It's a battle of the Supermen. The world shall tremble with their clash.
Last time on My Adventures With
Superman, the future came crashing into Lois and Clark’s relationship in a
big way. While on a date with the goal of figuring out their future, the date
is crashed by Superboy, Jon Kent, their time traveling son. Clark is clearly
excited by the existence of this boy, while Lois spends most of this episode
panicking. Jimmy, who’s latest WORMS date gave him quills, and Kara, she
crashed the dating app from all her matches, join the group and they try to get
to know Jon. Lois keeps trying to find an explanation for Jon other than what
he clearly is, a conclusion highlighted by this Korean Superboy eating bread in
the exact same way as his mother. They end up at the mall and do a shopping
montage, with the boys bonding, Jon seemingly avoiding Kara, and Lois being
anxious. A quake causes a toy advertisement to fall, but Jon leaps in and saves
everyone. Seeing Jon selflessly save people like that makes it click for Lois
that he is indeed her boy. But she’s very concerned as to why he traveled back
in time to see them. They end up eating ramen on the roof of the Daily Planet,
and Jon and Lois bond a little. Lois tells him her fears about the future,
while he insists the future isn’t set in stone and they can shape it. Their
meal is interrupted by another quake, Jon asking Kara to sit this one out so he
and Clark can bond. Father and son arrive at a construction site being attacked
by the Subterranosauri, a race of dinosaur people that live underground. They
fight off the raiders, but the fighting is ultimately stopped by Jon giving an
impassioned speech to their leader, leading to peace. The group heads to the
Kent Family Farm to get patched up. Lois finally admits to Clark that after
getting to know Jon, she’s not so afraid of the future, and Clark says it looks
ever brighter than he’d hoped. The moment is ruined by Kara telling them to get
inside. Hank, while this was going on, had finally snapped and destroyed Lex’s
control remote. He’s attacking Metropolis and dares Superman to face him. Clark
and Kara super speed away, and Jon looks horrified as he says that he thought
he had more time. Lois demands to know what that means, and he reveals the
truth. In his future, Clark and Lois are dead and the world is ruled by Hank
Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman. He came back to stop Hank. Enough recapping.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
This episode forgoes the opening
credits, diving right into Hank demanding that Superman face him, he eggs Clark
to fight like a hero and to die like one. Clark and Kara fly in and Hank
appears in a flash of green lightning. Clark, ever the mediator, tries to talk
Hank down. He says that they’ve all fought to defend the world, but Hank cuts
him off, saying that he fought to save earth from an invasive species. The
world that Hank fought to protect is gone, and he going to make Superman pay
for that as he dives at Clark.
We do get an opening credit “The
Death of Superman” shown over a black monument of Superman’s Crest that is
coated in blood. Well… that’s ominous.
We jump back to the farm. Martha is
sobbing at the kitchen table with fear for her son, Jonathan and Jimmy are
doing their best to comfort her. Jon tells Lois about the future that Hank
Henshaw ruined. He says that Hank kills Clark and Lois in his opening rampage.
He then says he was sent back by Dr. Luthor and Lois is flabbergasted to hear
that Lex is helping. She demands to know why he didn’t say any of this sooner.
Jon says that he basically got lost in the moment. Lex sent him back in time
and the last thing he saw was Lex getting vaporized. He appeared in the skies
over Metropolis and was just awed by how happy and peaceful the world was. He
ended up at the Poundcake Palace and saw Clark and Lois enjoying their meal and
each other’s company. He says he’d never seen two people so happy, and he just…
wanted to pretend that this was his life for a bit. Lois caresses her son’s
face, and Jon says that he’s going to fix this. Lois asks how, and Jon
says he’ll do it by saving his dad. And Lois will stay at the farm where it’s
safe. Lois is not okay with her newly discovered baby flying off into danger
and uses the most dreaded of parental techniques, using his full name to try to
stop him. “No, you come back here right now, Jonathan Kent!” but Jon
flies off. She should have thrown in the first name. … It’s Samuel, after his
other grandpa. Lois runs out and watches him fly off into the distance before
shouting at Pa that she needs to borrow the truck.
If this wasn’t such a dramatic
moment, I think Lois would have seen herself in a mirror and realized that
she’d taken the exact stance that her father took when he scolded her. We all
copy our parents at least a little.
In Metropolis, Kara handles the
drones. She’s clearly more powerful than them, but it’s two on one so she’s
having trouble focusing on one without the other stepping in. She gets knocked
into a building. Hank, meanwhile, is beating on Clark and screaming his
frustrations into the night sky. He claims to have given everything to
become who he was, but Superman just floated in and took it all away. He hits
Clark with a rocket enhanced punch, but then Clark hits back and sends him
flying. Clark’s punch shattered the material around Hank’s felt eye, revealing
the cyborg skull underneath. He screams in fury and attacks Clark again,
catching him by the head and slamming him through several buildings. He sees
his face in the broken glass, nice visual metaphor, and says after all of that,
look at what he’s become. He slams Clark into the ground.
Clark yells at the civilians to
run. Hank rips the Daily Planet’s Planet from the roof and mockingly tells
everyone to look at Superman and see how much they matter to him. He lobs the
planet at Clark; Clark catches it before it can crush a kid, ending up in an
Atlas pose. Hank notices the pose as well and mockingly asks if the weight of
the world is too much for the hero as he punches the Planet, trying to crush
Superman and the kid under it. The kid gets grabbed and moved to safety by
Superboy, who then flips around and hits Hank with a Kamen Rider style flying
kick. Sending him flying backwards. Jon joins his father and they put the
planet back on the roof. Clark tells Jon to get back to the farm where it’s
safe, with Lois. Jon then reveals that Hank kills Clark. Clark is stunned to
learn that he wasn’t able to stop Hank, and Jon tells him no one was. We see
how the timeline played out in Jon’s world. Clark is killed by Hank, smashed
into the ground like refuse. Hank starts a reign of terror across the planet,
and we see an infant Jon being held by Kara as Jon says that all they could do
was watch. Clark flies over to him and the two argue over who is going to
sacrifice themselves for the greater good. The El genes are strong in
personality, not looks. The argument is interrupted by Hank flying in and
decking Jon into the ground.
Hank screams, “Dad!? You aliens
are breeding!” before slamming his fist into Jon’s stomach. I don’t know if
saying Jon’s mother is Lois would help or hinder this situation, as Hank and
her used to be friends. Hank is infuriated that Superman gets to have a family
while he never will. He picks up Jon and flings him around to slam into Clark,
as he’d flown over to help. Father and son hit the pavement and Hank kicks Jon
aside. He grabs Superman’s head and slams his face into the ground a few times
before flying upwards, holding Clark’s head. He admits that he couldn’t wait to
kill Superman in front of the world, but he’s not much more excited to kill
Superman in front of his son. He starts electrocuting Clark, but Kara flies in,
screaming at Hank to get away from them. She hits him into the ground. Kara
flies down and helps Clark to his feet. Jon gets up and tells them both to get
out of here, especially Kara.
Hank gets up and the Supers stand
together against him. Clark once again tries to talk him down, saying that Hank
is better than this. Because he’s full crazy right now, Hank agrees that he is
better than Superman. He claims the world as his, not Superman’s and to show
him that, Hank uses his technopathic powers to fry the controls of a plane,
helicopter and train. Kara and Jon fly off to protect the city, and Clark stays
to fight Hank. Hank summons the broken parts of his robots. Like the one that
attacked Project: Caliban, the LexCorp robots are designed to breakdown into
smaller units. Hank turns the two robots into six drones that he uses to shoot
plasma beams at Clark. Clark destroys them with his heat vision as they fly
around the skyline. Hank activates his built in thrusters to chase down Clark,
claiming to be faster, stronger, and just better than Superman. He slams a fist
into Clark’s stomach, sending him skyward, before flying above him and shotting
him with a double palm laser. The explosion is big enough for Lois and Jimmy to
see from the highway. They traveled 200 miles in about 10 minutes, so Jimmy’s
hero name is Leadfoot.
Clark drops to the city and lands
in the park. Hank mocks Superman, asking if he really needs the people
to love him that badly. They’re not even the same species after all. Clark
tells Hank to back off, the people didn’t do anything to him, they don’t
deserve this. Clark and Hank are surrounded by more of the LexCorp robots and
the scene looks eerily familiar to how Clark is supposed to die. Hank says that
people don’t get what they deserve, but Superman is going to get what’s coming
to him. He rips off his LexCorp crest and reveals he’s powered by a heart of
Kryptonite. Clark’s body immediately starts reacting to the radiation, green
veins forming on his skin as he screams in agony. Hank says one of the coldest
lines of this series, “You’re going to wish they’d loved me when they had the
chance.”
We jump to the LexCorp building.
Slade helps Lex to walk as they leave the elevator, the mercenary poking at Lex
asking, “It’s not just a blip now, is it?” Lex asks if they’re even yet, and
Slade says they’re getting there. The Kent’s truck then barrels through the
front door, Lois at the wheel now. She leaps from the truck before it’s
completely stopped, and channeling all the rage of the (future) wife and
(future) mother of Supermen that Lex put in danger, gives Lex a fly punch to
the face. Lex goes sprawling, Slade letting him fall and saying that now
they’re even. She lifts him up and demands that he shut Hank down. Lex refuses.
He says that Lois is so entitled, she thinks she can do whatever she wants,
because she’s got her super boyfriend backing her up. Bro, if you think
that Lois wouldn’t punch you in the face for being a sociopathic asshole before
she met Clark, I’ve got bad news for you. He insists that everyone else
needs someone to protect them from Superman. After the building shakes from the
fighting outside, Lois asks if he really feels safe right now, and who he
thinks Hank is going to go after once Superman is dead.
Kryptonite has really shifted the
fight in Hank’s favor. He slaps Superman around, who can’t do much more than
groan in pain and grow crystals on his body. Hank slams Clark into a building
and mutters that he’s not having fun anymore, so now it’s time to die. He opens
up his palm laser, which is now Kryptonite infuse. Before he can unleash his
attack, he screams in pain as energy surges around him. He realizes that Lex is
trying to hack his system and he zoom away. We see Jon helping the plane touch
down just before Hank flies by, his Kryptonite on full display. Jon looks like
he just watched death himself go by.
At LexCorp, Lex says that he is
just three firewalls away from getting control of Hank’s body. Hank arrives,
his sonic boom shattering the windows. Lex runs from the computer and hides
behind Lois. Hank recognizes Lois and pauses. Lois asks him to stop… but Hank
refuses. He prepares to fire, but then gets hit by a steel beam. He turns and
barely dodges another. He uses his telescopic robot eyes to see Jon near a
construction site, preparing to lob more debris at him. Hank is impressed that
Jon thought to stay away from the Kryptonite, calling him a “clever little
vermin.” He super speeds over to Jon. Jon tries to hit him with a beam, but
Hank is too fast. He slams Jon into the ground and says Jon isn’t clever
enough. Jon is able to dodge Hank’s and tries to heat vision Hank, but Hank
blocks it. Jon isn’t nearly as sick as Clark from the Kryptonite exposure, most
likely due to the human in him. Kara zooms in and knocks Hank away. She helps
get Jon up and tells him that Jon can’t beat Hank on his own, they need to
coordinate. Jon reveals that he’s got a suit of anti-Kryptonite armor that he’d
been waiting to bust out for some reason. He says it’s experimental but should
give him an edge. Kara says ‘resistance’ isn’t enough against Kryptonite, Hank
is too strong. Jon tries to leave her, anyway. Kara, frustrated by Jon’s
distance demands to know what she does in the future that is so bad that Jon
won’t look her in the eye or stand beside her in battle. Jon, realizing that he
was sending the wrong message to Kara this whole time, tells her the truth.
With his parent’s dead, Kara took over raising him. We get a montage of
Metropolis getting destroyed as Kara and baby Jon watch, followed by a few
quick scenes of Kara raising Jon, teaching him to fight, to appreciate nature,
and then dying when she faced off against Cyborg Superman, left as a broken
corpse covered in Kryptonite shards. Yes, Kara went full Future Gohan. So Jon has
been keeping her at an emotional arms length because the thought of losing her
again so soon was tearing him up inside. Kara says that Earth is Kal-El and
Lois’ home, that it’s not really hers, but Jon is her family and she’ll fight
to defend him. They need to fight together to win and Jon finally accepts that.
Hank drags himself from the
building he collided with. He scans the area for a few moments before locking
onto Clark. He hasn’t recovered at all from the Kryptonite exposure and is
still writhing in pain. Hank zooms over after muttering, “time to get back on
mission.” He slams Clark into the ground a few times before getting hit with a
double punch from Kara and Jon. They split bits of the armor between the two of
them in the hopes it’ll give them an edge. Hank asks if they’ve come to die
with Dear old dad and tells them to wait their turn. He fires a Kryptonite beam
at them, but they’re fast enough to dodge. Together, Kara and Jon disarm Hank,
literally. Unfortunately, with his technopathic powers, he’s able to draw robot
parts to him that he slams into himself. His metallic shell seems to mutate,
incorporating the parts into himself and making him more monstrous. He does a scan,
realizes they’re wearing armor and starts targeting it specifically. He slams
Kara to the ground and knocks Jon away from him. He realizes that Jon loves
Kara, and he’s going to bury the metaphorical knife into Jon’s heart by killing
her first. He says that “We all die alone.” Jon, furious and scared, charges
Hank. Hank turns and catches Jon by the face, saying, “here, let me show you.”
Clark regains consciousness and
sees Hank holding Jon by the face. He screams, “No!” tries to get up but falls
over. We see inside Clark, into the biotechnology within him that gives him his
powers. It’s like an electric cell wrapped up along with his organic cells. It
flares with energy but then dies from the Kryptonite poisoning. Hank morphs his
arm into a gun and says its time to finish this. Seeing his son in danger sends
a rage through Clark like he’d never felt before, causing his power cell to
flare to life. It shatters the Kryptonite crystals forming on him and Clark is
able to super speed over to save Jon. He rips off Hank’s non-gun arm and gets
Jon to safety. He and Hank clash. Clark screaming that he won’t let Hank hurt
his family or his world. Hank accuses Clark of stealing his future. Clark
counters by saying that the future belongs to everyone, and he’s taking it
back. He slams his hand into Hank’s chest, rips out the Kryptonite heart and
shatters it into pieces. Hank drops, but so does Clark. We see inside him to
his energy cell, and we see that goes black. He drops to his knees and his
vision blurs.
Hank, who is a sore loser, refuses
to go down easily. He’s got enough power left to trigger the warhead that Lex
implanted in him as a final failsafe. Hank’s stunned to see Jon is up and
helping Clark to his feet. He demands to know why Jon isn’t affect by the
Kryptonite like the others. Clark shrugs and says that Jon’s mother is from
Earth. This seems to really upset Hank, who throws up oil upon learning that
Jon’s human as well as Kryptonian. Finally getting a good look at Jon and not
being blinded by rage, he realizes that Jon is too old to Clark’s son. Clark at
this point is in his mid-20s, we’ll say 24-25. Jon’s at minimum 16, so ya,
those numbers don’t mesh. Jon reveals he’s from the future and that he came
back to stop Hank. Hank has a vision like before, of him in a space suit
looking out to the stars. He says that he was supposed to be the future, to
lead Humanity forward. His vision self turns and sees a wave of Kryptonian
hybrids flying up from Earth and realizes that humanity chooses the aliens over
him. Hank starts crying as he realizes that they’re the future now and shuts
down before the bomb can go off. Jon tells him that they did it. Jon sees Kara
get up and rushes over to hug her. Jon’s watch starts beeping. He tells Kara
that it’s running out of power and that he needs to return to the future. But
he’s not ready to go yet. Kara tells him that he has to go, but she’s excited
to see him in the future. I’ve got a mental image of a very confused looking
baby Jon listening to Kara tell him all about all the stuff his variant did when
he went back in time.
Clark and Lois say goodbye to Jon,
hugging their boy and thanking him for all he did. Jon tells them that he loves
them both so much and prepares to go. Lois grabs his hand and asks how he
knows he can go back and that things
will be better? Jon just shrugs and says that it’ll be because they’ll be there
together before vanishing in a flash of light. Lois helps Clark to Pa’s truck,
he asks her how bad it is because he doesn’t have his glasses. Lois thinks he’s
making a joke and laughs, but tells him the truck is pretty banged up. Clark
says that Pa will be so disappointed, but Lois laughs again and says that he’ll
just be happy they saved the city. She kisses him and adds that they saved
Superman. Clark, clearly scared, tells Lois that he’s lost his powers. He can’t
‘feel’ them anymore. He thinks he pushed too hard during the fight and
something broke inside him. He says he can’t protect them or be Superman for
her anymore. Lois takes a moment to process that before hugging him, saying
that they didn’t save Superman, but they saved Clark, and changed the future.
Right? It starts raining.
We flash forward to the future.
Metropolis has gone full Cyberpunk Dystopia with, shocking no one, LexCorp
branding on all the buildings. The city is patrolled by an army of robotic
drones modeled after Superman but with bright yellow glasses for eyes. We join High
Commander Lex Luthor as Slade and some Eradicator drones bring a rebel to him. Lex has gone through a major makeover, adding
a lot of cybernetics to his body. Lex greets Jonathan Lane and gives his
regards to Jonathan’s mother. He goes over and crouches down next to Jonathan,
saying that he heard that the Superboy is trying to go back in time. That
doesn’t work for Lex, though, and he’d like to know where Jonathan got that
idea. We get a good look at Jonathan’s face, and this version has a scar over
his left eye.
Looks like the future took a
lateral move. From rampaging Cyborg apocalypse to evil corporate dystopia.
Shit.
Ya know, going into this episode, I
never considered that they were going to go with a metaphorical Death of
Superman. Which is weird. I’ve been watching Superman related media for going
on thirty years at this point, I’ve seen him on the big and small screen, in
live action and animation. In just about every version of the story that I’ve
seen, there is an episode or at most a short string of episodes that covers
what happens if Clark loses his powers and can’t be Superman anymore. It’s a
staple of the mythos of Superman, and I never once considered it. I assumed
Clark was going to die in this fight and the rest of the season was going to be
Jon trying to Mulligan a way to save his father. But, nope, Kryptonite
poisoning so bad and then Clark overworking his powers until they burn out. That’s
brutal. My only complaint about this Cyborg Superman arc is that it is
INCREDIBLY rushed. Hank Henshaw as Cyborg Superman is introduced in episode 2, has
maybe ten minutes of screen time across episodes 3 and 4, and then goes full
psycho by 5. That’s an entire SEASON of content in less than half the episodes.
My God, do I HATE the 10-episode season that is now industry standard. If we
just added five episodes to this season to bring it up to 15, that could have
included a few episodes to show us Jon’s future and the future of this new
Jonathan variant, included an episode just about Hank and showing how he’s
losing it as his metal body and new powers are socially isolating him to an
insane degree, and give us more set up on the villain that steps up next, no
spoilers beyond it’s not Hank. It makes me so angry because those extra
episodes could have added weight to everything that was happening. Jon’s desire
to save both his biological parents as well as his aunt who was the mom that
stepped up, Lois’ anxiety about the future, Hank’s deteriorating mental state
as the inhumanity of his existence makes him lose touch with reality, and Clark
just trying to save as many people as he can, all of that could have been
enhanced with more episodes. Despite this, Hank really does carry the episode.
His crazy lines and self-loathing even as he revel in the powers he’d been
given is all great. Some felt that giving him a heart of Kryptonite made him
too much like John Corbin aka Metallo… but come on, an anti-Superman cyborg
built by Lex is going to have Kryptonite powering it, it’s like Lex’s main
gimmick. And, Metallo and Cyborg Superman cover similar enough story beats that
merging them is probably the best call. And given the choice between the two,
I’ll go with Cyborg Superman as he’s just the more visually interesting
character. Metallo as he’s been presented in most media is a robot man, that’s
kind of it. He might have some fancy weapons but he’s mostly going to run up
and punch at Superman. With Cyborg Superman you get him using a corrupted
version of all of Superman’s gear. It’s so cool! Lois was great in this
episode, just for punching Lex in the face again. So ya, Clark’s powerless, Jon
is gone and the future has changed but not necessarily for the better. Bet
you’re wondering how they’ll fix this? We’ll find out next time. Have a
goodnight, everyone! And stay safe.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/u2761062/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-167981947
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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