By Taylor Neumann
Superman and Lois Lane are the king and queen of comic book lore, and now they are headed to a TV near you.
Superman & Lois (Tuesdays) is the newest addition to The CW’s universe of superhero television shows, and it promises a new take on perhaps the medium’s best-known couple.
In this new iteration, Clark Kent (Tyler Hoechlin) and Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch) are attempting to raise their family — teen sons Jonathan (Jordan Elsass) and Jordan (Alexander Garfin) — after moving back to Smallville from Metropolis. “They’re struggling with all the things that parents struggle with,” said co-creator and showrunner Todd Helbing. “So how do two of the busiest people on the planet do that? And juggle their jobs and raising kids at the same time, which I think is something that is really relatable to a lot of people in the world.”
Another facet of the drama is showing Lois Lane as truly a hero in her own right, saving the world in a different way than her super humanly skilled husband but no less effective. “Lois Lane just inherently is a symbol of strength. She’s fearless — she has no qualms telling people of all statures and status what she thinks of them,” explained Helbing. “In the comics, she’s always sort of presented as this damsel in distress, but we didn’t want to do that ever with her.”
She’s a working mom, continuing her career at the Daily Planet as one of the most famous journalists in the world. This also gives her a different perspective on quote-unquote “bad guys” — during the first season, both Superman and Lois will each have their own villain to conquer.
Smallville itself is another aspect of the show that will seem familiar to fans of the genre, but has been updated to reflect more of our society today. “The Smallville that everybody knows and loves, when we come back to it, those days are in the past,” Helbing said.” And we address this in the pilot, but one of the characters says, ‘What used to happen is people would leave the town and they would go get educated, they’d find their skill set, and then they’d bring that back to the town that helped raise them. And that doesn’t happen anymore.’ … And so part of the story for the series is Clark and Lois coming back to Smallville. … How do you save a small town that you love dearly, and that raised you?”
