Superman & Lois Star Daya Vaidya Wants To Talk With Kevin Smith About Onomatopoeia (Exclusive)

Onomatopoeia has arrived. The relatively new Kevin Smith-created DC Comics villain made their live-action debut in Superman & Lois Season 3, showing up with a concealed identity for the first half of the season. That changed in the most recent episode of the Tyler Hoechlin-led series, as Daya Vaidya’s Peia was revealed to be the face behind the swirled mask.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Vaidya noted that while she has yet to speak with Smith, she is eager to get his thoughts on the Superman & Lois iteration of his thought-to-be page-exclusive character.

“I did not [speak to Kevin] but I would love to because when he created Onomatopoeia, he said that [this character] could never really be online,” Vaidya said. “This could never be on screen. This is an audio character. This is a character who’s all about sound.”

Vaidya added that the seemingly restricted nature of Onomatopoeia only made the Superman & Lois team more invested in what a live-action version would look like.

“Our producers took that as a challenge and they were like, ‘Really? You think we can’t put it on screen? Watch us.’ And so they decided to really take that challenge on its head and not only take Onomatopoeia, but make her a woman and make her a woman of color,” Vaidya continued. “She was a man, she was a man assassin, dark shadowy figure. And now she’s a woman. And so that was really cool. I would love to ask him, ‘Did you think this could be done?’”

The Onomatopoeia changes in Superman & Lois go beyond a gender change as well. In the comics, Onomatopoeia largely operates as an antagonist to Green Arrow and Batman.

“That was another decision on the producers’ parts on the writers, because they wanted the audience to understand that her power was so huge, so vast, that she was one of the only people in our Arrowverse that can not only go toe to toe with Superman, but we always have seen only Kryptonite,” Vaidya said regarding the shift for Onomatopoeia’s adversary. “We’ve only seen Kryptonite be able to hurt Superman. But what’s really cutting edge and amazing in this is that Onomatopoeia doesn’t have Kryptonite. “What I can tease a little bit is Superman meets his match without Kryptonite, that’s something we haven’t seen. We haven’t seen a level of power that doesn’t incorporate Kryptonite that can challenge Superman. I think that that is what’s different about this character.”

New episodes of Superman & Lois air every Tuesday on The CW.