Spoilers "Superman & Lois" Season 2

I'm here to complicate matters.

Because in the last 3 months, DC has published the official Arrow-verse comic crossover "Earth-Prime", with five issues devoted to the individual shows' characters being confronted with the new threat, and the sixth issue being the one that brings all the heroes together to fight that new threat (it's Magog, btw). It was also the final official installments of Batwoman and LoT, but we didn't know at the time.

Anyway, issue #2 of the mini-series focused on Superman & Lois:

It was written by Adam Mallinger, Jai Jamison, and Andrew Wong, who all work on the TV show, and the production team was involved in the development of the comic. The story itself doesn't majorly involve any of the ongoing arcs of the TV show, but the setting is more or less the same. But, it is set on Earth-Prime.
And the comic can very much be seen as canon, as other issues like the Stargirl and Flash ones have been used to tease storylines for the upcoming new seasons.

So, until there is official word on this one way or the other, my head-canon will be that the Earth-Prime Superman family have had similar parallel events to the characters of the TV show, but slightly different allowing for the differences in the two universes. So, Clark's Earth-Prime Fortress would still be the one seen on Supergirl, not the one seen on S&L.

 

Yes, it makes far more sense that way.

Hmm, that's too bad, since as noted, I'd prefer to believe Clark & Lois just recently had newborns so as not to screw up their pre-Crisis storyline.

But the Arrowverse comics' relation to canon is sometimes iffy. Some of the early ones were later contradicted by the shows and can at most be considered to have happened in the pre-Flashpoint timeline. Personally, while I count the first story in the Crisis on Infinite Earths comic tie-in (the one centering on Felicity and fleshing out her role in the crossover) to be part of the canon, I don't choose to count the Lex Luthor story in the same issue, which doesn't really seem to fit the Arrowverse or the conceit of CoIE. (All its alternate Luthors and Supermen are based on comics versions rather than screen versions, for one thing.)

 

Supes fights Nuclear Man in it! A classic villain for the ages.

 

Eh, I don't really factor in comics adaptations of filmed productions, no matter who writes them or what anybody says about their canonicity, so the Earth-Prime comic doesn't damage my calm.

 

And the Arrowverse Wikia is going with the events of the Earth-Prime S&L stories occurring in the Superman & Lois reality, despite the series name (similar to the Stargirl issue).

 

Hmm, if the issues are standalone until the finale crossover, I guess that might work, especially if Stargirl's involved too.

 

Looking through reviews and synopses, it doesn't seem like there are any direct connections between the "definitely Earth-Prime" characters and the "definitely Superman & Lois" world.

 

Just watched the finale-- I do have a question but since I can't find anything about it on the net my memory is probably wrong. In the first season, wasn't there a reference to the Flash?

 

Nope, don't recall any such reference (and if there were one, it would certainly have come up in the many articles and discussions about the "not Earth-Prime" reveal in the past week).

 

My mistake---I think the reference I was thinking of might have been in the final season of Black Lightning.

 

The idea that the Oliver Queen Diggle mentioned was possibly never Green Arrow occurred to me right away. Anyone remember the Pocket Universe story in the comics? The one which introduced the Phantom Zone criminals which Superman executed. In that alternate world only Superboy existed and none of the other heroes. But they existed only in their civilian identities. They fought as freedom fighters with a heroic Lex Luthor against Zod. Oliver Queen was one of them.

 

In the ending of COIE, the Hoechlin Superman we see being called about problems with the boys is different than the Superman in the Hall of Justice. Hoechlin could still theoretically show up on The Flash.

 

I mean being in it's own universe doesn't feel that surprising. It explains a lot of the recasting and why things like the fortress and the Kent farm don't look the same. Hell, it frees them up to use someone besides Cryer for Lex, if they want.

 

Which doesn't appeal to me, since he's the best screen Lex since Clancy Brown. I'd been hoping to see a proper face-off between Hoechlin's Superman and Cryer's Lex at some point.

 

There was indeed such a reference in BL.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I don't think so ...?

Hoechlin was the Earth-38 Superman who first appeared on Supergirl.

Subsequently, he and the Earth-38 Lois Lane (as played by Bitsie Tulloch) had a baby boy.

After "Crisis," that Superman and Lois ended up on the newly formed Earth-Prime, where Superman joined the other heroes in the Hall of Justice. Also, their "boy" was now "boys," as revealed in Lois's call to her husband.

Meanwhile, on Earth-S&L, multiversal doppelgangers of that Superman and Lois (also played by Hoechlin and Tulloch) are raising teenage twin sons.

That would work.

 

The producer of the Flash said that Hoechlin was disappointed he had to turn down the request to appear in Armageddon at the being of this past season. It was a scheduling problem. It would be nice if they could work something out. Even just on a Video monitor like Brandon Routh as Ray Palmer towards the end of the season. It could be shot at a earlier time than The Flash aspect of the scene. Even better have them briefly race each other. All that is done on green screen anyways. No reason Grant and Tyler have to shot it together at same time. They can be digitally edited together.

Not sure if anyone mentioned this - while this is a different Earth now that new Fortress in the water looks closer to the Supergirl one than his Arctic one on this show. The exterior view at least. The old one existed inside a Mountain with no sign of that overlapping crystal structure. Though his half brother’s Fortress looked closer to this Donnerverse style as well.

 

..which brings up just how scattered the concept of an "Arrowverse" was, as it was on Black Lightning were someone (I believe Anissa) was reading a comic book with an ad for the 1984 Supergirl movie Blu-ray (and I believe Lynn thought Superman was merely a fictional character with no real world reference), yet on Supergirl, no one ever mentioned a film called "Supergirl" starring Helen Slater, which had been released in 1984. Obviously, the SG showrunners could not, since a character with so familiar a costume and general origin would have predated the appearance of the Arrowverse SG by decades, so there's no way the showrunners could explain that...other than unsuccessfully handwave it all away, and claim Black Lightning was in the same universe, when that series' showrunners originally had Freeland (and the rest of their world) set as the "real" world, with other DC characters recognized as fictional in nature.

 

Everybody seems desperate to handwave away the fact that Superman & Lois isn't the show audiences were promised, and also the fact that the showrunners let audiences believe that it was for nearly two seasons.

 

It's only a "handwave" if you care and/or take it personally.

The show works better as its own independent thing. And IMO, Superman works best when he's THE hero, not part of a team or an otherwise crowded comicbook continuity.

 

I don't recall any promises.