We now know from the first trailer that the fourth and final season of Superman & Lois will indeed bring us “The Death of Superman” at the hands of Doomsday… but now, the question is if the TV show will do the storylines that followed it in the comics.
Obviously, “Funeral for a Friend” — the first follow-up to the Superman death story in Superman #75 way back in 1992 — will have some kind of adaptation, as we see how the Lane-Kent family adjusts to the death of the Man of Steel. But what if the show follows the next storyline in Season 4?
In 1993, DC Comics released The Adventures of Superman issue #500 which heralded the “return of Superman” which was followed by four distinct storylines, one for each ongoing Superman title being published by DC at the time. Action Comics written by Roger Stern with art by Jackson Guice gave us the “Last Son of Krypton,” a colder version appearing to be Superman that was actually a living embodiment of the Kryptonian Eradicator. Superman by Dan Jurgens introduced a Cyborg Superman who seemed to be the Man of Steel with some cyborg enhancements. The “Man of Steel” in Superman: The Man of Steel by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove was John Henry Irons, who fans of the Superman & Lois TV series know as the hero known as Steel. Finally, The Adventures of Superman gave us the cloned Superboy by Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett… a character cloned from Superman and… well, that story comes later. This was an incredible run of comics, but was any of them the Real Steel Deal?
Spoiler warning: The answer is no. Eventually, a black-suited Kal-El emerges, just in time to fight the heel-turned Cyborg Superman who ends up destroying Green Lantern Hal Jordan’s city, among other things. For a while after that, Superman had long hair (not a mullet as some joke), though we wouldn’t expect Superman & Lois to do that.
The story of the four Supermen was called “Reign of the Supermen,” and we think it might be very likely that could be something we’d see in Season 4. As a bonus, it would be a way to keep Tyler Hoechlin on the show, because you can’t have at least part of a season of a show called Superman & Lois without the guy who plays Superman, right?
One of those puzzle pieces is already taken care of. John Henry Irons (Wolé Parks) or Natalie (Tayler Buck) can fill the role played by John Henry Irons in the original comics storyline. We’ve seen a version of the Eradicator on the series before, and a cold Superman who doesn’t care much about his family could be an acting exercise where Hoechlin would surely thrive and show off his talents if they wanted to do that. Who wouldn’t want to see a version of Tyler’s Superman with cyborg parts as well?
That leaves Superboy, and while not a clone, that seems like a job for Jordan Kent (Alex Garfin), who is the de facto “Superboy” of the series and desperately needs a better costume. This might be a way for it to happen.
As mentioned before, if the show does “Reign of the Supermen,” that means Tyler Hoechlin won’t be off the table for too long… but seeing how the characters react to multiple characters picking up the slack would be fascinating. We’ll see what happens, eh? Superman & Lois Season 4 premieres October 17 on The CW.
Reign of the Supermen is available in trade paperback if you’d like to read the original story.