Key Takeaways
- Clark Kent finally revealing himself as Superman in the latest episode was a big twist yet felt somewhat expected.
- Superman & Lois faces the same issue as Smallville with few people in Smallville connecting Clark Kent and Superman.
- The show missed a chance to explain why people don’t recognize Superman with glasses, offering a weak answer.
One of the things that has made Superman & Lois so entertaining is the way it effortlessly balances staying true to the canon of Superman and his love interest while also rewriting some things to better fit the series as a whole. The people behind the production does it so effortlessly sometimes that the audience doesn’t even see it coming until its here.
That was definitely the case with the latest episode of Superman & Lois where Clark decided it was finally time to “unmask” himself after spending the better part of the last three and a half seasons preaching to his sons at every turn how important it was to keep their identities under wraps. While that might have been a big twist for the series, it also feels like they were leading up to it, considering just how many people were being let into the secret by the time the episode aired. And despite lifting the roof on one of the biggest secrets in DC Comics history, the show still managed to miss a golden opportunity to explain something that has bothered fans for decades.
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Clark Kent Becoming Superman
There’s a couple of prominent questions when it comes to Superman protecting his identity from those who know him best. There always has been. But it got weirder when Superman & Loismoved the family to Smallville. it was a nice strategic move as far as character development went. That the same people kept showing up every episode was less strange in a small town than in Metropolis. It’s likely why the original Smallville was set in Smallville. However now Superman & Lois has the same problem the Tom Welling show had. How in the world did so few people put two and two together?
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Cast |
Tyler Hoechlin, Elizabeth Tulloch, Jordan Elsass, Alex Garfin, Erik Valdez, Inde Navarrette, Wolé Parks, Adam Rayner, Dylan Walsh, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Tayler Buck, Sofia Hasmik, Michael Bishop, Chad L. Coleman, Michael Cudlitz |
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Writers |
Greg Berlanti, Todd Helbing |
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Showrunner |
Todd Helbing |
While it struck some people as strange that bad things were always happening in Smallville, it never seemed to strike them as odd just how often Superman was spotted in town. Sure he can travel the world quickly but it still seems like someone would put it together that of all the small towns in the world, he shows up in Smallville a lot. One would think someone would really start digging into it, especially since the show makes it clear that people wonder about the way Clark behaves sometimes. The latest episode in fact, shows people digging into Clark because they believe he is Superman’s alter ego. And yet, no one, other than Lex Luthor has cracked it.
The weirdest part of all is that when people in town did start figuring out that Clark and Superman were the same person, it wasn’t from any sleuthing. It wasn’t from realizing that Superman was around too often to make sense. It was people saw the way his family behaved when Doomsday killed him. More than one person in Smallville said they knew the reactions had to be family members.
People in this small town also spend a lot of time around Clark and his family. Is no one really noticing how similar they look? How did Lois not before he told her? How did she not have an inkling? And that’s the question Superman & Lois could have answered, but the show missed that opportunity.
Why Do Superman’s Glasses Do That?
The biggest sign explaining how a pair of glasses was disguising him from everyone who knows him was a missed opportunity is that the a character in the latest episode straight up asked Clark why no now ever recognized him as Superman. She even started the question with “I worked with you for years and didn’t know,” to which Clark responded, “Don’t underestimate the power of a pair of glasses.”
The allusion here is that people simply looked at the glasses and saw a nerdy guy, despite his rather impressive build. This is of course, what has the been the canon for decades, but there was a time when the comics did try and explain it away as Superman having secret powers like the ability to unconsciously hypnotize people into not seeing his alter ego.
While that explanation sounds rather outlandish, it would have been nice for the show to come up with an answer.
While that explanation sounds rather outlandish, it would have been nice for the show to come up with an answer. Even if that answer was simply a longer version of “they just don’t pay that much attention.” It could have even been a way to talk about people really don’t pay attention to each other any more in the internet age. Or they could have figured out some thing that was believable that had to do with his powers. Just blamining it on the glasses seems like a cop out that was far too weak if the show was going to tell the entire world that people who met him simply “didn’t notice.” That was a pretty massive missed opportunity for Superman & Lois.
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