Superman & Lois Is Ignoring A Major Kryptonite Mystery (& It Hurts The Show)
Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Superman and Lois season 2, episode 7, "Anti-Hero."
The source of the X-Kryptonite super drugs is a mystery that Superman and Lois has ignored to the point of it being a major problem for the season 2 storyline. Also known as Yellow Mist, the performance enhancer has come to be a major concern in several of the series' subplots. This makes it all the stranger that nobody seems to have been investigating how a seemingly rare space rock is being refined and distributed with apparent ease by some unknown criminal mastermind.
Originally introduced in Superman and Lois season 1, X-Kryptonite is an extremely rare version of Kryptonite most commonly found in the Shuster Mines of Smallville, Kansas. While most forms of Kryptonite in the Arrowverse only effect Kryptonians, X-Kryptonite has the ability to give ordinary humans the same powers that Kryptonians acquire under a yellow sun. Originally, this was presented as a lethal transformation, as only the citizens of Smallville (who had been exposed to X-Kryptonite radiation for decades) were capable of being altered into suitable host bodies for Kryptonian personalities via the Eradicator protocol. However, at some point between the first two seasons of Superman and Lois, someone discovered a way to process X-Kryptonite into the designer drug Yellow Mist, and began selling it as a performance enhancer and party drug to the teenagers of Smallville. The drug also came into the hands of Phillip Karnowsky, a dealer in illegal arms and narcotics, who used the drug to briefly become a match for Superman in the season 2 episode "The Ties That Bind."
The issue of X-Kryptonite in Smallville came to a head in Superman and Lois season 2, episode 7, "Anti-Hero," as the local police efforts to crackdown on the use of Yellow Mist led to a raid on Smallville High School. Jonathan Kent was caught with a cache of Yellow Mist, which he was trying to get rid of to protect his girlfriend, whose family was dealing the drug to make ends meet in the wake of the economic collapse of Smallville. Later in the episode, it was revealed that the Department of Defense also had a small stockpile of Yellow Mist, which Lieutenant General Mitch Anderson misappropriated so that he could ambush Superman at his new Fortress of Solitude.
The first few episodes of Superman and Lois season 2 made Yellow Mist seem like a local problem that had yet to reach the attention of the authorities. Yet in the episode "Anti-Hero," the police officers searching Smallville High School had drug dogs trained to sniff out X-Kryptonite. This, coupled with the Department of Defense having a stockpile of Yellow Mist locked up with their Anti-Kryptonian armory, suggests that Yellow Mist has become a wide-spread problem on a national level, far beyond the borders of Smallville. If that is the case, the question is raised as to how that's possible given the rarity of X-Kryptonite. It would take someone with considerable resources to gather the X-Kryptonite from the Shuster Mines unseen and process it, with the fact that the drug is distributed in specialty inhalers suggesting access to some kind of manufacturing facility.
This could be another hint that Ally Allston is Granny Goodness, who has often been connected with the Intergang criminal consortium in the comics. Peddling drugs that give people superpowers is a classic Intergang scheme, and the group has been mentioned before in Superman and Lois. In any case, the fact that nobody seems to have been investigating the origins of Yellow Mist and trying to stop those responsible for making it and distributing it is a serious plot hole.