Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Season 3 of Superman & Lois and Season 1 of Gotham KnightsAll comic book adaptations must make choices about what they adapt. Unlike novels, comics rarely tell a complete story. Much of Marvel and DC's publication history consists of perpetually ongoing narratives, their characters constantly changing authors and artists and being reinterpreted as time goes on. The more standalone miniseries or graphic novels are themselves often works of adaptation. So comic book movies or television shows have the unique advantage of having lots of material to draw from and relatively few limitations on how to fit all those elements together. The CW’s Superman & Lois exemplifies how to take full advantage of this quirk of the genre, while its contemporary Gotham Knights has struggled to execute its adaptive potential.

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Comic Book Adaptations Need To Hit That Sweet Spot

Josh Brolin as Thanos wielding the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Infinity War
Image via Marvel

The advantage of not being beholden to a single sacred text is not a free pass for comic book adaptations to do whatever they want with the source material. For example, there are instances of Batman killing throughout the comic book canon, but a story about a Batman that kills is always contentious despite that precedent. But they can reinvent an existing character to suit the story being told in the adaptation. The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thanos (Josh Brolin) is an excellent example of this. In the comics, Thanos is madly in love with the physical manifestation of Death and slaughters half of all life in the universe to try and earn her favor. That motivation would’ve felt out of place in the MCU’s (at the time) more grounded approach to superheroes. Instead, the MCU’s Thanos is motivated by a misguided approach to sustainability, believing that only by slaughtering half of all life in the universe can the rest of that life be preserved. The resulting movie has only the bare minimum in common with the Infinity Gauntlet storyline that inspired it, but that’s not a problem. Infinity War is just another take on that same concept, no different from the several other comic book storylines that brought back Thanos and the Infinity Stones to tell different stories.

This ability for recontextualization is a feature of comic book adaptations, not a bug. Comic books are recursive, constantly iterating on the same concepts with new ideas, directions, and perspectives. It can lead to experiences of stories that you can’t get from original, stand-alone projects. Audiences are assumed to have a certain level of knowledge about these storylines and characters. Batman’s archenemy is the Joker, Spider-Man’s uncle dies, etc. The exact amount of foreknowledge varies depending on the property in question, but this is a tool that adaptations can use. Insomniac’s 2018 Spider-Man game uses our preexisting knowledge of Spider-Man’s villains to set up the game’s final boss in a delicious piece of dramatic irony. We know that the kindly Dr. Octavius will eventually become the villainous Doctor Octopus, but Peter doesn’t. The game goes so far as to make the player (as Peter) solve some technical puzzles to help Otto complete his iconic arms, even as they know where that path will lead. It leans into the tragedy, rather than trying to make something we all knew was coming into a surprise.

'Superman and Lois' Remixes the Comics for the Better

Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch as Superman and Lois Lane in the CW Arrowverse series Superman And Lois
Image via The CW

At the end of the very first episode of Superman & Lois, the mysterious armored figure that attacked Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) is revealed to be someone called “Captain Luthor” (Wolé Parks). Of course, everyone watching this show knows that Lex Luthor is Superman’s archnemesis, so we’re primed to expect this character to be a new take on Lex. The show continues to feed this idea for several episodes before revealing that “Captain Luthor” is actually John Henry Irons, better known as the superhero Steel. Later that same season, the show pivots yet again when it’s revealed that the antagonistic Morgan Edge (Adam Rayner) is just the human name of Tal-Rho, Superman’s previously unknown half-brother. These twists are surprising because both Lex Luthor and Morgan Edge are well-established Superman antagonists, so there’s no reason to suspect they might not be who they seem. This trend has continued into subsequent seasons, with the show tricking audiences to expect Doomsday and not Bizarro Superman in Season 2 and putting a new spin on Bruno Mannheim (Chad L. Coleman) and Onomatopoeia (Daya Vaidya) in Season 3.

All these twists and changes to the source material are remarkably effective. Not just because the feint allows the show to surprise even comics veterans, but because Superman & Lois puts in the effort to make them work. The changes that the show makes to its characters and storylines are always for the benefit of its story. Morgan Edge being Tal-Rho directly connects him to the show’s focus on Superman and his family, positioning him as a Kryptonian foil to Superman’s new Earth-based family. Morgan Edge was an impersonal threat, but Tal-Rho is a very personal threat to the whole family. Other twists work because the actual storyline is more interesting than the one the show originally seemed to be adapting. The beginning of the second season teased the coming of Doomsday, the creature that killed Superman in the comics. But after a few episodes, it was revealed that the monster in the mines was Bizarro Superman and not Doomsday. Since Doomsday is rarely more than a mindless monster, this change opened the season to a much more interesting set of possibilities. And most importantly, there’s never any doubt about how the change affects the story being told. The John Henry Irons reveal immediately shifted the character from being a villain to another hero we wanted to see reconcile with Superman and his family. It doesn’t contradict anything we already know about these characters from the source material or what’s already happened in the show, it just recontextualizes them into something new and exciting.

'Gotham Knights' Grab Bag of Batman Comics

The Gotham Knights Cast
Image via The CW

Gotham Knights’ approach to adaptation is much more scattershot. The show is pulling from all corners of the Batman canon for just about every aspect of its story. The Gotham Knights cast is a mix of (mostly) minor characters from the comics, with the most prominent being Stephanie Brown (Anna Lore), Carrie Kelly (Navia Robinson), and Harvey Dent (Misha Collins). The story is most directly influenced by 2012’s The Court of Owls storyline but also incorporates elements from other books (such as The Dark Knight Returns’ Mutant Gang or Harvey Dent’s descent to villainy from stories like The Long Halloween). References to other Batman characters and stories are abundant, such as references to the Penguin having at some point served as the Mayor of Gotham.

This hodgepodge lacks the structure and intention of Superman and Lois. There’s so much being thrown in from different, contradictory sources that it’s impossible to put it all together into something coherent. For example, a throwaway line early on lets us know that the show’s version of Batman killed the Joker. But this isn’t treated as the fundamentally character-breaking moment that it is, and the show moves on immediately. This is especially strange when one of the main characters claims to be the Joker’s daughter and another is Batman’s adopted son. Something as drastic as Batman breaking his no-killing rule should have more impact than that. Any references like this only serve to muddy the show’s world. What is the Mutant Gang doing in this version of Gotham, rather than the run-down and barely functional Gotham of The Dark Knight Returns? Is Arthur Brown (Ethan Embry) there to become the villainous Cluemaster, or is he just a crappy dad to Stephanie? What is storytelling potential and what is just sloppy worldbuilding?

The result is that Gotham Knights is hard to pin down. It’s unclear what it’s trying to do with the stories it’s adapting, and that hurts the show’s attempts to build out its themes and characters. On the other hand, Superman and Lois soars when it remixes classic Superman stories. There’s never any doubt over how two elements fit together because the show is always precise about what it’s adapting. Gotham Knights is pulling from a solid selection of Batman stories, but it hasn’t taken the time to make sure that every piece belongs to the same puzzle. The strongest comic book adaptations understand this relationship between themselves and the source material, and future adaptations would do well to keep the differences between these shows in mind.