Superman's arrival to National City last Monday was met with high praise by fans for being the hopeful and optimistic Superman we all know and love from the comics. Soon after Geoff Johns took over for the DC films, Superman was approved to appear on the show. Now although we do not know if Geoff himself was the one who lifted the embargo or not, the timing cannot be a coincedence (After all, he is the one person at DC who likes to make changes for the better, case in point, DC Rebirth). However, plans to introduce Superman on the TV show started long before the embargo lift.
Show runner and producer, Andrew Kreisberg (The Flash, Supergirl, DC's Legends Of Tomorrow) said in a recent interview that they were planning it ever since season 1 "We were planning to do this while we were still on CBS," "I think it became even more imperative when we jumped to The CW, just because you always want to start, especially when you made a giant transition like that, you want to put your best foot forward. We had been hinting and teasing at Superman all last season, and the idea to actually get to see Superman and Supergirl working together felt like a great way to open the season. ... It was a way to bring eyeballs back to it, and especially because we really feel like we hit another gear with the show creatively."
Despite bringing the man of steel to the show, he felt that he didn't overshadow Supergirl's presence "The show is called Supergirl, and it was always designed to be about someone who had to deal with a very famous relative whose shadow was very difficult to step out of, and in some ways you didn't need to see him to make that work," he said. "We really felt like over the course of last year she started not so sure of herself and by the end of the year she saved the world, so we felt confident that Kara was in a strong enough place as Supergirl and as Kara that it was the right time to bring in her cousin and not have it overshadow her and not have it feel like, 'Oh, well finally, Superman's here.'"
Kreisberg also discussed moving the DEO move to National City, stating "This was pretty much what we envisioned. As far as the changes were concerned, we were always going to revamp the DEO. We just fell out of love with the cave set," "It didn't feel of a piece. It was cool in the beginning, and it just for some reason didn't feel like it was bringing everything together."
As for having Kara and James "In-Name-Only" Olsen breaking up in the season 2 premiere "They're both tremendously talented actors and they're both lovely people and they both love working with each other. I think we sort of felt like we were pursuing that relationship more because we felt like we had to than any of us was really [feeling it]," said Kreisberg. "We brought in some new writers in the middle of the season to keep some fresh blood, and even they, coming at it fresh, felt like we weren't quite sure how we were making this happen. We realized the best scenes between them were just the nice, sweet scenes where they were being friends. "The show has a large fanbase and a loyal fanbase, and we didn't feel like we could just drop it because we had made such a big deal about it in the first season, but we thought rather than just opening the episode with, 'Well we had our summer romance, sorry that didn't work out,' that actually making it part of the story [made sense]," he continued. "It felt like there was a way to have that realization actually be a part of the story. I think most of us have had friendships that turn into something more and then you realize maybe it wasn't, so it felt like a very real story that we could be telling."
What do you think about all the changes to Season 2 and Superman? Supergirl airs every Monday night at 7 PM, PST.