed Clark to hear, now is it?
He’s already had enough trouble wrangling the News Kids, as shown by Patti
being Patti and chewing on Clark’s head. Clark drags the kids over. I enjoy the
visual storytelling that he’s got to keep a closer watch on the three girls,
and he just knows Big Words will follow meekly. Lois sees he’s upset and asks
if he’s okay, but he continues to insist that he’s fine.
We shift focus to an ice cream shop
in Metropolis square. A kid drops their ice cream, and a hulking man behind the
counter gives him a new, bigger cone. It’s B-1Z! He’s working as an Ice cream
man now. Super fitting as Kryptonians love cold. B-1Z is taking a jug of Ice
Cream outside for some reason where he sees a news report about how Superman’s
been MIA for the last month and how Supergirl is up for an award. He smiles
when Superman on the screen and quietly says ‘my friend.’
Kara sits with her friends and asks
Jimmy to introduce her to his date. That he brought to this gala. Where she is
receiving an award. Kara is clearly about 1 nanometer of pupil dilation away
from heat visioning SOMETHING when she asks. Marina cuts in, saying that
Supergirl and Superman are greatly admired even as far away as her own vaguely
French sounding country of Markovia. Kara thanks her, but says that Superman
deserves the credit. Jimmy cuts her off, saying that Kara deserves credit, and
that sometimes the city doesn’t know how it feels about her, but… ya. He’s cut
off by Marina who says how nice Jimmy is to his platonic friends. … She has no
idea what is going on between the two of them, but is clearly loving stirring
the pot. Kara is visibly hurt by the conversation, but the gala starts. The 10
Anniversary Metropolis Humanitarian Gala I being hosted by Silver St. Cloud!
(Funny how we’ve had three of Batman’s exes on this show before Batman himself.
Four if you count Lois). She thanks everyone for joining them at the natural
history museum and says they’ve got a full night ahead of them. As Silver
speaks, we see Flip and the New Kids, clearly bored by this grown up talking,
slip away to cause mischief. And the much more troubling group of armed men
sneaking into the museum with barrels of mysterious fluid. The main three goons
of this squad are Fox, Vulture and Shark, the Terrible Trio, a D or E list set
of Batman villains.
Marina is extremely flirty with
Jimmy as the event gets started, something he is clearly uncomfortable with as
Kara is staring directly at them. Clark, being the good cousin-brother that he
is, tries to distract Kara by talking about the Blue Whale skeleton hanging
above them. He tries to get Flip to distract Kara with Blue Whale facts but
then realizes she and the News Kids ran off. He takes off his suit jacket and
goes to find them, promising to be back by the time Kara gets her award.
Outside, we see B-1Z super jump to the roof of the museum in his costume. He’s
extremely excited when Kara and Superman are introduced, but then extremely
crestfallen when he hears Superman can’t make it. Kara gives a sweet speech
about how grateful that she and Superman are for this award. She looks at her
table when she says that Earth is full of the “people she loves” (Lois shakes
her head as an ‘I’m sorry’ because Clark isn’t back,) and “friends I can count
on” (Marina is still extremely possessively flirty with Jimmy). This is going
to be a rough gala for her.
Fox, Vulture and Shark have gotten
into the security room and are preparing for whatever attack they’ve been hired
to do.
Vicki slips over to the table and
tries to interview Marina. She apparently extremely outspoken on “Freedom of
expression,” and has received threats about it. Lois looks up to the upper part
of the museum and sees the armed mercs entering the hall. She decides to
investigate. Vicki teasingly jabs at Lois when she walks away, and Lois claps
back because these two bring out the grade schooler in each other.
Speaking of grade schoolers, the
News Kids are running through the museum and laughing their heads off before
they stumble upon the mysterious canisters. They also find a guard tied up, and
Flip says they should probably tell someone about this. Shark sneaks up on them
and asks, “Like who?”
Clark searches for the children,
muttering to himself how nice super senses would be right now. He starts
hearing a mysterious muttering and tells Flip to stop being creepy. He has a
vision of the arctic and Kryptonian architecture, along with Kryptonian
chanting. The words are hard to make out, but you can clearly hear “Kal-El” and
“Rao.” Rao is the Kryptonian sun god and the name of their sun. He’s drawn out
of the vision by Flip’s screams.
Back in the main gala, Lois tries
to grill one of the security guards about how many goons are at this party but
the guard is staying silent. Frustrated and annoyed she asks to speak to
whoever is in charge, and Silver comes over, saying that that is her. She
compliments Lois on her work, but says that badgering security is kind of
bringing down the vibe. She adds that the extra security are part of the
Princess private detail, nothing else. Lois apologizes, telling Silver that
she’s in a stupid competition with Vicki and that got her keyed up. Silver
gives Lois some advice about how if you need a trophy to feel validated,
nothing will ever be enough. She advises Lois to just enjoy what she has with
the people she loves before walking off. It’s at this point that Lois realizes
that the person she loves is still MIA and that’s rather concerning.
Clark runs to the kids, undoing his
tie as he does, but not having his Superman suit underneath. He runs up as
Shark threatens them with a gun. Clark dives in the way, remembers that he’s
currently not bulletproof, but still takes a swing at Shark. We cut away and
are shown dress shoes on a downed man by blood covered glasses. We pull out to
see it’s Shark laid out on the ground and while Clark got clipped, he’s overall
fine. He ties off his wounded left arm with fragments of his shirt and checks
on the kids. He ask if they’re hurt, and Flip says He’s hurt, and wants
to know where Superman is. Clark can’t answer that, and they start running from
more goons. Lois tries to find them but is spotted by Vulture, who starts
chasing her. Lois runs incredibly fast for someone in heels and a hanbok dress.
She’s grabbed by Clark and pulled into the supply closet he’s hiding in with
the News Kids. Lois warns him about the man as Clark tries to shut the door,
but Vulture arrives and tries to force his way in. Clark says, “Ya, his friend
just shot me,” and Lois gasps in horror at the first wound she’s ever seen on
her boyfriend. Vulture shoves hard against the door, but Lois gets him in the
eyes with pepper spray. Vulture radios the others to send back up once they’ve
got their hands on the princess. Clark calls Jimmy via their Flamebird watches
and warns him that the goons might be after Marina, just as Marina takes the
stage as the keynote speaker of the event. … Where she reveals her status as
Dr. Poison and her plan to cause some eco terrorism to reverse the damage the
human race has done to Earth. She’s the second Wonder Woman villain Jimmy has
dated, by the way. Lois starts yelling at Jimmy for this very thing and Jimmy
mutters that he just has a type. The goons spread out the canisters as Dr.
Poison tells them to prepare to walk out of here on four legs or not at all.
She throws on a gas mask as the canisters go off. Her gas somehow causes people
to transform into animals, the first we see is Perry getting turned into a
bear. Kara sees Dr. Poison runs off. She chases after and catches her. Dr.
Poison is disappointed that the gas didn’t work on Kara, but warns Kara that
her other men are setting up more canisters to go of in Metropolis Dam and
that’ll infect the whole city. Jimmy tells her to go save the city and that
Poison is “my contractual obligation.”
Vulture busts into the supply
closet, but Clark and company slip into the oversized vents. Considering his
beefy shoulders they’re extremely huge vents. Gas goes off in his face and
Vulture starts to morph. Jimmy calls them and asks for ideas on how to stop Dr.
Poison and Lois suggests he use his Boyish Charm, whatever that means. More gas
goes off, and Jimmy laments being turned into a wolf, but the little legs he
starts to develop aren’t quite wolfy. Vulture catches up to the group,
revealing he’d been turned into a crocodile. Very odd. They all start crawling
away as fast as they can.
Dr. Poison, in her terrible fake
accent, tells her men to “GET TO DA CHOPPA!” but is interrupted by Jimmy. He
was turned into a turtle. Dr. Poison tells him that it’s been fun, but she
needs to bid him adieu. Jimmy says that surely she’s felt their… animal
attraction, and that gives her pause.
Vulture the Crocodile chases after
the group. Lois nearly falls through a grate, but that gives her an idea. She
turns and pounds on the vent shaft until it breaks, dropping the huge croc to
the poison filled room below. Unfortunately, Lois’ section breaks too and she
falls. Clark screams her name… but then a black cat jumps up and bites him on
the ear. Ya, Lois got turned into a cat. She tells them to keep moving and
leads the way.
Dr. Poison admits to Jimmy that she
only went on a date with him to get access to this event… which is weird
because she was the keynote speaker, but hey, maybe this was from an earlier
draft of the script that they couldn’t fix. Distracted by her rather elaborate
choreography of her apology, Jimmy nabs her gasmask with his turtle beak and
Dr. Poison turns into a dog.
Kara super speeds over to the damn
and stops the goons from releasing the poison. Shark, who I guess recovered and
got sent to the secondary site, radios the others to say that Operation Make A
Splash has failed. Dr. Poison tries to escape with her men on the roof, but
they’re stopped by B-1Z, who calls her a bad dog. Kara returns to the museum
and clears out the gas with her super breath. She sees an explosion on the roof
and flies up to investigate. She finds Poison and her men tied up in steel
beams. She wonders aloud who did this.
We cut to a bit later where all the
animalized people are in a line to get an antidote for their transformation and
to get dressed. Jimmy sits on the museum steps while Dr. Poison apologizes for
breaking his fragile heart. He says he fine. She doesn’t seem to hear him and
goes on to say that there are plenty of sharks in the sea and he’ll find true
love one day. Jimmy finally admits that he is already in love with someone, but
he’s been extremely stupid about it. Poison thinks he’s talking about her, but
Jimmy loudly says her name is Kara. Kara hears this… but doesn’t look happy.
Dr. Poison tells Jimmy to tell himself whatever he needs to be happy and bids
him au revoir as she’s led away on a leash.
Lois gets de-catted, and Silver
gives her the award. Lois is flattered by this, and thanks her. Because Vicki
is watching, Lois makes big show about not caring about the award and giving it
to Flip instead. But the second Vicki leaves she takes it back and rubs it
against her cheek, saying it’s soooo shiny.
Jimmy lies back on the steps, and
an angry Kara flies into his line of sight and demands to know what the heck is
going on. She’s extremely hurt that he could express his feelings to some rando
like Dr. Poison but can’t do that with her. He tries to say that he thought she
moved on, but she reminds him that she wanted to be with him and he’s the one
the spurned her. Kara’s clearly been feeling stressed about things, as Clark
has pulled back into himself and Jimmy hasn’t been there for her to talk to either.
Jimmy thought she wanted to be friends, and Kara asks how he can be her friend
when he hides when she needs him most. Jimmy apologizes, realizing that he
didn’t realize how she felt. And she sadly says, “You didn’t ask.”
Lois hugs Clark’s wounded arm,
oops, and excitedly says they did it. Clark isn’t happy though, as he says he
didn’t do anything. Lois saved the kids, Jimmy stopped Dr. Poison, and Kara
saved the city. All he did was get shot and hide in a closet. Lois reminds him
that she loves Clark Kent, and Clark says he’s no Superman. Lois tells him that
he needs to stop comparing himself to someone that he might not ever be again.
Clark angrily asks what he is supposed to do and be now if that’s true. Before
she can answer, Lois, Clark, Jimmy and Kara all fall through portals of energy.
Mxy’s back!
Well, that was a rough time for
Clark. Going from the Man of Steel to just a guy is a difficult adjustment
whenever Clark has to do it. Some versions temporarily enjoy getting to be
normal for a bit, Smallville Clark for example, but it rarely lasts more
than a few days before they’re pining for their powers and responsibilities
again. But, as sad as it is to see a Depowered Clark, I do like the fact that
the show makes it clear that he’s still heroic. Dude dived in front of a gun
without thinking to protect some kids is as heroic as you can get. But because
he can’t do any of the bigger saves that he’s used to as Superman, it feels
like he’s not doing enough. It’s also sad to see an open, emotionally
intelligent man like Clark fall in on himself with the classic deflection
phrase of, “It’s fine. I’m fine!” I feel bad for Lois in this one too, as she’s
split between worrying about Clark, worrying about Kara, and getting sucked
into another pissing contest with Vicki Vale. Silver’s little speech to Lois to
not get so sucked into these petty little contests was great. But I also loved
Lois faking humility to annoy Vicki just to immediately backtrack and talk
about how shiny her trophy is. Take that League of Lois Lanes. It might not be
a Pulitzer, but she’s on the scoreboard now! Jimmy is an idiot for bringing a
date to a gala celebrating Kara, even if it’s to let the episode happen.
Dumbass, dumb and ass behavior right there. I used all three words for
emphasis. That said, Dr. Poison was extremely funny with her pot stirring, and
then her weird acrobatics as Jimmy distracted her with his boyish charm. I
didn’t even try to describe it, it’s impossible to transcribe accurately for
me. She was putting on a contortionist show as she broke things off with Jimmy.
I liked seeing B-1Z again. He seems to be doing great, and having him help save
the day was neat. My only real complaint is once again the pacing, as we have
to cover this episode describing the fallout of Superman’s disappearance
without actually covering it. Another episode set in the month skip that shows
Clark drawing away from Kara and Jimmy deliberately avoiding her would have
helped drive the point home that everyone is kind of floundering with Clark
losing his powers. Oh, and Cat Lois was cute and we could have used more of
her. But, ya, that’s about it, next time we’ll have some Mxy shenanigans to
bring up the mood. That’s always fun. Have a good night, everyone and stay
safe.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/u2761062/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-168064365
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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