The Many Versions of Superman in the Comics & Other Media & Other Thoughts about the Depiction of the Man of Steel & His Supporting Cast through the Years



Superman of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

Superman of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

Bursting onto the small screen in 1993, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman gave audiences a fresh look at the Man of Steel & his longtime girlfriend, Lois Lane, until its cancellation by ABC in 1997. Often hilarious, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman is witty, irreverent, & sometimes absurd throughout its four seasons & 87 episodes. Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman stars Dean Cain (b. 1966 in Mount Clemens, MI!) & Teri Hatcher (b. 1964) & a supporting cast of Lane Smith, Eddie Jones, & K Callan. Dean Cain’s Superman is essentially the same as the John Byrne post-Crisis Superman of the comics, except for a few differences mentioned below. He was raised in Smallville by Jonathan and Martha and was never Superboy. Jonathan and Martha are still alive when his Superman career begins. Clark does not meet Lex Luthor, who is a corrupt industrialist rather than a scientist, until Clark moves to Metropolis as an adult.

My Favorite Episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman by Season (three per season)

Season Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman episode
N/A Pilot (0x01)
First “Man of Steel Bars” (1x08)
First “Pheromone, My Lovely” (1x09)
First “Foundling” (1x15)
Second “A Bolt from the Blue” (2x08)
Second “Metallo” (2x10)
Second “Tempus Fugitive” (2x18)
Third “We Have a Lot to Talk About” (3x01)
Third “Tempus, Anyone” (3x14)
Third “Big Girls Don’t Fly” (3x22)
Fourth “Battleground Earth” (4x02)
Fourth “Swear to God, This Time We’re Not Kidding” (4x03)
Fourth “Lois & Clarks” (4x15)


Notes on favorite episodes

First Season Favorite Episodes

Pilot (0x01)

“Man of Steel Bars” (1x08)

“Pheromone, My Lovely” (1x09)

“Foundling” (1x15)



Phyllis Coates, who played Lois Lane in the first season of Adventures of Superman with George Reeves, played Lois’ mother, Ellen, in the final episode of the first season, “The House of Luthor” (1x20), the episode in which Superman narrowly averts Lois’ wedding to Luthor. (Beverly Garland portrayed Ellen Lane in all six of the character’s subsequent appearances.)

Jack Larson, who played Jimmy Olsen in Adventures of Superman, reprised the role in the fourth-season episode “Brutal Youth,”in which the villain uses a device to age Jimmy artificially.

However, Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane in the two Superman serials & in the second & all successive seasons of Adventures of Superman never once appeared on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, despite appearing in Superman: The Movie, Superboy, & Superman Returns. The inescapable conclusion is that either series producers never asked Miss Neill to appear or that she refused.



In the second and successive seasons, the series, more concerned with Lois and Clark’s relationship and dynamic excuses to delay the inevitable wedding, drifted farther from the John Byrne Superman. Both Cat Grant and Luthor were dropped in the second season. Justin Whalin replaced Michael Landes as Jimmy. D.A. Mayson Drake filled the void left by Cat. A variety of villains took Luthor’s place culled both from the comics and from the imaginations of the show’s producers. These included Mxyzptlk, Metallo, Bizarro, Toyman, and the Prankster. Other Kryptonians appeared in the third season, although these were new characters, never having appeared in the comics. Red kryptonite also appeared.

Second Season Favorite Episodes

“A Bolt from the Blue” (2x08)

“Metallo” (2x10)

“Tempus Fugitive” (2x18)



Third Season Favorite Episodes

“We Have a Lot to Talk About” (3x01)

“Tempus, Anyone” (3x14)

“Big Girls Don’t Fly” (3x22)



Fourth Season Favorite Episodes

“Battleground Earth” (4x02)

“Swear to God, This Time We’re Not Kidding” (4x03)

“Lois & Clarks” (4x15)



Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman makes multiple references to Batman. In “We Have a Lot to Talk About” (3x01), Lois, in a heated, public discussion with Clark, cries out, “...you are Superman!” To which Clark replies, “Could you say that a little bit louder, Lois? I don’t think they heard you in Gotham City.” In “The People vs Lois Lane” (4x06), the woman in the cell neighboring Lois’ on seeing the Action Ace, exclaims, “The Caped Crusader!” To which Superman replies, “That’s Batman.” These remarks parallel the references to Superman that occurred in the films Batman Forever and Batman and Robin in this same time period.

On a very trivial side note, while the comic Supes & Lois both have blue eyes, Dean Cain & Teri Hatcher both have brown eyes.


Sidebar on the Issue of Who the Real Character Is

It was a conceit of John Byrne’s that since Clark was raised from infancy by the Kents, did not fully develop his powers until adulthood, and did not discover his Kryptonian heritage until adulthood, that Clark Kent was the real person, and Superman was the disguise. This argument was the overriding thesis of Lois & Clark, expressed by Clark in “Tempus Fugitive” (2x18) as, “Superman is what I can do. Clark is who I am.”

The assumption, here, of course, is that heretofore, the converse, that Superman was the real character and Clark the disguise, was the case. This is simply not true. If it were, then, we should regard Clark as incidental, not an essential element of the mythos, and replaceable. Superman would not expend so much of his time and resources guarding his secret identity and would simply discard it when it was compromised and move on with a new one. The fact is that, after 70 years, both Clark and Superman are still around. The characters are both equally important to the mythos. They are different, separate people, and yet the same. (Much like God the Father and Jesus.) Whether Clark or the Metropolis Marvel is the protagonist of a story is a function of the medium in which the story appears or the plot of the story itself.

Bud Collyer indicated a change in character with a change in voice. Clark’s voice was an octave higher than the Man of Tomorrow’s. The only other way the characters were distinguished was by Clark’s occasional professions of weakness and cowardice. However, when Clark was excited, his voice was all but indistinguishable from Superman’s. Collyer’s Kent constantly made slips of the tongue regarding how fast he could reach a destination or how he knew a fact discerned by x-ray vision. His disguise was so thin that the unbelievable thing was that Lois, Jimmy, and Perry believed his statements of weakness and cowardice. Kent was usually quick, strong, and decisive, and his behavior bellied his pretensions to mild manners. If the main character is measured by the number of lines spoken (and actors do measure it this way), then Clark was the hero of the radio program. Only on rare occasions did Superman have nearly the airtime of his alter ego. George Reeves’ performance on television was markedly similar to Collyer’s on the radio show with the exception that, since Reeves had the visual cues of a hat and glasses, less reliance was placed on the pitch of his voice. In the TV show as on the radio show, Clark’s activities usurped the majority of airtime. Both programs would more aptly have been named The Adventures of Clark Kent, Alien Newspaper Reporter. In both media, the focus was on Clark’s actions as he solved the mystery or exposed the villains, with Superman appearing briefly as a literal deus ex machina to solve those problems that Kent could not without revealing himself.

In the medium of the hero’s birth, comic books, the opposite situation generally prevailed. Of what use is Kent when battling Brainiac, General Zod, Darkseid, Mongul, or Karb-Brak? Most of these knew his secret identity anyway. However, Clark-driven stories did appear. For years, a back-up feature called “The Private Life of Clark Kent” graced the pages of Superman and Superman Family. Superman even teamed up with Clark in a couple of stories. How this was possible is complex beyond the scope of this digression.

In the Christopher Reeve films, Clark’s and Superman’s screen time was approximately equal. Reeve distinguished the characters by shifting his voice, wearing a hat and glasses, and, taking a cue from the comics, slouching when he was Kent. Superman had his signature spit curl, while Clark’s hair was slicked back. Byrne drew Kent and Superman in the Christopher Reeve fashion, whereas the pre-Crisis comic book Clark’s hair resembled Superman’s minus the spit curl.

Lois & Clark reversed this with Superman’s hair slicked back, and Clark’s hair having a more natural look. Nevertheless, one pertinent fact remains. Clark, in all incarnations of the character, wears glasses that he does not need! That makes it a disguise. True, both Cain’s and Byrne’s Clark proudly acknowledge that they were football stars in high school and do not demure from danger or feign weakness. But whether Clark pretends he can bench-press 50 pounds or 500 pounds, it is still pretense! Interestingly, during most of Lois & Clark’s “Kryptonian saga” (“Big Girls Don’t Fly,” “Lord of the Flys,” & “Battleground Earth”), neither Clark nor Superman dominates the camera time. It is Kal-El whom we see for the majority of the episodes. If Superman can be said to have a true identity, then it is surely Kal-El, the Star Child. The Man of Tomorrow is neither Superman nor Clark Kent; he is inseparably both.

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