My Adventures with Superman 3×05 Review: “Death of Superman”

My Adventures with Superman season 3 episode 5, titled ‘Death of Superman’, offered a whole lot of emotion and action before changing things for the core cast in a major way.

Due to the current episode being titled ‘Death of Superman’, I was looking forward to seeing how the writing team would handle the iconic moment from the original comic book story without killing off Superman. I had two theories in mind. The first theory involved Jon finding a way to send Superman to the future to save him from his “present” demise. The second theory was about the writers doing something to “kill” the Superman side of Clark Kent. And I’m glad to say that the creative team went with the second theory.

With Hank deciding to attack Metropolis to lure out Superman and Supergirl, the latest episode featured lots of action as Superman took on Hank, while Kara dealt with Hank’s powerful robotic drones. Of course, the two Kryptonians also had to save the humans who might be harmed during the fight. Hank, on the other hand, didn’t care about any human casualties that might occur.

I do have to say that Hank’s attitude toward humans getting harmed didn’t make sense to me, especially with how he was waxing poetic about being humanity’s true hero. Yes, I get he was angry that people had accepted aliens like Superman and Supergirl as their saviors while rejecting Hank. But still, I don’t think Hank would have gone out of his way to deliberately put bystanders in danger. That’s why Hank’s ignoring such casualties felt like an excuse for the writers to keep making things more difficult for Supes instead of something that would be in character for Hank to do.

With Hank and his drones keeping Supes and Supergirl busy, Jon finally had a conversation with Lois about the future that he’s from. I understand how certain fans would have preferred Jon to tell his parents the truth earlier. But then again, I can’t blame some like Jon for skirting the topic and wanting to spend as much happy time with the younger versions of his parents as possible. Jon’s not a cold-hearted child soldier who always stuck to the mission. And that’s a good thing.

Jon joining his father and aunt in the fight against Hank made sense. Hank was responsible for killing Supes, and Jon was going to do everything in his power to prevent that from happening. I also liked Jon having a conversation with Kara, who had been feeling ignored by Jon in the previous episode. Turns out, Kara had raised Jon after Lois and Clark’s deaths. However, Kara was also eventually killed by Hank’s forces. Jon had been keeping his distance from Kara because he didn’t want to lose her again. My heart!

In a way, while Kara hadn’t been able to raise a baby Clark on Earth, as planned by their parents in comic book canon, she did manage to raise Clark’s son down the line. Again. My heart!

Realizing that he couldn’t stop the younger version of his aunt from protecting him, Jon revealing a prototype Kryptonite-resistance suit was quite surprising. The suit didn’t help much with Jon and Kara sharing half a suit each, but it made sense for someone like Lex to have created a Kryptonite-resistance suit in the future.

And why was such a suit necessary? Well, it was because Hank’s Cyborg Superman body was being powered by a Kryptonite core, which had already done a number on Supes. The visual of Kryptonite crystals growing on Supes’ weak body… nice!

I also liked Lois and Jimmy driving to Lex to force him to shut Hank down. Again, it wasn’t something that would stop such a villain, but yay to Lois and Jimmy doing what they could to play a role in stopping Hank.

A major emotional moment involved Supes finding immense willpower to override the negative effects of Kryptonite poisoning and proceeding to destroy Hank’s body.

I can understand certain fans rolling their eyes at Supes getting rid of Kryptonite from his body through the power of love. But that moment worked for me. Parents have been known to go to great lengths to protect their children. That’s why seeing Supes finding the strength to save Jon from Hank’s killing blow made sense to me. Also, that act came with a price. So, it’s not as if Supes somehow achieved everlasting Kryptonite immunity.

With the aftermath leaving Clark without his superpowers, I’m very excited about how the writers will have Clark deal with not only living life as a mortal human, but also not being able to protect Earth the way he used to. Metropolis still had Supergirl, and Clark will get his powers back, of course. But until that happens, I’m very intrigued by the emotional journey Clark will experience. It’s a nice move to not only stay true to the theme of the original ‘Death of Superman’ storyline, but to have Clark live life as a human without needing to suppress his powers.

The robots in the Fortress of Solitude will likely be the ones to find a way to supercharge Clark with the power of the sun to turn him into Superman again.

As for Jon, with Hank defeated, he needed to go back to his time. Also, the teen didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, considering his time-travel watch was running out of juice. I knew Jon’s future would be different after what happened in the past/present. But at least he got to spend some quality time with his parents, and his appearance also strengthened the bond between Clark and Lois.

Coming to how Hank was defeated, I mean, it could definitley would have been better. I’m just glad it wasn’t yet another tired example of Talk-No Jutsu and had more to do with Hank accepting his fate and the future. Kryptonians like Superman, who served to protect humanity, were here to stay, and Hank needed to get with the program.

Due to Hank being taken off the chessboard, you can bet on Lex to continue causing trouble for everybody, especially because we have five more episodes to go this season.

Did you watch My Adventures with Superman season 3 episode 5? What did you think of it?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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