The internet went into absolute overdrive this week. The meltdown started on X, where a meme mocking the physical appearance of Hollywood’s new superhero began making the rounds.

The target was Milly Alcock, the twenty-six-year-old actress stepping into the iconic boots for the upcoming movie. Dean Cain, the fifty-nine-year-old former Lois & Clark star who used to fly across prime-time television in the nineties, stumbled onto the post, which compared Alcock to a creature from an old sci-fi flick, and decided to publicly weigh in. “Dang it… I laughed,” Cain posted. The reaction from the modern comic book fandom was protective.

One Reddit commenter reacted to the post: “She is like the most conventionally attractive woman ever. We can’t win.”

The backlash proved, once again, that nobody holds a grudge quite like the modern comic book fandom when an old school fan punches down.

Then came the nitpicking. Cain’s initial post was a reaction to fans obsessing over Alcock’s pierced ears in the promotional shots, wondering how a bulletproof alien gets her ears done. Director James Gunn jumped onto social media to explain the lore. Some fans think that was a mistake. “Like I truly got pissed off when this popped up and james gunn actually explained it, like dude what are you doing if they’re dumb or malicious enough to glaze over one of the 2 things we learnt about supergirl in superman than there’s no point in engaging,” a Reddit user wrote.

But the real anger is reserved for Cain himself, who has spent the last several years transforming his public image from a charming nineties TV staple into a conservative news analyst.

“Dean Cain is my proudest Twitter block,” one user shared. “He blocked me after I said I love when trash takes itself out when he was bragging about leaving California for whatever backwater he lives in now.”

Another commenter noticed a pattern among a crowd of aging men. “There are quite a few washed up ex-athletes, gym bros, and I guess Dean Cain has confirmed ex-actors in his age group that talk in that way, I’ve met a some, and more than a few of them shared a waiting room with me at a medical building one of my drs is in, and they all use a very “gosh golly gee willickers” kind of speaking style and a sense of false positivity to couch their shitty opinions I overhear while waiting. None of them has ever said anything positive or kind about women, LGBTQ, marriage, their children, politics, or even the other people in the waiting room. Everything they say is self centered, half baked, and some of the dumbest shit I’ve had to hear in person. Luckily, I can start doing more of those visits as telehealth, so I won’t have to hear them as much. It’s not a surprise to me that Dean Cain would talk like that because he seems to be in the same lower double digit IQ area as the guys I was talking about.”

Alcock previously mentioned that most of her loudest detractors fit a very specific mold. And she was right. “And people wonder why she made the comments about most of her critics being “Christian dads” and “pissing off the right people”… she was talking about [people] just like Dean Cane,” a fan noted.

For his part, Cain later responded to a critic by writing, “I never said she was ugly.”

This story was originally published by Parade on Jun 9, 2026, where it first appeared in the Celebs section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.