Is Superman & Lois the Best Superman TV Series Ever?

After an enthralling four-season run, Superman & Lois has finally concluded while achieving the distinction of being the best Superman TV series of all time. Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman began as a guest star on The CW’s Supergirl, which eventually segued him into joining the Arrowverse proper. When Superman & Lois finally kicked off in 2021, the show kept its connection to the Arrowverse largely ambiguous and open to interpretation. Eventually, Superman & Lois‘ Season 2 finale revealed that the series takes place in a completely different universe, and by then, Superman & Lois had already achieved something remarkable.

Superman & Lois is not only in the upper echelon of superhero TV shows, but through its captivating four-season story, it has proven itself to be the Man of Steel’s finest small-screen saga. While a number of the show’s key strengths are essential to its success, they all can be traced back to one key distinction. Simply put, Superman & Lois stands apart from every other Superman TV series.

Superman & Lois Feels Like a Cinematic TV Show

One of the stand-out features of Superman & Lois since the beginning has been in the show’s production value. Despite airing on The CW and being in the company of the Arrowverse for much of its run, Superman & Lois often more closely resembles a Superman movie in its presentation. The show’s cinematography and visual style could’ve come right out of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, and the same can be said for its action sequences of Superman saving people and battling metahuman villains.

It’s also quite clear that Superman & Lois has had the biggest budget of any CW DC show, and the show puts the money on the screen at every turn. The simple small-town landscape of Smallville is gorgeously presented in every episode, often using summertime sunsets as an added touch to make the show feel more cinematic.

Superman & Lois‘ action scenes are also some of the most impressive and polished of any superhero TV series. Again owing to the greater budget afforded to the series, Superman & Lois gives the Last Son of Krypton plenty of runway to perform feats of heroism that would look right at home on a movie screen, including the show’s first big Superman rescue involving the Man of Steel putting out a fire at a local power plant. Moreover, Superman & Lois‘ fight scenes pack a real punch, with the Man of Steel’s battles with villains like Tal-Rho, Bizarro, Parasite, Doomsday, and Lex Luthor really bringing the Kryptonian thunder and consistently feel big-screen worthy.

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Superman & Lois‘ Story Is Big and Small Simultaneously

Superman & Lois brings the gimmick of Clark Kent not only being married to Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch), but also the raising of teenage twins Jordan (Alex Garfin) and Jonathan (Jordan Elsass Seasons 1 and 2, Michael Bishop Seasons 3 and 4). Taking Clark back to his roots when the family moves back to Smallville, Superman & Lois‘ storytelling template gives the series the bandwidth to tell a Superman story that works on both macro and micro scales.

On the smaller side of things, Clark and Lois navigate both the trials of parenthood and small-town politics. As Lois takes on a new reporting job at the Smallville Gazette while Clark works as an assistant coach for Smallville High School’s football team, Jordan and Jonathan face their own challenges of adolescent life while learning to harness their Kryptonian powers (admittedly not until Season 4 in Jonathan’s case.) Supporting characters like Lana Lang (Emmanuelle Chriqui) also highlight Superman & Lois‘ focus on the human drama of its characters, with Lana newly elected as Smallville’s mayor while facing her own challenges in maintaining a relationship with her ex-husband Kyle Cushing (Erik Valdez) and her daughter Sarah (Inde Navarette) yearning for a life outside of Smallville.

But Superman & Lois doesn’t sideline the large-scale, world-saving stakes Superman regularly faces either. Every season of Superman & Lois has seen the Man of Steel defeating world-ending threats, such as Season 2’s merging of Earth and the Bizarro World and Superman literally punching the two worlds apart from one another. The show’s adaptation of The Death of Superman in Seasons 3 and 4 also treats Kal-El’s death and resurrection as the epic showdown it must be while grounding it in Lex Luthor (Michael Cudlitz) having a bitter and deeply personal vendetta with Lois.

Even the show’s big twist of Clark revealing himself as Superman to the world strikes a beautiful dichotomy between large- and small-scale storytelling. Clark’s initial unveiling takes place in the Smallville diner with a relatively small number of people present, but it’s a huge moment made simultaneously bigger and smaller in the ramifications of how much it changes the world and changes life for the Kent family. Throughout the entirety of its run, Superman & Lois has threaded the needle of epic fate-of-the-world battles and personal, human storytelling and family drama masterfully well.

Superman & Lois Gives Tyler Hoechlin’s Man of Steel an Emotional & Definitive Ending

Superman & Lois has found itself caught in a swirl of external circumstances that could have easily had a negative impact on the show, including the sun setting on DC’s CW days and the looming effects of James Gunn’s upcoming DCU. Despite everything going on in the real world that could have been to its detriment, Superman & Lois has consistently kept any and all off-screen circumstances completely out of view on the show itself. That, in turn, has also enabled it to really embody one of the most captivating and emotional Superman adaptations of all time by telling a complete Superman story — and giving Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman a proper swan song.

Though Superman is brought back from his demise at the hands of Doomsday, he learns that the human heart of General Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh), even laced with Kryptonian DNA, can only sustain him for so long. This makes Superman’s rematch with Doomsday and final showdown with a mech-suit-clad Lex Luthor some real nail-biters that give fans the kind of epic Superman action the show has always delivered with the stakes of Superman’s powers gradually receding.

Superman’s victory is followed by a montage of the final 32 years of his life, with the Kent boys following in his footsteps, John Henry Irons (Wolé Parks) and Natalie Irons (Tayler Buck) becoming heroes, Lois eventually passing away from cancer, and Clark living out his final years with his dog Krypto before his human heart finally gives out.

As Clark joins Lois in the afterlife, Superman & Lois‘s final moments cement the power of a Campbellian Hero’s Journey that reaches the true end of its arc. Superman & Lois‘ overall season count might be a bit on the short side for a show of such high production value, sprawling storytelling, and large-scale action, but Superman & Lois gets to definitively close the book on Tyler Hoechlin’s Man of Steel in a way that gives his legacy a long-standing resonance. That, above all else, makes Superman & Lois the definitive Superman TV show.