Last night’s episode of Superman & Lois introduced X-Kryptonite, a substance which can give non-Kryptonians superpowers for a limited time while they are exposed to it. Morgan Edge (Adam Rayner) apparently had a line on a cache of the stuff, and bought up the Shuster Mine in Smallville in order to get his hands on it, with an eye toward building an army. The question immediately pops up in the minds of many viewers: who will end up with super powers? One strong candidate is Lana Lang (Emmanuelle Chriqui), whose journey became a little more tightly bound with Edge’s in the episode.
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In a recent episode, Lana revealed that she wanted something more from her life, and felt somewhat trapped in Smallville. She even told her daughter Sarah (Inde Navarrette) that she would understand why she would not want to “end up like” Lana. That disappointment carried over into this week’s episode, too, although by the episode’s end, she seemed to be in a better place. More on that in a moment.
Edge, meanwhile, is employing metahumans to do dirty work for him; he hired a hitman who gave Superman quite a run for his money, and his personal assistant is packing enough power that she killed the hitman when he failed to get rid of Lois Lane. X-Kryptonite, it seems, was already something he had at his disposal before buying up the Shuster mines. This makes some kind of sense, given that Lois has talked on the series about his buying up mines in other communities and then leaving the people high and dry when he was done with the town.
In the comics, Supergirl accidentally created X-Kryptonite in a lab, combining chemicals that she hoped would make green Kryptonite less deadly to Kryptonians. It’s possible that the substance is created here by combining Kryptonite with some of the substances common to coal country, although that’s just speculation at this point.
After clearly taking a fancy to her at a town hall event, Edge cornered Lana Lang at dinner, asking her whether she wanted to move up and out of her bank to take a more lucrative opportunity in his organization. She was uncomfortable and didn’t engage, so there were no specifics to speak of…but it’s not hard to imagine that he might want to make her “super” for one reason or another.
In the comics, Lana Lang has been around for decades, but only became Superwoman during the Rebirth publishing initiative. Wearing a costume that evoked Superman’s electric powers and appearance from the mid-’90s, Lana shared that body and the powers with the New 52 version of Lois Lane (long story), until Lois ended up seemingly dead, and Lana had the powers and body all to herself.
The source for Lana’s bliss at the end of the episode last night was that she had, more or less at Lois’s prompting, made up with her husband Kyle (Erik Valdez), after a fight that revolved in part around how close he was with Edge, and how chummy Edge had been with Lana at the party.
With her relationship with Kyle righted, could she end up a little closer to Edge? Very possibly. It would also give them a built-in self-destruct button for Edge’s evil plan. In the comics, after all, those with access to powers from X-Kryptonite, lost them when all of the substance was suddenly rendered inert.
Superman& Lois airs on The CW on Tuesday nights, at 9 p.m. ET/PT following episodes of The Flash.
