Superman & Lois: Bitsie Tulloch Hints at New Challenges After Clark Returns

Last night on Superman & Lois, fans got a pretty clear idea of how and when Superman will return from the dead. The methodology, though, raises a few red flags. We’ll hold off on specifics for a couple of paragraphs, but be aware there’s spoilers ahead for the latest episode of Superman & Lois, and those spoilers are interesting not just in the context of the TV show but also in terms of viewing the whole “Death and Return of Superman” storyline on TV as compared to the comics.

Over the course of the first two episodes, fans learned that Lex Luthor (Michael Cudlitz) had instructed Doomsday not only to kill Superman, but to take his heart as well. Whatever he had planned for the heart didn’t amount to much, as he chose to destroy it when Jordan (Alexander Garfin) tried to recover it.

In last night’s episode, after injecting himself with a serum derived from Superman’s blood, General Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh) died at Doomsday’s hand and instructed John Henry Irons to make sure his heart was donated to Superman, so that the hero could be revived at the Fortress of Solitude.

“I think the way he comes back is really interesting because all of the sudden he has a 60-something-year-old man’s heart — and a human heart — that he’s working with,” series star Bitsie Tulloch told ComicBook. “So, it is a different person whose powers are…we don’t know what it’s going to look like [yet].”

That sounds a bit ominous — and could hint at a bigger issue for the character…like maybe that his powers are either not working, or depleted.

In the original comic book story, Superman had no powers after he returned from the dead. His body had been referred to as something of a solar battery, which stored up energy that he could use over time, allowing the sun-powered hero to function in space, or during extended periods without sunlight. The hours-long, brutal battle with Doomsday depleted the “battery,” leaving him drained.

In the comics, the revived Superman spent some time in a black “regeneration suit” — first at the Fortress, and later in North America — that helped him process solar energy and healed his injuries. He was restored to full power after being blasted by a powerful bolt of Kryptonite, which had been filtered through the powers of the Eradicator.

Don’t expect that to happen this time around, though; executive producers Todd Helbing and Brent Fletcher have admitted they didn’t have the time or budget to do the whole Reign of the Supermen! storyline.

“We did talk about that,” Helbing told ComicBook. “That came up a lot and, and clearly everybody saw what was being built [over the course of the series]. It was just so tricky this year, with schedules, and money, and blah, blah, blah. There was no way we were going to be able to, to do that, but we think we have a worthy substitute.”

Tulloch did promise that Superman (Tyler Hoechlin), Jonathan Kent (Michael Bishop), and Jordan would get at least one big fight together — something that suggests not only will Clark have at least some powers in the back half of the season, but also, she said, fulfills something the writers have been waiting for all along.

Superman & Lois airs on Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.