This inspired re-imagining of Clark Kent’s confused adolescence, coming during our current war against terrorism, gains resonance from an unanticipated historical parallel–the Man of Steel was originally created in 1938 just before U.S. involvement in World War II turned Superman into a comic incarnation of U.S. resolve.
Because Superman is constantly getting an image overhaul–due to his undeniable cash appeal at the box office or on the small screen–he’s become part of our cultural DNA. But Smallville is the first time poetry and beauty have been instilled in this esteemed pop fable.
The writers and producers use our intimate knowledge of the Clark Kent/Superman character to trigger all sorts of inside jokes that assume we’re all in on them. (We are.) For instance, they don’t need to explain what Kryptonite is; we all know.
Yet despite this pervasive knowledge, setting Superman as an adolescent has added a breath of fresh air to the canon, making part of the story new, unfamiliar and exciting.
Particularly inspired is the device of teen Clark (Tom Welling) as a troubled, fallible youth. He’s distraught to learn he’s an alien–as if any teen needed another reason to feel isolated and different–and Clark’s not yet comfortable with his emerging superpowers, which just kicked into high gear with puberty.
In fact, Clark doesn’t know yet that he’s going to grow into Superman, like he doesn’t know that his friend from the right side of the tracks, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), is going to end up as his archenemy. (We doubt if Lex knows that yet, either.)
Worse, the adolescent Superman also has a built-in guilt complex. The meteor shower that brought him to Smallville scarred the landscape and unleashed a horde of weird mutations, inducing Lex’s baldness and killing Lana’s parents. He thus has to save his hometown from his arrival to his hometown.
Smallville itself may seem idyllic, but its citizens have already experienced a horrendous calamity, without knowing how, why or what comes next. (Perhaps this is an apt metaphor for the dawn of the nuclear age.)
Seeing the Superman myth returned to innocence, and watching him lose that innocence, gives the material a disturbing sense of poignancy that it’s never had before, one that prevents its beautiful heartland-America scenery from becoming too vapidly pretty.
Yes, Smallville‘s still a WB teen series, which means that all the teens on the show are impossibly beautiful–zit, anyone?–and there’s a lot of gut-wrenching youthful angst accompanied by an all-too-mournful tune performed by the next big thing on the pop scene.
Still, the show’s over-sentimental vein is never without mirth. The fact that we can watch Clark suffer as an overwrought teen while knowing he’s to become an adult Superman feeds our level of irony and doesn’t allow the touching moments to descend into mawkishness.
No previous version of Superman’s story has ever let us identify with him in this way. Which is why one of the show’s classic moments is the way Clark becomes undone whenever Lana (Kristin Kreuk) is around; she’s wearing a necklace with a Kryptonite pendant.
Some superhero.
“Smallville” airs Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m.
