I’ve recently been musing about what I view as the demise of the Arrowverse, the CW’s long-running, previously successful DC experiment that is just…sort of crumbling these days with shows ending, quality nosediving and actors leaving (or getting booted).

There is one exception to this, however, Superman and Lois, which feels like the beginning of a different era of the Arrowverse, but something crafted instead for HBO Max rather than the CW itself.

Superman and Lois does use characters that were born in the Arrowverse, as we first met its Clark and Lois on Supergirl. But it has been disconnected from all other shows since it premiered, and the entire vibe of the show, the production, the budget, all seems elevated above the far more “soapy” Arrowverse shows.

That was perhaps best exemplified this week where the series took a hard, hard left turn and left me genuinely surprised with something it pulled off.

All season long, Superman has been squaring off against what appears to be an alternate universe Lex Luthor, a bald black man with a scar played by Wolé Parks. He commands Luthor’s anti-Superman suit which runs on Kryptonite, and the suit addresses him as “Captain Luthor.” We see flashbacks of Superman and other Kryptonians turning on his earth and destroying Metropolis, and killing his wife in this universe, Lois Lane. The two have a daughter, and she helps him build the suit.

What happened next is unclear. This might be a Crisis on Infinite Earths thing where he was collapsed into “normal” earth, but now he wants to kill Superman here.

Only this week, we learned that he’s not alt-universe Lex Luthor at all. His name is John Henry Irons, the man known in the comics as Steel, a mecha-version of Superman who wields a powerful hammer.

It was a pretty huge shock. We have not seen Steel realized since Shaquille O’Neal played him in a movie in 1997. And we are a long ways from that.

So far as I can tell, we are in completely uncharted territory with this custom Steel plotline, which best I can figure, has never experience a story where he’s from an alternate earth, has a daughter with Lois Lane, and builds his Steel suit and hammer to beat the living hell out of Superman. He’s pretty much a good guy through and through, and his biggest claim to fame was picking up some of Superman’s hero responsibilities after his original death back in the ‘90s.

Where things go from here with Irons is unclear. He’s currently in jail, but I have to assume there will be some sort of redemption arc where he goes from villain to ally. But I was genuinely caught off guard by this whole process, in a good way. Here’s Parks speaking out about the responsibility of bringing this character back to life in non-Shaq form:

“When they told me I was going to be playing John Henry Irons, I was overwhelmed, a little emotional,” Parks told TVLine. “I remember growing up with him, but it’s not just me anymore. There are other kids who grew up with this [character], and there are kids growing up now who will know a different version of it. The responsibility is crazy. This is by far my most important role, if I want to phrase it that way, and I don’t take that lightly.”

Looking forward to seeing where this goes. Even if you have ditched the Arrowverse, or never watched it, trust me, Superman and Lois is worth watching. Find it on HBO Max.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series, and The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.