Back in October of last year, I posted my rankings of the various actors who’ve played Superman in live-action films or TV shows.

RANKING THE MEN WHO PLAYED SUPERMAN

I put Tyler Hoechlin at number 5 for reasons I explain there. But things have changed since then, hence this new post.

As planned, I checked out the series finale in December and Great Rao, I was blown away! It inspired me to go back and bing the entire 10-episode final fourth season, which I’ve finally completed. This was an amazing story.

As I said, I skipped the show at first because I wasn’t particularly interested in the status quo of Lois and Clark having two teenage sons and leaving in Smallville. That is still true but this 10-episode season felt more like a special Elseworlds extended miniseries. It’s like All-Star Superman, a nice hypothetical “last Superman story.”

I loved seeing Superman’s death, his resurrection, the flashbacks to his early days as a superhero, the struggles his sons went through when he was dead and trying to figure out how to learn their powers, the revelation to the world of her secret identity, the truly brutal version of Lex Luthor and, well, just everything! And it all lead to that brilliant finale. I loved the flash-forward montage at the end, showing Superman’s sons growing up, becoming superheroes in their own right, getting married and starting families, the heartbreaking natural death of Lois, all of the way up to Superman’s own natural death (I never liked stories that portray Superman as being functionally immortal, destined to outlive Lois and all of is friends), and meeting Lois again in Heaven. My eyes definitely started watering a few times as I was watching it.

Based on this, I now have to move Tyler Hoechlin up to number THREE on my list. He’s second only to George Reeves and Christopher Reeve. I’m still looking forward to the new Superman movie in July, and I’m rooting for David Corwenswet to impress me, I’d love for him to be at the top of my list someday, but now he’s got an even harder act to follow.