Another great episode, and once again, I’m really impressed with the boys’ acting. They did a very believable job with their roles. And I’m very impressed with the writing - Showing Jordan and Jonathan forgive each other over something trivial earlier, but then ACTUALLY letting Jonathan get angry at Jordan for busting his hand. Having true emotions, and not having to be logical about it, is some good realism.
I think the relationship and interactions between the brothers is one of the better parts of the show.
I liked the part where they were having to decide whether or not to go out and drink or get beer with the other footballers players.
Some of those players had been hassling Jordan earlier in the season (though not the main guy, Sarah’s ex). Now he’s been accepted as part of the team. Good job of showing character progression without hitting us over the head with it.
Two things I missed on the first time around (I didn’t do a full re-watch, just re-visited some scenes):
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Jordan’s heat vision actually hurts Clark. Doesn’t burn through his hand, but it clearly hurts. Shows that Superman is more than just a flying brick, he’s willing to suffer for others and apparently has a high pain tolerance even if he doesn’t usually need it, and that Jordan really is pretty powerful in his own right.
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in the scene where Jonathan blocks Jordan’s punch, Jonathan moves at superspeed. It’s subtle (which is one of things I like about this series, there is some subtly) but it’s definitely there. Yay! Jonathan is getting powers! But everyone was so distracted by the violence that everyone missed it.
So… wonder if this means Jonathan might heal faster than a full human?
Wonder if Jonathan having a speed edge over full humans might have something to do with his abilities as a quarterback, being just a little faster than everyone else like Jordan is just a bit more strong and durable?
Still wonder what’s going on with Jordan - clearly, the Kryptonian AI has missed something about the situation. Either Jordan’s ability to store sunlight to use with his powers is growing, or something else is happening. It’s not a matter of daylight - if Jordan’s powers only manifested in the daytime maybe it would be not a matter of storing energy but using it, but he’s used them often at night. It might be proximity to Jonathan, who might be the one able to store up energy and somehow pass it on to Jordan although I haven’t the foggiest notion how that would work. It may be he’s simply gaining capacity.
Clearly, both boys manifest powers much more under emotions and stress than otherwise.
Reminds me of Quantum & Woody!
(“The World’s Worst Superhero Team”… Brothers who had to “KLANG!” their wrist bands together every 24 hours. Often early morning, when Quantum was getting up for his legitimate job, and Woody was just getting home from a night of debauchery…)
I also really hope that Jonathan gets a chance to visit the fortress of solitude. Even if he’s totally unpowered (?), he’s still half-kryptonian. He should still get the chance to see the tech, look around, disappoint his grandfather in person, etc.
As he should be, of course. Fortunately, his self-restraint is super-human as well.
Unfortunately, that display of anger might be giving General Lane justification to continue Project 7734.
One subtle bit of storytelling: When Clark receives that phone call from General Lane, after teaching Jordan how to punch a log, you can see (in the background and out of focus) Jonathan try to punch the log with little success.
S01E07 Man of Steel
DAVID RAMSEY DIRECTS THE EPISODE - Clark struggles to help Jordan who is grappling with a new power. Meanwhile, Lois enlists Clark’s help which leads to a surprise encounter.
Oho! Man of STEEL! The CW pulled a fast one on us. Not that I mind. That reveal was epic. They literally put a bald black man in an iron suit that emulated Superman’s powers. Then they just had the AI call him “Luthor” and the entire fandom (including me) was sent barking up the wrong tree. It was great!
Jonathon continues to be the supportive brother. He understandably gets angry and resentful at Jordan for having to cover up for him so often, yet still manages to talk him up to Sarah. And the way the twins pulled together to take out John Henry Irons was about as epic as the reveal of Steel himself.
Oh, wow - that was an excellent twist!
I also like how they make him a sympathetic villain.
I think the way the portray the relationship between the brothers is also excellent - any brothers resent each other at times but they’ll pull together in a crisis. Great teamwork between the two. Also, Jonathan watching what Jordan is going through probably moderates his jealousy over his brother getting powers because he’s seeing how that can be a case of blessed with suck.
Wonder if they’re setting up a super/normal team like Clark/Lois with the boys?
I still want Jonathan to have some sort of superpower.
This series continues to impress. We see a little bit of the Kal-El that Steel fears - but Lois pulls him back - Steel’s version of Kal-El spent too much time with Kryptonians, perhaps?
Part of what keeps Clark Kent “human” is his relationships with other people, which are largely human beings as opposed to kryptonian beings or Martian beings (although he knows one or two of those others). He was raised by humans that adopted him, and in most iterations married a human woman. Clark was socialized in a human society and feels a connection to it.
We don’t know what life was like for the Kal-El of Steel’s world - was he raised by loving parents in Kansas or captured and raised like a specimen in a lab? Does he even have a Clark Kent identity? Steel refers to Superman strictly as Kal-El, writes and speaks Kryptonian which means he knows a LOT more about him than the average human being, but it doesn’t seem to occur to him that Superman could pose as a human being if he desired to do so. Then again, does this occur to the average person on any world? Does the Evil Kal-El have any relationships with human beings in his world, and if not, does that account for his hostility towards them?
Sure, we see the Red-Eyed Monster approaching Steel, but we’ve seen it before in the prior episode when Supes is shot with kryptonite bullets - he pulled it back then without having Lois around. As Clark said, he has feelings, too. We don’t know if he would have killed Steel at that point, but also consider that Clark’s two sons were also there, and the red lights seemed to also adversely affect Jordan, and Lois was there, so protecting his family from this man who had just tried to kill him was also a factor.
For darn sure Sam Lane is going to be interested in learning about weapons that can take on Kryptonians from Steel.
Clark is not actually the same person as Kal-El, but Steel doesn’t know that. Given Steel’s experience on his world what he’s doing makes sense, but Steel doesn’t have all the information for the world he’s currently in. He has no clue that in THIS world Superman has motivation to prevent an army of world-destroying Kryptonians, not aid one. Superman could be an ally of Steel’s goal of preventing such destruction, Steel just doesn’t know that and I’m not entirely sure he could be convinced of that.
For that matter, Sam Lane is not the same person, either. After all, in THIS world Lane’s grandsons are half-Kryptonian and one of them is clearly showing powers, he may not be as eager to destroy his son-in-law Superman, or tolerant of someone who could threaten his grandchildren.
Subtle bit of foreshadowing - the AI calls Clark “Captain Luthor” - a hint that it’s also calling Steel “Captain Luthor” erroneously
Steel needed a glove to use the hammer. But Jonathan could handle it with difficulty with his bare hands, under red lights no less.
I think they’re hinting at Jonathan being super, too - I alluded to a possible super speed move by Jonathan, and now Steel’s hammer.
I’d like Jonathan to not only be powered, but differently powered than Jordan.
Yeah, I noticed that, too. That was well done. And I agree with @Terminus_Est, the misdirect was really well done. They had a bald, Black tech expert in power armor in a Superman property, and managed to make it not only a surprise twist when he turned out to be John Henry Irons, but a twist that made sense and didn’t feel at all like a cheat cough-Fietro-cough.
Also, the John Henry Irons of Earth-1 was a Soldier who died six months ago. I think that’s more evidence of my speculation upthread that General Lane personally knew Earth-1’s version, and that he probably died saving General Lane’s life in a mirror of the scene we saw from Earth-N *, and that General Lane recognized him, which is why he took his warning seriously.
*Is there a good convention for referring to an alternate Earth in the Arrowverse or the DC mulitverse, where we don’t know which iteration it is? Earth-X doesn’t work, because pre-Crisis, that was actually a specific Earth, the Nazi Earth. I’m using Earth-N, but that seems a bit clunky and unclear.
- I still think that Jonathan has hybrid vigor, the way a mule is stronger than a horse or donkey, its parents. So he doesn’t have Kryptonian level powers, but he is much stronger/faster than a human.
- I think Jonathan’s going to wind up dating Avery, daughter of Emily (Lana’s friend.) That may put her in danger, meaning he’ll have to rescue her.
- Jordan working on his hearing control reminded me of Daredevil, where Stick taught Matt how do it. (And was a whole lot ruder than Clark was.) OTOH, at least Matt got ice cream out of it.
- Jordan should be glad his brother didn’t realize he was really spying on Sarah. His parents would’ve been really upset about that.
See my thoughts on the matter of Fietro in the WandaVision thread. Any discussion on the matter should just go there. Also, spoilers for WandaVision.
@anyone reading this thread who hasn’t seen WandaVision yet but intends to: If my mention of Fietro spoils a twist for you, I apologize.
@Terminus_Est: I’m frankly confused by your post. I wasn’t discussing WandaVision. I made a one-word allusion to a plot point without even mentioning which to which property I was alluding in order to compare and contrast it with how Lois & Clark handled a similar plot point. It seems like you’re objecting to me doing that, but I’m not sure if that’s what you’re doing or why. I’m also not sure how that brief allusion is a spoiler.