Smallville

From LoveToKnow Sci-Fi

Superman Had to Come From Somewhere

Most tellings of the Superman story skim quickly over the early years as boring but necessary backstory: powerful alien Superman was raised in Smallville Kansas in a farm family and named Clark Kent before coming to Metropolis disguised as a mild-mannered reporter when not fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way.

The emphasis is on Superman, and Clark Kent is the disguise.

But... is it? If you asked the Man of Steel himself, surely he thinks of himself as Clark Kent, and Superman is the persona he assumes in his public superhero appearances. After all, this was how he was raised.

Backstory Promoted to Story

By going back to Kansas, the WB series Smallville focuses on the young man behind the mythic crime fighter. The pilot begins at the very beginning, with the super-toddler's spacecraft arriving on earth accompanied by a meteor shower that does massive damage to the town and surrounding area.

The child is found and adopted by farm couple Jonathan and Martha Kent (John Schneider and Annette O'Toole), who raise him and hide his super powers and mysterious origins from the outside world.

Fast forward ten years, and young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) is a high school freshman. Since this is a WB teen drama, teen-angst abounds. Clark is mooning over Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk), who is going steady with Whitney Fordman (Eric Johnson), while high school newspaper editor Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) is mooning over Clark. No one but the Kents, not even Clark's buddy Pete Ross (Sam Jones III), knows about Clark's powers.

Kryptonite

The meteor shower, a new twist added to the Superman myth, keeps life in rural Kansas from becoming too boringly placid, since the meteors were laced with a mysterious green stone which the locals don't yet know to call Kryptonite. The high concentration of this extraterrestrial mineral has created a host of mutants with strange powers and other oddities, giving Chloe an endless supply of material for her newspaper and Clark an endless supply of villains to combat. And the kryptonite gives Clark a vulnerability to keep things interesting.

The Smallville Pre-villain

Into this stew of teen-angst and mutants drives a new element in a white Porsche, poor little rich boy Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), sent by his father Lionel Luthor to run the local branch of Luthor Enterprises. Lex and Clark 'meet cute' as Lex's car goes out of control and plows into Clark as it careens off the side of a bridge. Fortunately, this is Clark we're talking about, and he is not only unhurt but able to save Lex from the sunken car.

Lex, known to the comic book fans as Superman's arch-enemy, is not yet bad, and despite a checkered past, is trying very hard not to be bad, not to turn into the sort of man his father is. The magnificently unabashed villainy in Smallville is provided by Lionel Luthor (John Glover).

Oh, and did I mention that Lex becomes Clark's best friend? This is not your father's Superman!

Smallville premiered on the WB network in 2001 and is still in production.