The CW’s
Superman Problem
As fans of my column and as readers of my “Hero Corner” website know, I am a
longtime fan of the DC Comics character Superman. This goes all the way back to when I was a
child. His was the first comic I
read. And I have read some of his
greatest stories, including his crossover encounter with Spider-Man,
his fight with the legendary Muhammed Ali,
his Red Superman-Blue Superman imaginary story, his original marriage to Lois
Lane (on Earth-2), the legendary “Crisis
on Infinite Earths” miniseries, his farewell story and his rebooted origins by
John Byrne, and, of course, his brutal death and return, and all of the more
recent activities.
I also know that that Warner Brothers really hasn’t done him too many
favors of late. “Superman The Movie” and
“Superman II” were probably the best representatives of Superman on the big
screen, with “Man of Steel” following behind them. “Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman”
was good, but not great. “Smallville”
was a ten-season disappointment. It
would be years after that before the CW network would give us another Superman. If anything, Warner Brothers did Superman
justice in the animated world than they ever could in live-action.
Now, thankfully, there will be another Superman TV show. “Superman
and Lois” will air on the CW network in the start of 2021. The series will feature the title characters
along with their two sons and the stresses surrounding raising children while
still keeping secret the fact that their father is Superman.
For this commentator and longtime fan, Superman’s fulltime return to the
small screen couldn’t come any sooner. Yes,
Tyler Hoechlin’s version of the Man of Steel has been around since 2016, and, before
that, Superman was seen only in vague details for the pilot episode of “Supergirl”
in 2015. But he wasn’t considered a
regular in the CW universe. It would
take his participation in the “Elseworlds” crossover in 2018 to convince CW execs
that he should be brought in for more.
But now that Superman is a fixture of the CW “Arrowverse”, especially
after their version of “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, they have some problems
with the character that will need some serious fixing in time for his new
series to launch. And most of those problems
have a name: Supergirl.
The most obvious problem that has been pointed out by others is that many
of Superman’s villains have already been co-opted for Supergirl. Live Wire, Maxima, Silver Banshee, Metallo,
Maxwell Lord, the Cyborg Superman, Agent Liberty, and Lex Luthor were all known
Superman villains that were turned into Supergirl villains for her CW show. While Superman has a pretty impressive rogues
gallery and wouldn’t necessarily run out of villains, to have someone like Lex Luthor
– who carried a specific hatred of Superman for years – suddenly be a nemesis
for Supergirl is a pretty big stretch.
But it’s a little bit more than just co-opting villains.
By the time we see his actual debut in the first episode of Season 2 of “Supergirl”,
Superman is already established as Earth’s greatest superhero. He has years of experience fighting menaces
on Earth and beyond. But by the end of
that season, we see him being sidelined.
First, he’s seen as being weaker to his cousin. Then when he does join in the season’s
climactic battle, he’s only on the periphery of the fight. He’s nowhere to be seen in the following
season, when he clearly should have been stepping up to help against Kryptonian
menaces like Reign.
During the “Crisis on Earth-X” crossover, Supergirl makes a threat to the
Reverse Flash that if she dies, Superman would go after him. The Reverse Flash, who is supposedly from an
alternate future, counters by saying that he’s already fought Superman and won. This further digs in the idea that this
version of Superman really isn’t “super”.
And then, by the time we get to the “Elseworlds” crossover, while we do
see Superman take a more active role in the special and working with Green
Arrow and Flash, the special ends with Superman officially being “semi-retired”
so that he and Lois could stay on Argo City for the duration of Lois’ revealed
pregnancy. This essentially takes
Superman out of consideration for yet another year and puts Supergirl in the
forefront of world affairs.
Then there is “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, where Superman is finally
brought directly into the crossover, and he’s basically regarded as a secondary
figure. This is a character with leadership
qualities being pushed aside by Supergirl, White Canary, Flash, and even Brandon
Routh’s Superman from “Superman Returns”.
Even his position in the final battle shows how bad that he has been sidelined. This is far, far, far different from the
Superman who took charge in the original comic miniseries, the one who summoned
every hero in all of history and led them to challenge the Anti-Monitor.
So for all this time, we have a Superman that has been sidelined,
rendered weaker, and had all of his greatness and even many of his villains
co-opted for Supergirl. It might be “okay”
as long as you focus all your attention on Supergirl and you have no plans
whatsoever to show Superman ever again. However,
with the CW about to launch “Superman and Lois”, and with the lead actress of “Supergirl”
being
pregnant, possibly delaying the start of her new season even further, the
CW have hamstrung the greatest superhero of the DC Universe.
Even worse is this little faux pas... it was established in the pilot episode
of “Supergirl” that Superman was around for at least a decade before Supergirl made
her debut. It was inferred that Batman
had been around almost as long. And the
same in the world that Black Lightning comes from. He was a hero who gave it up to become a
father to his two daughters, who are now grown-up and heroes themselves. All three have been merged into the new “Earth-Prime”...
and yet at the end of “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, the President of the United
States makes her public address to the nation and says that the Green Arrow,
Oliver Queen, was “the first” superhero.
Superman, Batman, and Black Lightning were around as heroes before
Oliver Queen was old enough to party, and yet Queen was “the first”?
Someone in CW-land have some serious ‘splaining to do about that.
Let’s get brutally honest here... the CW has once again done a serious
disservice to the Man of Steel. First
was how they created a non-Superman in “Smallville”. Then in introducing Superman in the
Arrowverse, only to then sideline and gradually neuter him in favor of his cousin.
The lack of classic villains can be easily remedied. Like I said, Superman has no shortage of bad
guys and gals to go after, and he can even pursue some of the other Arrowverse villains
for a while. A more pressing matter is
the damage to his character. Superman is
a born leader, the original symbol of hope, and the original encourager of
bringing out the best in people. These
are things that need to come out in the new series, and to do so heavily.
This longtime fan of the character hopes that the CW will do right when
it comes to the new series. There is a
reason why Superman has endured for almost a century. It’s more than just having superpowers. It is the character of the man that has those
powers and uses them to help others instead of himself. A man of humility and also of leadership. It is time that we have a series that brings
that kind of character back to the forefront.
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