Nit: I think they established that (as in the comics of more recent years) there are 52 universes, rather than infinite numbers as in the pre-Crisis era. That's still plenty, of course.

Hey, by now he's set the 2010s record for length of tenure!

As superhero universes expand and power escalation progresses, taking time to answer "why don't we ask X to help?" risks taking substantial time away from the actual story. (Realistically, every Justice League member should have Superman on their speed dial, but "the Atom spends a few panels getting Clark's voice…

Different treatments of Lex have ranged from "doesn't want to kill anyone other than Superman" (Bronze Age, especially when written by Elliot S. Maggin) to "willing to casually murder millions to billions for a real estate deal" ("Superman: the Movie"/"Superman Returns") I personally prefer the former, but at his…

Allying with Lillian despite the risk of betrayal seems like prioritizing the greater good over the personal. Lillian's larger agenda on Earth doesn't matter if the planet is conquered by Daxamites, and there'll be time enough to stop Cadmus once the imminent threat is gone. (It's basically the World War II…

You were! For several decades, anything from Krypton (except kryptonite) became invulnerable under a yellow sun. So Superman's costume was made from his baby blankets because they were as tough as he was. (His cape was often used to contain explosions.) And the lenses of his glasses were from the windshield of his…

The planes were actually other Durlans who shapeshifted into different aircraft between cuts. #noprize

Superhero universes generally operate on the principle that things are the same as our world except when shown otherwise. So flying aliens, sure, but we're not going to, e.g., find out that Kara's been in the wrong all this time stopping crooks because bank robbery is actually legal on Earth-38. It would be a cheat…

Oh, definitely. While there's always alien high tech to call on if they need a sphere around the Earth for the next DC maxiseries (Apokolips, the architects of Mongul's Warworld, and the Guardians of the Universe can all handle construction on that scale), its not something likely to be done with local resources.

My impression is that it's a gate to the Phantom Zone (where Fort Rozz used to be), but that's been established as a region in space where time stands still, rather than the usual parallel ghost dimension.

Earth did have a polymer sphere around it for a while during the 30th century in the Legion of Super-Heroes comics of the 1980s.

I think, though, that it's true that it's become a stronger and harder-to-avoid element of the fannish conversation than it was traditionally. Fanfic has existed for decades, but pairing up characters wasn't quite such a dominant theme overall until relatively recently.

It's the mismatch between general anti-tyranny message and specific current events references that don't make sense on Earth-38 (e.g., no one in the show ever said anything about "making Earth great again" until Cat did) that produces the whiplash. While it still wouldn't be subtle, it would at least make more sense…

Superman may already qualify as a natural born citizen under the Foundling Statute. (But not Kara or, almost certainly, Olivia.)

And Barry actually used the vibrations to disguise his face and voice when his mask was down last season, albeit less subtly.

In pre-Crisis comics, but I don't think that's been established to be the case on the show. We saw that the Daxamite ship's windows are certainly breakable.

I'm guessing that this show is sensitive enough re the cliche of tragic gay romances that Maggie is pretty much immortal.

Or they can introduce and hand it off to Jim Harper (who after all has a longstanding connection to Cadmus) and try making him more like Jimmy Olsen instead.

And a totally faked identity and history sort of makes tax returns and birth certificates fade into obscurity as far as transparency goes.

Shayera Thal has, as far as I know, never been not awesome onscreen. And Katar Hol is great in all his incarnations up to the point that they start mixing him up with Prince Khufu.