How Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman Went From An Arrowverse Sidekick To An Unforgettable Man Of Steel

Tyler Hoechlin took flight as Superman on the CW series Supergirl, but it wasn’t until his own show, Superman & Lois, that he properly became the Man of Steel. Tyler Hoechlin has had a decidedly different run during his tenure as Superman, kickstarting his tenure with a role on the Arrowverse that often saw him relegated to being one of the franchise’s second-fiddle characters. That’s not to say that Hoechlin’s Kal-El didn’t have his moments on Supergirl and in the Arrowverse, but his presence was still hardly a truly befitting one for Superman.

That finally changed when Hoechlin began headlining his own series, Superman & Lois, in 2021, and to call it a night-and-day difference from his Arrowverse tenure is just scratching the surface. With Superman & Lois barely a week away from concluding its four-season run at the time of this writing, Tyler Hoechlin has leapfrogged above and beyond his humble beginnings as an Arrowverse side character to become one of the all-time greats to carry the mantle of Superman. As his run as Superman shows, Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman arc has been the rise of a hero to his greatest potential.

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Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman Began As An Arrowverse Guest Star

After being considered for the Superman role in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, Tyler Hoechlin made his Kryptonian debut as a guest star on the CW’s Supergirl in 2016. Appearing in a total of six episodes of and later donning his cape for the Crisis On Infinite Earth crossover series, Hoechlin’s Superman was, in hindsight, a largely peripheral Arrowverse character. To be sure, that’s to be expected when a character isn’t headlining their own series, but the fact of Superman being the literal progenitor of superheroes would lead one to expect a more iconic role within the context of the Arrowverse for the Last Son of Krypton. However, Hoechlin’s Superman never really achieved that in his Arrowverse tenure, and his suit certainly is not among the more highly revered ones that Kal-El has ever donned in live-action. 

The Arrowverse Superman Had Good Moments But Never Properly Came Into His Own

As a supporting player on Supergirl, Tyler Hoechlin had much less to work with from the start compared to his fellow Men of Steel, but he nonetheless consistently embodied the spirit of Superman. Moments of Superman and Supergirl teaming up brought plenty of good-natured fun to Hoechlin’s Superman debut, and he snagged some of the most stand-out moments in the series. An early scene of Hoechlin’s Superman saving a family from a drone attack, destroying the drone with his heat vision, and flying off after a wink and a smile offered an early indication that he was a strong choice to bring Superman to life on the small screen. Hoechlin’s Superman also brought moments of levity and even fun-loving cockiness to Supergirl, such as a moment where a car thief, after running out of bullets, punches Superman to no effect, leading the Man of Steel to pick him up and asks, “See, now, if the bullets don’t work, right, why the punching? I’ve never understood that.“

Still, for all the great moments he landed on Supergirl and during Crisis On Infinite Earths – including a battle royale and a subsequent team-up with Brandon Routh’s returning Kal-El – Hoechlin’s Superman never got to properly carve out a real identity for himself beyond being a kind heavy-hitter called in when added support was needed. That might have changed had the ending of Crisis On Infinite Earths, which consolidated all the CW’s DC shows into a single universe and set up the Arrowverse version of the Justice League, actually delivered on its promise. However, with the end of Arrow itself, the Arrowverse gradually fizzled out until the end of The Flash in 2023. In the meantime, Hoechlin’s Superman finally jumped into the spotlight with the debut of Superman & Lois in 2021, and it was clear from the start that it was nothing like its CW DC brethren.

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Superman & Lois Has Let Tyler Hoechlin Show, His True Man Of Steel Potential

From its first trailer, Superman & Lois set itself apart from the Arrowverse with a clearly bigger budget than any other DC CW series had to work with and a very obvious tone shift. Hoechlin’s Superman suit also saw a major redesign that was a huge upgrade from his Arrowverse attire, while Superman & Lois also wasted no time in treating viewers to action scenes, visual effects, cinematography, and Superman rescues that could have been right at home in a big budget Superman movie. Most of all, Superman & Lois gave Hoechlin’s Superman a fresh starting point by reintroducing him as a husband and father, managing the challenges of raising a family as much as saving the world. 

The show also gave Superman the dual role of both series star and superhero mentor to his teenage sons Jordan (Alex Garfin) and Jonathan (Jordan Elsass in seasons one & two, Michael Bishop in seasons three and four). Both Jordan and Jonathan deal with their own struggles as both teenagers and the sons of Superman, with Jordan developing Kryptonian powers early on and Jonathan finally catching up with his brother’s abilities by season four. 

Superman & Lois also took a deep plunge into the Superman mythos, mining the Man of Steel’s rogue’s gallery for both secondary villains like Parasite (Rya Khilstedt) and more well-known adversaries like Bizarro and a much burlier, more rage-driven take on Lex Luthor (Michael Cudlitz), along with Superman’s long-standing ally John Henry Irons a.k.a. Steel (Wole Parks). With Superman & Lois even finding time to morph Bizarro into Doomsday and adapt The Death of Superman along with his resurrection, and making regular nods and tributes to virtually every big and small screen Superman adaptation along the way, Tyler Hoechlin shined like never before as the Last Son of Krypton. In accomplishing all of this, Superman & Lois has also cemented another legacy on its network.

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Superman & Lois Puts Every Other CW DC Show To Shame

Outside of such teen-oriented fantasy series as The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural, the CW is well-known for producing many popular DC Comics-based shows, beginning with the Superman prequel series Smallville in 2001 (which originally aired on the WB before the network’s merger with UPN created the CW.) Smallville’s 10-season run was followed by the birth of the sprawling Arrowverse, encompassing Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Supergirl, and Batwoman, and while each has a sizeable fanbase and has contributed to DC’s television history in the own way, one other factor is also undeniable – Superman & Lois leaps over them all in a single bound.

In any direct comparison with every Arrowverse show, Superman & Lois looks more like a big-budget superhero movie delivered in episodic form. Moreover, even with ten seasons of storytelling on its side, not even Smallville – as great a series as it is – captures the kind of epic scope and mythic quality of Superman’s impact on the world quite as profoundly as Superman & Lois has managed in less than half the time. The makers of Superman & Lois clearly took notice of this early in the show, with Superman & Lois keeping its distance from the larger Arrowverseuntil the season two finale revealed that it takes place on a completely separate Earth in the multiverse. With that reveal shortly followed by Hoechlin’s Superman literally punching the planet with enough strength to stop Earth and the Bizarro World from merging, Superman & Loisset itself apart from virtually every other live-action DC TV show, and indeed most live-action superhero shows, period. Superman & Lois, quite simply, is in a class all of its own.

Superman & Lois Has Told One Of The Most Unique Superman Stories Ever

In hindsight, it really should have been obvious from the beginning that Superman & Lois had no connection to the Arrowverse. When the series begins, Hoechlin’s Superman has already been a hero for 20 years, with flashbacks showing his early days as a reporter in Metropolis, his first meeting with Lois Lane, and even his original Martha Kent-sewn version of his classic suit modelled on the Max Fleischer Superman serials of the 1940s. All of the above and the Man of Steel-esque tone of the show provided early indications that Superman & Lois was going its own way, but justas importantly, it was also telling a Superman story that no other movie or show has done before. Sure, there’s the foundation of Hoechlin’s Clark Kent managing his double life as both Superman, taking care of the Kent family, and coaching the Kent boys to master their powers after moving back to Smallville. However, Superman & Lois goes far deeper than that.

To begin with, Superman & Lois marks the first live-action team-up of the Man of Steel with John Henry Irons, one of the heroes of the DC pantheon inspired to follow Superman’s example in his absence by becoming the armoured hero Steel. Superman & Lois reworks John’s origin and eventual alliance with Superman into a story of an enemy made into a friend, but after telling its version of the death and return of the Man of Steel, Superman & Lois throws a huge curveball in season four with Clark Kent, aware the people are beginning to catch on to his secret, publicly revealing to the world that he is Superman. 

The implications of that story turn are enormous, even with the twist happening just three episodes before the show’s end. Still, Superman & Lois also adds a further element into the mix, with Hoechlin’s Superman being the first to find himself grappling with the effects of ageing and mortality. With Clark having the heart of General Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh) transplanted into his body, laced with Kryptonian DNA, he is able to return to life after dying at Doomsday’s hands, only to discover that not only are his powers operating at lower efficiency, they’re gradually diminishing and will eventually disappear for good. In a wholly tangible way, Hoechlin’s Superman is both human and humanized in a Superman story that has never been told before – a Man of Steel who is a husband, a father, Earth’s protector for 20 years, who must now defeat Lex Luthor with the whole world knowing his secret and his powers gradually receding. 

How Superman & Lois’ Final Season Is Solidifying Tyler Hoechlin’s Man Of Steel Legacy

There’s truly never been a live-action Superman story like the one Superman & Lois has told in its four-season run, and that uniqueness has enabled Tyler Hoechlin to transcend his beginning as a side character in the Arrowverse to a Superman who has made a profound impact on the Man of Steel’s superhero legacy. What makes that even more significant is that, for all of its demonstrated ability to maintain a consistent scope, tone, and quality from one season to the next – lower episode count and network budget cuts be damned – Superman & Lois has also saved the best for last. 

A Superman resurrected from death and dealing with the effects of ageing, an outed superhero identity, and a vengeful, Machiavellian enemy with the skills and drive to potentially bring him down is the crux of how Superman & Lois is concluding the story of Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman odyssey, and it is doing so with all the power, energy, and emotion of an epic comic book run or a movie franchise entering its final chapter. 

Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman may have begun his run as an occasional guest star making hit-or-miss appearances on the Arrowverse, but he’s ending that run as one of the greatest Supermen of all time in one of the most original and captivating Superman stories ever told. Years from now, when Superman fans share their most revered tales of the Man of Steel among each other at Comic-Cons, online forums, social media, and everywhere else, Superman & Lois and Tyler Hoechlin’s Last Son of Krypton have more than earned their place among them.

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Tell us, do you think Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman is an unforgettable Man Of Steel?