BE WARNED: A major revelation about the “Captain Luthor/Stranger” character came out in the May 25 episode of Superman & Lois titled “Man of Steel.” If you have not seen the episode yet, you might want to stop reading right now.
So, after months of us all thinking that The Stranger a.k.a. “Captain Luthor” was an alternate version of Lex Luthor from another world, it turns out that wasn’t the case after all: In “Man of Steel” it was revealed that the character played by Wolé Parks is actually John Henry Irons, the beloved character from comics lore also known as Steel, was once played by Shaquille O’Neal in a movie that wasn’t that beloved. Still, the character is a fan favorite, as originally created by writer Louise Simonson and artist Jon Bogdanove for the “Death of Superman” comic book story.
The first question anyone might have about this is “was this always the plan?” Fortunately, we had some Super-folks to talk to about this episode, as Wolé Parks and Superman & Lois staff writer Jai Jamison spoke with us about “Man of Steel” for a KryptonSite post-mortem.
The decision to make “The Stranger” this iconic character came about early on, Jamison revealed. “From Day One we were looking at doing a Captain Luthor/Alex Luthor like story where there’s a redemption arc, where maybe he’s an antihero, that sort of thing, and then our writers’ assistant Adam [Mallinger] came in with the pitch of ‘what if we made him John Henry Irons?’ And that pitch just open up the skies, and we were like ‘yes’ immediately. ‘Yes. This is what we’re doing. We love it.’ That was a year ago, in May or June, when we just kind of started planting those seeds. I moved to John Henry’s Earth in my head, concepting ‘okay, what happened on this Earth?’ I came in with like one thousand pitches, and Todd was like, ‘you know what? You should write this episode!’ It was very early in the process,” he explained.
And then, it was a matter of keeping a secret, and worrying that fans would figure it out.
“The funny thing about that: Maybe because I knew it, the whole time, I’m thinking ‘everyone’s gonna figure it out.’ When we were doing Episode 5 when he’s like ‘I’m an engineer, I work for LexCorp’ I’m like, ‘oh, God, they’re gonna know!’ And that didn’t happen. Then when they said the title ‘Man of Steel,’ I read it, and thought that was amazing, but then I was like ‘oh wait. They’re gonna know.’ Then I worried about the synopsis they were going to give out. I just was terrified,” Wolé Parks recalled. The thought that he might be “Alex Luthor from Earth-3” was a theory that fans latched on to, which may have diverted from all of the seemingly obvious clues left for the audience.
“I am shocked that no one [figured it out],” Jai noted. “And I love it. It’s great. But like, I was definitely surprised. I also was worried about the title. All of the things that Wolé was worried about, I was worried about twice as much.”
“For me, I grew up with the Death of Superman. That’s probably the earliest comic that I recall owning,” Parks recalled of his history with the character of John Henry Irons. “I’m sure there were other ones, but that series was so iconic… so I already knew who he was. That’s why when they told me who he really was as a character, I honestly got emotional, because this was a part of my childhood. It’s kind of crazy. How often do we get to emulate our childhood icons? And then, for me to actually play him and portray him, I was like ‘whoa, this is way too deep and meta for me.’ It was crazy.”
“I had almost the exact same story in terms of having the Death of Superman and Return of Superman all of that run, and you know, just playing in the sandbox, being able to craft this character that’s just an amazing character in general, but also in terms of representation… I was the kid who has a video of me somewhere, at five years old, dressed up as Superman. It will never see the light of day,” Jai laughed. “But being able to work on this show and play in this sandbox, and then also be able to introduce this character to the world, into the Arrowverse… it’s just been like a surreal and extremely fulfilling experience. I’s amazing.”
And sometimes this fulfilling experience involves Steel’s iconic hammer. “I will just say really briefly, the practice version I had compared to the real version? Two totally different things. They did a fantastic job,” Wolé enthused.
Superman & Lois airs Tuesdays on The CW and streams the next day on the CW app and CWTV.com. We’re going to end this interview with an iconic Jon Bogdanove comic book cover that came to mind when watching this episode. Big thanks to Wolé Parks and Jai Jamison for participating in this interview. Come talk about “Man of Steel” on the KryptonSite Forum!