Recap of Superman & Lois
Season 1, Episode 7
Man of Steel
Tropes:
- Affectionate Nickname: Irons calls his daughter "Nat-Bug".
- Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving:Clark: Which was incredibly reckless and dangerous and irresponsible and absolutely necessary. You both saved my life tonight, so I owe you a pretty big thank you.
- Bad Liar: Sarah immediately sees through Jonathan's initial attempts to cover for Jordan.
- Big Damn Heroes: Jonathan and Jordan save their father with Car Fu, just short of Irons nearly about to bash his head in with his hammer.
- Canon Character All Along: "Captain Luthor" is actually John Henry Irons, aka Steel.
- Car Fu: Jon rams Irons using the family truck to save their distressed father. Irons manages to stop most of the impact with his hammer, but it still takes him straight out of the fight and allows Jon to smash the red sun lights depowering Superman.
- Crisis Makes Perfect: After days of struggling to control his new power without success, Jordan's super hearing gets the right motivation to properly work when he realizes someone is about to kill his father.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: The John Henry Irons of Earth-Prime died 6 years ago.
- Destruction Equals Off-Switch: While it's perfectly logical for one red sun light to stop working when Jonathan smashes it, there's no detailed explanation for why all the other lights malfunction and turn off.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Clark and Lois initially suspect Irons to be a secret relative to Lex Luthor, possibly even his son.
- Exact Words: When Sarah calls him out on lying about Jordan's absence, Jon honestly tells her about Tag attacking Jordan and Jordan's headaches, without explicitly connecting the two as related. He lampshades it to Jordan later, noting it was technically true even though it was still a roundabout lie.
- Flashback: Several towards Irons's past, from the army of Supermen going rogue, over his version of Lois being incinerated by one of them, to him and his daughter building his suit and him eventually leaving to kill Kal-El of Earth-Prime.
- Forced to Watch: Irons and his daughter Nat are forced to watch one of Superman incinerate Lois live on television.
- Foreshadowing: When Clark enters John's RV, the AI calls him "Captain Luthor" despite having no reason to do so, just reacting to his presence. This hints at the fact that the AI is flawed in some way, and wasn't referring to Irons by his real name.
- Internal Reveal:
- Lois and Clark reveal everything they know about Edge and Irons to the boys.
- Sarah learns about Tag assaulting Jordan.
- Jerkass Realization: At the end of the episode, Jordan apologizes for his jealous outburst towards his brother and spying on him.
- Kid Sidekick: Irons's daughter Nat helped him build his suit and was in the process of making further enhancements.
- Let No Crisis Go to Waste: Leslie Larr overhears Superman fighting Irons with her super-hearing. Realizing he'll be distracted, she has Edge ship the X-Kryptonite so he won't be able to intercept the shipment as both men did with the first one.
- Lured into a Trap: Irons arranges a meeting with Superman and goads him into attacking, having set up motion-activated red sun lamps to sap his powers on approach.
- Manly Tears: Irons is seen crying in his cell, thinking about his daughter.
- Mythology Gag: Recently in the comics, Lois used Car Fu to rescue Clark and their son Jon (and also Diana and Bruce) when they were all incapacitated.
- Not What It Looks Like: Or sounds like, at any rate. Jordan uses his super-hearing to overhear a conversation between Sarah and Jon, which makes him think Jon is making a move on her since he has no other context. After a chewing out by Jon, Jordan admits he jumped to conclusions and apologizes.
- Parental Sexuality Squick: In one of the flashbacks, Nat is obviously annoyed at her parents being overly affectionate towards each other and sarcastically says her "childhood is ruined".
- Power Nullifier: Irons uses red sun lamps to weaken Superman significantly. Absent the intervention of Jon and Jordan, Lois admits that Irons nearly succeeded in killing him.
- Punch a Wall: Jordan does this when he overhears Jon's conversation with Sarah and misinterprets it, punching straight through the drywall.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Jonathan gets mad at Jordan for spying on him with his Super-Hearing and accusing him of hitting on Sarah.Jonathan: Wow, I have had your back every time someone has called you dumb or weird or stupid or awkward. I never believed any of it! I never believed any of it because it's not true. You're just a terrible person! Don't ever spy on me again!
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: After Jonathan disable the red sun lamps, Clark's eyes once again flare up in red. He then picks up Irons and prepares to punch him, but Lois stops him and brings him back to his senses.
- Related Differently in the Adaptation: In the comics, Nat is John Henry's niece, not his daughter.
- The Reveal: "Captain Luthor" is actually John Henry Irons, a.k.a. Steel. The reason his AI calls him that is because it is a repurposed LexCorp AI that he didn't have time to reprogram to properly recognize him.
- Sensory Overload: Jordan is overwhelmed by his Super-Hearing through most of the episode. At the end, when he hears that his dad is in mortal danger, he finally gets the hang of it.
- Servile Snarker: The AI sarcastically advises Irons not to crush her to smithereens next time.
- Ship Tease: Tegan Wickhem hits on Jonathan, though Sarah is quick to tell him that she is "out of his league".
- Super Prototype: Leslie Larr is the only stable attempt to give humans Kryptonian powers.
- Survival Mantra: "Forged in fire, strong as steel" is apparently the one of Irons and his daughter Nat.
- Take Over the World: Morgan Edge's plan with the X-Kryptonite, according to Irons.
- Title Drop: Irons calls himself The Man Of Steel.
- Unwitting Pawn: Lana's friend Emily, who is overjoyed at being chosen for Edge's "Young Executive Program". In reality, he plans to use her for X-Kryptonite trials and picked her outside of Lana's recommendations, simply because he noticed Lana meeting with her.
- Wham Line: "The thing of it is, his name's not Luthor. It's John Henry Irons."
- Wham Shot: In a flashback, we see the first attack by the Superman of Irons's world. First Superman descends from the clouds. Then multiple other flying, caped figures do the same and begin attacking with heat vision.
