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 The new WB hour-long drama Smallville has been getting a decent amount of attention in the press and on Internet newsgroups, complete with analysis of the science behind Clark's powers, praise for the ethnic diversity of modern Kansas (a half Asian Lana Lang? A Black Pete Ross?) and so forth. The prequel (it takes place as Clark Kent, the once and future Superman, is 15 and a schmuck high school student, but we all know the kinds of fun things that can happen to metahumans when they hit puberty) is chock full of wholesome goodness, with attractive teen-a-like stars (although how anyone can believe 24-year-old leading man Tom Welling is 15...must be them Kryptonian genes) and deftly avoids the majority of the comic-book-guy-esque data that would confuse the Dawson's Creek crowds who just happen to be watching.
To sum up: The "spaceship" hasn't been seen since the landing. The lead character, Clark Kent, is no more "super" than any other high school misfit who happens to have secret super powers. Clark spends most of the show mooning over the teenalicious Lana Lang (who I wouldn't have known was half Asian unless I'd read it on the Web) and longing to be "normal." His pals, the aforementioned Pete Ross and junior Mulder wannabe Chloe Sullivan, don't poke too hard at Clark's shiny, candy-like shell, and deal with their own pubescent dramas (at least they both look like teens, although I'm certain whoever plays Chloe is not). No costumes, no code names, no more wackiness than an average episode of Roswell—far less, in fact. The show's most ubiquitous "character" and neverending deus ex machina plot device is what comics fans know as Kryptonite. The entire town was showered with Kryptonite meteors upon Clark's arrival, which (ha ha ha), once in a while turn random people into metahumans (pyrokinetic, shapeshifter and insect boy, to name a few).
On the other hand, our boy Clark (who, as Bruce Wayne alluded to in several places, doesn't seem all that swift) just found out this year he's from another planet. (No, he never thought to ask why he could lift tractors and run faster than the eye could see; it wasn't encouraged by his dour and wholesome parents.) He's discovering his powers slowly—speed and strength have always been things he could do—but now finding x-ray vision (which several naysayers online have noted can only be psionic in nature, due to the fashion in which radioactive x-rays work) and limited flight (most notably in a nearly erotic dream about his love interest).
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All in all, the show is entertaining in a quaint, nostalgic kind of way. An Ultimate Superman for TV, if you take the Marvel approach: Push Kal-El's teenage years into the present, mix characters and voila! However, like that other televised prequel chestnut Enterprise, some of the edge is taken off the show by its very nature, at least for anyone who's ever read a Superman comic. Despite how earnest and cool Lex Luthor seems at 20, we all know he's gonna go nuts and become a megalomaniacal super villain. Despite Clark's intense passion for Lana, wistfully pining away as she dates blockheaded quarterback Whitney (nobody has once ragged on his name...the school needs more Black students for that, perhaps), we know she and Clark will never end up together. Despite the mounting financial difficulties presented to Jonathan and Martha (looking very Once and Again in their well-preserved adulthood), we know the Kent farm ain't goin' nowhere. A comics fan watches the show with a jaded bemusement, smirking at the digs and in-jokes and waiting patiently for somebody to catch the smackdown.
Then again, comics fans are a dangerously small group, and Smallville is introducing the concept of Superman to people who may have just been born when the Salkinds put Christopher Reeve in the blue and red tights. Kids who grew up with Dini and Timm's Superman Adventures are seeing their first glimpse of Clark growing up in Kansas, unfettered by pesky lingering memories of pocket universes and Time Trappers and Legions of Super Heroes. The majority of the people Smallville is intended to entertain don't know and don't care about the vast volumes of continuity stores in our labyrinthine minds. We could pass from the earth, taking our Jeph Loebs and John Byrnes with us, and they wouldn't miss us at all, happily gazing into Lana's doe eyes and wondering, wondering if this will be the episode where she requites Clark's innocent, farm boy love.
So comics fans shouldn't look to Smallville for fascinating revelations about nooks and crannies of the character we never knew. The show is under no obligation to the comic books at all. AOL Time Warner's vast corporate pseudopods act more like rival fiefdoms than parts of a unified whole. With that in mind, we should ignore what we think we know of continuity and remember only the broad strokes: Clark grows up to become Superman, Lex grows up to become his worst enemy and pretty much everybody else stays put where they are. Starting the characters at 15, the WB could conceivably keep the series in high school for four or five years (with dramatic time in place, that glittering Franklin Richards kind of view that lets Bart and Lisa stay in the same grade forever) before the stars begin to crack their teenage facades. Clark in college? Super frat boy? It worked for 90210...
If the network decides to stick with Smallville, we could see the days of a red-haired Lana Lang fade into that "wasn't that wiped out in Zero Hour?" kind of confusion that much of the past is viewed in. The future doesn't need anything more than a license to exploit the characters and a vague knowledge of a few rules they cannot break (i.e. don't expect a Lex Luthor mohawk period). We could all find ourselves cast aside with that past if we cling to it too strongly.
Hannibal Tabu is a freelance graphic designer and would-be world conqueror. He maintains his secret ghetto lair with his truly patient wife, his futuristic Legion of Super Action Figures and more Macs than you would probably believe. You can peer into his madness through the windowpane at http://www.operative.net.
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