S01.E07: Man Of Steel

[PAForrest]

1 hour ago, moonshine71 said:

I've seen this response about Lois "recognizing" John Henry Irons several times in this thread, or that she/they "had history" w/ him, and I couldn't disagree more. 

Why would she recognize his name but not his face in even the slightest bit?

Her reaction was in recognition of the fact that the John Henry Irons of their earth had been dead for 6 years, and that this John Henry was likely from another earth, which would make him a prime suspect for being "the stranger".

That was my takeaway too. Lois already knew JHI wasn't who he claimed to be, he wasn't "Marcus", so she and Clark were wary of him and trying to find out who he was. Like they already figured out he probably wasn't related to the Luthor family at all. But I think in that moment she realized Superman, who she sent to meet with "the stranger", was possibly in danger if this individual wasn't even from their universe. And of course she was right.

[moonshine71]

Very good episode. I like this show a lot more than I anticipated I would.

A lot of interesting developments, but maybe the best for me - with Jon injured and  Jordan sidelined with everything he is dealing with, I think we may have seen the last of the poorly written football stories for a while.😂

Biggest surprise- John Henry Irons. I did not see that coming.

Second biggest surprise- John Henry doesn't know that Clark is Superman. I had really gotten the vibe that he did. I think in a previous episode there was a scene with him watching Lois w/ Clatk from afar and displaying a sense of pain. I assumed it was from seeing his dead wife(or someone w/ her face) w/ his enemy, I guess it was just from seeing her happy w/ another man or seeing her at all.

One down side, now I have to accept the fact that John Henry just stood face to face w/ Clark and an hour later stood face to face w/ Superman and didn't recognize him. He just seems too clever for that.

Edited May 27, 2021 by moonshine71

[Chicago Redshirt]

5 hours ago, PAForrest said:

Of course, the Nat in this iteration is his and alt!Lois's daughter, right? I assume we'll see her again, and that she will have found a way into this universe, setting up for much more awkwardness with Lois who isn't her or JHI's Lois.

Anyway, thanks for the insight into this character as well as the red solar radiation. I wasn't really aware who this character was, but as we were watching the episode last night my husband figured it out. So essentially it looks like this guy is DC's cross between Iron Man and Thor. And obviously DC took the name "John Henry" from American folklore as "the a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel" (tm Wikipedia). His backstory was interesting, though I still think this JHI flipped the switch much too quickly on "Must Kill Any and All Superman" with zero evidence that this Superman would go bad. I can understand him warning Sam Lane and the DOD on what could happen, but he went there way too fast in his execution. Though I guess we can assume his grief pushed him over the edge long before he hopped worlds. At some point obviously he's going to have to come to terms with the fact that this Supes is different and team up with him to defeat Edge.

OTOH, there was that moment when it looked like Superman's anger was getting the best of him before Lois yelled at him and snapped him out of laser-eyeing JHI. So maybe JHI has a point too.

So apparently Lana's job is to line up candidates for Edge to infect with x-kryptonite, unbeknownst to her, obviously. Still, building her 401K on the bodies of the residents of Smallville is not something that makes for sleeping well at night. Is Edge keeping Kyle in reserve to keep Lana tied to him - or does he just not believe Kyle would be a good candidate for the experiment?

I am not even a little convinced that Jon is supposed to develop powers in this version of Superman's story. Maybe he will, but so far it doesn't look like the story is going there. I can't get past the feeling that Jordan is a raging Sue who is a showrunner insert. If that's the case, Jon won't develop powers precisely because a Sue needs to be propped up by someone considered "lesser than" himself/herself, otherwise the Sue can't stand; and sadly so far being a prop appears to be Jon's lot in life. That's why his story - or rather lack thereof - is frustrating to watch, because he doesn't appear to be a character anyone is putting actual thought into or even seeing as a character in his own right. Sure, I'm glad they let him be a little mad at Jordan the Sue, because he should be mad as hell. But he's only allowed to have legit human feelings for a few seconds a show until the show needs him to prop up Jordan the Sue - or in this case drive him around. 

It was surprising the writer allowed the "prop" to wield the Thor hammer to kill the radiation lights - even though with a broken wrist it really shouldn't have been possible. But then later Clark only credits his super boy son's super hearing with the save and doesn't even mention Jon. Wow. Seriously Clark, you suck the hairy big one sometimes as a parent.

If Jon is going to remain human, and I'm fine with that, someone on this writing staff needs to be tasked with putting thought into him as a fully fledged character. And Lois should be spending more time and energy with Jon, not Jordan the Sue, as the human parent who can relate to not having powers. Of course, we're not seeing that at all so far because everyone has to woobie Jordan the Sue.

As for Sarah, she and Jordan the Sue have zero chemistry, so I hope they don't go the predictable route and make her his or anyone's gf - because I certainly don't want to see her with Jon either. Sarah works infinitely better simply as a friend to both brothers.

Is Lex Luthor supposed to be alive on this world? Will some version of him show up eventually?

I think Dave Ramsay did a good job directing this episode. I thought Diggle was supposed to show up too, but obviously not.

The show described the woman we saw as "Natalie" IIRC, which may be meant to indicate that she is different from "Natasha."

We still have only seen some of what happened in JHI's timeline. But from the glimpse we've gotten:

1. Evil Supes seemingly started off akin to Our Superman

2. He then enlisted at least 5 and possibly more Kryptonians/quasi-Kryptonians who indiscriminately slaughtered and destroyed at least part of Metropolis

3. Evil Supes personally killed the love of his life.

I have no problem with JHI taking the Snyder Batman's philosophy that if there is even a 1 percent chance that Our Supes will go bad, that you have to treat it as an absolute certainty.

As for Kyle, it could be that Edge doesn't want to leave his butt unkissed if the experiment failed. More seriously, I suspect that Edge is sexually interested in Lana and is reading that her decision to not name Kyle for a position he obviously would want might be an opening.

I think the writers and Clark did give Jon credit for the save. 

Lex Luthor is alive in the Arrowverse. He is played by Jon Cryer. Over in Supergirl, which so far has been ignored by S&L, he had just gotten away with literally trying to brainwash most of the planet into loving him, beating a criminal case against him.

As to Diggle, 

My understanding is that he is going to pop up in all the still running Arrowverse shows in the near future. A shame that he could not have had a cameo in Black Lightning, but oh well.

 

[kickingnames]

1 hour ago, moonshine71 said:

That said, Jordan was still incapacitated by his superhearing when it should have been at least dampened to some degree, but I'm chalking that up to a bit of sloppy writing.

I genuinely thought Jordan was weakened by the red solar radiation rather than his hearing — but either way I agree it’s sloppy writing, since neither make sense for red sun in that instance. But I’m not convinced the writers had a firm grasp on the difference, or how Jon was able the hammer when one of his arms is broken. I don’t think it was supposed to be indicative of anything; it just looked cool in the moment to have the boys save their dad. 

1 hour ago, moonshine71 said:

One down side, now I have to accept the fact that John Henry just stood face to face w/ Clark and an hour later stood face to face w/ Superman and didn't recognize him. He just seems too clever for that.

I’ve been watching a lot of Doctor Who lately, and I’ve decided that Clark’s glasses must have some sort of special Kryptonian perception-filter capability that no one knows about, and when he wears them people’s brains literally just don’t process the obvious similarities. It must work on recording devices as well.

Edited May 27, 2021 by kickingnames

[Chicago Redshirt]

5 hours ago, paulvdb said:

We know that the AI can't recognize people because it thought that John Henry Irons was Lex Luthor (assuming that Captain Luthor was Lex; I guess it could have been another Luthor).

Well, the AI apparently could be fooled into thinking that Steel is Lex or another Luthor. It still IIRC can distinguish between Kryptonians and non-Kryptonians; I think it was able to somewhat track/identify either Superman and/or the Morgan Edge mook a few episodes back. 

3 hours ago, blackwing said:

I recognised the name John Henry Irons immediately from "The Death of Superman" story arc.  But I'm a bit lost on this multiverse concept.  Lois seemed familiar with it.  I don't think it has been mentioned before on this show, are we supposed to just have this knowledge from watching other Arrowverse shows?

I understand that this John Henry Irons is from a world in which he and Lois are married and have a child.  How did he get here?  Did the worlds merge?  Is there a curtain or ripple or something that he crosses over?  Is the daughter now in the prime world in the lab or something, or is she still in her original world?

Was there a reference to "The Stranger" before?  If so, I must have missed it.  Lois and Clark both seemed instantly aware of who "The Stranger" is.

I truly couldn't care less about Jordan and his Frodo Baggins journey.  Everything about Jordo Baggins is annoying.  I'm glad that Jon called him out on how he has always covered for him.  I'm more interested in Jonathan's story.  I was hoping Clark would leave Jordo at the Fortress of Solitude for three weeks.  Let Grumpy HoloGramps train him.

I was surprised when Lois said that Jonathan doesn't have any friends.  Interesting considering that he was portrayed in the premiere episode as the wildly popular BMOC jock.  They implied that he has the outgoing personality that associates with someone who makes friends easily wherever he goes.  Jordo was the weird kid who just played video games in his room.  But now Jordo is the big popular football star who gets the girl while Jonathan is the friendless one?  Doesn't make sense.

I couldn't tell... was Edge trying to get Lana to pick Kyle for the internship program?  Knowing that the program is a sham and is just there to get test bodies for the X-Kryptonite treatment?  If he knows that every single candidate except for Leslie has died, is he trying to kill Kyle, so has done nothing but fawn over him?  Why not just approach Kyle and say "hey do you want some superpowers"?

I am curious about that too... Leslie was listening in earlier, and I guess Lois doesn't know that she did, otherwise she wouldn't have said "Bye Superman" to Clark.  If Clark is aware that Leslie is a threat, why doesn't he just confront her?

 

To build on what another poster said, at some point, the different Arrowverse shows resided on various Earths. Flash and Arrow were on their one earth, dubbed Earth-One. Supergirl and Superman were on their own earth, Earth 19. Black Lightning was on his own Earth, which as far as I can recall, never got its own number. And there were also infinite earths were variations of these heroes existed, none of these heroes existed, etc. The Michael Keaton Batman movie universe, the Smallville series universe, the Birds of Prey TV series universe all existed in parallel dimensions. The PTB decided to compress things so that almost all the heroes and villains we care about were on one Earth. (There technically still are other universes representing stuff off the CW,) The details of how don't matter ,much, but there was a revamping that put all the characters on a shared earth with a new shared history. But somehow, some of the versions from the previous universes managed to make it onto Earth Prime.

I would say that even if one doesn't watch the other Arrowverse shows to know the particulars of the above, the basic notion of parallel universes is a fair thing to ask a comic book shower viewer to understand/buy into. 

Neither this show nor any of the other Arrowverse shows have explained how exactly some people have made it to the current main reality. Your guess is as good as anyone's if Natalie is going to somehow make it to this universe, if she somehow has a doppelganger here, etc. My personal guess is that Evil Supes or his minions killed her too.

In a previous episode, I believe Clark referred to Steel as "the Stranger" when talking to Lois. I can't remember why they chose that name.

We have objectively seen Jonathan have football team friends that he was hanging out drinking during the town festival and who he was going to the liquor store with (along with Jordan). Maybe Lois is unaware of them, or maybe she doesn't consider them "real" friends, as they are just people he parties with or something. But we're presumably at least  a month into the school year, so hopefully he has some actual friends.

I don't think there's any real in-universe explanation for why Clark knowing that the mines contain some crazy version of Kryptonite, that Leslie tried to use superpowers to murder his wife, and that Morgan Edge is up to no good, doesn't take a more active role. He could be using his own superhearing to eavesdrop on every conversation either Leslie or Morgan has. He could be using his X-ray vision to look at files. He presumably has super-tech at the Fortress that he could use to hack Morgan's computers. He has super-speed that he can zip in and out of the mines for reconnaissance purposes. Etc. Etc.

The only real reason he doesn't try any of these things is because the season would be over.  

[BeautifulFlower]

6 hours ago, PAForrest said:

 

Anyway, thanks for the insight into this character as well as the red solar radiation. I wasn't really aware who this character was, but as we were watching the episode last night my husband figured it out. So essentially it looks like this guy is DC's cross between Iron Man and Thor. And obviously DC took the name "John Henry" from American folklore as "the a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel" (tm Wikipedia). His backstory was interesting, though I still think this JHI flipped the switch much too quickly on "Must Kill Any and All Superman" with zero evidence that this Superman would go bad. I can understand him warning Sam Lane and the DOD on what could happen, but he went there way too fast in his execution. Though I guess we can assume his grief pushed him over the edge long before he hopped worlds. At some point obviously he's going to have to come to terms with the fact that this Supes is different and team up with him to defeat Edge.

 

I think we're supposed to be under the impression that his world's superman was exactly like Earth's prime superman. In the flashback this episode, none of them looked like they were living in fear of Superman. They were all happy. When Nat looked out the window, her response was "What's Superman doing?" They were surprised to see him and others just destroying buildings and killing people. Their behavior shows to me that Superman wasn't evil from the beginning. I can see why John believes Earth Prime's Superman could go bad.

[Chicago Redshirt]

2 hours ago, moonshine71 said:

I've seen this response about Lois "recognizing" John Henry Irons several times in this thread, or that she/they "had history" w/ him, and I couldn't disagree more. 

Why would she recognize his name but not his face in even the slightest bit? 

 

Her reaction was in recognition of the fact that the John Henry Irons of their earth had been dead for 6 years, and that this John Henry was likely from another earth, which would make him a prime suspect for being "the stranger".

It's certainly possible someone might recognize the name of someone but not their face. Even with relatively famous people. Skateboarder Tony Hawk famously tweets about times when people see him, often with skateboards in his possession, and see his ID that says "Anthony Hawk" and don't quite put together that he is THE Tony Hawk. 

And of course, Lois is infamous for not putting together Clark is Superman, despite seeing each of them numerous times close up.

While I agree her reaction is most likely just her putting the pieces together that not!Marcus was the Stranger, it's possible that something about the name John Henry Irons triggered a specific memory. In addition to being a journalist and thus perhaps knowing trivia that could include that name, she is also the daughter of General Sam, so it's possible she had some knowledge of their John Henry Irons.

2 hours ago, moonshine71 said:

That wasn't red-k, it was red solar radiation, as from a red sun, to weaken Clark. Obviously not enough to make him completely human, since he was still durable enough to survive hits that would kill a normal man instantly, but enough to give John Henry a chance.

Red-k doesn't harm or even weaken Clark, it makes him lose his inhibitions and go kinda bad. Probably the last thing you would want around if you were fighting him, he might just go ahead and kill you when normally he would hold back.

 

Jordan was still incapacitated because of his super-hearing. Although that creates a bit of a plot hole, since the red solar radiation should have dampened his abilities, too.

Red K as destroyer of inhibitions was just one variant, mainly from Smallville. 

I don't think the super-hearing was the issue. Prior to getting under the red light, Jordan seemed to have had no problems with his hearing at that point. He was able to focus and lead Jonathan to where the fight was. 

[blackwing]

38 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

As for Kyle, it could be that Edge doesn't want to leave his butt unkissed if the experiment failed. More seriously, I suspect that Edge is sexually interested in Lana and is reading that her decision to not name Kyle for a position he obviously would want might be an opening.

I took it at face value, that it didn't even occur to her that Kyle would be interested in the internship program, because he is a firefighter and completely unqualified.  If he wanted Kyle out of the way, surely he would have put Kyle into the program himself, hope he fails, and dies.

Kyle seems to have his lips so far up Edge's chute that he is probably aware of the program.  Kyle as a character has next to nothing to do on this show but be a shill for Edge, so I would not at all be surprised if he finds out about the program and worms his way into it.  I could see him being a successful test subject, gaining powers, and using them to oppose Edge in Season 2.

8 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

In a previous episode, I believe Clark referred to Steel as "the Stranger" when talking to Lois. I can't remember why they chose that name.

Ah, thanks.  So he calls the guy in the armor "The Stranger", Lois knew him as "Marcus" and that's why when she connected the dots she told Clark that Marcus is the Stranger.  Makes sense now.  I kept thinking that "The Stranger" was someone in their distant past that we were supposed to know about.  I would have called him "Space Guy".  The Stranger is a very minor character in Marvel Comics, which is maybe why I got confused. 

[Lady Calypso]

25 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

We have objectively seen Jonathan have football team friends that he was hanging out drinking during the town festival and who he was going to the liquor store with (along with Jordan). Maybe Lois is unaware of them, or maybe she doesn't consider them "real" friends, as they are just people he parties with or something. But we're presumably at least  a month into the school year, so hopefully he has some actual friends.

We've seen Jonathan be friendly with the members of the football team, but we haven't seen him talk about having any true friends in town so far. I think the closest he got was with Tag, and we saw how that turned out. I can believe that Jonathan is still struggling to make friends. It IS interesting, since they did establish him to have friends in Metropolis and had been very, very good on the football field and now, in Smallville, he doesn't really seem to have any friends he truly hangs out with outside of parties. Not like Jordan, who at least has Sarah on top of the football team. 

In a way, despite being told how popular Jonathan was in Metropolis, it seems like he's not as outgoing as they say he is. He may be more extraverted compared to Jordan, but he's struggling to make any true friends who he trusts. Maybe because nobody has given him the time of day and gotten to really know him outside of football stuff. 

Speaking of all that, there's a scene I meant to discuss but hadn't, and that was the girl who came up to flirt with Jonathan. As much as I want to trust that it was a turning point for Jonathan, the girl gave me bad vibes all around. I can't tell if she was truly interested in Jonathan or not, and it's not like I loved Sarah trying to already deter Jonathan away from a potential new girlfriend, but seeing as Sarah would know that girl better than Jonathan, I trust that she has good judgement...though her concern seemed to be more about compatibility, rather than the girl being bad news for Jonathan. Again, not a shining moment there between Jonathan and Sarah's sort of friendship. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

31 minutes ago, Lady Calypso said:

We've seen Jonathan be friendly with the members of the football team, but we haven't seen him talk about having any true friends in town so far. I think the closest he got was with Tag, and we saw how that turned out. I can believe that Jonathan is still struggling to make friends. It IS interesting, since they did establish him to have friends in Metropolis and had been very, very good on the football field and now, in Smallville, he doesn't really seem to have any friends he truly hangs out with outside of parties. Not like Jordan, who at least has Sarah on top of the football team. 

In a way, despite being told how popular Jonathan was in Metropolis, it seems like he's not as outgoing as they say he is. He may be more extraverted compared to Jordan, but he's struggling to make any true friends who he trusts. Maybe because nobody has given him the time of day and gotten to really know him outside of football stuff. 

Speaking of all that, there's a scene I meant to discuss but hadn't, and that was the girl who came up to flirt with Jonathan. As much as I want to trust that it was a turning point for Jonathan, the girl gave me bad vibes all around. I can't tell if she was truly interested in Jonathan or not, and it's not like I loved Sarah trying to already deter Jonathan away from a potential new girlfriend, but seeing as Sarah would know that girl better than Jonathan, I trust that she has good judgement...though her concern seemed to be more about compatibility, rather than the girl being bad news for Jonathan. Again, not a shining moment there between Jonathan and Sarah's sort of friendship. 

I would consider Jonathan friends with Sarah also. Now maybe it is just that he only is there to try to facilitate Jorah/Sardan or whatever their shipper name might be. Or maybe he is subconsciously interested in dating her, as Jordan clearly seems to fear. Maybe Jonathan's blowup at Jordan this episode was a case of the twin protesting too much.

In terms of Popular Girl, there are lots of ways the writers could go. They could give Jonathan a well-deserved break and have him date an actually cool person. Or they can have her be playing games and break his heart. Or they could have Popular Girl's interest be the spark that gets Sarah interested in some Jonrah/Sarathan action. Given what I know about the CW and the show's treatment of Jonathan so far, I'm guessing it won't be the former.

[arc]

2 hours ago, PAForrest said:

But I think in that moment she realized Superman, who she sent to meet with "the stranger", was possibly in danger if this individual wasn't even from their universe. And of course she was right.

Even in a world with superhumans and multiverses, I think the default assumption about someone who’s not as dead as the official record says is that person faked their death. Jumping right to “he must be that guy in the suit who attacked Superman a few months ago and that guy is from a different universe” is a wild leap in logic. The writing on this show is so bad.

7 hours ago, PAForrest said:

So apparently Lana's job is to line up candidates for Edge to infect with x-kryptonite, unbeknownst to her, obviously. Still, building her 401K on the bodies of the residents of Smallville is not something that makes for sleeping well at night.

She foreclosed on her friends and neighbors in her previous job. I bet she sleeps like a baby.

At least those weren’t longtime family farms if the town was only established in 1949. 

[arc]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I don't think there's any real in-universe explanation for why Clark knowing that the mines contain some crazy version of Kryptonite, that Leslie tried to use superpowers to murder his wife, and that Morgan Edge is up to no good, doesn't take a more active role. He could be using his own superhearing to eavesdrop on every conversation either Leslie or Morgan has. He could be using his X-ray vision to look at files. He presumably has super-tech at the Fortress that he could use to hack Morgan's computers. He has super-speed that he can zip in and out of the mines for reconnaissance purposes. Etc. Etc.

He’s not even busy with a day job anymore!!!! All he does now is farm and volunteer as an assistant coach with the football team! He absolutely should be doing more.

[kickingnames]

1 hour ago, Lady Calypso said:

Speaking of all that, there's a scene I meant to discuss but hadn't, and that was the girl who came up to flirt with Jonathan. As much as I want to trust that it was a turning point for Jonathan, the girl gave me bad vibes all around. I can't tell if she was truly interested in Jonathan or not, and it's not like I loved Sarah trying to already deter Jonathan away from a potential new girlfriend, but seeing as Sarah would know that girl better than Jonathan, I trust that she has good judgement...though her concern seemed to be more about compatibility, rather than the girl being bad news for Jonathan. Again, not a shining moment there between Jonathan and Sarah's sort of friendship. 

Oh yeah, I forgot about that girl — Tegan, was it? I was immediately distracted by the fact that she had two girls with her who smirked but didn’t talk — teen drama shorthand for “popular mean girl”. That’s definitely not the independent Jonathan storyline I was hoping for.

[Diapason Untuned]

1 hour ago, arc said:

Even in a world with superhumans and multiverses, I think the default assumption about someone who’s not as dead as the official record says is that person faked their death. Jumping right to “he must be that guy in the suit who attacked Superman a few months ago and that guy is from a different universe” is a wild leap in logic. The writing on this show is so bad.

I can understand the logic.

The Stranger has information and tech that he shouldn't have.

"Marcus" has information and tech that he shouldn't have.

Both of them have an interest in Superman.

They had already floated the assumption that he was from a parallel world as they know that survivors find their way to this world sometimes, but they were also wondering if he was just an illegitimate Luthor. That theory was jossed and Lois finds out that he's actually a dead man, who presumably left behind a corpse. At this point, other universe doppleganger is more likely than someone faking their death.

Quote

At least those weren’t longtime family farms if the town was only established in 1949. 

60 years is more than long enough to be a longtime farm.

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, arc said:

At least those weren’t longtime family farms if the town was only established in 1949. 

In addition to 70 years being a long enough time for a business to be considered "longtime", the farms could have predated the formal incorporation of the town.

[arc]

13 minutes ago, kickingnames said:

teen drama shorthand for “popular mean girl”

Is it? I don't watch a lot of teen dramas. That works out nicely with real world Hollywood rules about paying speaking roles more than nonspeaking though.

[blackwing]

15 minutes ago, kickingnames said:

Oh yeah, I forgot about that girl — Tegan, was it? I was immediately distracted by the fact that she had two girls with her who smirked but didn’t talk — teen drama shorthand for “popular mean girl”. That’s definitely not the independent Jonathan storyline I was hoping for.

Sarah rushes in and tells Jonathan to stay away from her because "she's out of your league".  I didn't fully understand her comment.  I get that Sarah is familiar with the Kent brothers because they would visit Smallville at least once a year to see their grandmother, but I never got the impression that she knows them well enough to determine what is or isn't his "league".  He was a popular starting quarterback at his old school and had a girlfriend who seems just as pretty as this Teagan.  The way they portrayed him (at least in the beginning), he would be the one that would be out of someone's league, not the other way around.

I think it would have been better if Sarah had said "she is not a good person, she toys with guys, stay away".  Instead, what she said made her sound jealous and possessive.

[bethy]

I saw Sarah's comment about Tegan being out of Jonathan's league as her teasing him - warning him off somewhat protectively (probably because Tegan is a mean girl), but goosing him a bit about it, like a sister would. 

[Affogato]

8 hours ago, bethy said:

I think that's certainly who Jon was in Metropolis, but Jordan's new powers have forced Jon, in a way, to put Jordan's need/crisis ahead of his more typical social role with their peers. While Joh's always protected Jordan from bullies, now he's protecting not only Jordan, but also Clark's secret identity and people who might be hurt by Jordan. Plus, I think this is Lois's perspective, probably based on a comparison with the number of friends Jon had had in Metropolis. We've seen him interact with the other boys on the football team, who seem to like him, but his caretaking role for Jordan has gone into overdrive so he's less focused on making friends for himself. Which is part of what led to his blowup at Jordan when Jordan accused him of whatever it was with Sarah. 

Jonathan probably had the same friends for a long time in Metropolis and as an athlete, reasonably outgoing and thechild of famous parents etc he was probably used to friends coming to him. Having to make friends is different. In metropolis was anyone out of his league? Add in some wariness about cityfolk in Smallville and yes Jonathan busy with family matters and it isn’t too surprising he isn’t BMOC. 
 

meanwhile this could be a fresh start for Jordan. At least until his alien stuff kicked in. 

[legaleagle53]

1 hour ago, Affogato said:

9 hours ago, bethy said:

I think that's certainly who Jon was in Metropolis, but Jordan's new powers have forced Jon, in a way, to put Jordan's need/crisis ahead of his more typical social role with their peers. While Joh's always protected Jordan from bullies, now he's protecting not only Jordan, but also Clark's secret identity and people who might be hurt by Jordan. Plus, I think this is Lois's perspective, probably based on a comparison with the number of friends Jon had had in Metropolis. We've seen him interact with the other boys on the football team, who seem to like him, but his caretaking role for Jordan has gone into overdrive so he's less focused on making friends for himself. Which is part of what led to his blowup at Jordan when Jordan accused him of whatever it was with Sarah. 

 

Maybe it's just me, but Jon and Jordan's relationship almost feels like a male version of Alex and Kara's relationship on Supergirl. Right from the moment that Kara was sent by Superman to live with the Danverses as their adopted daughter, Alex had the responsibility of covering for Kara and keeping her from publicly using her powers as they were developing. And as we've seen, Kara had all of the attention growing up because of her history and because keeping her powers a secret was a full-time job. Alex has even admitted to having been somewhat bitter and resentful at times because she had to give up so much in order to protect Kara. It was only once they were  nearly adults that Alex and Kara finally forged the unbreakable sisterly bond that they have now. And that's where I see Jon and Jordan going eventually as they both mature and as Jordan continues to get a handle on his still-developing powers.

[moonshine71]

19 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

It's certainly possible someone might recognize the name of someone but not their face. Even with relatively famous people. Skateboarder Tony Hawk famously tweets about times when people see him, often with skateboards in his possession, and see his ID that says "Anthony Hawk" and don't quite put together that he is THE Tony Hawk. 

And of course, Lois is infamous for not putting together Clark is Superman, despite seeing each of them numerous times close up.

While I agree her reaction is most likely just her putting the pieces together that not!Marcus was the Stranger, it's possible that something about the name John Henry Irons triggered a specific memory. In addition to being a journalist and thus perhaps knowing trivia that could include that name, she is also the daughter of General Sam, so it's possible she had some knowledge of their John Henry Irons.

Red K as destroyer of inhibitions was just one variant, mainly from Smallville. 

I don't think the super-hearing was the issue. Prior to getting under the red light, Jordan seemed to have had no problems with his hearing at that point. He was able to focus and lead Jonathan to where the fight was. 

Yes, you can certainly recognize a name and not a face, but I was thinking along the lines that if Lois recognized this person's name and was familiar enough w/ him to know that he was a threat to Superman, she certainly would have at least seen a picture of him before.

 

I don't really follow Supergirl, but fwiw, I believe that they have introduced red-k on that show and it has dis-inhibiting  effect in the cw-verse. Maybe, post-crisis, all bets are off, but I would think it would make more sense to keep playing by the rules they have already established.

[FnkyChkn34]

On 5/26/2021 at 3:01 AM, dwmarch said:

I guess he's worthy...

Ha, thank you!  I came here looking for the Thor references...  John Henry Irons totally Thor'd that hammer, sound effects and all.  Honestly, it took me out of the episode a bit, but oh well.  I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?  

[Quark]

It was a good episode, but goodness me I cannot stand Jordan.

Also I don't think this Irons stuff makes much sense at all. Lois finds out this guys name and immediately realises he's The Stranger? This Irons guy has memories of evil Superman, his wife Lois and their daughter, when from what I understand of the Crisis crossover, everyone's memories were wiped. I also didn't pick up any indication that our Lois even recognised the name Irons either. Or as to why she assumed that this guy even is Irons considering she had spoken about the multiverse earlier in the episode (which doesn't exist anymore) and the Irons in this universe is dead.

I love Lois.

[Chicago Redshirt]

22 minutes ago, Quark said:

It was a good episode, but goodness me I cannot stand Jordan.

Also I don't think this Irons stuff makes much sense at all. Lois finds out this guys name and immediately realises he's The Stranger? This Irons guy has memories of evil Superman, his wife Lois and their daughter, when from what I understand of the Crisis crossover, everyone's memories were wiped. I also didn't pick up any indication that our Lois even recognised the name Irons either. Or as to why she assumed that this guy even is Irons considering she had spoken about the multiverse earlier in the episode (which doesn't exist anymore) and the Irons in this universe is dead.

I love Lois.

I think the realization that "Marcus" is the Stranger is pretty rational, Like I and others have said elsewhere:

Lois knows about the multiverse before Crisis and doppelgangers and the like. She knows the Stranger claims to have come from an alternate universe with an Evil Supes. She knows the Stranger has tech powerful enough to stymie real Supes. She knows that "Marcus" has tech that stymied Lara Larr and knows about a form of Kryptonite that neither she nor Clark do. And she learns that "Marcus" is a doppelganger for someone who was supposedly dead for six years. While there are other logical possibilities ("Marcus" is Prime JHI who has been resurrected or who faked his death, "Marcus" is a clone or doppelganger of JHI for some reason, etc.), the notion that "Marcus" is really the Stranger is too serious to ignore.  

The people from Earth Prime generally had their memories wiped. To the extent we've seen them (alt-Brainies in Supergirl, alt-Beth in Batwoman, and I am guessing at least one alt-Wells if not more) people who somehow ended up in the Prime Universe despite being from another one retained their memories of their original universes. Also, our heroes have been able to restore people's pre-Crisis memories through telepathy or tech, so even if Steel ended up with no memory of his original Earth, it could have been restored in a similar fashion., 

[immortalfrieza]

On 5/28/2021 at 1:32 PM, Quark said:

This Irons guy has memories of evil Superman, his wife Lois and their daughter, when from what I understand of the Crisis crossover, everyone's memories were wiped.

It's even worse than that: Everyone from the original multiverse should be dead because every single universe was destroyed. Then, the multiverse was recreated, and somehow this resulted in the new "Prime" universe where several universes all merged together despite the fact that they were destroyed, and then somehow this new Prime universe has all the noteworthy people from every universe that was merged into despite the sheer unlikeihood of such people actually existing all on an Earth where the conditions for all the other people to exist also happened at the same time, not to mention being the "main" universe specifically.

There should be no Crisis survivors from the previous multiverse because barring the Paragons themselves they were all obliterated. There should be no memories to have wiped/restored because despite somehow looking and acting like the same people they are not in fact the inhabitants of the original multiverse and thus completely different people.

At some point you just have to roll with it because logically absolutely nothing about the universe post crisis and pre crisis makes any sense whatsoever, and like the Arrowverse and time travel it changes at a whim. JHI being a Crisis survivor makes no sense at all, in fact it would make significantly more sense if he had somehow crossed universes in the current post crisis rather than be a survivor from the previous one.

On 5/27/2021 at 1:07 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Well, the AI apparently could be fooled into thinking that Steel is Lex or another Luthor. It still IIRC can distinguish between Kryptonians and non-Kryptonians; I think it was able to somewhat track/identify either Superman and/or the Morgan Edge mook a few episodes back.

Which if they address that at all, this would be because the thing was at 30% capacity and thus not capable of it at the time.

 

Edited June 2, 2021 by immortalfrieza

[bluvelvet]

I am absolutely loving this show! As stated, the family moments are the best parts.  I am happy that Jon got to vent some of his anger but he and his brother made up in the end.

Ironic that Jordan eavesdropped on his brother, the exact same thing he got upset with his father about earlier in the season.

This is one show I am watching on a weekly basis and not waiting for episodes to pile up

 

 

[Avabelle]

I knew it was only a matter time before Jordan would get jealous of Jon when it came to Sara. I actually prefer the idea of Jon/Sarah although that could also be because I really can’t stand Jordan.

[John Potts]

Evil Steel! Though you have to wonder why John Henry would call himself after Luthor (unless Lex is a hero on that Earth, which is certainly possible).

Glad the boys came together to save their dad. And I liked that we actually saw Jordan actually practicing to use his powers, even if I got a little tired of his constipated look when it didn't work.

Unless the Luthors don’t have a very narrow family tree, it would be almost impossible to check all of them (particularly once you factor in possible secret children).

Wouldn’t Lana be more likely to point out it would be a huge conflict of interest to put forward her husband for a promotion rather than his responsibilities as Fire Chief? Also, loved how Morgan Edge gave her the vaguest possible criteria for this program. Hell, ask for people "who get overlooked for Executive appointments" (and a middle aged mother would certainly fit that criterion), which would also serve as a good PR mask to your true Evil face.

On 5/26/2021 at 2:59 AM, scarynikki12 said:

So Luthor’s Superman was a good guy until one day when he and Edge’s army started destroying everything.

Which is what you’d expect if you dosed him with Red Kryptonite – which is what I thought he'd done here.  If it was meant to be Red solar radiation, that shouldn't affect Clark because canonically, while he gets his powers from our sun, he stores them in his cells (effectively, Superman is a giant solar battery) - otherwise, he wouldn't have any powers by night. Now granted, comic book science is (to put it mildly) pretty fluid, but if TPTB wanted to strip Supes of his powers, they could have used Gold K which does exactly that. I thought we'd have a "Be Careful What You Wish For" storyline where John Henry* inadvertently creates the monster he was trying to prevent by dosing Clark with Red K.

On 5/26/2021 at 8:01 AM, dwmarch said:

Why did he go right up to the clock before taking his headphones off? If your hearing was suddenly magnified to head-exploding volume wouldn't you want to start with soft, distant noises first?

Come to that, why didn't Clark take Jordan to the Fortress? Far fewer distracting noises there so you could introduce more slowly. Maybe they didn't want Grumpy Gramps gripping about how useless he was!

On 5/26/2021 at 2:13 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

It is interesting I am trying to remember Lois having been depicted as having had serious boyfriends other than Clark in the main continuity of comics and movies

That’s probably more a change in values over time, though she has had a fair few in comics: The many marriages of Lois Lane!

On 5/26/2021 at 12:22 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

I assume most people in the town are on a watered-down version of Kyle's love for Morgan Edge and his potential revitalization of the town that they are flattered that Edge is personally staying in town and doing whatever, rather than leaving it to whatever subordinates. 

but shouldn't they show some scepticism of this big city corporate shark? Even if it was only "Maybe he'll abandon this place next year but I've got bills to play today."

On 5/26/2021 at 2:17 PM, miasth said:

How was John Henry Irons not in the hospital after not only getting hit by a truck but thrown as well?

Come to that, why wasn't he in his armour? He set up the meet with Superman, it wasn't as if his arrival was a surprise.

* IIRC, John Henry is his real name (his parents named him after the figure from folklore)