The CW-DC Universe is, perhaps, one of the most important cornerstones of the superhero media boom of the last decade and a half. As the pop culture proliferation of live-action comic adaptations spread in the wake of the MCU’s birth, it was DC, not Marvel, that led the charge with the likes of Arrow, The Flash, and their offshoots and continuations, proving not just that this material could work and thrive in live-action, but even more so that it could work on TV budgets like this at all. And so, it’s important to note that the long passing of that era came to its final end this week with the series finale of Superman & Lois (even if it was, technically, not actually part of that same interconnected reality).
But it’s also important to note that it ended in one of the most absurd ways possible.
“It Went By So Fast” largely focused on Clark’s final battle with Lex Luthor and Doomsday (after the latter already killed him at the start of the season—it’s comics, of course he got better, for very specific reasons we’ll get back to later), as father and sons tag-teamed to put a stop to their nefarious alliance. But with that out of the way, the episode pivoted to a sentimental epilogue that, well… was largely about Superman growing old and dying.
You see, after his first death this season, Clark was returned thanks to a heart transplant from none other than Sam Lane, his father-in-law after he was also killed by Doomsday—giving him a human heart and remaining lifespan, rather than a Kryptonian one. So after the battle with Lex and Doomsday, Clark and Lois retire to live out their lives. The kids grow up, Lois’ cancer comes back and leads to her passing, Clark finally gets a dog named Krypto to keep himself company. It’s all very sentimental and touching, a reflection of the importance of Superman’s sense of humanity (literally, in this case) as Clark being as important to him as being Superman.
And then Clark has a heart attack while walking Krypto, dies, and pops out of his own body as a ghost of his younger self. In non-denominational heaven. Which looks like the Kent family farmhouse just with a lot more glowing light everywhere.
Over a somber closing narration from star Tyler Hoechlin, we see Ghost Clark embrace younger versions of his sons, see glimpses of what are presumably a whole litter of grandchildren, and even reconcile with a tearful Lex, who gets to be in the same afterlife as Clark for some reason—but Sam Lane doesn’t, which leaves us asking whether or not having an actual heart is the gateway to CW-DC Heaven. But then the heavenly Kent kids open the door of the farmhouse in front of Ghost Clark to reveal that yes, Lois Is In Her Heaven, All’s Right With the World. And she’s also young and hot as we have known her throughout the series, and in the same glamorous red dress she was fretting over in last season’s “The Dress,” so she and Clark and embrace and make out in heaven.
That’s it, that’s how generations of the CW and DC’s union comes to an end. In one way, it’s fitting, bittersweet and sentimental and with its heart in the right place. Hell, it even matches up with how the show that started this all, Arrow, also concluded by letting Oliver and Felicity be young and hot in the non-denominational afterlife. Maybe it’s in the contract? But it’s also just a completely out-of-left-field choice, too. Perhaps it’s similarly fitting that the whole CW-DC universe comes to an end with a moment so absurd none of us could have predicted it all those years ago when Oliver Queen was flipping around Starling City and doing his best Batman impression—and that it’s kind of glorious that it ultimately got to a place where it was confident enough to be allowed to do so.
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