‘Superman & Lois’ EP confirms major comics villain is coming in season two

This article contains spoilers for Superman & Lois‘s season two premiere.

Superman & Lois knocked it out of the park in its debut season, with even the most anti-Arrowverse DC fans admitting that it was a terrific adaptation of Kal-El and the Kent clan. The pressure is on season two to keep up the quality, but yesterday’s opener got things off to a strong start with its final tag scene, which appeared to tease the arrival of a major comic book villain. One whose coming may spell doom for the Last Son of Krypton.

The aptly titled “What Lies Beneath” saw Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) having to save Smallville when a strange earthquake erupted, emanating from the town’s mines. At the end of the episode, we discovered the cause when a gigantic gloved hand broke from the ground. Comics-savvy fans immediately recognized the image and wondered if this was really our first look at Doomsday, the beast destined to cause the death of Superman.

Well, mystery solved, as showrunner Todd Helbing has confirmed this is 100% the case. As told to Entertainment Weekly, Helbing revealed that the premiere’s last shot was a “homage” to the cover of Superman: The Man of Steel #18, the issue that introduced Doomsday into the DC universe. What’s more, he teased that we’ll be getting our full look at him by episode three.

“That is our homage to a classic Doomsday cover,” said Helbing. “Then in episode 2, you’re going to see him a little bit more. In episode 3, you’ll get the full reveal.”

So does this really mean that the show is adapting “The Death of Superman” arc when it’s only on its second season? Well, maybe not, as Helbing went on to stress that the S&L writers room likes to switch things up and tell a unique story, much like how Morgan Edge/the Eradicator was reimagined as Kal-El’s brother in season one.

“There’s so much lore [and] mythology in the Superman universe that we feel it’s our obligation to tell a unique story,” added Helbing. “We take inspirations from the comics as much as possible, and then we try to twist it. We did the same thing here.”

In this case, then, Helbing hinted that the series will be twisting the audience’s assumptions about the character of Doomsday in order to confound expectations. But, again, we’ll find out more about this iteration of the monstrous villain come episode three.

He continued: “I think one of the things that we all really dig about the comic book world, but particularly with the villains, is finding ways to use assumptions about a character, and then flipping that, and finding ways to explain things that haven’t been explained in the comics, like the use of something, or why a character does a certain thing. It’ll all be revealed in episode 3, but there are a couple little things that we’re doing that I can’t explain too much, because I’ll give it away, but you’ll see how we’re influenced by certain pieces and why we used it to create work that is hopefully a cool reveal.”

Superman & Lois season two continues Tuesdays on The CW.