As Supergirl finishes up production on its 6th and final season on The CW in 2021, the main event is now nearly upon us. Superman & Lois arrives in a special two hour premiere on February 23rd, and streams free the next day on the CW app.

Arrow has been long rumored to have been the result of the CW having been unable to secure the television rights to do Batman as a series, and the way Arrow was written suggested that they were trying to tell many of those same stories but with a different character carrying them along. It always felt as though something important was missing.

Then after Grant Gustin was so well received on Arrow as Barry Allen in the 2013 episodes The Scientist and Three Ghosts, he got his starring role in The Flash, and the DC universe felt a bit more real. We got Supergirl in 2015, with Melissa Beonoist doing the honors – but we were forced to ask ourselves the big question:

Where is Superman?

In 2016 we got our answer. Tyler Hoechlin filled the role on Supergirl for six episodes in 2016, and we had our Man of Steel at last. But a series? That would have to wait until 2021, and finally the time is here.

Not How We Thought It Would Happen

The crossover series Crisis on Infinite Earths resolved its multiverse dilemna by fusing all the different parallel Earths into a single one where all the heroes existed on the same world, in the same continuity. Out of all the possible outcomes, though, came compressed mashups of histories that had previously taken several universes to proscribe, and in this coelescence of the lives of Clark Kent and Lois Lane they end up not just married, but married with teenage sons.

Clark Kent (Tyler Hoechlin) and Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch) relocate from Metropolis to back to Smallville with their anxious teenage sons Jonathan (Jordan Elsass) and Jordan (Alexander Garfin) and contend with the pressures of being working parents – that is, if they actually are. Part of the trailer mentions that they’ve lost their jobs working for the Daily Planet. The simpler, idyllic life they might have been hoping for doesn’t quite seem to have materialized – and of course, when you’re a superpowered standout like Clark’s alterego Superman, trouble just seems to find you anyway.

“You’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders,” Clark’s high school sweetheart Lana Lang (Emmanuelle Chriqui) tells him at a cookout in the promo.

“Really wish I could get drunk sometimes,” Clark mutters to himself as she walks away.

Superman & Lois launches Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. with a 90-minute series premiere, followed by a Superman & Lois: Legacy of Hope special, on The CW.

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