Spoilers "Superman & Lois" Season 1 spoiler discussion!

That two part Superboy story “The Road to Hell” that Ron Ely appeared in really stayed in my memory for years. Even when the series was not available anywhere.

 

I'm currently reviewing season 3 of Superboy on my Patreon (see signature), and I'll be getting to that one in about a month. (Or rather, I'm currently posting the reviews of season 3 that I wrote months ago.)

 

Just for reference I believe the symbol Lyta-Zod's chest here is the House of Zod crest from Krypton. That or one for the Military Guild

 

What if they guy possessing him is the evil Superman we have already seen. Maybe one of the reasons he came to Smallville is he is from Smallville.

 

I really thought the song’ “if you can save these people” was going to play at the end there.

 

Edge refers to Clark as "my brother" again in the preview, apparently talking to one of his Kryptonian subjekts.

 

The word Lar'Gand came to mind.

Another name used by Valor/Mon-el.

Kevin Sorbo took it.

Never mind.

 

In the Golden and Silver Ages in was very common for characters and concepts to be recycled and reused in slightly different forms.

Before Mon-El/Lar Gand was introduced in Superboy in 1961 an almost identical character was introduced in Superman. In 1953 Halk Kar was introduced in a story called “Superboy’s Big Brother”. Same idea explorer who briefly visited Krypton and knew Jor-El. Years later meets Superman while suffering from amnesia and is mistaken as his brother.


Or maybe his name is Sybok? Or would that be spelled Syb-Ok?

 

I think you're incorrect on that--it was Byrne that solidified its meaning as the Kryptonian symbol for hope, IIRC. I think it was later that the comics embraced the Salkind idea that it was the symbol for the House of El though.

 

You are not even close. In John Byrne’s origin Clark was forced to use his powers in public to save a Space Plane crashing. He was wearing his normal civilian clothing. Lois Lane named him “mysterious superman”. To protect the secret of his powers Clark’s human parents helped him create a dual identity. At this point he started slouching and wearing glasses. The costume was first created and the S symbol was created by Clark and Jonathan inspired by the name Lois had given him.

John Byrne has been very vocal, well if you know him he is vocal about everything!!!, specifically that he avoided the Krypton of the Donner films. Even going to having it’s environment dry and arid in its last days. As opposed to the ice and crystals of the movie.

 

I recall some of that now--it has been more than three decades since I've read that.

EDIT: But hold on, wasn't Byrne the guy who invented written Kryptonian--and in that a version of the S symbol means hope? Or am I misremembering that too?

 

Err no. It was Ma' Kent who designed the suit and the symbol.

 

Martha made the suit but it was Clark and Jonathan who designed the S.

 

No, as I said, it was Mark Waid in Birthright decades after that. In The Man of Steel, when Clark shows the S shield to Martha for the first time, he says, "It took a while, but Pa and I finally came up with this!" So clearly not a pre-existing symbol in Byrne's version.

Yes, you are. According to the DC Database:

• Kryptonese was developed by editor E. Nelson Bridwell, as a means of stumping fans who had annoyed him with attempts to make sense of the nonsense scribbles used in Superman stories to that point. What resulted was a 118 character "alphabet".[1] Since then, it was revamped again in 1986 for John Byrne's Man of Steel, and again in the 2000s as a syllabic "alphabet" which could be used in place of the language of publication, if deciphered. The film Man of Steel developed its own version of written Kryptonese as well.[2]

 

Right, I stand corrected.

 

Considering in 'Superman & Lois" Clark's first Superman costume was based off the Fleischer cartoons, where the S appears to be more of an actual S, would it standing for the House of El, or even a Kryptonian symbol of hope still apply? Like many things with this series, they might be trying something different with the symbol as well.

 

Supergirl established it as the House of El crest (on literally every item of their clothing, even pajamas), and as a Kryptonian symbol for the phrase El mayarah, "Stronger together." (This was before Secretary Clinton adopted that as her campaign slogan in 2016. I often wonder if she or her campaign manager was a Supergirl fan.) So it doesn't actually mean "hope" in the Arrowverse, although I suppose it could be a case where the same word has developed two different meanings over time; perhaps Kryptonians derive hope from the strength of standing together.

It does seem contradictory, then, that Superman initially used a different emblem. But maybe he was reluctant to use his house crest at first, feeling it was too "alien," and went with something that just approximated it until he felt more secure in his public acceptance.

 

Thanks for the references--sometime in the past fifteen years all that got jumbled together in my head.

 

If you're interested in the various forms of written Kryptonian language published across the decades, here's a resource for you:

http://kryptonian.info/

 

I was afraid they were going to wuss out and make him be Zod, but Zods' crest looks more like a "Z". So here's hoping he's a different Kryptonian.

As for the "S" symbol, Brando was the one who first came up with the idea that it could also have been the El family symbol (and that Jor-El might have the same hairstyle as Superman did).

The Superboy show and the Bruce Timm cartoon also went with the idea, until the comics adopted it. I don't remember if it was in the Lois and Clark show though.

You know, it just occurred to me that Clark isn't the only underage casting in this.

The actor playing Sam Lane is only 17 years older than Elizabeth Tulloch.