Superman & Lois season four concludes Tyler Hoechlin’s saga as the Man of Steel, with the series also ending with a far better Kryptonian suit than Hoechlin’s Superman began wearing. Following his role as a guest star on the CW’s Supergirl, Tyler Hoechlin graduated to the lead of his own series, Superman & Lois. While its relationship with the Arrowverse was kept loose and ambiguous early on, during the Season 2 finale, Superman & Lois revealed itself to be set on a different Earth, in a different universe from the Arrowverse.
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Admittedly, the clues for that were always there – not just in Superman & Lois‘ clear tonal difference from the Arrowverse, but also with Hoechlin’s Superman wearing a completely different suit from the one he began in on Supergirl. Indeed, the odyssey of Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman suit is just as enthralling as the tale of his Kal-El – and it’s a tale that ultimately ends with one of the best live-action Superman suits ever designed.
Superman’s Arrowverse Suit Wasn’t Great
When Tyler Hoechlin first began his Superman tenure on Supergirl, the results were a rather mixed bag. Outside of his appearance on the Crisis On Infinite Earths crossover series, Hoechlin’s Man of Steel admittedly never really amounted to a real power player in the Arrowverse, and his Superman was sadly much more of a footnote in the franchise as a result. And it was, in part, due to Superman’s Arrowverse suit being one of the weaker versions of the Man of Steel’s trademark outfit.
The S-shield on Superman’s Arrowverse suit was a relatively generic version of the classic symbol without much of a distinct personality of its own. Meanwhile, the two clips affixing the cape to Superman’s shoulders were a frequent visual nuisance and made the suit feel like a general downgrade from its numerous big-screen counterparts. Evidently, the makers of Superman & Lois began the show with a mandate to iron out the issues that had plagued Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman suit on the Arrowverse.
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Superman & Lois Made A Huge Suit Upgrade – But There Were Still Some Issues
From the start, Kal-El’s Kryptonian garb on Superman & Lois was a major improvement on its Arrowverse predecessor. The suit was given considerably more form and texture, while also allowing Superman himself to be a much more powerful presence on his own show. With that being said, Superman & Lois was still somewhat finding its footing in molding Kal-El’s suit to perfection, during seasons one and two.
In Season 1, the suit, while generally well-designed, also supplemented Tyer Hoechlin’s lithe physique to make him appear somewhat bulkier. In certain scenes, this had the unfortunate effect of Superman’s upper torso looking a bit oversized and disproportionate. Ironically, the flashbacks to the early days of Superman’s career on Superman & Lois saw him don a suit inspired by the Max Fleischer ’40s Superman serials that was much more well-proportioned to Hoechlin’s build and frame.
To be sure, Superman & Lois did a relatively good job of keeping that from being a distracting issue in the same way the Arrowverse’s cape clips had been. Usually, the suit’s not-entirely-perfect proportions only became visible when seen in the right (or wrong) kind of lighting or from certain angles. Season 2 managed to dial back the massive chest and slightly oversized overall build a decent amount. Still, it wasn’t until Superman & Lois Season 3 that the show finally cracked the code on giving Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman the suit he deserved.
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Superman & Lois Finally Perfected Tyler Hoechlin’s Man Of Steel Suit In Its Final Seasons
When Superman & Lois returned for Season 3, the suit had clearly undergone another redesign, and one that was very much for the better. Hoechlin’s suit and cape were given a more Navy-blue-and-maroon sheen of color, while the S-shield itself was a fully-textured piece proudly adorned to the Man of Steel’s chest like the Kryptonian crest it is. Superman’s death and return in Season 4 would also give way to the suit’s best and final makeover…
With the cape and suit graded in an even deeper hue of Navy blue and maroon, the S-shield was not only textured but given an almost golden shade of yellow behind it. Never before had the S on Tyler Hoechlin’s chest jumped out like on Superman & Lois Season 4 – all the more fitting, indeed, for the moment when Clark rips open his shirt to allow a bullet to bounce off the S-shield in the Smallville diner, revealing his secret to the world at last.
Moreover, while Hoechlin’s suit had always been textured to varying degrees going back to his Arrowverse Superman days, the version seen on Superman & Lois Season 4 drew clear inspiration from Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel suit and its chainmail design. As a bonus, the scene of Superman’s big reveal in the Smallville diner gave viewers an up-close look at the suit’s new design as the bullet speeds toward him, showing the rivets in the suit to be tiny versions of the S-shield linked to each other as the ultimate Easter egg.
It may have taken eight years, a hop from one universe to another, and a few seasons of a solo show to properly bequeath Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman with a suit truly befitting of the Man of Steel. Nevertheless, in Season 3 and especially Season 4, Superman & Lois finally accomplished the task of matching Tyler Hoechlin’s outstanding Superman with an equally magnificent and truly iconic version of Superman’s immortal Kryptonian suit, cape, and S-shield.
Superman & Lois is streaming on Max.
