Easter Eggs and Things You Might Have Missed In Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman's "I'm Seeing Through You"
In the fourth episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman to air back in the '90s, [...]
In the fourth episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman to air back in the '90s, audiences got a glimpse of "Superman Day," complete with balloons, toys, and the whole nine yards. It's a bit like the "Flash Day" the The Flash did in its second season premiere after they declared him the man who saved Central City.
One key difference: when Superman Day happened, there was no supervillain attack. Instead, there was an attack of cameos! Various Superman-related comic book writers, artists, and editors all appeared in the first scene of "I'm Looking Through You," so even though there weren't as many Easter eggs, references, and clever little nods in this episode as there were in the first few, that initial scene more than made up for it.
But less than before doesn't mean zero, of course.
So...what did we see? What did we miss?
Read on, and comment below.
A CROWD OF CREATORS
It's hard to even keep track of all of these folks, but we'll share some images, and give you some ideas.
Mike Carlin, longtime Superman group editor, is the guy who says "Look!" and points up at Superman. As he does, you can see then-Superman (now Action Comics) writer Dan Jurgens pass him on his right/our left.
Earlier, as the camera panned through the crowd, familiar faces like Jon Bogdanove, longtime artist on Superman: The Man of Steel, could be spotted (we couldn't get a good screen capture). About halfway through that pan, we get this other shot of Carlin, who's standing on one side of a Superman cardboard standee while Superman: The Man of Steel writer Louise Simonson, the first woman to write Superman in an ongoing capacity, stands on the other side.
Beside Carlin in another shot (just moments after the Jurgens cameo), you can see longtime Superman family colorist Glenn Whitmore (on the left, his arm raised), and on Carlin's right, artists Denis Rodier (Action Comics, partially obscured by Carlin's arm) and Brett Breeding (Superman).
A version of this shot was actually made available as a Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman trading card -- because it was the '90s and everything popular got a set of trading cards.
Aside from Carlin, the one who pops up the most is probably longtime Action Comics writer Roger Stern, who also wrote the prose novel The Death and Life of Superman and a later novel Superman: The Never-Ending Battle. That's him in the glasses, dead-center and smiling.
We think (and have reached out for corroboration) that the guy in the Superman t-shirt on the far left is Jerry Ordway, who was the longtime writer-artist of The Adventures of Superman, then Superman, then back to Adventures, from about 1986 until 1994. He was one of the longest-running members of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Super-team.
prevnextCOMICS ART
Throughout the episode, merchandising featuring Superman's likeness pops up, often using real merchandise and/or original art and licensing art from the comics and official DC products. Probably the most notable is an oversized poster featuring an image of Superman as drawn by Joe Shuster, the character's co-creator.
prevnextNATIONAL WHISPER
The National Whisper, the tabloid newspaper Jimmy Olsen provides in the editorial meeting to introduce the "Invisible Man" part of the episode, is an existing tabloid in the DC Universe.
prevnextTHAT AGENT
So he's not Rex Leech, the agent who "adopted" the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman shortly after he first appeared following Superman's death, but Murray Brown feels pretty smilar, with the loud jacket and the smarmy, opportunistic attitude.
prevnextTHIRD-RICHEST MAN
Lex Luthor is apparently the "third-richest man in the world" in the universe of Lois and Clark.
No mention is made as to who the first and second might be, or whether they would be real-world figures like Bill Gates or DC Universe figures like Oliver Queen, Bruce Wayne, and Ra's al Ghul.
In the post-Crisis comics iteration of the early '90s, Lex was one of the world's wealthiest men. They didn't actually establish just where he sat in the list, but at one point in the late '90s, they did establish during the No Man's Land period that Lex wasn't as wealthy as Bruce Wayne.
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BURSTING THROUGH
It may or may not be a direct reference to George Reeves's Superman in The Adventures of Superman, but both bending the gun after somebody tries to shoot him, and then crashing through the concrete wall, were pretty common uses of his powers back then.
And considering how many references to the old series were made in the first few episodes, we're willing to count it.
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