Since the second season of Superman & Lois premiered two weeks ago, poor Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) has been dealing with painful visions of some creature locked in the nearby Shuster mines. In last night’s episode, aptly titled “The Thing in the Mines,” the titular thing burst free and beat the crap out of Superman and Steel (Wolé Parks) before revealing its face—and it’s not the villain everyone was expecting.
If you aren’t up on the current S&L, the creature in the mines was assumed to be Doomsday for a variety of reasons, the first being that it was dressed in the full bodysuit worn by the supervillain in the comics before the better-known, spiky grey version emerged. The second is that season one heavily dealt with John Henry Irons/Steel, and the Eradicator (albeit very different incarnations), two of the four “replacement” Supermen who emerged in the comics after Doomsday famously killed the Man of Steel in 1993.
It was the obvious answer, but it turns out it was also wrong. Because when Steel manages to blow off part of the thing’s helmet, Superman is extremely surprised to see his own face—pale, scarred, but definitely still portrayed by Tyler Hoechlin—staring back at him before it speaks in some alien language and flies away.
It’s Bizarro! Well, a Bizarro. There’s absolutely no indication why Bizarro would be hanging out/imprisoned in a mine, let alone where he comes from. In his many, many incarnations in the comics, Bizarro was most often portrayed as a failed clone of Superman created by Lex Luthor, but since Lex—wonderfully portrayed by Jon Cryer in Supergirl—hasn’t appeared in Superman & Lois yet, that might be off the table. Or it could presage Lex making his way to the show! Who knows!
What I do know is that I love how Superman & Lois keeps throwing these curveballs to keep fans on their toes. When Steel first arrived, he was called Captain Luthor, implying he was a Lex Luthor from another universe. Morgan Edge (Adam Rayner) seemed like a reasonably straightforward interpretation of the evil media mogul before the character revealed he was also Superman’s half-brother Tal-Rho, who later merges with the Eradicator. It seems highly unlikely that Bizarro’s secrets have all been revealed yet—for instance, why was he speaking in an alien language? Feel free to offer your theories in the comments.
Superman & Lois airs Tuesday evenings on the CW.
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