Tag Archives: comics

‘Superman and Lois’ and goodbye to the Arrowverse

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At the time of this writing, only one episode remains for “Superman & Lois,” the CW series, and even as I type those words, it feels like I’m reaching back into the distant past.

That’s not the case, but it feels like it. The CW series “Arrow” began in October 2012 and, while it had some low points, did what no TV series has been able to accomplish before or is likely to accomplish again: Take a core group of DC Comics characters – Green Arrow and his supporting cast, and later the Flash and Supergirl and eventually Superman and many others – and make a vast, interconnect set of series and storylines about them. Though the aforementioned series and others like “Batwoman,” “Legends of Tomorrow” and “Black Lightning,” the producers called up some of the greatest and some of the most obscure supporting characters from DC comic books, cast them well and gave them not only their standalone adventures but crossovers, so many crossovers.

Every one of the 700 or so episodes – a staggering number – wasn’t all that it could have been, but most were perfectly entertaining stuff and had some moments that comic book geeks thought they would never see in a live-action form:

A race around the world between the Flash and, in this case, Supergirl

The League of Shadows/League of Assassins, Batman villains repurposed for Green Arrow, who became something of the Batman of this universe

Serious-minded stories and mostly-comic-book-authentic plots that even depicted the Crisis on Infinite Earths stories

Costumes that were a little bashful at first but that became flat-out geekgasmic comic-book-authentic eventually. (You know, it took a long time for Marvel to get Wolverine in that yellow outfit.)

The appearance of characters that we may never see in live action again – at least not done with this much integrity.

I’m giving short shrift to “Superman & Lois” here and I don’t mean to, but with the final episode of the final season set for December 2, we’re not sure how the series will play out, eventually. I can guess that it will end well; “Superman & Lois” has been, literally and figuratively, set apart for its entire run since 2021. Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch got their start in their roles on Arrowverse shows, but once “Superman & Lois” began airing, the 50-plus episodes over four seasons took place on an alternate Earth from the rest of the heroes. It probably made it easier, this holding the series at arms length from where it began, as the other series were ending. I did miss some interaction with the other heroes, however.

There’s a lot to like about “Superman & Lois,” from the leads to the consistency of the (undoubtedly less expensive to shoot than Metropolis) Smallville setting to final-season portrayal of Lex Luthor by Michael Cudlitz, best remembered from “The Walking Dead.”

There’s been some very good live action DC Comics moments in the past few years, notably the Arrowverse series and the Titans series. “Superman & Lois” ranks up, up and away among the best.

Classic comic: ‘Superman: Red Son’

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superman red son

It’s hard to imagine it’s been 11 years since “Superman: Red Son,” the Elseworlds comic book series-turned-graphic novel that imagined a world where baby Kal-El’s rocket from Krypton crashed in the Soviet Union, was published.

It seems more like 40. And that’s a compliment.

The comic, written by Mark Millar and drawn and inked by a creative team of artists, came out in 2003 but read like something published as a Cold War fever dream. Millar’s storyline – which recasts Superman as a symbol of – and later, leader of – the Soviet Union and all his supporting players in re-imagined roles – is so clever it feels like a product of those uneasy decades of stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Of course, the comic probably couldn’t have been produced during that time. There’s too much subversive material here for most Cold War tastes.

Beyond the premise – that rocket from doomed Krypton lands in the USSR rather than Heartland USA – young Clark’s powers quickly draw the attention of the Soviet authorities and he is adopted by Stalin himself.

Meanwhile, in America, Lex Luthor is an aloof scientific genius who works for long-tenured President Kennedy and Lois Lane is his neglected wife.

After Superman becomes a global figure – curiously, a threat to the American way of life who also swoops in to rescue people at disaster scenes around the world – Luthor ramps up his efforts to destroy him via Brainiac, Bizarro and other means.

Millar has Jimmy Olsen as a CIA agent, Pete Ross as a KGB agent and, most effecting, Diana – aka Wonder Woman – in a familiar role for her, trying to bridge the gap between worlds.

There’s even Batman as a Russian saboteur, a role that pits him against Superman, the thoughtful tool of the Soviet Union.

The art is perfect – so many deep blues and reds that it was startling to see one version of the Superman costume that looked like that in “Man of Steel” – and the story is clever not just because it holds up a mirror to the familiar Superman story but because the characters and circumstances ring as true as they seem alien to us.