Warning: Spoilers for the Superman & Lois finale below!
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Superman & Lois definitively concludes the story of Tyler Hoechlin’s Man of Steel, but a big question remains after the show’s ending and epilogue: How much longer Superman possessed his Kryptonian powers. During Superman & Lois‘ Final Season, the Man of Steel dies at the hands of the vicious monster Doomsday, before being revived by the Kent family. However, his return comes with the surprise of Superman learning that his powers are gradually diminishing.
In the end, Superman puts a stop to Lex Luthor (Michael Cudlitz) and Doomsday, and lives for another 32 years before finally passing away. The specifics of Superman’s resurrection play a key role in why his powers are weakening, but the show’s final montage of Superman’s last years on Earth is vague in revealing how his powers fade as he ages. Still, there are clues in Superman & Lois season four to indicate the pace at which Superman’s powers receded in his later years, and to what extent they were present when he finally died.
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Why Superman’s Powers Are Weakening In Season 4
Though Superman’s family and friends succeed in reviving the Man of Steel after his death at the hands of Doomsday, it soon becomes clear that Kal-El is not operating at full strength. This is due to Superman being brought back by having the heart of General Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh) transplanted into his chest (and augmented with Kryptonian DNA) after Doomsday removed his original heart at the behest of Lex Luthor.
After Superman’s somewhat weaker powers become increasingly hard to ignore, John Henry Irons (Wolé Parks) runs some diagnostic tests on Superman’s body, and determines that a human heart like General Lane’s can only support the biology of a Kryptonian for so long. With this reveal, John also breaks some additional unfortunate news that Superman’s powers are weakening due to his now semi-human heart, and will eventually disappear completely.
Fortunately, Clark’s powers, while slightly weaker, are still very high-level in his final showdown with Doomsday and a mech-suit armored Lex Luthor, enabling the Man of Steel to defeat them both. Even still, Superman’s victory comes as he is well aware of his weakening powers, and the ramifications that has for life as Earth’s protector.
Superman Lives A Full Life & Plans For A World After He Dies
When John determines that Superman’s powers are slowly weakening, he cannot give him a definite timeline of how much longer they’ll be operational. That ambiguity, coupled with his two preceding decades as a hero, leads Clark to begin pondering his newfound mortality. With the help of Lois, Clark begins devoting much of his civilian life to charity work, to address issues like poverty and hunger around the world.
Additionally, Clark also prepares for the eventuality of a world without Superman, leading him to fully take his sons Jordan (Alex Garfin) and Jonathan (Michael Bishop) on as heroic apprentices. With the added help of John Henry Irons and his daughter Natalie Irons (Tayler Buck) in their armored flying suits (John even upgraded to his comic-accurate “Steel” look), Superman leads all four as a team of heroes.
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As the years pass on, the effects of aging begin to become much more noticeable in Clark. He and Lois remain happily married into their elder years until Lois succumbs to her resurgent cancer. Clark continues to live on for a few more years after that, even adopting his first ever dog whom he names Krypto, before finally passing away himself when his new heart gives out. All in all, during the 32 years after his defeat of Lex Luthor and Doomsday, Kal-El lives a full life as Clark Kent along with inspiring the best in humanity as Superman, but the amount of time he was able to continue as the latter is not made explicitly clear.
How Much Longer Did Superman Have His Powers Before He Passed Away?
Considering that Clark was well aware that he was living on borrowed time with General Lane’s heart in his chest, it stands to reason that he would take a much more considered approach to his remaining years as Superman. He obviously knew he would not be able to continue forever as the Man of Steel, which is why he selected his twin sons along with John Henry and Natalie Irons to act as his successors. At the same time, Superman would have also had to monitor his powers and invulnerability carefully in the ensuing years.
Without a clear timeline of how much longer his powers would be operating at a high level of efficiency, the last thing Superman would have wanted was for them to give out in the middle of him flying or being on the receiving end of a bullet. Since John made the initial discovery of Clark’s weakening Kryptonian abilities, the two probably monitored the status of Superman’s powers regularly in the years after, with Clark still operating as Superman until one of John’s tests determined that it was no longer safe for him to do so.
However, while Clark isn’t seen using his powers again after the scene of him leading his sons, John Henry, and Natalie in flight, that isn’t to say that his powers simply vanished one day. With Clark effectively becoming more and more human as the years wore on, his powers probably lingered in a low-level but still present capacity. At a certain point, he might not have been able to fly or possessed the same levels of super-strength or super-speed, but his Kryptonian powers probably remained in a dampened capacity, empowering Clark to be unusually fast and strong as a senior citizen in his newly humanized state.
Superman & Lois is the first Superman adaptation to give the Man of Steel such a definitive end by having him die as a mortal human and be reunited with Lois Lane in the afterlife. With 32 years between defeating Lex Luthor and finally passing away, it is impossible to determine with certainly just how much longer Superman’s powers remained active, and it is a question that is ripe to be mined in spin-off material like a tie-in comic book set during that period of Superman’s life.
Even still, Superman & Lois‘ series finale will remain iconic for ending the show with the Last Son of Krypton making the most of his mortal life and fading powers, and leaving the world as a true hero.
Superman & Lois is streaming on Max and Netflix.
