Review of Superman & Lois: The Arrowverse solves The Superman Problem

In the opening minutes of the new CW series Superman and Lois, Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) tells the story of his life so far. As a baby, he was sent to Earth from the dying planet Krypton by his father Jor-El. He was raised in Smallville, Kansas, by good-hearted farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, who helped him understand how to best use his superpowers. He became a reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper in Metropolis, where he fell in love with superstar journalist Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch). They married and had twin children: the athletic Jonathan (Jordan Elsass) and the socially awkward Jordan (Alexander Garfin).

This recap is quick, full of moments designed to remind longtime fans of Superman why they love the Man of Steel, from a visual reference to the first Action Comics cover for a callback for bumbling Clark Kent by Christopher Reeves in the first Superman movie. It is a mini-greeting to all artists, writers, editors, actors, directors and producers who helped shape the mythology of one of the most famous superheroes.

But after the backstory and a short scene of Superman saving a nuclear power facility, under the guidance of the father of Lois’ high-ranking military officer, General Samuel Lane (Dylan Walsh), the tone changes. The hero comes home to find one of his sons too busy talking on video to talk to him, while the other is playing a violent video game in which he plays a supervillain defeating Superman. When asked why, the teenager shrugs and says, “Superman is boring”.

IT IS Boring Superman? There was a time when this question would be absurd. In the mid-20th century, Superman comics were so popular that publishers launched hundreds of new superheroes in an attempt to compete. In the 1970s, the first Superman The film proved that the superhero genre can work on the big screen without looking too exaggerated. The character is still scattered in pillowcases and children’s pajamas.

But in recent DC Universe films, Superman has felt like a replacement for names like Batman and Wonder Woman – and hell, even Aquaman. In the superhero programming blocks derived from CW’s DC Comics (also known as “Arrowverse”), Superman is getting star treatment long after Green Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Batwoman, Star and the team of secondary league heroes. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

And even this Superman show doesn’t necessarily look like “a Superman show”, inspired by the action and madness of the comics. Based on the two episodes the CW sent to critics before Tuesday’s long night Superman and Lois At the premiere, the team of Arrowverse writers and producers, made up of Greg Berlanti and Todd Helbing, seems hesitant to tell complete Superman stories, with the big sweep, great ideas and sense of play like classic comics. Your Superman was packaged and packaged in the Arrowverse’s overall mission: telling stories relevant to what’s going on in the real world.

At the Superman and Lois, that means adjusting the focus of the narrative. There are still supervillains in this show, and dynamic fighting scenes with special effects. But in the first two episodes, the overall vibration is less Action Comics and more These are U.S.

The story begins with problems in the Kent / Lois family. The twins fight because they are so different: the handsome and robust Jonathan is the star defender of the football team; Jordan’s tousled hair fights depression. Lois, meanwhile, is increasingly dissatisfied with the culture of the Daily Planet, where veteran reporters are being fired as the newspaper’s new billionaire owner, Morgan Edge, presses for more light news and clickbait.

The family faces one of its greatest crises – and possibly one of its greatest opportunities – when a tragedy takes Clark back to Smallville, where he contemplates a return to the simple life of a small town. In 2021, however, nothing is simple in small towns. The farming community is dying and sees a potential savior in Edge, who has been buying land for unknown reasons – although Lois suspects a crime.

All of these problems are complicated by Clark’s larger mission, which causes him to be called by General Lane to deal with a mysterious masked super, determined to take Superman to a fight to the death. These battles keep him away from home at the worst possible time in the boys’ lives, one or both of them may be developing superpowers … something incredibly difficult to keep quiet in Smallville, where everyone is examining the newcomers.

Hoechlin and Tulloch have played Superman and Lois before on the Arrowverse, and both have strong control over their characters. Hoechlin plays Clark and Superman as conscientious and a bit of a nerd. He is a foreigner with many interests, ultimately bound by a sense of obligation to his loved ones. Lane’s version of Tulloch appears as the smartest person in any environment, but she still tries (and sometimes fails) to be sensitive to anyone who doesn’t share her values.

Berlanti and Hebling’s creative team also has a clear understanding of the Superman tradition. The names of the twins are important, with Jonathan being named in honor of Clark Kent’s earthly father (reflecting the healthy side of Superman), while Jordan is named in honor of Jor-el (reflecting the feeling of an alien from … well , alienation). The show is peppered with funny comments about Superman’s strange powers (like the super-scent); and includes characters like Morgan Edge and Lana Lang, who may be familiar to comic book fans.

But the overall appearance of Superman and Lois it can also be familiar to fans of Dawson’s Creek and The OC Kent’s boys adapt to Smallville by hanging out with local teenagers in a quarry or looking sadly at the seemingly endless plains of Kansas. It has long been part of Superman’s bullshit that Lois flirtatiously (or sometimes mockingly) Clark’s “Smallville”. Superman and Lois further explores your connection with the place where you grew up, showing what it’s like to reach adulthood in a place so open that everyone can see you.

Superman and Lois it is not the first TV series to attempt to humanize Superman. Smallville aired on the 2001-11 CW (and its precursor, the WB), producing 10 seasons and more than 200 episodes of stories that generally downplayed superheroism in favor of dramatizing the emotions and relationships of a young man from a small town hiding a big secret. Before that, the syndicated action-adventure of the late 80s / early 90s Superboy presented various approaches to Clark Kent’s childhood, including portraying him as a university student of journalism and subsequently sending him to work for a X Files– as a paranormal investigation agency. In the mid-90s, Lois & Clark it was intended to be a dramatic comedy in the workplace, peppered with fantastic interludes and passed out romance.

All of these programs – and now Superman and Lois – tried to circumvent what could be called “the problem of Superman”. When a hero is essentially all-powerful, vulnerable only to a rare radioactive rock (and occasionally to magic), how do you introduce the kind of narrative obstacle needed for a good story? The answer: focus on what it can not control, like the well-being of your friends and family.

The CW has also traveled this path before, first with Smallville (whose producers promised “no pantyhose, no flights”) and then with Arrow, who in his first episodes avoided the usual traps of superheroes in fantasies and superpowers. The network’s caution about “comic books” started to wane when The Flash became a success, at which point Arrow started to get more comfortable with the extra-normal. The programs that followed – including, more pertinently, Supergirl – were increasingly larger with plots and images inspired by comics.

Still, the balance of narrative in any Arrowverse series focuses as much, if not more, on relationships and personal problems as it does on saving the world from scary monsters and super-chills. Many of these programs tend to start out bright and fun, then become more and more severe as heroes and their friends sink into their misfortunes.

Superman and Lois in reality begins in a very dark place, with subplots about economic anxiety and clinical depression. The first two episodes are very promising – not least because Hoechlin and Tulloch are so good and the Smallville scene is so picturesque. But the parts of the story about Superman dealing with a dangerous global threat so far are not as elaborate as the parts about his children’s growing pains. The superhero scenes look like an afterthought – and yes, in these sequences, Superman is kind of boring.

There is a rich vein of imaginative and exciting Superman and Lois comics that Superman and Lois could play – and maybe still play. There is no reason why a Superman show is not fun and cool, while still working on the social relevance and teen-oriented melodrama that anchors the Arrowverse.

One of the big dilemmas of the first episode is whether Clark should open up to the boys about his secret superhero life. We hope that the show’s writers will have a similar conversation while working on season one. In the episodes to come, it would be great to see that people doing Superman and Lois know that one of its main characters is Superman.

Superman and Lois debuts on the CW with a two-hour driver on February 23 at 8 pm East. The premiere will be available for free online on February 24 at the CWTV website.