The big X-Kryptonite reveal in Superman & Lois’ latest episode indicates that the show could be setting up an Arrowverse version of Smallville season 5’s General Zod and Lex Luthor story. Years before Callum Blue joined the show as season 9 villain Major Zod, Smallville saw Clark Kent (Tom Welling) go up against a Zod-possessed Lex (Michael Rosenbaum). Though this would not be the first time Superman & Lois has taken inspiration from Smallville,
General Zod, a hated rival of Jor-El and one of Superman’s greatest enemies, has yet to have a big presence in the Arrowverse. However, Supergirl did confirm his existence through a few references and a hallucination that Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) had in the season 2 finale. It would seem that the Arrowverse’s take on Zod is currently dead, but a return could be on the table in the future. In fact, Superman & Lois’ X-Kryptonite could be the key to making it happen.
In Superman & Lois season 1, episode 8, titled “Holding the Wrench”, it was theorized that X-Kryptonite may be doing a lot more than just giving Kryptonian powers to humans, which was what was originally established. It could actually be making them hosts for the spirits of real Kryptonians. Interestingly, this sounds a lot like the main storyline in Smallville season 5, which involved Brainiac (James Marsters) trying to create a vessel for the return of General Zod, who was trapped in the oft-seen Phantom Zone. He wanted this person to be Clark, but when that failed, he chose Lex Luthor instead. To make this work, he prepared Lex’s body by imbuing him with Kryptonian powers. This allowed Zod to take control of him until Clark found a way to drive him from Lex’s body in the season 6 premiere.
Superman & Lois could be moving in the same direction with X-Kryptonite. If this Kryptonite variant can somehow revive forgotten Kryptonians in the bodies of living humans, Zod may be among those who get restored. Exactly how it can pull this off isn’t clear, but it’s possible that it’s drawing their spirits out of the Phantom Zone or some other interdimensional prison. There are a number of powers present in the Arrowverse yet to be explained, though not Superman’s greatest power, but there is an opportunity here for Superman & Lois to unearth the powers of X-Kryptonite and introduce Zod at the same time.
As for what viewers could expect from Superman & Lois’ interpretation of Zod, it could be that it’ll use “Crisis on Infinite Earths” to abandon its existing Zod backstory and start anew, not unlike what both Smallville and the Arrowverse have done with Morgan Edge. And it may not need to bring back or recast Supergirl’s Zod actor, Mark Gibbon, since a Zod possession story akin to Smallville’s means that the villain will most likely emerge in the form of one of the show’s characters, whether it be the recast Morgan Edge, Sam Lane, John Henry Irons, or someone else entirely. Or, it may be that Zod will attempt to inhabit Superman himself. After all, there’s been no confirmation that X-Kryptonite can’t affect him. Plus, such a twist would explain why the Superman from Irons’ Earth turned evil.
