The CW-DC universe is, perhaps, one of them most important cornerstones of the superhero media boom of the last decade and a half. As the pop culture proliferation of live-action comic adaptations spread in the wake of the MCU’s birth, it was DC, not Marvel, who led the charge with the likes of arrow, The Flashand its spin-offs and sequels, proving not only that this material could work and thrive in live action, but even more so that it could work on TV budgets like this. And so it is important to note that the long past of that time came its final end this week with the series finale Superman and Lois (even if, technically, it was not part of this same interconnected reality).
But it’s also important to note that it ended in one of the most absurd ways possible.
“It Gont By So Fast” focused heavily on Clark’s final battle with Lex Luthor and Doomsday (after the latter had already killed him earlier in the season; they’re comics, of course it got better, for very specific reasons we will return). later), as father and sons banded together to end their nefarious alliance. But with that out of the way, the episode became a sentimental epilogue that was, well… mostly about Superman getting old and dying.
You see, after his first death this season, Clark was brought back thanks to a heart transplant from Sam Lane, his father-in-law after he was also killed by Doomsday, giving him a human heart and remaining life, instead of a Kryptonian. So after the battle with Lex and Doomsday, Clark and Lois retire to live their lives. The children grow up, Lois’s cancer returns and leads to her death, Clark finally get a dog named Krypto company. It’s all very sentimental and touching, a reflection of how important Superman’s sense of humanity is (literally, in this case) since Clark is as important to him as being Superman.
And then Clark has a heart attack while walking with Krypto, dies, and exits his own body as a ghost of his younger self. In non-denominational heaven. Which looks like the Kent family farmhouse with a lot more bright light everywhere.
During a somber closing narration from star Tyler Hoechlin, we see Ghost Clark embrace younger versions of his children, catch glimpses of what are presumably a whole litter of grandchildren, and even reconcile with a tearful Lex, who happens to be in the same afterlife as Clark for some reason, but Sam Lane isn’t, which makes us wonder whether or not having an actual heart is the gateway to CW-DC Heaven . But then Kent’s Heavenly Children open the farmhouse door to Ghost Clark to reveal that yes, Lois Is In Her Heaven, All’s Right With the World. And she’s also young and hot, as we’ve come to know her throughout the series, and in the same glamorous red dress she was rocking in last season’s “The Dress,” so she and Clark they embrace and make each other in heaven.
That’s right, this is how generations of CW and DC union ends. In a way, it’s fitting, bittersweet and sentimental and with its heart in the right place. Heck, it even matches how the show that started it all, arrow, he also concluded leaving Oliver and Felicity young and hot in the non-denominational afterlife. Maybe it’s in the contract? But it’s also just a completely out-of-left-field option. Perhaps it’s just as fitting that the entire CW-DC universe comes to an end with a moment so absurd that none of us could have predicted it all those years ago, when Oliver Queen was walking around Starling City doing his best impression of Batman, and that’s kind. how glorious that she finally got to a place where she was confident enough to allow herself to do it.
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