My Adventures With Superman Season 3 Episode 5 Recap: Is The Future Crisis Averted?

Following the cliff-hanger from the previous episode that saw a murderous Hank Henshaw provoking Superman for a battle, the fifth chapter of the latest season drops an absolute banger of an episode which can easily be termed as the series’ most epic, thrilling, action packed fare till date. Previously, John Kent aka Superboy arrived in the present, shocking his parents with his presence, and went on to enjoy a whole day with his family. Hank Henshaw overpowered Lex to break out of his control, and as Lex redirected his anger towards Superman to save his skin, the deranged Cyborg Superman started wreaking havoc in Metropolis to lure Superman out. Eventually, John revealed the true reason of his journey to the present to Lois, mentioning the crisis of Cyborg Superman results in the death of Clark and Lois, and he was sent back in time to avert the crisis.

Spoilers Ahead

Cyborg Superman’s Harrowing Rampage

Picking right from the ending of the last episode, Clark and Kara fly to Metropolis to face Hank and Lex’s Kryptonian robots he has taken control over, while John shares details of the future crisis with his mother, Lois. He mentions how in the alternate future, Lex Luthor himself sent him back in time to save their future – even though his experiments are responsible for turning Hank into a murderous Cyborg Superman. Lois is shocked at the fact that John didn’t reveal this troubling update right after arriving, and John mentions he became distracted while experiencing this pre-apocalypse resplendent Metropolis, admiring the bond between his parents, as all these feel distant dreams compared to the grim reality he belongs from. John leaves to assist his father and aunt in the battle, asking Lois to stay in the safety of Kent farm. However, he should know that his mother is not exactly a sitting-in-safety type of person, and Lois takes Jimmy to reach Lexcorp, as she wants to force Lex to shut down Hank’s cyborg parts. 

Hank’s vicious assault on Superman begins as he continues to blame the Man of Steel for his life turning absolutely miserable. Clark tries to reason with him in vain, and as he finds himself cornered while trying to save a kid, John joins the battle, ending up revealing his identity to Henkshaw in the process. John tries to take the responsibility to engage Henshaw in battle in order to save Clark and shares the tragic truth with him. Henshaw dominates over both Clark and John, when Kara manages to push him back to allow them to regroup. However, John requests them to leave the battlefield, especially Kara, before Henshaw begins the next phase of his attack. Henshaw uses his tech abilities to hack planes and choppers to put hundreds of lives in jeopardy, forcing John and Kara to leave Clark alone while trying to save lives. Henshaw’s attack grows increasingly brutal with each passing moment, and his xenophobic rants continue accordingly. Eventually, he exposes his Kryptonite power core to weaken Clark extremely, as the narrative combines Cyborg Superman’s lore with that of another iconic Superman villain’s, Metallo. Henshaw’s connection with his core is so strong that he infects Clark in a way that Kryptonite grows out of his body.  

Why Did John Try to Distance Himself from Kara?

On the other hand, Lois convinces Lex to use his brains to try to reign in Henshaw before he turns Metropolis into ashes, and Lex still manages to exert some sort of control by using his tech at Lexcorp to distract Henshaw away from a severely beaten up Superman. An enraged Henshaw destroys the control rig, prompting a coward Lex to hide behind Lois, but her reasoning fails to convince a bloodthirsty Henshaw from stopping his rampage. John tries to fight tactically by engaging Henshaw from a distance, but Henshaw eventually catches up and corners him, which leads Kara to rescue him in time. John continues to refuse to let Kara join him in the battle, and activates a special suit built for protection from Kryptonite. Kara is fed up with John’s continual attempt to distance himself from her, and unable to keep up with this any longer, she asks what has she done to deserve so much hate from her nephew. 

Kara’s question makes John uncomfortable and nervous, who reveals the shocking, emotional truth as to why he had been avoiding her since arriving from the future. John reveals that in the dark alternate future, after Clark and Lois perished during Henshaw’s reign of terror, it was Kara who became an infant John’s guardian, mentor and best friend. He spent his entire life with aunt Kara, who taught him the value of kindness and empathy just like Clark had taught her. However, tragedy once again befell in John’s life after Kara too tragically died in the hands of Henshaw and his forces, leaving John all alone. John has never known his parents, but he has known aunt Kara all his life, still hasn’t gotten over her passing, which is why it was so painful for him to see Kara alive and well in the present. He doesn’t want to lose Kara again and feel the same agony all over, that’s why John has tried to keep himself away from the only person he knew as his family. 

Kara is moved by John’s account, especially due to the fact it reveals she had found a greater purpose in keeping hope alive in a world where the symbol of hope had perished. It is also telling how in the alternate future, Kara didn’t give up on Clark’s ideals even after losing him and Lois to Henshaw’s attacks, and raised John in his image. Kara assures John that as his family, he needs to let her protect him, and donning Kryptonite protection suits, the nephew-aunt duo engage Henshaw in battle. Together, they blitz attack Henshaw with such speed that his cyborg portions are destroyed in no time.  However, Henshaw manages to bond with Lex’s Kryptonian robots to grow even stronger.

Did Cyborg Superman Die?

Henshaw manages to destroy Kara’s protective suit and pin her down, when John jumps in to rescue his aunt and gets caught by Henshaw. With murderous intent, Henshaw nearly kills John, and the vicious sight of seeing his son at the verge of death triggers an extremely strong reaction inside Clark – under extreme emotional pressure, he temporarily enters Super Saiyan mode if you catch my drift. An empowered Clark manages to purge Kryptonite out of his system, deliver a decisive beatdown on Henshaw, and destroys his Kryptonite core. 

With no option at his disposal, Henshaw decides to trigger the self-destruct protocol to take down everyone in one fell swoop, when he is shocked to realize Superman fathered Superboy with a woman who is not Kryptonian, instead belongs from earth. Henshaw continually blamed Clark, for taking away his future from him as an outsider – only to realize now that the world accepted Clark, and rejected his xenophobic future which excludes the outsiders. This goes beyond saying that this allusion to outsider acceptance perfectly fits Superman’s identity as refugee, and the showrunners, as they say, perfectly cooked in this scenario. A crestfallen Hank gives up, and seemingly perishes as his system goes offline, stopping the self destruction protocol in the process. Having saved the future, John finally embraces Kara, being relieved that she is safe and sound. With this, John’s time in the present also comes to an end, as his time-travel watch indicates.  Taking all the love and blessings he can from Kara, Lois and Clark, he leaves as abruptly as he had arrived. 

Are Clark’s Powers Gone?

Even though Henshaw’s threat has ceased to exist, Clark has pushed himself way too much and he reveals to Lois that he can no longer save the world as Superman as he feels his powers are gone. Lois is shocked, but she is relieved that Clark is alive – even though the thought of whether the future is indeed saved, plagues her mind. 

In the final moments of the episode, the narrative shifts to a distant future, which is still a dystopia – contrary to the utopia  Jon and his family had assumed it would become after Henshaw’s end. Eradicator Kryptonian robots hover around Metropolis like sentries, and John is seen held captive at the hands of Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke, who brings him to an alternate version of Commander Lex. This version of Lex is seen donning Kryptonian garb and tech, and mocks Jon for his attempt of changing the past turning out to be a failure. As the episode concludes, it is quite clear that Jon’s attempt to save the future by rewriting the past has created a different version of doomed future – Butterfly Effect is real with this one. As the episode title suggests, it is a rather intriguing way to adapt “Death of Superman”, without actually having Kal-El die. It will be quite interesting to see how Commander Lex rose to power, whether Superman losing powers resulted in Lex taking over the world? Additionally, what will happen if this version of Lex tries to arrive in the past using Jon’s gadget to shape the world according to his whims? Guess the upcoming episodes will answer all these questions. 

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