Clark + Lois = Golden Retriever son
Last time on My Adventures With
Superman, everyone had an… interesting day. Jimmy spent the day at WORMS
(The World Organization for Romantic Matchmaking Science) as part of an
ill-thought-out plan to try to make Kara jealous. He seems to hit it off with
his date Dolores aka Gigi, that is until she exposes him to some chemicals that
turn him into a wolfman. Lois informs Kara what’s going on with Jimmy and they
put her on a dating app so Kara can beat Jimmy at this ‘contest.’ Upon learning
that Kara is still pretty much a blank slate, the two end up at the Mall. They
have a musical number that shows Kara is excited for the future while Lois is
anxious as hell. Clark tries to have a peaceful day at home with his miniature farm
but keeps getting called away to deal with emergencies. The first is to a dog
adopt-a-thon on a yacht, which he doesn’t mind, the other is to deal with a
LexCorp robbery. He ends up saving Intergang from Captain Hank, who tries to
take MAWS Team Rocket with extreme prejudice. Clark keeps him at bay until Hank
tries to laser slash everyone. At that point, Slade steps in and tells Hank the
boss wants to see him. Jimmy gets turned back to normal by the WORMS CEOs
Zazzala and Tazzala, but is then kidnapped by Gigi, who is the supervillain
Giganta. She grows fifty feet tall and pulls a King Kong with Jimmy, climbing
up the Daily Planet building. With the Zalas help, Clark frees Jimmy from Gigi
and brings him home. At the apartment, Lois tells Clark that she’s feeling
anxious for the future, and they agree to have breakfast tomorrow to talk about
their life plan. Lex rips Hank a new asshole for that PR fumble, reminding Hank
that Lex owns him. And finally, we cut to the future and a Superboy is
outfitted with some tech by a future Bald Lex before being sent back in time.
Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
The episode opens with Clark
arriving at Lois’ place to pick her up for their brunch date. She opens the
door and looks extremely harried and needs to take a moment to remember she
needs shoes to go outside. Clark starts to ask what’s up, but Lois cuts him
off, saying to keep quite as otherwise he’ll wake Kara. Kara, it seems, lives
with Lois now and is at the moment sleep flying just over their heads. A side
effective of Lois getting Kara onto the dating apps is that Kara has no idea
what she’s doing, so she’s asking Lois 10,000 questions about it. It’s leaving
her a little frazzled. Clark gently lets her know that it’ll be okay, they’re
going to go have breakfast at her favorite place (Poundcake Palace!) and
discuss their future and everything will be alright. It’ll be alright because
they have (“poundcake!” According to Lois) each other and there’s no Superman
business to get in their way. Lois affectionately tells Clark that she’ll
always have her Superman, but they both agree, no Super Business today. They
head out and leave Kara to her dreams of petting dogs.
They walk down the street arm in
arm when Jimmy calls Clark. He’s on a date with another WORMS scientist,
because Jimmy is both optimistic AND dumb. He says that the woman he’s seeing
is great, but she sprayed him with a mysterious chemical and he might need their
help. Lois forcibly hangs up Clark’s watch on Jimmy, because she’s not missing
her poundcake, dammit. Jimmy’s Flamebird watches come with a nifty holographic
chibi display, so Lois has to metaphorically crush Jimmy to hang up on him.
They make it to the restaurant and
start getting comfortable. They’re feeling pretty cocky at this point, having
dodged their respective roommates and made it to the restaurant without any
funny business. Clark loudly proclaims that they can handle anything the future
throws at them… right before a red-blue blur drops from the ceiling, grabs all
their cake and leaps back up again. They both look upwards and see a Korean boy
in a Superman suit hanging from the chandelier. He quickly eats the carbs
before happily saying, “Hi mom! Hi Dad!” and dropping down to sit with them,
asking if they’d ordered yet.
Superboy is very… high energy. He
quickly pages through the menu before deciding they should have one of
everything and races away to get it. Lois is freaking out as this teenager (that
is obviously their son due to his looks and superpowers) is basically all of
her stress dreams of late in human form and begs Clark to tell her what they
should do. Superboy rejoins them and finally introduces himself when they ask
what he meant by ‘mom and dad.’ This is Jonathan ‘Jon’ Kent, their son, from the
FUTURE! He says it like he thinks they should know who he is, despite the fact
he very obviously travelled back to a point before his own birth. Jon is so
excited to be here, he says it’s “Slamming!” He quickly zooms around his past
parents, asking them a lot of questions, like what books do they like, why does
Clark wear glasses and where do they hang out. He pulls out Lois’ compass she
got from her dad during the season premier, and when Lois asks how he did that
he says he saw it with X-ray vision and is a great pickpocket like his mama. He
hands the compass back to Lois. Her brain is kind of broken at seeing this
15–17-year-old son, but before she can ask him any questions, they’re joined by
Jimmy and Kara. Jimmy got covered in porcupine quills by his last date, and
Kara seems to have gotten so many matches on CrushRush that she broke the app.
Jimmy and Kara finally notice Jon, who introduces himself to his Uncle and
Aunt. They’re both excited to meet him, Kara telling Clark that he and Lois did
their bloodline proud, and Jimmy gets distracted by finally processing what
Kara said about breaking the app. He pokes Lois one too many times with his
quills, causing the extremely stressed-out Lois to scream in outrage. She
panics their server, who spills a bunch of bread, and Clark asks if they can
take it to go.
The group heads to STAR Labs. Jimmy
gets his quills pulled out by a scientist while Jon examines everything, he can
get his eyes on. The kid has got a huge amount of Golden Retriever energy. “Can
I touch this? I’m touching it! (Zap) Ow!” Clark, realizing that Jon might be
overstimulated here suggests they go outside. Jon zooms over and shouts “I love
outside!” There is a news report about unexplained tremors around the city.
Jimmy is convinced he knows what the tremors are about, but he’s distracted by
another quill being pulled out. And that, kids, is called ‘Foreshadowing.”
Outside, Jon apologizes if he’s been a bit
much, he’s just excited to be here. He says while scarfing down a huge load of
bread. Clark tells him not to worry. He calls Jon ‘Kiddo,’ but the pause is
just long enough that I’m convinced he was about to say ‘Son,’ but remembered
Lois is freaking out. Lois is still trying to find an explanation for this
besides that Jon is her son from the future. Clark points out that Jon is a
flying pickpocket. I’d have mentioned he’s a Kryptonian that looks Korean, but maybe
it’s better to focus on his skillset. She asks if they should really just take
his word on it, and shouldn’t Clark need more evidence? And in one of the
funniest moments of the season, Jon sees Lois standing with her arm
outstretched. He rips his loaf of bread in half and hands her a piece. And in
perfect sync, the two gobble up their bread in one big bite, then dust off
their hand on their shirts and lick their lips clean. Clark says, “Not Really,”
and Kara has a much blunter, “No.” Lois tries to escape the situation by saying
that she needs to write up a story for the Planet. Jon doesn’t want her to go,
so begs her to take him with her. Lois finally asks a question that I’m sure
has been eating at her all day, “Why are you here, Jon?” Kara tries to distract
Jon by offering to show him some Kryptonian wrestling moves, but he’s not super
into it. Clark suggests doing ‘normal’ stuff, and Kara is positive that she
knows of something normal to do. They head to the mall, much to Lois’
exasperation.
We cut to LexCorp tower. Hank is
laying in his repair pod getting his body calibrated. He’s watching a news
report about himself, as the man is a bit vain. Shocking, I know. The report
talks about how Hank used to be a well-respected and decorated Astronaut, with
an aspiration to lead humanity to a brighter tomorrow. Hank has a vision or
flashback of himself working on a satellite while watching the sun rise over
the distant Earth and looks hopeful as well as mesmerized. A stark difference
from the man with a metal jaw. He remembers Lex scolding him and saying that
he’s making people scared of him. Lois comes on the report, saying that Hank
isn’t a hero and she’s not sure he can go back to the ‘maverick’ he used to be.
In an extremely well-designed shot, we see Hank’s face in profile, his glowing
red eye blinking as he mentally winds back Lois’ clip to “Hank is not out
hero,” over and over again. I have no idea why famous print journalist
Lois Lane is on TV, but we’re moving past that. Furious, Hank activates his
laser palms and cuts up the place, including a photo of himself.
Back at the mall, we see a shopping
montage of Clark, Jimmy and Jon bonding. They’re all massive dorks that get
matching jackets and pose with them. Jon tries to give Lois a jacket too, but
she looks behind him, sees a ‘mommy and me’ display and panics again. Jon gets
distracted by roller shoes, which blows this flying boy’s mind, and Jimmy gets
him a pair. Kara tries to join in on the fun, but Jon seems to be deliberately
avoiding interacting with her. Jimmy also buys Jon a Superman plushy, and we
see with the Flamebird cash counter that Jimmy is in the red for about $1500.
The fun is interrupted by another tremor. The quake Is big enough to cause a
giant toy cat to fall from the ceiling. Lois screams for the folks to look out,
but Jon leaps into action, saving everyone by catching the cat mid fall. This
seems to make it click for Lois that this is her boy, as she mutters Jon is
‘Just like Clark.” Her smile suggests she’s happy to accept this info… but
she’s now even more concerned about why he’s here.
We shift back to LexCorp. Lex is
working on something, while Slade is angrily watching something on his phone.
Seems like his encounter with Hank last episode left him with a broken right
arm. He still tries to do his job and draws his left sword. Hank tries to be
playful, calling Slade “fido” for being a good attack dog. Lex reminds Hank
that they ‘agreed’ he’d stay in his quarters until further notice, and draws
attention to his control remote for emphasis. Hank glares for a moment, and
then apologizes. He tries to be humble with Lex, but Lex keeps verbally
stabbing him. Making Hank say that Lex is the one in charge, and that he’ll
never forget he owes Lex everything “again.” Lex accepts the apology and
dismisses Hank. Hank leaves, but stares at one of the robot drones. Once alone,
Slade tries to make Lex see that that was the most insincere apology ever. Lex
is blasé about the whole thing, thinking a ‘firm hand’ makes that ‘type’ fall
in line. Slade scoffs at that and says that he is of that type. Slade knows
that Hank isn’t going to stop after trying to kill Slade yesterday. Lex keeps
insisting that he’s got it under control. Unbeknownst to them, Hank uses his
thermal vision to see into the room and targets the remote.
At the mall, Jon wants to keep up
the shopping. Lois needs a break, though, and fakes a call from Perry to try to
get out of family time. She tries to ditch them, but Jon begs to see the Daily
Planet. Lois looks like she’s going to say no, but sees both her son and her
future husband’s hopeful looks and relents. They all pile into her cubical at
the Planet, which is stifling so Lois shouts she needs some air. They head to
the roof and eat ramen together. Jimmy talks about how nice it is to be five
best friends on the roof, but Kara cuts him off and asks Jimmy to take a photo
of her holding the Daily Planet’s Planet for her dating profile. Clark senses
the hostility here and offers to do the photo for her, but she insists Jimmy do
it as he takes the best pictures and the dating was his idea. She then lifts
the actual planet, which makes Clark panic and he yells at her to put it back.
Lois and Jon share a laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Lois notices that
Jon is also eating the spicy ramen, and Jon laughs and says he must get it from
her. He calls her mom, which makes something break in Lois’ brain again. Jon
looks disappointed, as he’s been paying attention and knows that Lois isn’t
processing this all super well. She tells him that he’s great, super even, it’s
just hard to wrap her mind around. Lois vents to Jon about her anxieties about
the future and the feeling that she’s locked into a future she can’t control.
Jon says he doesn’t believe in fate, and that the future is there’s to shape. A
bold thing for the boy whose entire existence is predicted by Lois Lane having
a child with Clark Kent, which hasn’t happened yet. Still, hearing that seems
to make Lois feel a bit better. She asks again why he’s there, but they’re
interrupted by an explosion downtown. Clark zooms away. Kara goes to follow,
but Jon asks if maybe she can sit this one out so he and Clark can have some
father-son time. Kara reluctantly agrees. Jon dives off the roof, giving Lois a
minor heart attack, and Kara zooms away. It’s only at that point that Lois and
Jimmy realize they’re locked on the roof with no way down since their ride flew
off. Jimmy posts a video on Flamebird asking for lockpicking tips.
We join Clark and Jon looking at a
construction site that is covered with dinosaur people. Jon laughs, saying that
he thought that the past was just wobbly. Clark is shocked by the dinosaur
people that live below the earth’s crust, and wonders what else is Jimmy right
about. Jon calls them the Subterranosauri. He says they’re all super cool,
super reasonable, and that he’ll have this wrapped up in five minutes. The
dinopeople are rampaging around the construction site, attacking people,
breaking machinery and throwing girders around. Clark is less than convinced,
but Jon insists. They fly down and Jon tries to introduce himself to a big red
rex. The rex roars at Jon, and he thinks that means the Rex’s English isn’t
very good. He tries to remember how to greet in Subterranosauri, but gets tail
whipped into some concrete for his trouble.
Jumping back to LexCorp, Hank goes
into Lex’s lab again. Lex tries to blow him off, but Hank insist he make time.
Hank threatens Lex, Lex tries to get him to back down with his remote, but Hank
mentally blows it up. Lex tries to run, but Hank activates two robots that grab
Lex. He screams for Slade, who comes in, but isn’t feeling super protective
after the last few days. Lex pleads for his life, offering Hank whatever he
wants. Hank admits that he wants his life back. Sensing an opening, Lex turns
Hank’s fury on Superman. Hank puts him down and Lex tries to weasel Hank into
an alliance, but Hank super flicks him into a wall, saying there is no “we,”
anymore.
Clark helps his son out of the
debris he was launched into. Jon is super confused by all of this as in his
time the Subterranosauri are humanities allies. Clark tells Jon to help the
civilians while Clark handles the dinosaurs. He super breaths a bunch of the
dinos back towards the hole they crawled out of. Jon tries to get people to
evacuate by just yelling, but Clark advises him that he needs to make everyone
feel safe if he wants to help them. He lands and grabs a little girl that was
cornered by the dinos. He tries to fly her away, but she’s afraid of heights,
so he instead super speed roller blades them away. Clark tries to fight the
dinos while not letting the building collapse. Big Red throws a crane cable at
him, but Clark freeze breaths him in place. Clark and Jon meet up and agree
that was slamming. The bonding is interrupted by the arrival of Tyrannko,
prince of the Subterranosauri. This one speaks English for some reason.
Tyrannko pontificates about the injustice that the surface dwellers have dealt
to the Subterranosauri. Jon, who is geeking out a little, steps in and
convinces Tyrannko that humans and dinos can live in peace. He’s got that Kent
verbal magic.
Tyrannko shakes hand with the mayor
and peace is forged between humans and Subterranosauri. Clark and Jon hang out
with Big Red Rex and Clark asks about the future with the Subterranosauri. Jon
says they’ve been allies for like twenty years, from his perspective, and then
realizes that he’s the one that made peace with the dinos. Some chicken and egg
time travel right there. Clark smiles at his son’s excitement about being a
hero and tells him that this is what Superman is all about, making a Brighter
Tomorrow. He then says he knows just the place to get patched up.
We jump to everyone hanging out at
the Kent family farm. In the most unrealistic moment of the series, Jonathan
and Martha walk away after getting their son and grandson checked out. Those
two would be glued to Jon until he left, you’d have to pry them off of
him. But whatever, Jon and Clark are patched up, Jimmy is exasperated that he
missed the subterranean dinosaur people, and Kara is just hanging out astride a
white horse. That’s a comic reference, by the way, in the Silver Age Kara
briefly dated a White horse that took human shape. The Silver Age was weird.
Clark offers to tell them everything over dinner. Clark offers to play catch
with Jon beforehand, and Kara very much wants to show her nephew Earth Catch,
but Jon says he wants to help Lois with her story.
Lois doesn’t look up from her
writing to ask her son how to spell Tyrannko’s name. She lets him have a look
and Jon speed reads the story, saying that it too is Slamming. He mentions that
Lois is just how he imagined her. Lois picks up on the word choice there and
asks why he’d have to ‘imagine’ his mom. Jon tries to back peddle on that
comment and searches his jacket for something. Lois had pickpocketed what he
was looking for, a picture. It shows Clark, Lois and an infant Jon. She smugly
mentions she’s a good pickpocket herself. Jon apologizes to her, saying that he
knows it must be weird to become a parent like this, but thanks her for the
day. He says he really needed it. Lois realizes that she did too.
Good news, Clark, she’s less
against having kids now! A step forward.
Jon helps raise the family truck so
Pa can do some work on it while Clark and Lois watch. Clark says that if Jon is
there future, its better than he’d hoped. Lois admits that maybe it won’t be so
bad. They’re then interrupted by Kara demanding their attention. We see a news
report of Metropolis being burned to the ground. Hank has completely lost his
mind. He calls out Superman, demanding that he face Hank or suffer the
consequences. He tells Clark to come and fight for the city. Clark and Kara
super speed away. Jon comes in, saying that he thought he had more time. Lois
demands to know what he means. Jon tells her that in his future, Lois and Clark
are dead and he was sent back in time to stop Cyborg Superman.
Well, that was a sweet episode that took a dark turn right at the 19-minute mark. I will note that my biggest complaint about this season is that the pacing is WAY too fast. From this point onwards we’re going to be racing between plot points to cover everything that the writers want to get to. But more on that later. I liked the introduction to Jon. He’s a fun character. His inquisitive nature and high energy make him almost like a Flash, he’s constantly moving from one thing or thought to the next. Design wise I think they found a nice balance between Clark and Lois for him. He’s like Clark drawn with Lois’ proportions. So, he’s smaller than his dad, but you still see Clark in his eye and face shape. Highlighting that he has some of Lois’ skills like pickpocketing along with Clark’s powers was a good way to drive home that he’s a bit of both of them. Seeing him hang out with his parents and just have a good time before the heavy stuff is just fun. Some folks question why he’d risk wasting time like this when Hank was out there. And the answer is the same as the question “so is Lois already pregnant with him if Hank is supposed to kill them both?” To which I say, ‘he thought he had more time.’ I wish we’d gotten some time in the future so we could have seen them set up their plan for how Jon is supposed to fix the future, and also how the timeline went without Jon’s intervention. I assume he was specifically sent back a significant amount of time before Hank snapped in his timeline. We’ll say 2 to 3 years at minimum to account for Clark and Lois to settle on their plans, get married, and have Jon as a honeymoon baby. A staple of time travel narrative is that the mere presence of a time traveler can radically alter events. Something about Jon being in the past caused a change that led to Hank snapping faster than he had in Jon’s timeline. Again, something that a little more time in the season would have helped. Also, come on, Lois was freaking out a lot just by the idea of settling down. If she had a positive pregnancy test or even a day late period right now she’d be in a panic death spiral. All of that said, Hank’s villain monologue there at the end was really good. Some folks questioned as to why Lex would build Hank’s body with the ability to hack tech, and I’m just like, guys, Lex’s key character trait is he is arrogant. Lex was fully capable of making a cyborg body that was incapable of raising a hand to him, just like he was capable of building an automatic failsafe into Hank that could have gone off if he tried to break away. But that wouldn’t work for Lex’s ego. He needs Hank to understand that Lex owns him. The remote device was more about letting Lex decide how and when Hank would be punished. It gave him an illusion of control over Hank that obviously Hank was happy to disabuse him of. If you want Lex to actually think about the consequences of his decisions, good luck with that. The man has gotten cancer multiple times because he carried a radioactive bit of rock in his pocket or on his hand and just assumed it’d never affect him. So, ya, Hank Henshaw is on a rampage, and it’ll be up to the Supers to stop him. It’s a tall order, but they’ve faced long odds before. We’ll see how they handle it next time. Have a good night, everyone and stay safe.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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