Comedy fans and comic book fans both likely know that there’s a Superman statue in Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment on Seinfeld, and that the Man of Steel got more than a few references on the long-running sitcom. But did you know that Seinfeld is, apparently, a show that exists in the Arrowverse, suggesting that Jerry’s Superman fandom is more like Naomi McDuffie’s than yours or mine? Well, that’s the case, but because of the sliding timeline of superhero realities, it inherently brings up some questions about one of Seinfeld‘s most often-quoted episodes, season 8’s “The Bizarro Jerry.”
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In the episode, Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) and her boyfriend Kevin (Tim DeKay) break up, deciding instead to be “just friends.” Kevin, though, turns out to be a better friend than Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), leading to strife within the core friend group at the heart of Seinfeld. At one point, Jerry explains that Kevin is “Bizarro-Jerry,” and explains the concepts of the Superman villain Bizarro and the Bizarro-World that he hailed from in the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths era.
The episode aired in 1996 which, as Superman & Lois writer Adam Mallinger pointed out on Twitter, means it hit the airwaves before Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) would have graduated high school. Nevertheless, the season one episode “A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events” established that Seinfeld does indeed exist, in-universe. How it’s different to its real-world counterpart is anybody’s guess.
Certainly, it also raises some questions about Sidra Holland, the Seinfeld character played by Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman star Teri Hatcher. Does anybody in-universe notice that the girl from “The Implant” episode of Seinfeld looks just like Mon-El’s mom from Supergirl? So many questions!
The questions (if you are inclined to take such things seriously, that is) don’t end there: In last week’s episode of Superman & Lois, titled “The Thing in the Mines,” the series revealed that the season’s big bad will be Bizarro, played by Tyler Hoechlin. Little is known about this version of Bizarro’s backstory, but he does wear the traditional “backwards” version of Superman’s costume, and wears a chain with a mysterious stone around his neck, a la the “Bizarro #1” sign from the comics. In other words, Seinfeld made an episode that explicitly referenced a Superman villain who didn’t yet exist, at a time when Superman was still in high school, and it’s canon to the Arrowverse.
So…what do we make of all this? There’s only one reasonable conclusion to draw.
Superman & Lois airs on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW, followed by episodes of Naomi.
