Review: My Adventures with Superman “Zero Day: Part Two”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

General Lane interrogates Superman about Zero Day, the day extraterrestrial beings came through a mysterious portal and began a lethal attack on Earth, led by an armored figure that resembles Superman that Cadmus codenamed “Nemesis Omega”, that was then stopped by an unknown event. Superman is clueless about the event, as well as crushed to find what may have been his species invading Earth, which starts to give Lane doubts about his involvement. This hesitance leads Waller to think he’s going soft, so she sneakily lets the imprisoned metahumans out of their cells, including a crazed Ivo, who proceeds to absorb more and more energy until he’s Kaiju sized and ready to destroy all of Metropolis. Superman is able to escape and meets up with Lois and Jimmy, who have been looking all over for him with some local kids, and they’re able to give him the support to get back into the fight, as well as getting the whole city to turn off its power to stop Ivo’s energy drain. Superman pulls him out of the Parasite suit, saving the city. Jimmy finds the orb Lois got from a couple of episodes ago and sees the image of Superman destroying things. In the aftermath, Lane is removed as head of Task Force X, with Waller taking his place. She then tasks him with killing Superman with Ivo’s final invention, the Omega Cannon.

OUR TAKE

We reach the climax of the season with action at its peak, mysteries further uncovered, and notable shifts in the status quo. In many ways, it’s a lot of fun and a clear sign of how far Clark has come from being a helper from the shadows into a symbol of hope, but in others, it’s maybe a sign that some things were left a bit undercooked. As an example, finally coming face to face with General Lane and getting some much needed context to the “Zero Day” that’s been floated around all season. Turns out the source of all these crazy alien weapons the bad guys have gotten their hands on all come from this event, apparently being led by SOMEONE who may or may not be a Kryptonian, and it’s actually not clear because we haven’t really gotten a good look at this version of Krypton. HOWEVER, General Lane seemingly losing his intense hatred for Superman the moment he gets even a little reason to doubt his previous guesses feels…kinda weak. It’s not AS MUCH of an irrational change of mind as a certain OTHER instance in a different story where a character who obsessively wanted to kill Superman suddenly changed his mind because of just a bit of new information (*coughBVScough*), but it still feels weird to see his attitude change so drastically so quickly.

It also feels like, possibly due to the small amount of episodes, that a lot of characters are getting lost in the shuffle. Getting Ivo to Kaiju size as a big final battle (at least in terms of scale, there may be more fights next week in the finale) does feel like it pays off his own growing obsession with killing Superman, but the rest of the villains are mostly bereft of distinguishable character. Livewire seemed like she would get more after showing up in the first couple episodes but didn’t, the trio led by Silver Banshee only had a bit of lip service towards how they were a group, Heatwave gets pretty much nothing, and perhaps what I feel is the biggest waste is Slade Wilson, who started out as what seemed like would be a stand out henchman for Waller but ends up getting…I think NO lines since the second episode? Maybe that’s just me expecting more because I’ve seen cooler Slades in other shows, but even then I think this could have been utilized better.

But I don’t want to seem like I disliked this episode outright, honestly it’s more the opposite. I very much like that we got Superman fighting a giant monster, showing he can save the day in front of the entire city and making use of the good will he has cultivated and accumulated because of how much of a good guy he is. That’s classic Superman shit! But a lot of this episode, and this series as a whole so far, has felt like it has either shuffled along without giving things enough focus or pulling its punches on something. Maybe when we get the finale and I look back on the whole season I can articulate this point better, or maybe the second season that’s already in the works will correct a lot of it. Whatever that is, there is plenty that I appreciate about this show, not the least of which being that it exists at all, but for the moment I gotta give it the same score I’ve been giving it the rest of the time. Here’s hoping the finale can be the one to get it over the edge.