The third season of My Adventures with Superman came to a close with Saturday\u2019s episode, \u201cThe Return.\u201d Like previous finales, it was a big brawl that saw our heroes defend the world from danger, while also repeating a point made last season and earlier in this one: family matters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jonathan and Lara Lane, Clark and Lois\u2019 time-traveling kids from a second, worse off future, stand with Kara and ARGUS forces to fight the Eradicator, Lex Luthor\u2019s self-improving android. But as last week\u2019s \u201cVae Victus\u201d\u00a0showed us, Eradicator used Jonathan\u2019s watch to time travel and adapted to enough battles to where it\u2019s returned to the present with years of strategy and combat knowledge under its belt. While the others try to hold their ground against it, Clark takes a trip back to the Fortress of Solitude so he can regain his lost powers.<\/p>\n
Co-showrunner Jake Wyatt wrote \u201cVae,\u201d and admitted to io9 a challenge in landing this particular plane. After season two, the team thought they\u2019d had their fill of Krypton and could move on to other threads. But Clark losing his powers unintentionally made the season \u201ca lot about power,\u201d said Wyatt. \u201cAnd when we asked ourselves, \u2018How does Clark get his powers back?,\u2019 we knew we had to go back to Krypton.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In \u201cVae,\u201d Clark meets an old, uncorrupted version of Brainiac living inside the Fortress\u2019 steward robots, who agrees to restore his powers if he proves his worth. And that means a history lesson: originally as mortal as a depowered Clark, the original Kryptonians fought a group of Coluan refugees, the race known in the comics for creating Brainiac. The Coluans were the first people to be conquered, and Kryptonians used that victory (and their enemy\u2019s technology) to become the empire the evil Brainiac served until his defeat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At our interview, Wyatt confessed \u201cVae\u201d was partially driven by his love of 1982\u2019s Conan the Barbarian. Through the sword and sandals adventure, Clark has to regain his powers on \u201cterms he couldn\u2019t live with,\u201d including the threat of dying in real life if he\u2019s slain in the simulation. He\u2019s shown that right away when, despite his attempts at diplomacy, a Coluan soldier attacks and nearly kills him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead of giving into his rage, Clark spares the soldier and opts to return him back to his fellow Coluans and learns they\u2019re refugees. It\u2019s through this experience that Clark \u201cideologically confronts the core ethos of his people and beats them on his terms,\u201d said Wyatt. Despite Old Brainiac\u2019s urging to kill the refugees, Clark\u2019s able to fulfill his promise without any bloodshed. But Old Brainiac\u2019s not having it: not only is it a betrayal of Krypton\u2019s ethos, it also whitewashes the AI\u2019s personal history. That soldier Clark saved became Brainiac, his brain turned into an artificial intelligence that became, in his words, an \u201ceternal servant of the empire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, Clark\u2019s able to convince the Steward to help him restore his powers. Now Superman once more, it\u2019s time for he and Bizarro to join the others against Eradicator, who takes the form of longtime Superman baddie General Zod. And with five Kryptonian heroes on screen, My Adventures with Superman has its first full Superfamily, a pleasant surprise the season\u2019s early trailers were able to hide.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, picking those family members was a process unto itself. Wyatt revealed there were \u201cmore characters in scripts and outlines\u201d before cuts had to be made. Among those casualties were fully fleshed out versions of Power Girl and Conner Kent, the first non-Clark Superboy. Kon was referenced in marketing posts, so this news likely helps explain some of that social confusion. It\u2019s not new for superhero adaptations to consolidate similar characters, so the current Jonathan has some of Conner\u2019s traits, an apparent compromise to have both Superboys in the cleanest way available.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Conner and Power Girl] had to be totally obliterated out of the season after script, because we didn\u2019t have time to service everything we could come up with,\u201d Wyatt lamented. \u201cIt would\u2019ve been twice the season you got.\u201d<\/p>\n
By his and Clogher\u2019s admission, this season was \u201cso much\u201d to make, and they mentioned the team really \u201cwent for it\u201d and took some swings. At time of writing, there\u2019s no word on if My Adventures with Superman will get a fourth season, but if it does, they\u2019ve got \u201cplans\u201d for Steel, another would-be Superman successor in the \u201cReign of the Superman\u201d arc this show\u2019s adapting. And that\u2019s not the only thing they\u2019ve got designs on, as the season\u2019s final moments show us.<\/p>\n
Eradicator\u2019s defeat means Jon and Lara return to their future, while everyone else relaxes now that they\u2019ve stopped the current crisis. At the farm, Lois asks Clark how he got his powers back, and he mentions making a deal with Rau, the living sun inside of the Fortress. Quick flashes of him getting set ablaze and his vague answer of\u00a0 \u201cno [price] I wasn\u2019t willing to pay\u201d is pretty ominous. Is this deal connected to whatever Lex saw with his interstellar satellites and spooked him into creating the Eradicator?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Any answers will have to wait until we hear about the future of My Adventures with Superman. Until then, the now three seasons are all on HBO Max.<\/p>\n
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.<\/p>\n