I think it’s a given that both of them are getting powers. It’s possible that each gets a different subset. One gets heat vision, the other super-strength. One gets flight, the other invulnerability. One gets X-ray vision, the other super-smell.
IIRC, the flashback of the football snapping the rope was with Clark and Lois watching him. Yet a decade later in-show, they’re still arguing about whether the boys have powers, with Lois citing Jonathon’s athletic prowess but not saying “he snapped a rope with a thrown football when he was five!”, and Clark saying tests at the Fortress of Solitude indicated it was unlikely. I think it’s far from a lock that Jonathon has powers. I think he’s a phenomenally gifted athlete (which might be due to being half-Kryptonian), but the rope-snapping scene seemed to me like a clear narrative misdirect. Like, an overly obvious one - I was dead certain within a few minutes of the boys being introduced that Jordan was the one with powers, because the show was being so obvious in trying to point towards Jonathon.
So far, Jordan has displayed all of the powers. He wasn’t hurt after falling from the hayloft and having all of those heavy pipes falling on him; Jordan had the heat vision; Jonathon had a black eye, bruises, split lip, etc., from the fight with the townies but Jordan just had red eyes from using the heat vision which had disappeared by the time they’re back at the farmhouse. Also, it just makes more dramatic sense to me for the cool, charming, athletic, handsome brother to just be human, while the awkward, nerdy, social-anxiety-disorder brother to actually be the super one.
If the series lasts, I think Jonathon might start manifesting powers sometime around the fifth season as they try to shake up the formula, but for right now, I think Jordan is the only one with powers.
I think:
that’s a Lex Luthor from another universe which was destroyed in Crisis. Which would make him the sole survivor of his world, as he claimed in dialogue. It would also explain how he knows so much about Superman (“Kal-El”, Kryptonian glyphs, can’t see through lead, vulnerable to kryptonite) while simultaneously not seeming to know that much about him (he sabotages nuclear plants to draw him out - he doesn’t seem to actually know where this Superman lives or how to find him directly).
Jon Cryer/Lex Luthor not only survived Crisis, he partially re-wrote the new continuity so that he’s a popular and respected public figure, so I don’t think they’re re-casting.
Of course, that’s assuming this show takes place on Earth-1. Despite the fact that Crisis supposedly collapsed the multiverse, we already know that Stargirl takes place on the new Earth-2, the DC Universe/HBO Max live action shows, Titans, Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing take place in alternate universes, and the DCEU is also officially part of the new multiverse. Has it been officially confirmed this show takes place on Earth-1 of the Arrowverse?)
Y’know, I tried so hard to keep those different earths straight back when I was a young’un… I still remember “Crisis on Earth-Three!” in fourth grade (JLA 29, August 1964) and thinking “So, are we Earth 1?” Then I read the Barry Allen/Jay Garrick Flash-mashup and learned Earth 1 was Barry, Earth 2 was Jay and the other Golden Age heroes. And we were… Earth-Prime (“We don’t even get a number?”).
And then, all hell broke loose, and I worked harder on my Multiverse homework than I did at school (“Okay, so Earth-12 is cool, Inferior Five and all… but Earth-11 is just one tin robot… and there’s no Earth-13?”). And meanwhile on Earth-616, Marvel was at it, too…
So I give up. I’m just going to enjoy whatever story they can come up with. If you want to say your Supes is from Earth-π in The Bat-Mxyzptlk Continuity, go for it.
As long as he’s well-written.
Which this one is, so far.
I just wanted to add, I didn’t watch until last night, so I came into the thread a bit late and responded to some specific points. My more general reactions:
I was really impressed by the cinematic quality of the pilot. I doubt they’re going to be able to afford to keep that up for the rest of the series, but while it wasn’t blockbuster level, the production values seemed significantly higher than the average Arrowverse show.
I’m kind of undecided about the overall quality. I liked some aspects (I appreciated General Lane pointing out to Lois that she knew she was marrying Superman and they’re just never going to have a “normal” life). I don’t particularly care for the teen-parent conflict dramas in general, so I didn’t like that aspect much, but it wasn’t actively off-putting. There seemed to be some Idiot Plotting (elderly woman with her wireless router in an impossible to reach location and heavy pipes stored in the loft for no apparent reason), but not quite enough to take me out of the action. And the sons are called out in dialogue as 14 years old. They are NOT 14 years old (and yeah, they’re half Kryptonian, but the neighbor girl who is supposed to be their age is NOT 14 either).
I’m at least interested enough to stay around for the next episode.
There’s a big Kara-shaped hole in this show right now. It could be that it takes place before Kara decided to reveal herself as Kal-El’s cousin. (You’d think she’d at least show up for Lois and Clark’s wedding. But then Lois’s sister Lucy didn’t attend either.) The show seems to be ignoring Supergirl and the rest of the Arrowverse for now.
David Ramsey’s John Diggle character is scheduled to make a guest appearance on multiple Arrowverse shows, including Superman and Lois, which implies they are all Earth-1.
Despite maybe-Green-Lantern Diggle in the works for showing up on multiple shows, I have read that the possible Batwoman / Superman and Lois crossover has been taken off the table, so they might not be entirely ignoring the rest of the Arrowverse, but still minimizing the interactions somewhat.
I’m waiting for the full implications of Jordan and Jonathan learning their dad is Superman to sink in. “Wait! Dad! Are we related to Supergirl??” “Dad! You know the Flash???” Kara stops by for a visit, and Jonathan rushes to hide his Supergirl pinup poster, which he now realizes is AWKWARD.
“Dad, you’re actually friends with a Martian? Cool!”
“Dad, your cousin Kara is older than you? No way!”
I concur that Jonathan’s athleticism is due to his being half-alien. It’s what biologists call “hybrid vigor”.
Jonathan is obviously named for Clark’s adoptive father. Jordan was presumably given the closest name to Jor-El, his bio father. I wonder if they’ll show Clark telling him that.
I figured the router was high up to maximize coverage - and it’s not like Martha needs climb up to reset it. If there’s a problem, she can call Clark and he can reset it in a second…
If it were a working farm, and they wanted coverage to outlying areas, sure, but it seems like it hadn’t been a working farm in quite some time; for just the farmhouse, it would seem like they would install it in, y’know, the farmhouse. Also, routers occasionally do need to be reset; deliberately installing one in a remote and inaccessible location where you would also need to install wiring seems pretty convoluted.
It’s a minor quibble, it just seemed like lazy screenwriting, along with the poorly secured stack of heavy metal pipes that for some reason were stored in the loft of the disused barn. As soon as someone mentioned the router was in the barn, I immediately assumed we were either going to get the boys stumbling on the pod under a tarp or there was going to be a serious accident that would result in Plot Developments. (We eventually wound up with both).
Understood. Clark is apparently one of those guys who never moves his old stuff out of his Mom’s house, since the pod could have gone to the Fortress of Solitude at any time.
Why a barn would have a pile of pipes is a mystery. A stack of haybales falling over could be just as deadly (or more so), and, you know, be something that might be in a barn.
Well, they could be pipes for a drainage or irrigation system, either left-overs/spares from a project back when it was a working farm, or unused pieces of a project Pa Kent was planning when he unexpectedly died. But why would anyone go to the all the trouble of hoisting them up into the hayloft?
(Fanwank to bail out lazy screenwriting: Clark used to do all sorts of superwork around the farm, and it would be just as easy for him to stack the pipes in the loft where they’re “out of the way” as on the ground where any normal person would put them. The Kent farm did a lot of things in really weird ways that only make sense if your farmhand is Superman. If the farm does get sold, and an actual farmer takes a look at it, they’re going to find a lot of weird stuff and be left scratching their head as to how Pa Kent even managed it much less why).
After a while, I found myself wishing that Clark would bounce his heat vision off the mirror and clean up that stubble, already.
Finally watched it last night during the re-run. I’ll probably keep watching it.
That’s what I’m thinking. Also, speaking of Arrowverse. Hopefully, offscreen, Clark has said something along the lines of “My cousin has powers and her sister doesn’t. So the two of them have been in a situation similar to (not the same as) yours. They’re both happy to text/facetime/whatever with either of you whenever you want about this or just to say ‘hi.’” Because really Kara and Alex would be happy to hear from them about anything.
Watched episode 1. Will watch the next episode. Nothing special about it but nothing really bad either. It’s watchable. It’s Superman and Lois, toss in some kids, Lana is there of course, my wife has unkind things to say about her, I bet Lois does too when the cameras are off. We’ll see what we see, but whatever this version of Luthor is, I’m tired of the concept. They need to find a new supervillain just for Supes to deal with.
But only if they did an amazing job with a new Big Baddie.
And that’s a huge ‘if’. Almost every time the comics or movies have tried to do that, they’ve been a bit … forgettable (quick, what was the name of the villain in Superman 3, and was he more interesting than Richard Pryor?).
Seriously, I tried doing that with the comics, because they’re less lame, and okay, one villain that was built up over multiple books to be Big and Bad and it even looked like he killed the Kents, was… Conduit, whose costume was…conduits.
Captain Luthor seems like a throwback to the old mad scientist - techno wizard Luthor of the older comics before he was turned into an evil tycoon. And that may be a good thing to contrast him with evil tycoon Morgan Edge.
S01E02 Heritage
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME - While adjusting to their new lives in Smallville, Lois and Clark make an important decision concerning one of their sons. Meanwhile, tensions begin to rise between Lois and Morgan Edge. Lastly, Lana Lang Cushing invites the Kent family over for a barbecue.