Superman & Lois's Wole Parks Has Never Seen the Steel Movie

Last night's episode of Superman & Lois threw the status quo of the series for a serious loop when Wolé Parks, the villain previously known as Captain Luthor, got a clarification of his backstory, revealing to the audience that he is in fact an alternate-Earth version not of Lex Luthor, but of the fan-favorite character John Henry Irons. Written by Jai Jamison and directed by Arrow veteran David Ramsey, the episode -- titled "Man of Steel" -- gave fans their first glimpse at what the likely big picture is for John Henry, putting some pieces of the mystery in place so that the audience is ahead of the characters for the first time since the series began, and setting up some very interesting questions for the back half of the season.

The last time the character showed up in live action, it was in the 1997 film Steel, starring NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal. But the actor playing John Henry Irons this time around hasn't seen the film yet.

"Just keeping it real... What was I, 16 at that time?" Parks told ComicBook. "The reviews were so bad that I just skipped it, so I actually never watched it. I feel like maybe I should just watch it now just for laughs, I guess? So I can't take anything from it just because I never actually saw it."

"I have not rewatched it since I saw it as a kid," added Jai Jamison, who wrote last night's episode. "I wanted to try to maintain my nostalgic awe of seeing Shaq. I'm a big fan of Shaq in general. Even in this role, I'm just a big fan of Shaq."

The revealation that The Stranger is a version of John Henry Irons clarifies one mystery that has nagged at Arrowverse fans since his introduction: how he's alive at all. It's revealed in dialogue that the John Henry Irons of Earth-Prime died six years ago. The circumstances of that death are unknown, but it does mean that the hard-and-fast rule that you can't have more than one version of a person sharing space in the post-Crisis Arrowverse holds true. When it seemed as though Parks was playing another Earth's version of Lex Luthor, many fans asked why he got to survive when another Earth's Beth Kane had to die in order for Alice to live on Batwoman.

It also means a fundamentally different approach to the character as a villain.

"[When it was] Captain Luthor, it was very much coming from a place of it being a redemption story of it being like, we're going to understand why he's acting the way he is and what's happened on this other Earth, and all of that," explained Jai Jamison, who wrote tonight's episode. "But then, Adam Mallinger, our writers' assistant, pitched, 'What if we make him John Henry?' And that was the thing that just was like, yes. And it's funny because Adam sent an email to Todd, and then he kind of sidebarred to me, 'I think you're going to like this pitch.' And I was like, 'Oh yeah, I do like this pitch a lot.' I told them, I spent a lot of time in my head on John Henry's Earth. I just came in with a ton of ideas, like too many ideas for Todd. Stuff that we will never see, but I did all of his backstory, all of what happened. We'll see some of it, but I gave him way too much material. But it was just such a blast, and such an amazing, surreal, awesome responsibility to be able to introduce this character that so many people love, myself included, into the Arrowverse."

In the comics, John Henry Irons was a former weapons manufacturer who turned his back on violence and became a construction worker. After he fell from a skyscraper he was building after saving a co-worker's life, he was saved by Superman. When John Henry asked Superman how he could repay him, Superman told him to make his life count for something.

Later, when Superman was battling Doomsday, Irons tried to charge into the fight to help Superman, but a building collapsed on top of him, leaving him buried for the rest of the fight. It was the experience of waking up in the wreckage and discovering that Superman had died, which drove him to a life as a superhero.

What do you think of John Henry Irons coming to the Arrowverse? Hit us up in the comments or let me know at @russburlingame on Twitter!