Something often missing from comics are consequences. The stories often have world, universe, or multiverse-wide consequences, so the writers have to end with the heroes winning most of the time. Comic companies don't randomly kill off bankable characters, either. As a result, it can feel like nothing changes. Superman & Lois, especially this final season, has pushed back against that. We recently wrote about why the show is so well suited to modern television, and this episode is no exception, as it deals with the celebrity, mortality, and mob mentality that come with being a well-known superhero. Spoilers follow for Superman & Lois Season 4, Episode 08, "Killer Suit."

"Killer Suit"

There are so may things I like in this episode that it's hard to know where to start. Following Clark's self-unmasking, things quickly shift around the Kent family. Lex challenges Lois to a live, televised debate where he plans to gotcha her with some damning clips that show what a bad man Clark is. When someone throws a brick through the window of the Smallville Gazette, Clark protects Lois, but the change in Clark's reaction time catches John Henry Irons' eye. The Kent boys are living their own lives, though, and they're finding out that people are very curious about two young men walking around with superpowers.

The Tom Cavanagh of It All

The show Lex chooses is pretty obviously poking at the Fox News suite of talking head shows. The host of the show is Gordon Godfrey, played by the actor Tom Cavanagh. If you've been watching the Arrowverse very much at all, you'll recognize Cavanagh as the actor who played the Reverse-Flash, also known as Eobard Thawne, as well as a laundry list of guys named Harrison Wells throughout the 9-season run of The Flash. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on where you stand, he's not reprising a role.

It's interesting that they cast Cavanagh again, considering his history with DC shows on the CW network. He's fun as Godfrey, a guy who is there to be a celebrity and make money, and to be shameless about it, but it's strange seeing him in the same room as Superman and not hearing Reverse-Flash's trademark helicopter whir sound. It doesn't affect the quality of the show, but is a metatexually weird thing.

Fading Out

One of the most important and most lauded elements of this season of Superman & Lois is how the show handled resurrecting its main character. By giving him Sam Lane's heart, they were able to bring the character back but retain the mortality that Doomsday introduces for the character. While he's been trying to hide it, John Henry is quick to notice it and asks him back to his workshop to run some tests.

I do love how these CW DC shows tend to let every super-tech genius also be a medical doctor. How many times has John Henry, Cisco Ramon, Harrison Wells, Felicity Smoak, or some other tech weirdo on one of these shows made a conclusive diagnosis about the main character's health? What makes armorsmith John Henry qualified to offer this advice? It's not important, though. What is important is what the diagnosis means for the character.

Irons' reveal is that, essentially, Superman isn't getting any younger. He's not going to start healing like he used to ever again. His hearing isn't going to come back. His body may be Kryptonian, but his heart is human, and the body will follow the heart--which used to belong to a man in his 60s. Clark will one day essentially be human. He may be alive, but the consequences of his death seem to be unescapable. And he's only just revealed to the world that he's Superman--right as he's beginning to weaken.

Clark is experiencing his worst nightmare inside of his worst nightmare (maybe second-worst nightmare), and here he is, remaining stoic and sane and present for his family.

The Bait and Debate

Central to all of the events in the episode is the so-called debate between Lois Lane and Lex Luthor (they should've had it sponsored by LL Bean and moderated by LL Cool J). As the viewers, we're in step with Lois, knowing that Lex would never challenge her to a debate he thought he might lose.

And that's because this is all orchestrated by his assistant, Amanda. The morally questionable Lois Lane to his Superman. One of the best scenes of this episode occurs as Luthor is prepping for the debate. Godfrey's crew is all up in his penthouse, and Lex is watching these strangers eat food, drop things, make noise, in his space, and even appears to be on the verge of a panic attack for a moment, and intends to stop the debate from happening because it's not a sure thing. Amanda is the one who puts her foot down, though--she knows Lois will show, she knows Lex will win. As his assistant/protege/lover, she knows that you have a backup plan for your backup plan, and she's working on something.

This is all key to humanizing Lex for us as viewers. He's hardly a sympathetic character, but he is fallible, and it helps make it look to us like he might be vulnerable in this head-to-head battle of words.

The whole thing is interrupted by John Henry, though through no fault of his own. Lex's tech guy has hacked the Irons' suits and in an extra-cruel twist, John Henry finds himself inside the suit as it goes--out of his control--to attack Superman. It almost feels like a mirror to their first meeting, or a revisiting. Superman is once again battling Irons' armor, but without Irons' consent.

Of course, this story is also about Lois, and it bubbles to the surface an important truth about the very core of her character. Lois is a passionate, well-known, and award-winning journalist. Journalism has a rigorous set of ethics associated with it, and she's upheld those ethics for years. But now the world knows that, for 20 years, she's been writing about her own husband as if it was impartial, and that she's told hundreds of lies as a result of that just in her articles alone. And it gives Lex power: if we know that Lois has been lying for almost her entire career, what does that say about her accusations against him? The circumstances speak for themselves.

Tiger Beat Magazine

While Lois and Clark are worrying about the debate, Jonathan and Jordan discover that while the convenience store clerk on main street might not pay them any extra attention, there are lots of people who know their way to Smallville and are curious about the young men.

One of the key parts of the story of Bizarro Superman was that he had gone public with his identity, affecting and twisting the lives of his wife and sons. Jonathan, especially, fell victim to the celebrity of it all. We're too late into the show--just two episodes left--to really explore this storyline. It would be awesome to see how it affects Jonathan and Jordan. The actors are up to the task, and this would've made for a great Season 5 plotline. It's abbreviated here, but still believable. The show has done such a good job of giving the boys a strong moral compass without making them infallible that you can believe they're affected by the celebrity without falling victim to it.

The story does explore the consequences, though, by having Jonathan's girlfriend Candice break things off with him. With their identities public, people take notice of the relationship and respond as poorly as you would expect in 2024 online terms. Candice tells Jonathan that someone offered her life-changing amounts of money to talk about what it's like to date him, and it gives us an eye into the burden that being with him put on her almost immediately.

The two reconcile, and we get to spend some time with the boys, Candice, and Natalie Irons, who are now all tangling with different versions of being suddenly thrust into a kind of adulthood. Candice is a Super Girlfriend, the boys are Super Boys, and Natalie pledged her time to the Department of Defense's weapons program. For each, their life is no longer wholly their own.

Their day ends with an attack by Natalie's hacked armor, which the boys work together to defeat, and that makes me wonder if we're going to see a face-off between Lex and the three Kryptonians--and if the boys are going to suit-up for the final episode.

This is another strong episode that gives us real, meaningful time with all the major characters makes them all relevant to the main story, and finds ways to tell us things about Superman and his world.