{"id":92679,"date":"2020-10-11T16:10:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-11T16:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gamerant.com\/why-it-took-smallville-10-seasons-to-show-superman\/"},"modified":"2020-10-11T16:10:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T16:10:00","slug":"why-it-took-smallville-10-seasons-to-show-superman-game-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2020\/10\/11\/why-it-took-smallville-10-seasons-to-show-superman-game-rant\/","title":{"rendered":"Why it took Smallville 10 Seasons to show Superman | Game Rant"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Superman is the most recognizable American icon of the 20th<\/sup> Century. The character has appeared in every medium: film serials, radio dramas, animated shows, blockbuster movies, video games \u2013\u00a0and oh, yeah, comics. Like a mythical figure, Superman has been reimagined <\/a>for various adaptations, such as 1993-1997\u2019s Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman<\/em>, which is essentially a workplace romance-comedy with occasional supervillains.<\/p>\n

In that tradition, a new CW series will show Superman and Lois Lane (ironically as a spin-off of Supergirl<\/em>, which will be finishing soon<\/a>) as a domestic couple returning to his home-town of Smallville<\/a>. It\u2019s a full circle for a network that in 2001 (back when the CW was the WB) created a prequel series detailing the journey of Clark Kent (Tom Welling) into the Man of Steel:\u00a0Smallville<\/em>.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Every Time Superman Turned Evil Before Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Smallville <\/em>was a subtly ingenious idea because Superman has no real defined origin. Of course everybody knows about him being the sole survivor of Krypton. But the details of how he grows up, how he learns of his own origins, how he moves from Smallville to Metropolis, or why he even decides to become Superman are often left vague. Unlike Spider-Man or Batman, Superman has no concrete inciting incident that pushes him into being a superhero. He is simply born with his abilities. So by seeing his teenage years, Smallville <\/em>provided insights into Clark Kent\u2019s upbringing and maturity, his gradual change from secretive, sensitive Kansas farm-boy into the world\u2019s most powerful superhero.<\/p>\n

A running joke about Smallville <\/em><\/a>was how it would tease out Clark\u2019s iconography over its 10-season run while never committing to it. Indeed, especially the early seasons of Smallville <\/em>are a bizarre mash-up of Superman and Dawson\u2019s Creek <\/em>that masks teen-drama with comic-book names. Its developers, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, held an infamous \u201cno tights, no flights\u201d policy that refused to see Clark don his Superman costume, fly, or even be called Superman. It\u2019s not even until Season 2 Episode 17, \u201cRosetta\u201d, that Krypton is first mentioned by astrologer Dr Virgil Swann (a cameo from Christopher Reeve), and Clark learns he is its last son.<\/p>\n

But part of what makes Smallville<\/em>\u2019s journey so satisfying, if time-consuming, is how these elements are steadily assembled until the series finale, when Clark finally takes on the tights and flights. Plus, Smallville<\/em>\u2019s drawn-out nature enables it to micro-focus on every aspect of Superman\u2019s mythos. Want an episode entirely about Clark\u2019s X-Ray vision? How about his Super-Hearing? Or Super-Breath? There are episodes all about the Kent\u2019s adoption papers, Perry White (Michael McKean), Superman\u2019s occasional supporting-character cop friend Dan Turpin (David Paetkau), and discovering the Fortress of Solitude.<\/p>\n

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Such piecemeal stories allow the vast lore accumulated around Superman to have dedicated showcases. This is also true for Superman\u2019s identity, the overarching purpose of Smallville<\/em>. Many roll their eyes at Clark being called \u201cthe Blur\u201d (only one of the ways Smallville <\/em>influenced early Arrow<\/em>\u2019s \u201cthe Hood\u201d and Flash\u2019s <\/em>\u201cthe Streak\u201d) after he moves to Metropolis and starts fighting crime, but still not officially being Superman yet. But Superman is a deceptively complex alter-ego, and Smallville <\/em>stretches out the process of Clark choosing this mask-less identity. Most of early Smallville <\/em>saw Clark terrified of his secret, saving people anonymously and only having his friends Pete Ross (Same Jones III) and Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) discover it by accident.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Kryptonite meteor shower is the same one that brought his spaceship to Kansas, making Clark feel inadvertently responsible for the havoc reaped upon Smallville. It\u2019s through the support and guidance of his parents – alongside an It\u2019s a Wonderful Life <\/em>style episode, \u201cApocalypse\u201d, that shows Clark if he never existed the meteor shower would remain and the world would be endangered\u00a0 \u2013 that Clark grows into taking a more active approach to super-heroics. It\u2019s only after meeting Oliver Queen\/Green Arrow<\/a> (Justin Hartley) that Clark began considering a costumed identity, before putting out Superman-crest symbols around Metropolis, but still avoiding photographs. One of the best moments of Smallville <\/em>is in \u201cMasquerade\u201d, where Clark\u2019s desires to be himself while crime-fighting while still having a double-life collide. He concludes that \u201cClark Kent will be the mask\u201d, that the human identity he was raised with needs to be fashioned into a mild-mannered glasses-wearing persona, being defined by his actions instead of his name.<\/p>\n

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