Tal-Rho

**Tal-Rho** is the main antagonist of the first season of Superman & Lois and an anti-villain in the show's second season. He was, genetically engineered, the only son of Zeta-Rho, the first-born and estranged son of Lara Lor-Van, the maternal half-brother of Kal-El/Clark Kent, the step-cousin of Kara Zor-El, the brother-in-law of Lois Lane, and the paternal uncle of Jonathan and Jordan Kent.

While on Earth, he began posing as a billionaire and philanthropist as **Morgan Edge** and began transplanting Kryptonian consciences into humans to rebuild Krypton. However, Edge is Tal-Rho, Superman's evil half-brother and one of the Kryptonians who survived the planet's destruction. After being sent away by his father to further their Kryptonian heritage, Tal began enacting his father's vision of resurrection with a device known as the Eradicator.

After being rejected by Kal-El, Tal-Rho became the **Eradicator** until his brother and John Irons defeated him. After his arrest, Sam imprisoned him in an offshore DOD prison site. At least one year later, Tal-Rho became Superman's ally and aided his family in the fight against Ally Allston. However, during their conflict, Tal went to the Inverse World, taking his Earth-22 doppelganger's place.

In Krypton, he was descended from the House of Van and the House of Rho. As Morgan Edge, he was the new owner of the ***Daily Planet***, the majority shareholder of Galaxy Holdings, and the owner and former CEO of **EdgeCorp**. He was also a former prisoner of the Department of Defense and currently resident of the Inverse World.

## Early History

Tal-Rho was genetically engineered on the dying world of Krypton in 1968, with his parents Lara Lor-Van and Zeta-Rho wedded through an arranged marriage, as they were both perfectly genetically-matched together. Knowing that Krypton was dying, Zeta sent his son to Earth with the sun stone that belonged to Tal's mother to maintain his Kryptonian heritage no matter what.

Tal Rho landed in the countryside of England, where he encountered a farmer and his wife. The farmer aimed his rifle at Tal when his eyes began glowing red. Outraged and panicked, Tal killed the husband and wife and went on the run. However, a town mob attacked him. They managed to grab Tal and call the authorities on him. In the next nine years, Tal remained a prisoner of the scientists who experimented on him all those years. However, he eventually escaped and killed his captors.

Fleeing to the desert, Tal managed to take his sunstone and throw it into the open space, creating his own fortress of solitude. Making contact with Zeta's AI, Tal revealed the Eradicator was still not on Earth yet. Zeta expressed disappointment in his son but told Tal to wait for the device's arrival and told him to explore the Earth.

Eventually becoming **Morgan Edge**, Tal became one of the most influential businessmen of all time and built a reputation for being a world-famous tech-mogul. However, he began experimenting on humans with X-Kryptonite, recounting the same thing happening to him all those years and when the Eradicator arrived, began transplanting Kryptonian consciousnesses into humans.

When Kal-El emerged as Superman, Tal was enraged that his father kept this detail a secret from him. After confronting Zeta, Tal decided to go with his own plan and not Zeta Rho. He planned to one day approach Kal-El and convince his brother to join him, one way or another.

Meanwhile, Lois Lane began to develop distrust with Morgan Edge, especially when his deal to give people of New Carthage, Granville, and Hazel Green jobs and prosperity failed.

## Personality

Tal-Rho is a ruthless, intelligent, and self-made mogul. His xenophobic, hot-tempered, and dangerous personality most likely stems from the fact that he was raised by an abusive father and experimented on humans since he was a child. Even though his loyalty to his father is strong, Tal claims all he ever wanted was a family when he tried to appeal to Clark several times. When Kal rejected him, Tal grew vengeful and attacked his nephews and sister-in-law just to hurt Clark. Even though Lois was in the same room with him, she was the only one who did not feel intimidated by him, whether it was near the Shuster Mines or in his own office.

After two months in solitary confinement, Tal continued to hold a grudge against Clark due to feeling abandoned and rejected. This is mostly born from  a strained relationship with Lara, his mother, blaming her for abandoning him to his abusive father, Zeta-Rho. Despite his time time in prison, Tal also developed a fondness for reading Earth's books, having read The Fault in Our Stars more than once and having a whole collection in his library. He became more manipulative and controlling, up to the point where Tal claimed he was weakened by the red solar cell just so he could get Clark and Jordan into taking him to the fortress in the desert.  Under the pretense of being depowered and weakened allowed him to attack his nephew and become close in killing him. However, when Lara told him that she still believed there was good in Tal, he hesitated until  when Clark attacked him and  returned Tal to his cell. The encounter seemed to have affected Tal, as he decided to help his family three more times.

Tal-Rho and Kal-El's relationship improved as the second season progressed. After being imprisoned with Clark and each out then saving each other's lives, Tal seemed to feel remorse for what he did, even apologizing for everything he did to Jordan and Lois. Despite his improved relationship with Kal, Tal is still very unpredictable. He still left for the Inverse World to take over his doppelganger's life because he knew that a supercharged Kal-El could defeat Ally Allston by herself. However, he gave Jordan and Jonathan expensive trucks after Jordan saved his life and allowed Lois and Clark to use his villa for private time away from their parents.

## Powers and abilities

* **Kryptonian Physiology:** When on a planet with a yellow sun, Tal-Rho gains various superhuman abilities, which he discovered when he first came to Earth. When on a planet with a red sun, he is downgraded to a similar human physiology but more resilient.
	+ **Solar energy absorption**: Tal absorbs the power of the sun, granting him several powers.
		- **Superhuman strength**: The ability to be stronger than a human being
		- **Super Durability**: The ability to withstand wear, pressure, or damage.
		- **Superhuman speed**: Tal is able to run and fly at incredible speed, stronger than a human.
		- **Accelerated perception**: Tal has super fast reflexes.
		- **Flight**: He is able to manipulate his gravitational field, which allows him to fly.
			* During his first meeting with Clark, Tal briefly levitated in the air to prove he was a Kryptonian
		- **Heat vision**: The ability to fire heat from one's eye. Due to more time on Earth, Tal was able to easily defeat Jordan with his twice.
		- **Super stamina**: The ability has better stamina than a human
		- **Enhanced senses**: Senses enhanced through sight, smell, and hearing.
			* **Super hearing**: Tal can hear anything for a mile away. When it first developed, he likely heard ringing in his ears. The noises are everywhere while having difficulty zooming in one sound at a time.
		- **Super smell:** Like all Kryptonians, Tal likely has a stronger sense of smell more so than any other perseon.
		- **Invulnerability**: Tal is immune to most things found on Earth, including
	+ **Enhanced mental capacity:** Tal's mind is extremely fast and sharp, giving him a perfect memory and recall. After traveling to the Inverse World, he quickly adjusted to its backward speaking.

## Abilities

* **Genius-level intelligence**: Being a Kryptonian, Tal-Rho has developed superhuman intelligence. He knew how to
	+ **Business acumen**: Over the years, Tal has become a powerful businessman
	+ **Expert tactician**: Posing as Morgan Edge, Tal-Rho has been able to come up with plans. He meticulously comes up with them on the spot, having decided to use his mother's technology, the Eradicator, and patiently waited for it to arrive on Earth. In Season 2, Tal came up with the plan with his brother when they escaped their cell and DOD custody. However, even though he launched an attack on Ally Allston, he did not anticipate her to be incredibly strong because she had both Clark and his Inverse World counterpart's powers
	+ **Multilingualism**: Tal speaks both English and native Kryptonese.
	+ **Intimidation:** After learning Lois and Chrissy were planning to expose himself in the paper, he sent Leslie to the Gazette to antagonize the women by threatening to sue Lois if she posted it. Despite their friendship, Chrissy refused to publish Lois's piece in fear of Morgan Edge in coming after her or anyone she cared about. Even during his interrogation with Clark, Tal managed to strike fear into his brother when he told Clark he would fall because they were not different.
	+ **Deception:** Tal-Rho would use his charisma and charm to manipulate others by making them feel more comfortable around him. However, characters such as Lana and Lois see right past it. Lois didn't believe him when he was saying he was trying to help other people out of the goodness of his heart in Smallville. Lana was crept out by him when he was flirting with her at dinner with her husband and several other associates. After tag Harris abducted Sarah, Lana grew even further suspicious about Tal-Rho's planning and she eventually joined Lois and Clark t in their investigations.
	+ **Manipulation:** Using his charisma, he easily manipulated Kyle Cushing and most of the people around him.
* **Tolerance for pain** Tal withstood punishment from green kryptonite when Mitch Anderson ruthlessly tortured him with it. He suffered injury from green kryptonite while protecting Kal, taking shots of green kryptonite for him. Even though shots like that would have killed him instantly, Tal was able to withstand it.

## Weaknesses

* **Kryptonite** Depending on the color of the Kryptonite, the following may potentially have an effect on him.
	+ Green kryptonite is the deadliest form of Kryptonite to the Kryptonians. If Tal is exposed to this form of kryptonite too long, it will eventually kill him. However, this depends on the intensity, as he was able to be contained in a green-kryptonite contaminated cell. After protecting Clark from Mitch Anderson, Tal was shot instead and nearly died until Clark extracted the kryptonite from his body. Due to his long time on Earth, Tal has developed some immunity for Kryptonite, withstanding punishment from it longer.
	+ Silver Kryptonite: Tal could experience dangerous and terrible hallucinations that become real and not what is right in front of him . It can only be cured when it leaves his system.
	+ Red Kryptonite: if exposed to red Kryptonite, Tal's minds will be errands and gradually, rob him of his inhibitions and sense of morality until there is nothing left.
* **Red solar energy:** Tal's time in the red solar powered cell weakened him up to the point where Clark needed to fly his brother's body up to the sun in order for Tal to heal.
* **Lead:** Lead prohibits Tal-Rho from looking through walls with his x-ray vision. His kryptonite and red sun cell are lined with lead, making him unable to use his super sight.
* **Power dampening**
* **Sound dampening**

## Relationships

* Lara Lor-Van † (Mother)
* Zeta-Rho † (Father/Antagonistic Relationship)
* Kal-El/Superman (Maternal Half-Brother; Former Enemies Allies)
* Lois Lane (Sister-in-law)
* Jordan Kent (Nephew/Former Enemies/Allies)
* Jon Kent (nephew/former enemies/allies)
* Jor-El † (step-father/enemies)

## Trivia

* When *Superman and Lois* aired, it was believed Adam Rayner was recast as Morgan Edge and that the show took place on Earth Prime. However "Loyal Subjects" and "O Mother, Where Art Thou, revealed he was Tal-Rho, an original character in the series. He was also combined with the Eradicator, baking him a canon character all along.
* Tal is also based on H'el, a Kryptonian survivor who was allegedly the son of Lara and Jor-El and therefore Superman's elder brother. However, in the series, Tal is Kal-El's maternal half-brother.
* Unlike his Earth-Prime counterpart, Edge is not gynophobic because his right-hand is a woman but doesn't mind insulting them, like he did Lois Lane and Lana Lang.
* Tal-Rho is somewhat similar to Astra from *Supergirl*. They were both the main antagonists of the first season, a relative of one of the heroes (Tal is Clark's brother and Astra is Supergirl's aunt), have a device used to ensure Krypton's survival. They also failed to tempt their relative to their side and don't succeed in their plans and feel wronged by the heroes' mothers (Alura and Lara).
* Throughout the series, Tal-Rho always refers to Clark by his birth name more than his preferred one
* Tal-Rho is very similar to Loki: both are embittered, have a hatred for humanity and a complex relationship with their brothers, Thor and Kal-El. The only difference is Tal-Rho is the older sibling instead of being younger
* Tal-Rho is an avid reader, having a large collection of books in his red cell. He even read *The Fault in Our Stars* several times.[[