Similar to what Clark Kent went through in both Man of Steel and Smallville, learning super hearing was a difficult challenge for Jordan Kent (Alex Harfin) in Superman and Lois. Though not one of the abilities Superman is famous for, it is one of the most useful tools in his arsenal.
The latest series in the Arrowverse takes place at a different time in Clark Kent’s life than most Superman movies and shows, but it has so far told a number of stories familiar to those who have watched Man of Steel, Smallville, and more. It’s a new kind of Superman journey since the focus is on a married Clark and Lois who are in the process of raising a pair of teenage boys in his hometown. But the problems faced by Jordan, who seems to have inherited at least a small fraction of his dad’s Kryptonian abilities, mirror some of the challenges that past versions of Superman have been forced to endure, particularly in their early years.
A common challenge experienced by many iterations of Superman involves his super hearing, and now Jordan has had to deal with this as well. After this ability was triggered for the first time, Jordan couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. He was hearing all types of sounds from miles and miles away, with each of them being amplified to the extreme by his enhanced eardrums. For this reason, Jordan was holed up in the house for a while with headphones to shut out all the noise. It wasn’t until he focused on a singular sound - Sarah’s voice at the high school - that he was able to control it and go back to living his life.
Similar to how it affected Jordan, Smallville’s Clark spent an episode learning how to master it. In season 3’s “Whisper”, this power kicked in to compensate for Clark’s sight at a time when he was temporarily blind. It first him at school, with all the sounds in the hallway overwhelming him at once. To get past it, Jonathan (John Schneider) told him to focus on the sound of him whispering amid several other loud noises. It took some practice, but in time, he was able to shut out unwanted noises at will, and concentrate on just what he wanted to hear. In Man of Steel, a much younger Clark started developing several of his powers all at once, including his heat vision and x-ray vision. But the worst of them was the super hearing. He locked himself up in a room until his mother spoke to him from outside the door and convinced him to focus on her voice.
It’s traditionally a major issue for a young Superman, and it’s easy to see why when considering the impressive range of the power. There are thousands of sounds that Clark’s mind must process at once, so controlling it can’t be easy. But, it would seem that mastering it comes with numerous advantages. In Smallville, it was an ability that Clark put to use to quite often. As for Jordan, on the other hand, it remains to be seen exactly how he’ll utilize it in Superman and Lois.