New Superboy and Supergirl just dropped.
Last time on My Adventures With
Superman, we got a beach episode… kinda. Mr. Mxyzptlk, interdimensional god
of chaos and a gremlin, kidnapped the gang to use in a context against his soon-to-be
ex-wife, Ms. Gsptlsnz aka Glitzy. They need to compete in various challenges to
earn keys for their respective imp. And if they don’t participate… cosmic
horrors are threatened. Team Glitzy is comprised of Variants of the gang,
General Lois Lane, Good Lex Luthor, Scion of the House of El Kara, and
Flamebird Jimmy. Flamebird Jimmy has a Kamen Rider suit, that’s what makes him
different. The challenges are… weird. A foot race across a collapsing bridge,
climb a sinking mountain, find the pieces to a portal, and cross through an ice
maze. The team ties the first, lose the second and third, and win the fourth.
Which is weird because their overseers promised they’d die if they failed the challenges.
The final challenge is to run a hamster ball race, but everyone has picked up
how weird this is and won’t play anymore. Mxy and Glitzy reveal that this
challenge is to get the cosmic anvil, a device that can reshape universes and
has a ‘no god’s allowed’ seal on it. Oh, and they’re still together, pretending
to break up was just a game for them. Clark calls Mxy’s bluff about killing
them if they don’t comply, and he’s proven right. He’d noticed timers were everywhere
and assumed when the sand ran out the game was over. Mxy’s foiled and the gangs
are sent to their home dimensions. Lois and Clark run meet while jogging and
have a heart to heart. Clark is feeling better about being normal, and Lois is
admittedly anxious because it feels like terrible futures are always on the
horizon. Clark disagrees…right up until a time rift opens and Jon comes through
again, this time with a sidekick in the form of his little sister. Enough
recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
The episode ends with Jon and the
new Kryptonian girl, Lara, coming through the portal. Lois and Clark are
shocked to learn they reproduced twice… but guys, come on, the only reason Jon
was originally an only child was because you were killed before you could have another.
Clark strikes me as the type to want a big family, and Lois would be like ‘oh,
I don’t know,’ right up until she got a positive pregnancy test and then she’d
be over the moon. Regardless, Jon’s back, though he insists on going by
Jonathan, he brought Lara, and he has no idea what his young parents are
talking about when they mention he’s come to the past before. Clark and Lois are
both horrified at the thought that they may have rewritten Jon’s entire life,
turning him into this new version.
That’s highly unlikely, by the way.
We’re dealing with a multiverse. This Jonathan is most likely from an
altogether different timeline than the previous, and even that one wasn’t their
Jon, just a potential one. Time travel in a multiverse is tricky like that, any
attempt at going back just makes a new timeline.
We cut over to LexCorp where Lex is
frantically working on something. His lab is a pigsty with food and cans everywhere.
He’s apparently taken the month since his Cyborg Superman project failed… well.
He also shaved his head and wrapped it in bandages for some reason. Slade comes
in and makes a snide comment about how most folks try to prepare before
a government inspection. Slade touch’s Lex’s new chrome dome, and the super genius
winces. Slade asks what he’s been up to, and Lex snaps back that the project is
on a need-to-know basis, and he doesn’t need to know. Slade is clearly hurt by
that comment and asks if he remembers that they’re partners, but Lex corrects
him, saying Slade works for him. They’re interrupted by their inspector…
Director Waller! I guess in the year since last season she somehow went from
being on the run for her authoritarian crackdown in Metropolis to being back in
charge. Weird, but let’s move on. Slade makes another snide comment about how Lex
works for her now.
We jump to the Kent Family Farm where
Lois and Clark catch Jonathan and Lara up on their previous time travel
adventure. Oh, and it’s Christmas time. They never address it, but the lights
are a bit of a hint. Jonathan is clearly frustrated at the thought that they’ve
done this before (gesturing at his sister), but Lois corrects him, saying that
it was just Jon last time. Lois and Clark both realize how that sounds and
quickly assure Lara that they’re super happy to meet her. Lara is shocked to
hear she didn’t exist and asks if she was an accident, much to her parent’s
horror. Jonathan pulls them back on subject and asks what they’re supposed to
do when things didn’t work out last time. Lois and Clark insists that it did,
and Jon saved Clark, but Jonathan is vehement that he isn’t that Jon. Lois
says that him coming back made everything better, but Jonathan demands to know
why his future is worse, then!
We shift to Jimmy and Kara in transit
to the farm. You just need to see how they’re flying, Jimmy’s body dangling as Kara
carries him by the back of his jacket, to know that she’s still upset with him.
A point highlighted when Jimmy tries to make small talk, but Kara gives him a
few clipped answers. Jimmy then asks where they’re at, like, with each other. This
makes Kara race to the farm and set Jimmy down. He asks if he said something
wrong, and Kara asks him to tell her what is it that he wants. Jimmy says that
he wants to be a better friend to her, which clearly disappoints her. She asks
if that is all he wants, and he says all he wants is to be with her. He then
asks her what she wants. Kara says she wants to be able to trust Jimmy again,
but she’s afraid he’ll leave her alone again. He insists that he won’t, but before
they can elaborate, Clark opens the door and ushers them inside so maybe they
can help break the awkward situation he’s in with his time traveling teenagers.
Clark introduces Kara and Jimmy to
Lara and Jonathan. Kara initially assumes he’s the same Jon, again, Lois and
Clark correct her, and when she calls him ‘new Jon’ he angrily insists it’s Jonathan.
Dude really wants to be taken seriously… which leads me to believe he didn’t
meet his namesake in his future, because Jonathan Kent I is the most unserious
man ever in this universe. Whatever. Lara suggests they get back on mission and
Jonathan angrily says ‘Because that worked out so well for the last guy.” Lois
asks about said mission, but her time teens are cagey about it. Lara says it’s
the mission ‘General Lane’ gave them and Lois assumes Lara’s talking about
grandpa. Jimmy cuts in, saying that he really doesn’t care about the reason
that brought them here, he’s just happy to see Superboy. Jonathan bellows at
Jimmy to never call him that, he’s SuperMAN. Jimmy points out that they
have one of those already, and Jon gets into Clark’s face to ask “do you?” This
kid is far braver than me, even if I had superpowers I’m not sure I could get
that disrespectful to even the twenty-something version of my dad. Jimmy tries
to defuse the situation by offering up Pa Kent’s world-famous Poundcake, but
Jonathan says he’s done with this and flies off. He doesn’t even want to try
the snickerdoodles, either.
Clark follows his son out to the
cornfield. He tries to connect with Jonathan and offers a sympathetic ear.
Jonathan scoffs at this, asking if he really thought that they’d have a man-to-man
heart to hear, maybe play catch and make his years of daddy issues go away. He
doesn’t phrase it like that, but we all know that’s what he means. He grabs a
rock, hurls it and causes some of the crops to burn down. Kara followed Clark
out and looks disappointed when Jonathan refuses the catch strategy. Jonathan
again gets into his young dad’s face, saying that he learned how to use his
powers on his own, that he defended the world on his own, and he doesn’t need Clark
now. Kara super speeds away. He tells his dad that he’s not there for Clark
this time and for Clark to stay out of his way before flying off. Clark calls after
him, but Jonathan doesn’t slow down. Another vision is triggered, and Clark
sees a burning landscape with twin suns in the sky. He forces the vision to end.
Back inside, Lois offers Kara a
snickerdoodle, saying that Pa Kent is an amazing baker. She slides Lara a glass
of milk and asks straight out why the siblings are here. Lara says it’s classified,
Lois isn’t shocked to hear her Dad would give orders like that, but then she
blurts out they were sent back in time to kill Lex Luthor. This causes Lois to
choke on her cookie. It should be noted now, while Lara Kent is her mom as a
teen (down to using teen Lois’s voice actor from season 2, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport)
in looks, in personality she’s her daddy’s girl. She’s honest to a fault. Lois
is flabbergasted to hear her babies (Lois doesn’t say it but her maternal instincts
are on high for the remainder of the season) were sent back to commit murder. Lara
says its to save the future. When Lois asks for clarification, Lara says in
their future, Lex rules the world with an army of bioengineered Kryptonian clones,
the Eradicators. Lois can’t believe her dad gave his grandkids those kinds of
orders… only for Lara to reveal that once again, the General Lane in question
here is General Lois Lane. Lois stares at her baby girl like something broke in
her brain.
Back at LexCorp, Lex tries to pitch
LexCorp as a safe bet for the US Government to continue backing, saying that it
is paving the way for a safer future. We see concept art for the Cyberpunk Dystopia
Metropolis in his slide show before Slade cough-laughs at it, and then
suggesting that Lex show Waller his latest project. Lex tries to say the
project is in it’s infancy, but she insists. He pushes a button and reveals the
Eradicator floating in its incubation tube. Lex, looking completely deranged,
says that his new weapon will put humanity back on top as the dominant species.
All without getting the irony that to do that, he needs to once again try to
mimic the abilities of another species. He made this bio-android using tissue
stolen from Superman, saying that this weapon will self-repair, self-evolve, and
be under Lex’s complete mental control. He even sliced open his head to remove
some grey matter to stick into the Eradicator to make a connection… I’m not
sure that that’s how that works. Lex says he’s still working on the hardware,
but when its finished, he’ll control the Eradicator perfectly. For once, Slade
and Waller both react like the insane thing Lex just said was in fact
insane. Waller tells him to shut it down, and when he tries to still sell her
on the Eradicator she clarifies she’s shutting down ALL of LexCorp.
At the farm, Lois and Clark fall
onto the couch and both lament on how they failed their kids. Clark says that
he somehow missed out on raising Jon twice, and Lois insisting her meek, good
soldier Lara, is the one more messed up. Lois wonders if maybe she’s the
problem, as she’s the common denominator. Clark asks what happened to Lara, and
it’s at that moment that Lois notices that Lara is gone.
Lex tries to plead his case to
Waller, all without knowing that the Eradicator opened his eyes to watch. That’s
not ominous. Lex shows her the prototype of his time travel watch, but Waller is
firm on her decision. Lex stops and grabs her, saying that he’s seen things
out in space, Superman isn’t the worst of it, they need to prepare. Waller brushes
him off, saying that Superman put his life on the line to defend Earth, and
thus she’ll prefer to put her faith in an alien over Lex. She adds that Lex has
failed to live up to Checkmate’s (the covert operation that ran Taskforce X,
Project Cadmus and Project Caliban) expectations and he doesn’t look after his
own people. A look at Slade tells Lex that he’d gotten Waller up to date.
Before things can escalate between Slade and Lex, Lara bursts in and announces
she’s here to kill Lex. Again, painfully honest, just like her pa. Lex tries to
force Slade to defend him, but he won’t budge. He insists he’s just a scientist,
but Lara tells him that he’s the end of the world before charging. Lex panics
and unleashes the Eradicator. It flops to the ground, but quickly adapts,
grabbing Lara and throwing her back. Black energy sparks off the bio-android
and hair grows from its head. We hear Lara scream as we cut to black.
We cut to the skies over
Metropolis. The crew fly in, Jonathan carrying Jimmy, while Kara carries Clark,
who is holding Lois. It’s a cute shot. Jonathan shakes his head, apparently having
known that his sister would do something stupid like rushing headlong into
things to be a good soldier for mommy. Dude, if you knew she’d do that,
it’s kind of on you that she did. You left her alone to be angsty! They reach
LexCorp and are met by Slade. He tells them that the site is locked down,
especially to Kryptonians. They demand to know where Lara is, and Slade asks if
that’s the superpowered teen that attacked Lex. He says they took the fight
underground. Before they can get more clarification, the ground collapses under
them and Clark and Lois fall into the sewers below. They start looking for Lara,
by following the ominous clanging sound they heard. They find their baby a
tunnel over. Lara grabs her mom, making Lois gasp. Lois jokingly says that for
a second she though a monster was down here, but Lara confirms that there is in
fact a monster.
Kara and Jonathan look for the
others. Jonathan says they should split up and they’ll find them faster. Kara
tells him that that’s unwise, given that the facility is full of lead, which blocks
their X-Ray vision, but he says he doesn’t need her permission and zooms away. He’s
almost immediately attacked by the Eradicator. Kara chases after him and gets attacked
as well, the Eradicator threw a subway train at her. Lara hears the screams and
goes after them. The Eradicator tries to get Lois and Clark, but Lara attacks him,
demanding to know where her brother is. The struggle leads them to a basin for
the sewers. Lara heat visions the Eradicator, causing it to adapt, it’s hair
growing out and it develops heat vision as well. Lois asks what this thing even
is, Lara saying it’s an Eradicator but it’s different from the others. It tries
to attack her, but Jonathan leaps out and tackles it. He struggles with the Eradicator.
Lois tells Lara to stay back, Jonathan tells her to get behind him, and Lara
freezes with indecision. The Eradicator throw Jonathan at his parents and tries
to charge the Kents, but Kara hurls a subway train at him now, snarling, “Stay away
from my family!” The Eradicator roars at her, and she roars back. She grabs the
Eradicator and flies upward, through the entirety of the LexCorp building, and
slams it into the pavement outside. The shake is big enough to draw the
attention of B-1Z, who’d been hanging out in his little rooftop apartment with his
lizard dog.
Clark tries to get his kids to
wait, but they fly off after Kara and the Eradicator. A dejected Lois mutters that
their kids are SO disrespectful. They find a hole in the wall and start to
climb out. Waller watches from the LexCorp building and demands Lex shut it
down. Lex says he can’t as he booted the Eradicator up before he finished it. The
Eradicator pulls himself from the rubble, having grown extra arms to help him.
The Eradicator then starts to humiliate the House of El as it bludgeons Lara
and Jonathan like the Hulk smacking around Loki in The Avengers. Kara
stops him from his final charge and loudly declares herself his opponent.
Lois and Clark are trying to get
out of the sewers when Lois is almost crushed by debris. Clark catches it
before it can crush her, he’s still like 250 pounds of Midwest Muscle after
all. They get out from under it and race upwards.
Kara gets smacked around by the
Eradicator, but she keeps charging back at it. Jonathan starts to panic, saying
that the Eradicator is evolving too fast and there is nothing they can do to
stop it. A ‘bruised so bad her face is swelling to twice its size’ Lara driving
that point home. Kara punches him on the arm, telling him that she’s also seen
other future and that they can still choose a better tomorrow. She tells him to
stay back so she can show him as she charges the Eradicator. Clark and Lois
meet up with Jimmy and see Kara fighting. Clark takes off his glasses as if he
can help, but Lois stops him, saying it’s a job for Superman. Kara fights valiantly,
destroying two of the Eradicator’s four arms in their brawl. She’s digging deep
as she fights, calling up that red energy she used when she fought with Clark
against Brainiac. The Eradicator heat-visions her eyes, blinding her for a
second. Because the Eradicator thinks like Lex, he decides to go for a cheap
win, firing heat-vision at the injured future Kents. Kara rockets forward and
takes the hit like Piccolo saving Gohan at the start of Dragonball Z’s fight
with Vegeta and Nappa. The Eradicator powers up the beam, engulfing Kara in
flames and burying her in the dirt. Jon pulls her from the ground and asks why
she did that. Kara caresses his face and says that he is her better tomorrow.
Clark sees his son cradling Kara
and tries to run to them. He gets hit with another vision of snow and fire.
Superman appears before him. Clark tells Superman to get out of the way, as they
need him, and Superman corrects him, saying that they need Superman. He sees
the Fortress of Solitude in the distance as he hears Kryptonian whispers.
Jonathan puts Kara down and roars at the Eradicator before charging. He does
his aunt and dad proud, pummeling the Eradicator and destroying another of its
arms. He goes to take off the fourth, but the Eradicator steals his time travel
watch. The Eradicator smiles and mutters, “I win!” before vanishing into the
time stream.
The group gather to assess their
losses. B-1Z arrives and is horrified to learn he’s too late to help. Kara is
in a coma; she’s not reacting to Jimmy shaking her or anything. Lara is
injured, but awake. And Jonathan is also mostly okay, but his confidence is
shaken after the Eradicator escaped into the timestream. Waller joins them and asks
who she’s arresting. Lois defends her kids, saying that they’re just following
order, trying to stop Lex from unleashing that monster. Lex insists he was just
defending himself from an assassination, the prototype wasn’t meant to be
active yet. He seems to sense that no one believes him and begs Slade to speak
up for him. Slade tells “Alex” that he tries to warn him. Waller tells Slade to
arrest Lex, and they’ll sort their new ‘guests’ later.
Lois asks what they’re supposed to
do. She’s clearly overwhelmed by all of this. Clark says that he thinks he can
get his powers back, but he’ll have to leave for a bit to do it. Lois, who’d
been excited to hear he can bring Superman back, clutches him, begging him not
to go as she’ll fail their kids. Clark insists that she won’t, that she’s not
the General Lane that sent them here. He says they need her, but she says she
needs him. Clark says he’ll only be gone for a little while.
Clark reaches the Fortress with the
help of B-1Z. As they enter, we hear Lois make Clark promise that he’ll come
back, which he does. Inside the Fortress, we see one of the Keeper robots
floating ominously in the dark. Its eye glows red and it seems to posses B-1Z.
B-1Z strikes Clark in the back of the head as Keepers start to swarm them.
That showdown between Kara and the
Eradicator is one of the best fight scenes that this series has had thus far.
Love the build-up as the three Supers each try to fight that thing but are just
overwhelmed time and again. Loved when Kara decided to throw herself fully at
the creature, going blow for blow against it and actually doing heavy damage
before he heat-visioned her eyes and then tried to take out the teens. It was a
cheap attack, but it clearly worked to finish off Kara. Back tracking a little,
it made me laugh when I saw the Eradicator and realized that the MAWS team was
just going full Cell with it. For those who aren’t well versed in manga and
anime, Cell is the final antagonist of the ‘Android Saga’ one of the three big
story arcs of Dragonball Z. Cell is the third attempt by former Red
Ribbon Army scientist Dr. Gero to make an android super warrior capable of
killing Son Goku, the series protagonist that ruined the Red Ribbon army when
Goku was a kid. The result was an insect like bio-android capable of copying
the powers of all the previous heroes and villains. The Eradicator is basically
that, just without the bug design. Fun fact, if you google it or go back and
look at the code Lex was working on at the start of the episode, you can see
that the Eradicator is already talking with Lex through the code. He’s
basically saying, “You can’t stop me father, I will rise up.” It’s creepy as
hell. I liked seeing Jonathan, although he is a downgrade from the original one
we saw. Going from golden retriever to rottweiler energy is not a good transition.
But, since it sounds like this version didn’t have Clark or Kara to show him how
to use his powers and be his rock when he needed it, I get why he’s got more
teen angst to deal with. It’s funny seeing him try so hard to be seen as strong
and tough but also being able to just tell that he just wants someone’s, anyone’s
approval. He ran off on his own to show everyone he could beat the Eradicator
by himself and get praise from someone. He says he doesn’t want it, but he
craves it. I have to give props to Darren Criss, his voice actor, for being
able to play both versions of Jon so well. He added enough personality that I
think I could tell the difference between a Jon line from a Jonathan line
easily. Lara was a fun addition. As I said above, she looks like Lois, but her
personality is much more like Clark. A bit indecisive at times, honest to a
fault, not wanting to hurt people but will go to the mat when she deems it necessary,
trusting Lois’ word regardless of how crazy it sounds. You don’t expect her to
be the one to run off and accidentally kick off the action, but it tracks when
Jonathan says how eager she is to be the good soldier. And it was great having
Clark finally figure out what those visions mean. While I think Depowered Clark
was a necessary story to cover this season, I’d be lying if I said that it hasn’t
been a long wait to see him back in red and blue. Hopefully the Keepers aren’t
plotting anything too insidious… we’ll have to wait to see, I guess. See you
next time. Have a good night and stay safe.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/u2761062/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-168263491
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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