Superman & Lois: 5 Best Moments From The Pilot (& The 5 Worst)

Nine years after the debut of the Arrowverse, fans have finally got what they had been hoping for since The Flash and Supergirl were introduced, and that’s a brand-new live-action Superman show. Superman & Lois debuted on February 23 to rave reviews from critics and fans alike, and the ratings were impressive too.

The pilot episode of Superman & Lois is filled with fan-pleasing moments, Easter eggs, callbacks to the comics, cool character moments, and exciting hints for the future. Nevertheless, while it was generally an excellent start to the series, it had some problems which will need to be addressed as the series progresses.

10 Best: “My Mom Made It For Me”

The beginning of the pilot is a quick sum-up of Superman’s origins and his relationship with Lois Lane, which is essentially a string of fan-pleasing Easter eggs. By far the best scene involves Superman stopping a runaway car in what is supposedly one of his first appearances. Not only is the car and Superman’s handling of it a reference to the cover of Action Comics #1, but Superman’s suit in this scene is also based on the Fleischer Superman cartoons of the ’40s.

To make the scene completely perfect, he also has a quick dialogue exchange with a young boy that’s directly based on the Superman For All Seasons graphic novel by Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb, which reveals that his mom made his super-suit.

9 Worst: Lois Lane Is Sidelined

While not tied to any specific scene in the pilot, despite being half of the show’s title it became obvious very quickly that Lois Lane was not going to be the focus of the first episode. The origin scenes at the start all take place from Clark’s perspective, as do all the interactions with the boys, and the episode is generally about whether he is a good father.

Lois seems to have a story set up for the season where she investigates Morgan Edge and what he’s doing to both Metropolis and Smallville, but the Superman & Lois pilot doesn’t even confirm for sure if this is the case.

8 Best: Saving The Reactor

After the opening, the first proper introduction the audience has to Tyler Hoechlin’s new and improved Superman is when he’s sent in to stop a reactor meltdown. The scene begins with Superman surveying the reactor while listening to the advice of the technicians with his super-hearing.

He then seals the rupture with his heat vision but it needs water to cool. What follows is a wonderful straight-faced reference to a scene in Superman III where Superman flies to a nearby lake, freezes a large chunk of it, and then flies the ice block in to save the day.

7 Worst: Superman Vs Raiden

After Clark Kent returns home, while still in Metropolis, Lois informs him that while he was saving the reactor he missed his son Jordan’s therapy session. When he goes in to see him, Jordan is playing Injustice 2, the DC Comics fighting game from the creators of Mortal Kombat. 

Clark thinks his son is playing Superman but is actually playing Mortal Kombat‘s Raiden. While the cameo appearance by the game is neat, it raises a number of questions for anyone familiar with the game’s story. The whole basis of the plot is that Superman changes for the worse after Lois Lane dies, and the statue in the background shows this moment, which makes little sense on the show.

6 Best: The Fight In Metropolis

After Jonathan and Jordan discover that their Dad is Superman, Clark is pulled away to deal with what’s supposedly another nuclear reactor in trouble, but it turns out to be a trap set by a mysterious stranger in an armored suit. This stranger turns out to be resistant to all of Superman’s powers and can fly with the aid of a jetpack, and the pair fight all the way to Metropolis before heading up to outer space.

Then the stranger pulls out a Kryptonite knife and stabs Superman with it, before letting him falls to Earth. It’s the most epic scene in the pilot, and it’s almost as cool as the fight with Zod at the end of Man of Steel.

5 Worst: Lana Lang At The Bank

The unfortunate reality of Superman & Lois is that it can’t all be exciting outer space fights between Superman and the Stranger, and there have to be more mundane scenes that see Lois and Clark dealing with real-world issues. These scenes help to humanize Superman and some are fine, but they don’t all have to be quite as boring as the scene where the couple discusses mortgage issues with Lana Lang at the bank.

The worst part about this scene, however, is that it makes Lana far duller than she’s ever been previously. This version doesn’t even know that Clark is Superman, whereas in the comics she’s usually the first to discover his secret.

4 Best: Jordan Has The Power

Following the funeral of Martha Kent, Jordan and Jonathan go into the barn and are involved in an accident where a load of heavy pipes falls on them, and yet neither seem to be harmed.

The family suspects that it’s Jonathan Kent who has the powers, so they shielded Jordan from the pipes, they all discover that the opposite is true when Jordan uses heat vision to save his brother from several violent bullies. It helps to subvert expectations because Jonathan is Superboy in the comics.

3 Worst: Funeral Meet-Cute

The death of Martha Kent is the saddest moment in the episode and is in many ways the event that drives all of Superman & Lois. It’s also the worst possible time to introduce a potential (and likely) teenage love triangle. It is just as awkward as it sounds, as Jonathan and Jordan both attempt to impress Lana Lang’s daughter Sarah, including a selection of embarrassing compliments and their manly attempts to reset the Kent farm’s internet router.

While the scene eventually gets interesting with a terrible accident, no amount of serious injury makes up for the pain the audience had to endure.

2 Best: The Stranger Revealed

In the run-up to the release of Superman & Lois, the big mystery revolved around the armored enemy that the marketing only referred to as “the Stranger.” Fans expected the Stranger’s identity to be teased throughout the season and revealed at some point as a big twist, but instead, the character was at least partially unmasked at the end of the pilot episode.

As the armored antagonist approaches their ship, they remove their mask to reveal a bald head, and their computer identifies them as “Captain Luthor.” Presumably, this is Lex Luthor of another Earth, and they have the same hatred of Superman that all Luthors have.

1 Worst: The Diversity Issue

Unfortunately, the worst moment regarding the Superman & Lois pilot isn’t specifically tied to any scene, as it’s the controversy surrounding the whole show that occurred prior to broadcast. The short version is that writer Nadria Tucker, who worked on Superman & Lois, accused the CW of firing her to silence her attempts to create more diversity on the show.

While Lois Lane is sidelined in the pilot, Tucker suggests this will continue throughout the series, and worse, that the notable lack of people of color in the episode was a choice rather than an accident. Whether Tucker’s accusations bear out over the course of Superman & Lois season 1 remains to be seen, but they did cast a cloud over the launch.