My Adventures With Superman Season 3 Episode 1 Recap: What’s Lex's Plan With Hank Henshaw?

After a significantly longer wait of two years, “My Adventures With Superman” has returned with its third season in the perfect timeframe as DCU’s “Supergirl” is going to release later this month. The first episode of the new season focuses on Kara Zor-el aka Supergirl’s new dynamics with the rest of the Super-team, while expanding on the mythos by introducing a couple of classic Superman characters. While animation feels a bit slow and janky at parts in the first episode, the narrative tone and pacing has been maintained to the liking of series fans. There are a lot of talking points and possibilities highlighted within twenty minutes of the runtime of the first episode, so without wasting any time let’s get right into it.

Spoilers Ahead

The episode opens in the icy landscape of Antarctica, where Clark and Kara, donning their new costumes, have arrived to visit Fortress of Solitude. Clark has only been once inside the Fortress, in the second season, which turned out to be his final meeting with the hologram of his biological father, Jor-el. While Clark hopes Fortress will symbolize an opportunity for a new beginning for Kara, first she wants to bid farewell to her past by taking down the mainframe codex of Brainiac, and seeks some private moments to do so. Moving into a liminal space through Fortress’ advanced Kryptonian tech, Kara meets her ‘father figure’, Brainiac, for one last time, and the vile sentient AI monstrosity tries to get under his skin by poking at her sordid past as his conqueror. Brainiac tries to poke Kara’s identity crisis by mentioning she is not a hero like Kal-el, no matter how much she pretends to have become one. Kara, marred by guilt and pain of the past, doesn’t know how she can define her identity, and flies away. Clark, who was flanked by Kryptonian sentry robots thus far who want him to assume the responsibilities of the Fortress, follows his cousin. Reaching the vast expanse of space, Kara questions her identity. 

This exact scenario is going to be played out in a slightly different way in the upcoming “Supergirl” movie, even though that version of Kara Zor-el is not controlled by Brainiac, she is not going to be able to assume the role of a heroic saviour like Clark either. Both versions of Kara are affected by their past. In “My Adventures With Superman”, Kara used to be Brainiac’s weapon, whereas in the upcoming movie, Kara is a survivor who had to witness the destruction of her home planet. Neither of them had a regular, loving upbringing to inculcate best values and virtues like Clark, and they have to decide for themselves how they want the world to know them as. 

After the updated version of opening for third season, the narrative shifts to Kent farm, where Clark has brought his team – Lois, Jimmy and Kara, to enjoy Halloween. Kara and Jimmy, who are clearly in love after having grown feelings for each other in the previous season, are posing as Kyle Morgan and June Robins from “Challengers of the Unknown”. Seasoned DC fans know that Jack Kirby created a team of space-adventurers, who are an iconic part of DC comic’s Silver age roster, inspiring the creation of “Fantastic Four” in later years. Lois and Clark have dressed themselves as Frankenstein and Bride, both the classic Universal monster characters are also part of DCU as seen in “Creature Commandos”. Having a conversation with Jimmy, Lois realizes he fears about limiting Kara’s boundaries, as despite having strong feelings for her, Jimmy believes she can do better and has a world to explore. On the other hand, Brainiac’s world-ending threat has made Clark wary about the impermanence of life, and he is doubling down on planning a future with Lois. 

Lois isn’t quite mentally prepared to rush into new beginnings, and her cue to slip away from the conversation arrives when her father, Sam Lane, arrives at Kent farm to enjoy Halloween pie. However, Sam reveals the real reason of his sudden arrival – after leaving ARGUS and Task Force X chapters behind him, he has found his place in Pentagon; has learned about a breach and intel deletion of a classified, now decommissioned Project Kaliban where secretive Kryptonian biotech research was taking place. Lois informs the rest of her team and in no time, they reach the abandoned facility. 

As a fake lab compound wasn’t suspicious enough, the group noticed a wolf/ deer chimera in the nearby woods, which indicate the kind of experiments that were taking place in the main underground facility. Jimmy finds some old documents regarding what the Project Kaliban was, while the team comes across a large section of Kryptonian DNA laced creature evolution arena which appears to have been disbanded. Jimmy learns taking Kryptonian tissue samples in the aftermath of Zero Day event (Kryptonian Invasion), bioweapons of different kinds were being created in this facility, and from the document evidence, it is clear that the government was deeply involved in this. Soon enough, a two handed quadrupedal frost beam emitting creature, which is clearly part Kryptonian in origin, attacks the group, prompting them to flee and take shelter in a chamber which turns out to be filled with Kryptonian flora. In the midst of the dense Kryptonian jungle, a grave is located underneath a tree, which Clark confirms to belong to a scientist named George Otto Bender. DC fans will recognize the name as a reference to legendary comics writer and Supergirl co-creator, Oscar Otto Binder. 

Soon as Clark touches Otto’s specs, which were left on his grave, a large Kryptonian humanoid, who resembles him, launches an attack. Kara is quick to deduce the unnamed specimen, denoted only as specimen B1Z, to be a clone of Clark, an abomination. However, the humanoid, who has formed a bond of friendship with the ice creature, appears to be terrified of something, as he flees with the creature upon listening to a noise coming from the next chamber. While the group assumes B1Z to be created as a weapon, evidence found in the chamber showcases the reality to be rather different. Irrespective of whatever the original purpose behind his creation was, the entity was raised in the care of benevolent, kind geneticist Dr. Bender, who assured him of his inner goodness. Also, the presence of children’s toys, drawings make it seem that the being has not grown his full cerebral capacity just yet, and might be afflicted with arrested development. 

A mechanical robotic construct, which somewhat resembles the appearance of Kryptonian robot combined with Guyver suit, lures the team to itself and getting a chance to escape, combines its severed attachment to fully calibrate its mechanism. The robot appears to be hunting B1Z and his companion creature, and is behind the destruction inside the facility in the first place. Kara looks at Bender’s recorded video, which conveys how the scientist raised B1Z with kindness and care, and realizes that this entity has a profound appreciation for life- the reason why he buried his human friend after he passed away. It feels oddly good when Kara corrects a sceptical Lois by mentioning B1Z was not raised to be a weapon, she knows because she herself was raised to be one. In all probability, Bender was trying to keep B1Z safe from people who sought to exploit him, and this also might be the reason behind his passing as well. 

On the other hand, Superman protects B1Z and his companion from the robot, and as he manages to completely destabilize the robot, it initiates a self destruction protocol. While tanking the impact of the explosion to keep them safe, Clark is knocked out, and the incident triggers the facility’s self destruction protocol. B1Z, recognizing Clark as a friend, brings him to safety by taking him out of the facility, but flees with his companion when the rest of the team starts searching for Clark. B1Z is later seen trying to mingle among the people of Metropolis, and as a little girl shows him kindness, the kind, appreciative words of his father figure, Dr. Bender, continues to play in his mind. B1Z looks at an image of Superman, and his smile conveys he is eager to learn more about this new friend. 

It is quite evident that B1Z is this universe’s version of Bizarro, and as fans will identify this version of origin as being introduced as Superman’s clone is inspired from the New 52 iteration of the character. This Bizarro appears more humane, and despite probably being immature, has an understanding about morality. It feels good to see a non-villainous version of Bizarro, and hopefully the series has plans to continue his story arc beyond this season as well. 

During the final moments of the episode, the narrative focus shifts to Lexcorp, where Lex  Luthor and Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke are seen present. From the video feed in Lex’s computer, it becomes quite clear that the robotic assailant which was hunting B1Z and his companion was sent by him. Apparently, Lex had a stake in Project Kaliban as well, and it won’t be a stretch to guess that he wanted to annihilate the surviving specimens after deeming them to be a failure. However, now that his plans involving Kaliban have been scrapped by Supes, Lex wants to focus on something else. It turns out, Hank Henshaw,  the xenophobic fighter jet pilot who fought against Brainiac’s forces in the finale of the previous season, had sustained fatal injuries but is kept alive using Lex’s advanced tech. Lex wants to use him as his weapon, and it is an easy guess that just like his comics counterpart, Hank Henshaw is going to become Cyborg Superman. The third season trailers of “My Adventures with Superman” have already teased the appearance of Cyborg Superman, and it appears it won’t be long until Clark needs to square off against a cyborg replica of himself.