Superman & Lois Finale Teases Season 3’s Big Bad

The sophomore season of Superman & Lois is now in the books, presenting a surprising new take on the DC Comics mythos. Even as the show wrapped up the immediate threat of Ally Allston (Rya Kihlstedt) and the Bizarro World, it was clear that the finale was going to be looking ahead to the future, especially as the hit The CW series has already been renewed for a third season. It had already been confirmed that the Season 2 finale would use a cameo from John Diggle (David Ramsey) to tee up the next season’s villain — and that definitely proved to be the case. Spoilers for the Season 2 finale of Superman & Lois, “Waiting for Superman”, below! Only look if you want to know!

One of the final scenes of the episode concerned John Henry Irons (Wole Parks) meeting with Diggle at Smallville’s diner, after they previously interacted when ARGUS became involved with last year’s events. Diggle confronted John Henry about one particular man — Bruno Mannheim, who is involved with essentially every single illegal trade possible. Diggle also revealed that Mannheim might have been responsible for the death of that Earth’s version of John Henry, who had died under mysterious circumstances years ago.

Created by Jack Kirby, Bruno “Ugly” Mannheim first debuted in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #139 as a member and eventual leader of Intergang. Under the work of Morgan Edge, Intergang was quickly outfitted with weaponry from the New Gods, as Darkseid hoped to use them as soldiers in his fight to find the Anti-Life Equation.

Now that Superman & Lois is definitively set on a separate universe from the main Arrowverse, this tease of Mannheim being next season’s villain is particularly interesting. While a version of Mannheim had previously been referenced in the pre-Crisis events that occurred on the Arrowverse’s Earth-Prime, and Intergang was previously acknowledged on Supergirl, Bruno himself has never appeared onscreen yet. There’s also the interesting wrinkle that Intergang has been confirmed to appear in the forthcoming Black Adam movie, which could potentially lead to another live-action incarnation of Bruno being introduced or acknowledged. Either way, it sounds like we’ll be getting Bruno Mannheim in Superman & Lois‘ third season, and we’ll have to wait and see exactly his decades of comic canon will factor into the show’s proceedings.

Superman & Lois will return for a third season sometime in 2023 on The CW.