Superman & Lois: Tyler Hoechlin Talks Wearing That Massive Doomsday Suit

In last night’s episode of Superman & Lois, titled “The Thing in the Mines,” fans learned that green-suited monster slamming its fist away underground was not Doomsday, as one would assume, but rather an Arrowverse twist on Bizarro. Played by Tyler Hoechlin, the villain wears a darker Superman suit, with a reversed “S” logo, and wearing a crystal of some kind on a chain around his neck. He is clearly not a happy camper, but we’ll get to that another time, since basically as soon as we see him fully revealed, the episode ends with a final title card that reverses the Superman & Lois title and logo.

Because Hoechlin had to do battle with Bizarro while the villain was inside the green Doomsday suit, he obviously wasn’t the only one wearing it. Still, he absolutely did some time in the costume, as he revealed when he discussed the episode with ComicBook last week.

“It was a suit inside a suit inside a suit,” Hoechlin said with a laugh. “It was a lot of layers, but it was fun. I mean, anytime you get to actually be in those things, you really feel like you’re stepping into the comics. And that’s a really cool thing to be able to do.”

The suit itself was a take on the green “containment suit” worn by Doomsday in his first appearances in the comics. The creature was buried inside of a giant,  metal box, deep underground, and wrapped up by powerful cables inside of the containment suit, which had red goggles in the area around Doomsday’s eyes.

The suit helped sell exactly what a huge threat the monster was, since he spent the first half of the story doing battle with the Justice League…while he had one hand bound behind his back.

Superman & Lois marks the first time anybody has tried to adapt the containment suit to live-action, in spite of appearances by Doomsday in Smallville, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Krypton.

So, where did the suit come from? Doomsday is essentially a bio-weapon: created on Krypton by a genetic scientist trying to create the “perfect” being, the creature is able to take a licking and keep on ticking. After dying, Doomsday’s body will go into a restorative coma (basically), and come back to life later, now immune to whatever killed him.

Thousands of years ago, Doomsday died at the hands of Radiant, an energy being created by aliens called Catalonians. They were the ones that wrapped him up inside the containment suit, dropped him in the box, and threw him into space. The suit was actually meant to contain the monster if it were ever to come back to life (so it kinda worked?), but that also raises questions about why they put eyeholes in the suit, something fans have joked about since.

Superman & Lois airs on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, followed by episodes of Naomi.