Original Air Date: August 17, 2023
Written by: Paul Chang, Cynthia Furey, and Aman Adumer
Lois meets her journalism idol, Vicki Vale - only for Vicki to make Lois question her loyalty to Superman. Meanwhile, Superman hunts down Task Force X while dealing with a new power!
Tropes for this episode include:
- Always Second Best: While bragging about her own accomplishments during her introduction, Vicki Vale mentions that she used to know Perry White from their college days; specifically, he ran the second-best college paper in the country while she ran the first, and she still has a photo of herself holding a giant trophy for it with Perry holding a small medal in the background.
- The Bait: Contrary to his initial claims, Mist was captured along with the other members of Intergang. He's tasked with distracting Superman and leading him into accidents to ruin his good name before sending him at Task Force X under the pretense of helping his sister Siobhan, all so the captured supervillains have a prime opportunity to gang up on Superman. To his credit, he doesn't look happy with having done so.
- Blessed with Suck: Superman's newfound super-hearing means he's constantly being bombarded with pleas for help that he can't bear to ignore, which quickly leads to him running himself to exhaustion.
- Boxed Crook: The episode begins with Livewire, Intergang, and Heat Wave being let out of their prison cells by the General and Amanda Waller, who promptly electrocute them. The General tells them that he's willing to overlook the fact that they stole top secret weapons technology to commit petty crimes and endangered the public while doing so, if they agree to help take down Superman. An offer they happily agree to since it was Superman that subdued them and allowed the General to capture and imprison them.
- Broken Pedestal: Lois has always looked up to Vicki Vale. However, once she finds out Vicki was only using her and Jimmy to slander Superman and get a promotion over in Gotham, Lois loses all respect for her.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Superman getting captured by Task Force X, and Lois and Jimmy watch helplessly as the plane carrying him takes off.
- Darkest Hour: Fitting the episode's status as Part 1 of a larger episode, it drags the heroes down even further than ever before. Clark gets brutally beaten down and captured by Task Force X, Superman becomes a Hero with Bad Publicity after inadvertently causing a single accident, and Lois and Jimmy are too late to either save Clark or stop Vicki Vale from publishing her hit piece dragging Superman through the mud even more.
- Detrimental Determination: Clark's determination to find the General and help people whose problems he can now hear everywhere in the city leads him to stay up for days racing around the city and neglecting his own health. He winds up causing a few accidents due to his exhaustion, and when he finally meets Task Force X they're able to overpower him because he's too tired to put up a better fight.
- Downer Ending: The episode ends with Superman finally being captured by the General.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Superman makes one mistake and instantly the media turns against him, with comments like "he's not like us" and "he should go back to where he came from". Never has the statement "Superman has always being an immigrant story" rang more true than this episode.
- Easily Condemned: After Superman causes one accident with the truck, the citizens are quick to believe the slander about him being a menace is true and turn against him.
- The Ending Changes Everything: The end of the episode showing Mist lowering the neck of his shirt, revealing he has been a part of Task Force X let "loose" as bait makes the camera work come across as its own Unreliable Narrator, since while his explanation of how he avoided capture was weak so the accompanying shot of his "escape" could easily be a lie, it did include the exact shot of Intergang we saw last before Slade took them in and even before his bit of narrating, he's notably absent when we see The General "recruit" the current rogues, and prior to it Albert and Siobahn only acknowledge each other in their cell so it looks like Kyle isn't with them.
- Exhausted Eyebags: Clark is run ragged by constantly saving everyone around the city now that he can hear them in trouble all the time, and this is shown by the prominent bags under his eyes when Jimmy comes back to their apartment.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Mist has a guilty expression on his face as he sees Superman being beaten down, even though he was tasked with luring him into the trap in the first place. While unstated, it's presumably because the latter saved his life, then agreed to help save his sister and best friend even with no benefit to himself, and Mist took advantage of his genuine kindness to have Task Force X beat him down.
- Fantastic Racism: While there's an element of Beware the Superman to it with Alex noting how powerful Superman is and how dangerous it could be if he turned on them, both Alex and Vicki (and later the citizens of Metropolis) deem Superman to be untrustworthy and dangerous because he's not human and "not normal like us". This mindset even becomes eerily similar to real-life racism at times, with Vicki remarking that Superman's destruction of Ivo Tower "wiped out good American jobs" and Clark later reading a comment saying he should "go back to where he came from". Even Lois starts to succumb to it due to learning about other dimensions where Clark is evil.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Mist tells Superman that his various foes are all being victimized by the General, Ivo is shown being lined up and zapped with his shock collar and looking as scared as the others. Given that we've already seen that Ivo is a willing collaborator who was let out at least a week before the others and was aware of the shock collars before they were first used, it's clear that Mist's recollection of events is not accurate to reality—and thus it's not hard to piece together that he is misleading Superman.
- Flowers of Romance: Clark fills their office with flowers for his one-week anniversary of dating Lois. He also leaves one in her hand in between darting around helping people.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: For his and Lois' one-week anniversary, Clark fills the newspaper morgue with a huge number of flowers. As over-the-top as this is, Lois is clearly touched.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Task Force X's team consists of 6 villains to fight to fight Superman. Silver Banshee, Livewire and Heatwave this version being a woman, all attack with ranged abilities, the male Dr. Ivo, Deathstroke, and Roughhouse all get the physical blows on Superman.
- Heroic Second Wind: Superman gets one near the end of his fight with Task Force X that allows him to turn the tides, single-handedly defeating nearly all of them (even Deathstroke, who he'd previously lost against solo). If not for Parasite's resistance to direct attacks and energy absorption allowing him to exploit Superman's own power boost to become even stronger, Superman would've won.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Superman pushes Mist out of the path of a truck and is hit by it. Because no one can see Mist, however, it looks like Superman just stopped the truck for no reason and endangered civilians. Public opinion against him, including those he had helped that same day.
- Hypocrite: When Lois and Jimmy point out that Alex is a biased source against Superman, Vicki points out that all of their previous sources were biased for Superman, and that Lois and Jimmy chose these sources because of that. While she's completely correct, that doesn't change the fact that Alex is still a biased source, and even if he weren't she ignores all of the pro-Superman sources in favor of writing a hit piece using the one anti-Superman source (the exact thing she called out Lois and Jimmy for doing, just with the pro-Superman and anti-Superman sides reversed).
- Innocently Insensitive: Lois means well when she tells Clark he should cut down on the heroics because of both his worsening public image and how he's overworking himself to exhaustion. Unfortunately, the way she words this is by telling Clark to be "normal" for a change, which Clark is very sensitive about because of his alien origins. Lois does try to apologize for what she said, but Clark flies away before she can properly do so.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While he's completely dodging responsibility for his own actions when blaming Superman for the incident at Ivo Tower and is trying to condemn Superman over hypothetical scenarios, Alex isn't entirely wrong when he argues that Superman's current morality doesn't matter when the fact remains he's a Flying Brick against whom there are no viable countermeasures should he ever turn on humanity.
- Karma Houdini: Alex is not criticized by either Lois or Jimmy about the fact that his boss Ivo went Drunk with Power and tried to kill innocent people while also trying to take down Superman, and he was helping Ivo out.
- Logical Weakness:
- Less a direct weakness than an added disadvantage due to his new ability. Being able to hear others from miles away is an immense advantage to Clark, but as he's such a Nice Guy that he's compelled to step in and use his powers for others the moment he realizes they're in danger, now being able to sense this unaided drives him to relentlessly perform acts of heroism non-stop until he becomes sleep deprived and slightly manic from the strain.
- The fact he can hear everybody doesn't automatically mean he can locate them if they're not nearby and he can't zero in on their location. Clark overhears the General announcing to Task Force X that they'll soon be ready to stop him once their operation concludes whilst he's flying through the city, but can't tell where exactly he's speaking from, fuelling his self-destructive searching for him in hopes of hearing another conversation with the General to find him.
- In terms of actual powers, Superman's new superhearing also makes obvious changes to how difficult Silver Banshee and Mist are to deal with. Since Mist's invisibility is only visual Clark's improved hearing makes him much easier to find when cloaked than he was in their first encounter. On the other hand, Silver Banshee's Sonic Scream hits Superman harder, on top of his aforementioned strain.
- Malicious Slander: It's clear from the beginning that Vicki Vale sees Superman as a villain (or at least wants him to be because it makes for a juicier story) and is willing to do anything to make Metropolis think the same. Between her use of biased sources, ignoring evidence that damages her argument, and aided by Superman's accidental property damage the same day, she publishes an article that seemingly succeeds.
- Manipulative Bitch: Vicki approaches Perry under the guise of her being rumored to leave the Gazette, with Perry wanting her to join the Daily Planet. Later, it's revealed that this was a lie and that she was merely using the Planet to promote herself.
- Misplaced Retribution: Alex blames Superman for breaking Ivo Tower, bankrupting Amazo Tech, and putting thousands out of work. It was Ivo who put Amazo Tech in financial jeopardy (which was already happening long before Superman even entered the picture), assaulted people (the window is still shattered from when he threw a board member out of it), and broke the tower trying to fight Superman (who was only trying to contain the damage Ivo had already done), and Alex directly helped him in all of the above.
- Mythology Gag:
- Vicki is mentioned as having covered Queen Industries, helped expose the Falcone Crime Family, and of course works for the Gotham Gazette.
- Alex's distrust of Superman is rooted in the notion that it'd take just "one bad day" for Superman to become an unstoppable threat. He's saying this to Gotham's own Vicki Vale to drive the reference home.
- Never My Fault: On top of Alex blaming Superman for Ivo's actions, he completely ignores his own role in helping Ivo fight Superman, regardless of whether it was as a Punch-Clock Villain or something more.
- New Superpower: This episode is when Clark unlocks his Super-Hearing.
- Only Sane Man: In Alex's interview, Alex is actively trying to blame Superman for Ivo's actions, Vicki is mining for Malicious Slander, and Lois is too distracted by seeing alternate versions of Superman to really contribute. Jimmy winds up being the one to snap back and point out that Superman hasn't hurt anyone and their demonization of him has no basis in reality.
- Pragmatic Villainy: While the General wants to put an end to Superman, for the time being he still needs him alive so he can interrogate him about Zero Day. When Dr. Ivo tries to kill Superman and ignores the General's order to stand down, he electrocutes Ivo into submission, saving Superman's life.
- Samaritan Syndrome: After developing Super-Senses, Clark struggles to compartmentalize, staying awake for long periods of time while dosing up on caffeine so that he can keep helping as many people as possible now that he can hear their problems constantly, even when it's something as simple as a little girl looking for her parents. It contributes to his defeat and capture at the end of the episode, since he's too exhausted to think clearly or act capably.
- See the Invisible: Thanks to his super hearing, Superman is able to sense Mist's location despite his invisibility, shown to the viewer as Mist being light blue and transparent.
- Shut Up, Kirk!:
- Jimmy gets fed up with Alex blaming Superman for everything, pointing out that Superman has only ever used his powers to save people. Alex doesn't care, declaring that Superman is too powerful and too inhuman to be anything but a threat.
- When Task Force X calls him evil and Superman protests that he just wants to help people, the General shuts him up by ordering Livewire to blast him mid-sentence.
- Special Edition Title: Just like "You Will Believe a Man Can Lie", the end credits don't feature Jimmy walking, nor are there any photos shown, and dramatic music starts playing to reflect the episode's Darkest Hour.
- Super-Hearing: Clark finally starts developing the super hearing abilities of other versions of Superman. Unfortunately for him, now that he can hear the cries for help from all over the city and being the kind of guy he is, Clark is now compelled to fly around non-stop trying to fix every problem in the city, to the point of becoming sleep deprived.
- Taken During the Ending: After the General is able to take down Superman using Task Force X, the episode ends with Superman being taken away on a plane while Lois and Jimmy arrived to late to help.
- Took a Level in Badass: All the villains Superman previously stopped have been given upgrades. Now they have armor and flight capabilities to keep up with Superman. Parasite's suit also doesn't seem to have the self-draining weakness it did prior. The exception is Mist, who serves as bait and has powers that aren't suited for direct combat regardless.
- Understatement: Clark has this to say about his new hearing abilities allowing him to sense when an entire city's worth of people need his help.Clark: Gah! I can hear everyone and Jimmy- Jimmy? Jimmy....They have problems.
- Ungrateful Townsfolk: Even though he's been saving them all series and has spent the last few days running himself ragged to try and solve all their problems, all it takes is Superman causing one accident and a hit piece by Vicki Vale for Metropolis to turn on him.
- Played with. If you look closely, the likes/dislikes for the video of Superman causing an accident is about 50/50, implying the townsfolk are arguing whether Superman is good or bad rather than all turning on him. And upon seeing him being nearly beaten to death by the villains the only reaction they have is horror, disbelief and shock.
- Worf Had the Flu: Due to running himself ragged responding to every single call for help, Clark is far from at his best when Task Force X descends on him all at once. It doesn't help that the cloudy day is interfering with his ability to absorb more sunlight. As a result, he's beaten within an inch of his life and captured, but not before nearly subduing everybody regardless with a Heroic Second Wind until Ivo interfered.
