Somehow, without anyone thinking about it too hard, there have been nearly continuous TV shows featuring DC comics superheroes, running on the same network for over two decades. But as of December 2, 2024, the CW’s super-reign has come to an end. Starting with Smallville in 2001 and ending with Superman & Lois, there has been a shocking stretch of several distinct superhero TV series. Although the so-called “Arrowverse” began in 2012 with the launch of the CW series Arrow, one can consider the dawn of this era much earlier.
For nearly the entire 21st century, some kind of DC Comics superhero TV show has been airing on the network we now know as the CW. This means that for most of this century, there has always been some kind of DC superhero show that we could watch. This seldom-discussed touchstone in the landscape of geek entertainment is now over. The finale of Superman & Lois doesn’t just represent the end of that series, this is also the ending of the Arrowverse, which, retroactively, is a shared superhero world that created a multiverse much better than anything feature-film version of The Flash clumsily attempted in 2023. Let’s take a moment to pour one out for the Smallville/Arrowverse era, and stop to consider what might replace it.
