Film Review: The Man of Steel

I'm in a little bit of shock. I don't usually see movies so close to their release date. Nevertheless, on Sunday, July 7th, I was sitting in a local movie theatre watching Man of Steel (2013). I couldn't have been happier.

A word of warning, especially if you haven't seen the film yet (and I highly recommend that you do). I'm going to be dropping spoilers all over the place. If you don't like surprises ruined, then save this review until after you've seen the film. Remember, you have been warned.

I love this movie. I really do. It's not a perfect film but it's very, very close. As far as superhero films go, I thought The Dark Knight (2008) completely nailed it, and Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker sent it over the top. I thought The Avengers (2012) was just as good, although in a completely different style. I'd have to say that Man of Steel comes very, very close to equaling those two other movies with just a few small problems.

First things first, though.

The Movie

Man of Steel starts out with a bang, almost literally. We're on the planet Krypton. The son of Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara (Ayelet Zurer), Kal-El (when referred to by his Kryptonian name, he's called "Kal" most of the time) is the first natural birth on their planet in centuries. He doesn't have much time to enjoy that distinction.

The planet Krypton is about to explode. This is straight from Superman canon going back at least fifty years. Jor-El confronts the planetary council and begs them to take the only option they have left after centuries of consuming the core of their now unstable planet: space travel. One hundred thousand years past, Krypton had a thriving system of space colonies. They eventually became a more introspective and even xenophobic race and withdrew from space, abandoning all the colony worlds. If they don't revive that tradition and very quickly, the planet's explosion will destroy the Kryptonian civilization.

The old guard in the council refuse to accept this. Jor-El speaks to deaf ears. But General Zod (Michael Shannon) has another plan. Violent overthrow of the government in order to save the essence of what Krypton is. Jor-El approves of saving Kryptonians but not by bloodshed.

Lots of action ensues and not only does Jor-El illegally launch his newborn son into space, but he sends the stolen codex, the genetic record of all Kryptonians, into the void with him, rocketing to an unnamed planet with a yellow sun.

In the battle to prevent Zod from stopping the launch, Jor-El is killed. Zod and his commanders, including Faora-Ul (Antje Traue), are captured and condemned to the Negative Zone. With her husband dead and her son sent into an uncertain future on an alien planet, Lara lives long enough to mourn before being killed along with her entire species as her native world explodes.

A space warp opens and a ship emerges just outside Saturn's orbit. The ship negotiates the rest of its journey with remarkable speed, passing Earth's moon and then entering the atmosphere...

...shift to the present on a fishing boat where a mysterious man with a beard is working, although this is hardly the sort of job he's used to. An emergency call from a burning oil platform. Men trapped inside. The stranger disappears from the boat and the trapped men are confronted by a shirtless man standing in the naked flames unburned...one who can rip a steel door open with his bare hands.

They all make it out and onto a rescue helicopter in time except for the stranger, who manages to keep the flaming, melting superstructure of the rig from collapsing on the aircraft until it can take off.

Clark Kent's (Henry Cavill) life story is told from present to past and back to present in a series of flashbacks. As the stranger travels from town to town in the frozen north, he picks up clues to the mystery he's searching for...an artifact of some kind trapped in a glacier over ten-thousand years old.

He's a quiet man, almost serene at times. He wants to help, even when it's not appreciated. He doesn't quite fit in. He keeps moving.

Enter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) by helicopter at the arctic site where the American military and scientists, including Dr. Emil Hamilton, still can't find a way to investigate whatever is buried in the ice. She almost doesn't notice a worker named "Joe" who is assigned to carry her luggage.

That is, until she sees him later that night outside in the sub-zero weather wearing no coat. She follows him. It almost kills her.

Besides the ship, Clark came from Krypton with two artifacts: the codex and a key displaying his family crest. Clark burns his way through the ice and into what turns out to be an ancient Kryptonian scout ship. He activates the ship with the key and his father's "personality" is uploaded. Jor-El answers all of Kal's questions. Lois isn't so lucky since the ship's security identifies her as an alien.

Clark saves her...the first of many times. He places the wounded woman outside where she's quickly found by others. The ship launches and then lands in another part of the arctic, this time without witnesses. Jor-El tells Kal of his destiny, gives him the undersuit to the battle armor worn by the House of El. It's a suit that is unmistakably familiar to generations of people in search of a hero.

We learn in flashbacks that Clark's amazing calm (no, he's not emotionless) is a result of how his parents brought him up. His mother Martha (Diane Lane) helped young Clark overcome the debilitating sensory overload when the vast information gathering power of his eyes and ears turned on all at once.

His father Jonathan (Kevin Costner) was hard on Clark, desperate to protect him, and he's the one who taught Clark to endure any abuse or insult, no matter how harsh, as opposed to using his vast power to strike back, which would not only kill, but expose young Clark to a government that would most assuredly exploit or destroy him if they knew of his existence.

But sometimes young Clark had to help. A blow out of a school bus tire sends the vehicle over the side of a bridge and into a river. Everyone is going to drown...except one young teenage boy. He's the boy who pushes the bus back onto the bank and then dives under the water to pull out Pete Ross (the teen version played by Jack Foley), who only minutes before had been teasing him.

Jonathan and Martha later try to calm Pete's mother down as she rants on about how Lana (Jadin Gould), Pete, and several other kids saw what Clark did. After all, how could any human being, especially a thirteen year old boy, push a school bus out of a river? This isn't the first time Clark's done something like this, but it's rare enough that it only attracts local attention...for now.

As an adult, Clark has an almost supernatural calm. But he's not perfect. When he's bullied by some drunk in a bar, Clark just walks away. But when the trucker walks outside, his rig is a twisted mess, tangled with cable and tree trunks. Apparently Clark can lose his cool, but only when no one can see and so that no one gets hurt.

When Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) refuses to print Lois's story about the alien stranger and the ancient spacecraft in the Daily Planet, she goes on a personal quest, starting with "Joe" at the arctic site and working backwards, searching records for mention of a dark stranger, a loner with a penchant for helping, and who sometimes seems more than human.

Apparently, it's not hard to follow the trail, which leads the reporter straight to Smallville, Kansas, restaurant manager Pete Ross (as an adult played by Joseph Cranford), and finally, Martha Kent.

Lois meets Clark again at his father's grave. She knows who he is now. And because of who he is, she kills her story. She'll never tell anyone about him as long as she lives...if she can help it.

It might have ended there if not for the message from a ship from the stars: "You are not alone." When Krypton exploded, the Phantom Zone was opened and Zod and his commanders were freed. They converted the "phantom drive" of the prison ship to a warp drive and then searched the old, long dead colony worlds for decades, picking up old technology, looking for the lost Kal-El, until Clark's entrance into the scout ship activated a signal and led Zod straight to Earth.

This is when the world learns that they have had an alien in their midst for thirty-three years. This is when they find out if he's a threat or a hero.

That's really the point of the movie in many ways. Ten and twelve year old boys in 1938 wouldn't have asked themselves how we'd all react if we really found out we weren't alone in the universe. They wouldn't have wondered how the human race would respond to an alien "Superman" whose powers would make it all too easy for him to kill millions. They'd have assumed he was good and a hero and a lot of fun to read about. They wouldn't have a clue how a flawed and panicky mankind would really see a stranger from the stars who could "bend steel in his bare hands."

The love story between Kal and Lois is handled well. She does name him "Superman" in a lull in the action, after Kal surrenders himself to the military and before he is surrendered to Zod in exchange for Zod not destroying Earth. They only finally kiss near the end of the film but the magnetism between them is obvious and forged by her search for his story and her integrity in keeping his secret.

It's Lois who saves Kal on Zod's ship where the Kryptonian environment maintained on board weakens the would be "Man of Steel" and even makes him sick. She uses the key given to her by Kal, since she was turned over to Zod as well, to upload Jor-El, and the simulation of Kal-El's father sends her off the ship in an escape pod along with the secret Jor-El teaches her of returning Zod and his crew back to the Phantom Zone.

Jor-El reprograms the environment on the ship for Earth normal, and Kal's powers are back...but not before a blood sample is taken, which is important later on.

Superman rescues Lois from her damaged space pod and sets her down on Earth. But the battle is on. Zod and his team come to Earth, to Smallville. They want Kal's ship and the codex that is supposed to be inside.

The problem is not only how Superman is supposed to handle numerous super-powered Kryptonian soldiers, all wearing battle armor. It's also how the U.S. military considers all Kryptonian's a threat, including Kal. The human weapons can't really hurt him but the betrayal can, especially since he gave up everything to protect them.

However, after the immediate battle is finished and Kal exploits the one weakness the Kryptonians are sure to have and sends them back to their ship, General Swanwick (Harry Lennix) tells his troops, "this man is not our enemy."

This is also where Clark's calm and his father's love and trust pay off. After the fight is over, Kal pushes the wreckage aside and finds dozens of American troops all pointing their weapons at him. He looks at them. He's serene, almost parental. He slowly, calmly walks up to them and past them. They can't fire. Everyone is in awe of him, not just his powers, but how almost godlike he is.

"This man is not our enemy." It's the first time Kal-El becomes Superman, Earth's greatest protector.

Lois shares the secret of stopping Zod and his lieutenants with Kal. It involves Kal's ship and the Kryptonian key. It may be too late. Zod uses his ship in tandem with something called a "World Engine" to attempt to change Earth's environment into Krypton's. Zod discovered one unpleasant thing in Smallville. Kal's ship didn't contain the codex. His blood sample revealed that Jor-El had encoded all of Kal's cells with the genetics of millions of Kryptonians. They could be used to restore their race using the Genesis chamber in the scout ship. But doing that would exterminate all terrain life...including human beings.

All Zod has to do is kill the son of his enemy and take his blood to make his race live again. It's all Zod knows how to do. It's the one thing that gives Kal the advantage. On Krypton, everyone is artificially nurtured from conception to birth. All their characteristics including their role in society are predetermined. This was true of even Jor-El and Lara, just as it is true of Zod. Kal-El was the first natural birth on Krypton in centuries. Of all Kryptonians, only Kal-El is free to choose his own destiny. It's what saves his life when, after the rest of the Kryptonian soldiers are sent back to the Zone, he is faced with battling a desperate and incredibly dangerous General Zod alone.

Kal-El wins. Superman wins. The world is saved. But the cost is horrible. Kal has to give up everything. His ship, the scout ship. All of Zod's technology. Even the key bearing the crest of the House of El. All that is left of Krypton is its last son...and the DNA of his race now trapped in his body, with no way to release them, to regrow them, to restore their lives. Perhaps even his mother and father are somewhere inside of him.

There's one more cost, the worst of all. In order to save people, Kal had to take a life. It devastates him. But Lois is there to comfort him.

Man of Steel is a virtual rollercoaster ride of action and is paced wonderfully so that the more "narrative" portions of the film take nothing away. I especially loved Clark's relationship with his father Jonathan. As an older teen, Clark chafed at being controlled but in the end, his father, who was also a very calm and parental man, was always right. Even on the day he died.

Heroes

Superman wasn't the only hero. The world was full of them. OK, to be fair, there were also a lot of jerks in the movie, which was part of Clark's problem. When Zod gives him only twenty-four hours to surrender to the authorities, Clark doesn't know what to do. Are human beings worth it? He's an alien but he was raised in Kansas. He turns to the only authority who he thinks can help him, a Priest in a church.

I'm glad this scene was included. Clark was raised by a farm family in a small town in the middle of Kansas. His values from a young age were almost certainly conservative and he probably went to church as a child. Hollywood has been phobic about having their heroes be religious for decades now for fear of offending someone, but the movie, television, and comic book media abandon and important aspect of many people's reality by enforcing a politically correct (and real world incorrect) view of our world.

In his context, church is the only place where Clark could learn why it was right for him to surrender to save a people who might end up hating him just for who he is. The priest, once learning that he's in the same room with a potentially dangerous alien, maintains his composure (after a moment of total shock) and tells Clark that we have to have faith before we can earn trust. It's that message that enables Clark to do the most heroic thing he's ever done...protect the human race even if they aren't worth it.

Except they are.

Jonathan Kent dies when his son Clark is seventeen years old. There's a sudden tornado. Traffic is backed up. Jonathan sends Clark to shelter under a freeway overpass to protect his mother while Jonathan helps rescue other people. Something goes wrong. Jonathan's caught out in the open with a broken ankle. He'll never get to safety in time. Clark struggles against a lifetime of inhibition against using his powers and almost races forward to save the only father he's ever known.

Then he sees his father. Jonathan looks right at Clark and calmly, quietly raises his hand telling Clark to stop. He's almost smiling at his son when the tornado strikes. Clark let his father die because he trusted that his Dad knew what was right. As much as anyone, Jonathan Kent lived and died to show his son what being a hero was all about.

Perry White is a hero. In the destruction caused by Zod's ship and the World Engine, as gravity is turned upside down and inside out, a Planet staffer is caught under some rubble. There isn't time to get her out and destruction is coming. Perry and reporter Steve Lombard could still run away and survive, but then the young woman would die alone. They stay. And halfway around the world, an all but exhausted Superman stops the World Engine just in time.

Colonel Nathan Hardy (Christopher Meloni) is a hero. He's a soldier, so you short of suspect he should be, but even knowing how impossible it is to stop any Kryptonian soldier, he still goes toe to toe with Faora...with a knife. She tells him that a good death is its own reward. A line he'll use against her at their next and last meeting. Even more than General Swanwick, I liked Hardy. At first, I thought he'd be a typical Army hardass, but he was always at the front of the action, never shirking risks his men were taking, protecting them, protecting his people.

Even Emil Hamilton was a hero, on board a crippled aircraft activating Kal's ship at the last second so it could be used to send the Kryptonians back to the Phantom Zone.

Lois Lane is a hero. She kept a secret that if revealed, would have made her internationally famous overnight (true, she'd already won the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism). At first it was out of respect, but eventually it would be love that turned a hard nosed and jaded reporter into a woman with a conscience who would sacrifice even her career for the hero we don't deserve but desperately need.

A Few Problems

Superman supposedly gets his abilities from sunlight. Somehow, his biology allows him to absorb the rays of the yellow sun, store their energy, and turn it into the source for his amazing powers. He generates a field around his body that makes him invulnerable and enables him to fly. Sunlight also powers his strength and his sensory abilities. He can even survive for brief periods in orbital space (and who knows what his limits are in this universe?).

So why does Kryptonian air and Kryptonian gravity suddenly make him weak, sick, and have him spitting up blood?

Here's a much bigger problem. Clark shouldn't have a secret anymore.

It seemed almost easy for Lois to start at the arctic base and work her way backward through Clark's history, eventually tracing him to Smallville. Pete Ross remembered Clark and when Superman crashed into his diner during the battle with the Kryptonians, Pete looks right at his face and knows who he is.

Martha Kent told Lois about her son. I don't know why she trusted Lois.

After Kal rescues Lois from the burning space pod when they escaped from Zod's ship, he leaves her by a country road to go battle Zod who had invaded his mother's farm. Lois gets a ride from a passing police car. They take her to the Kent farm where they can obviously see a costumed Clark Kent talking with his mother.

Later, when its discovered that Kal's ship is the secret to sending the Kryptonian criminals back into the Phantom Zone, the military just retrieve it from the storm cellar under the Kent's barn.

And at the very end of the film, when General Swanwick is asking Superman how he could ever be sure Kal wouldn't turn against American interests, the last son of Krypton replies, "I was raised in Kansas. I'm about as American as you can get."

Duh!

But at the very, very end, Perry White introduces a new stringer to Lois and Steve Lombard and asks them to show him the ropes. It's Clark Kent in a suit and glasses and a winning smile.

Humor

A number of the other reviews I've read of this film have complained that Man of Steel lacks the ability to make fun of itself, that it's too dark, too serious. I know my fear was that too much camp would be inserted into the movie and I'm thankful I was wrong, but most critics say movies about Superman need to have the ability to poke a little fun at themselves.

But this movie does that. I guess no one was paying attention.

The first time Martha sees Clark in his costume, she wryly comments, "Nice suit."

When Kal turned himself in to the military, he was handcuffed. He's sitting in a room talking with Lois while being watched by a lot of soldiers including General Swanwick. He can see all of them and standing to address them, Superman tells them they are afraid of him because they can't control him. He punctuates that statement by breaking the handcuffs, startling everyone behind the glass.

This may have been unintentional, but in the final battle with Zod, the General finally strips off his battle armor revealing his under suit...which looks a lot like Kal's except it has no cape. At one point Zod, having recently learned how to fly, grabs Superman's cape and uses it to whip Clark around and throw him several hundred feet into a building. Inside my head, I heard a tiny voice whisper "no capes."

When new reporter Clark Kent is introduced to Lois Lane for the first time, she says, "Welcome to the Planet," obviously referencing his being from another planet.

British Henry Cavill playing Superman tells General Swanwick that he's as American as they come. That's got to be worth a chuckle.

There weren't a lot of jokes in the movie. It wasn't that kind of film. But I did see that Man of Steel was able to wink at itself from time to time.

Smallville Television Show

There were a few tie-ins but just a few. In the Smallville TV show, Dr. Emil Hamilton is played by actor Alessandro Juliani. In Man of Steel, Juliani plays a minor role as Officer Sekowsky, a technician at the site where the Kryptonian scout ship was found.

Of course, actress Amy Adams plays Lois Lane in the film. However, she also played a high school student in the first season Smallville TV episode Craving (2001).

I know when this film was first announced, an overwhelming number of fans of the Smallville show demanded that Tom Welling and Erica Durance play Clark/Superman and Lois Lane respectively.

Having seen the film, it's tone, it's personality, I just can't see those two fine actors pulling it off the way Henry Cavill and Amy Adams played Clark and Lois. Welling was a great teenage Clark Kent, but even though Cavill is only six years older than Welling, the Smallville actor's youthful face wouldn't have carried over into the maturity that Cavill brought to the role. Cavill is young enough to communicate charm, especially once he puts on the glasses, but old enough to be Superman. Even though during the final episode of Smallville, the Superman suit was CG-ed onto Welling's body, it never seemed to fit.

As far as Durance vs. Adams as Lois, Durance patterned a lot of her portrayal of the role after Margot Kidder's Lois from the Christopher Reeves Superman movies. Lois was disorganized, impulsive, scatter-brained, and she couldn't spell. While Durance played Lois a little more seriously than Kidder, she was never a "real" reporter. Adams brought a serious human being into the film. True, as time progressed, Adams seemed just a tad "sappy" every time Kal was around, but she could bring both a hard edge and competency to her Lois Lane. Durance might have been able to do the same, but the fans would have freaked if she was the same face but a different personality.

Also, Smallville was largely derivative from the earlier Superman films and Man of Steel needed to be a clean reboot. And it was.

DC Universe

Two small tie-ins to the larger DC world. We see a truck with the LexCorp logo on it, promising a future appearance of that company's dastardly CEO. The satellite that Kal and Zod crash into during their final battle had a Wayne Enterprise logo. Either Batman already exists in Kal's world or he soon will.

I know this was long. It's longer than I intended it to be. I had a lot to say about this movie, but I'll sum it up in just a few words. If you haven't seen Man of Steel yet, go! It's worth it. It's the must see movie of the summer of 2013.

Super Independence Day!

Yes, it’s Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands. And who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never ending battle for truth, justice and the American way.

-Opening narration from the television show
The Adventures of Superman (1952-1958)

Young Clark Kent

No, not really, but when I saw this guy's photo online (I have no idea who he is or where this is), the first thing that popped into my head was "young Clark Kent." With the U.S. release of the Man of Steel film just a little over two weeks away, I figured I'd share what I think a young Clark Kent in his late teens or early twenties might look like as he spends his last days in Kansas.

Superman Reborn

Couldn't resist posting this. Awesome Superman image.

Iconic Supermen

The cover of People Magazine for January 1979 gave the world the now iconic photograph of Superman as played by Christopher Reeve. For the general public, this was perhaps the first time they believed that a man could fly and this image will live on in their memories and in all our memories as the one and only Superman for generations.

This month's cover of Entertainment Weekly attempts to paint, for the current generation, the portrait of Reeve's heir apparent, Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel. I am posting both covers side-by-side in an effort to illustrate the passing of the torch. Reeve first appeared on the big screen as Superman in 1978 when he was 26 years old. Sadly, he passed away on October 10, 2004 at the age of 52. For many people, Christopher Reeve was their Last Son of Krypton, and for them, that was the day their Superman died.

Cavill, who turns 30 next month, picks up the mantle and the cape that Reeve in death had allowed to fall to the ground. Can Henry Cavill fill the red boots and wear the red and yellow shield in honor of the Superman who came before him? Can he inspire this generation and those who come after as the Superman of the 21st century? Will his image on the cover of Entertainment Weekly replace that of Reeve's, and will be he the hero we need to inspire us as we rush headlong into the future?

Superman: Man of Steel premieres in the United States on June 14, 2013. That's when we'll get our answers.

DVD Review: Smallville Season 1, The Pilot

Somebody, save me. No, not really. I was in the public library the other day looking at the DVDs and saw that the Smallville season 1 collection was available. That's kind of unusual. Almost none of the Smallville DVDs are on the shelves for very long and in fact, season 1 was the only season of Smallville there. On a whim, and because I have only seen each season once, I decided to check out the first season of Smallville from the library. Figured it would be entertaining holiday fare, since I took a few days off for Christmas.

I remember the first time I saw the pilot episode. I had no idea what to expect. Well, scratch that. I had an idea of what to expect. I was just wrong. For one thing, I didn't expect a meteor shower of kryptonite. I didn't expect Lana's parents to be blown to bits. And who the heck is Aunt Nell?

I thought casting John Schneider and Annette O'Toole as Jonathan and Martha Kent was brilliant but unexpected (a young Ma and Pa Kent). I didn't realize just how much of a divergent trajectory Smallville would take from previous Superman canon. Actually, I wouldn't realize that for quite some time and eventually, it would get to be a real problem, but in the pilot episode, it worked out well.

Smallville has always been an uneven series. Some episodes just rocked while others were total dogs. So far, I'm about halfway through the first season and some of them are just ridiculous. It's amazing how kryptonite gives individual "meteor freaks" abilities that go so well with their personalities and personal problems (a fat girl who suddenly loses weight but has to eat a ton of fat to keep from starving?).

In the pilot, Clark already has powers but they're not fully developed. This was a real boon, since the audience can experience Clark's evolution toward becoming Superman along with him, which is the point of the series. He's fast, he's strong, he's durable, but that's about all he's got in the pilot. Oh, and he's very charming in a shy sort of way. Having achieved his abilities slowly and having been raised by parents who are caring and strong, Clark has been given the perfect platform for not abusing what he's got while at the same time, struggling to be popular in high school like any other 15 year old boy (I had some trouble picturing Welling and a number of the other "students" as that young, though).

Nobody knows what kryptonite is. They do know about meteor rock, but only Chloe suspects that the stuff has anything to do with the weirdness that's been happening in and around Smallville for the past twelve years or so. Meteor freaks would be the main catalyst in the first season, providing Clark with most of the foes he would battle. Most of them aren't bad people, just human beings whose bodies have been involuntarily changed and mutated by radiation exposure. The annoying thing about these freaks though is how they just disappear after Clark beats them. Sure, some die, but others are just (supposedly) taken away by the authorities. I think that's explained in subsequent seasons, but never entirely to my satisfaction.

These are super-powered metahumans, many who know that Clark is "special" himself. No one ever tells the cops, "Oh, by the way, the kid who stopped me has a punch like a crashing jet plane and can move about as fast?"

Lex Luthor.

More than any other character in the pilot and first season, he stands out as the somewhat dangerous but loyal big brother Clark never had. While driven by his own conflicts with his father Lionel (wonderfully played by John Glover), Lex is positively affected, not just by having Clark save his life, but by who Clark is. For most of Lex's life, he's been influenced by people who were primarily interested in power and manipulating others. Clark, super powers or no, is a truly transparent (except for his secrets), authentic human being (well, he looks human) who doesn't want anything from Lex except just to be friends.

Lex does everything he can do to help Clark and his family, though his methods definitely come from the "dark side" of being a Luthor, his intentions at this point are good. Lex's behavior shows us that he loves his friends (and as far as we know, Clark is his only friend) and hates his enemies. He's a great guy to have in your corner, but never, ever cross him or he'll find a way to get you.

Chloe Sullivan.

I hadn't realized just how annoying she was in the beginning. She's bitchy, and cranky, and sarcastic, and geez, would somebody shut her up. Quick to judge, slow to forgive, opinionated, and kind of full of herself. In some ways, she's like Lex in that she doesn't care who she hurts to get what she wants, which in her case, is the next "wall of weird" story. Unlike Lex, she's not calculating about it and in fact, she is rather careless, pursuing the goal without seeing the consequences. She matures as the show continues, but as I recall, by the series ending, she was still a little cold-hearted and goal driven.

In the beginning, she's a bright but unpopular person. Her hair always looks like a small explosion has scattered it at odd angles. She's the ugly duckling who is jealous of Clark's attention to Lana's beautiful swan. At one point in the first season, she calls the school paper her identity and in another episode, she refers to her laptop as her life. At age 15, Chloe is only as good and as interesting as what she writes about, which is probably why she goes after the unusual stories, rather than sticking to typical school activities. She's a proto-Lois Lane and is displaced by Lois in season four and afterward, which is why she has to develop other skill sets to stay interesting as a character. But in season 1, the writers of Smallville seemed to think Clark needed to play off of a Lois-type character from the very beginning.

Lana Lang.

Cute. Not as superficial as she seems for a cheerleader. Like most kids, she's trying to find out who she is and where she's going, which is another big point of the first season, since that's Clark's quest in spades. Having her parents die in the meteor shower when she was three mirrors Clark's own mystery, not having known his birth parents at all or even what planet they were from. Lana at least has Nell to fill in the blanks, along with pictures, diaries, and other documentation. Clark has a spaceship that, as of the middle of the first season, he's seen only once (as the series progresses, we get to see tons and tons of Kryptonian stuff and people and it finally gets rather oppressive how much we learn about a planet that blew up a long time ago). And of course, Lana has to wear that pesky little kryptonite necklace which disappears at odd times allowing her and Clark to actually have a conversation while standing closer than five feet apart. By the middle of season 1, Clark is weaning her from wearing it, which makes developing a friendship that includes more than phone calls and email easier to film.

Whitney Fordman.

He's not as big a pain as I remember him. Most of the time, he's actually a nice guy, for a jock with limited internal resources. He's authentically devoted to Lana, insecure enough to be jealous of Clark, worried about his future, and struggling with his father's heart disease (something Clark will have to deal with in his own Dad as time goes on). He's actually an OK guy and I can see why Lana likes him. On the other hand, Lana is smart enough to outgrow Whitney in a few years which is why it's a good thing he's eventually killed off. Oh, and that makes room for Clark to move in and hook up with her...until Lois shows up by season four.

Pete Ross.

Every guy needs a buddy and Pete is Clark's. Besides Lana and Clark's parents, Pete is one of the few people that comes from the silver age comic books. Of course, back in the 1960s, Pete is tall and blond and white...kind of like how Whitney looks. Of course, this is the early 21st century and in real life, even Smallville has a diverse population. I also didn't realize how well actor Sam Jones III was built. We expect the occasional beefcake shot of Clark in the boys locker room, but I noted Pete looking really buff himself.

Truth be told, Pete is really Chloe's buddy more than Clark's. In the pilot, Pete and Chloe bet whether or not Clark makes it to the bus stop in time to get his ride to school, and again whether or not Clark will stumble and act like a buffoon when he gets anywhere near Lana. Chloe and Pete are most often the two people you see actually working on stories for the Torch (Smallville High's school paper) and just as friends, they go to the homecoming dance together (neither being popular enough to score their own dates). Pete joins the football team to increase his popularity, which is natural, but you never get an impression that he's there to do much more than back up Clark and Chloe.

Relationships.

The whole "shipper" emphasis of Smallville wasn't in full swing in season 1 since the audience is still trying to figure out who people are supposed to be. We do see the beginnings, though. Whitney and Lana are dating, but Clark is totally pining for Lana. Somewhere inside, Lana realizes this but it doesn't come to fruition this early in the game. Lex, for his part, sees all this and repeatedly tries to set up situations where Clark and Lana are together. Chloe has a "thing" for Clark, but it's not so overpowering that she doesn't have interests in another guy (such as womanizing student Sean Kelvin, played by Michael Coristine in the episode Cool). Eventually, this will develop into a "shipper" issue of Clark/Lana vs. Clark/Chloe, but we aren't there yet.

And thankfully, that's all of the "shipper" drama we get to see in season 1. At this point, there's still a strong teenage angst thread running through the series, which I'm sure is present to satisfy the demands of its target audience, but for me, Smallville season 1 is mainly about watching Clark discover who he is as the future "Man of Steel."

Conclusion.

I particularly like the pilot episode of Smallville and a number of developments in Clark as a person and a "superhero" in season 1. It's "good clean fun," so to speak. I'm even thinking of getting season 2 after I'm done with this set of disks.

Superman: The Man of Yesterday

I frequently see updates on the filming of both The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Superman: Man of Steel (2013) in my twitter timeline. Most of the time, I cave in and have a look at the latest spoilers and set shots, but occasionally I get a spine and resist, out of the desire to let the films surprise me by what they are as finished products. Having every little tidbit and nugget about the making of each film crammed down my throat on an almost daily basis is a kind of death.

I think Christian Bale's interpretation of Batman has made the transition into the 21st century quite well. Both Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) have done extremely well and avoided the terrible curse of campiness to which many past superhero films have given way.

Then I think about Superman.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I've always been disappointed with the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. Granted, the first film was released in 1978, but it wasn't the lack of CGI or 3D technology that was at fault but the attitude of the film makers. Superman was played completely for camp. There was some taking him seriously in the first film but with each sequel, he became more and more silly. Here's an example.

Remember the first appearance of Superman in the original film? Lois's helecopter is disabled, the pilot is knocked unconscious, and Lois is suspended a hundred stories over the streets of Metropolis, hanging only by a seat belt and screaming for her life. Clark makes his magical transformation into Superman and lifts both her and the falling helecopter back to the safety of the roof of the Daily Planet building. Afterward, Superman gives Lois a supportive talk about how air travel is still the safest way to fly. Boy Scout as always, right?

The gag is, as Superman turns away from Lois and as he's walking out of the scene, he gets the biggest grin on his face. The whole Boy Scout speech was just an act. He's totally having her on (she passes out a few seconds later).

Cut to Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1981) which was horrible and total anti-nuke propaganda. Superman narrowly prevents a total subway disaster which would have killed hundreds. After the rescue, he gives an impromptu speech to the passengers he just saved about how Metropolis's subway system is still the safest in the world.

The problem is that here, he's totally serious. The campy "mask" he wore in the first film became his real "face" by the last movie. Superman became a clown in a cape. It didn't have to be that way. But what went wrong?

Part of it was that Hollywood never took comic book heroes seriously and it showed in the writing and directing. The actors did their best, but you can only work with the script in hand and those scripts made superheroes seem like...well, comic book characters. If you actually read a comic book from 1978 or before, they really did sound campy and sappy. The dialog could be terrible if said outloud in real life. Comic books don't translate into reality without a lot of massage work. Christopher Nolan was willing to take a completely different approach with his Batman films and it paid off magnificently. Let's hope Zack Snyder can pull it off with the next big screen incarnation of the last son of Krypton.

There's another problem, though.

Both Superman and Batman were originally created in the context of the 1930s. They both represent two sides of the same Depression-era coin. Batman represents the pulp fiction heroes popular during that time period and the darkness and dispair experienced by victims of street and corporate crime. The original Dark Knight had an almost "it takes a thief" approach to crime fighting, by becoming as menacing and as fear-provoking as the people he battled.

Superman was almost as "dark" in a sense. I once had the opportunity to read the first appearence of Superman in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) online (this was years ago and I'm sure it's been taken off the web by now). Superman was pretty heavy handed back then, extorting confessions out of crooked politicians by hanging them off the rooftops of tall buildings, threatening to drop them to the ground (sounds more like Batman). I understand that young, 21st century comic book Superman is doing similar things in the 2011 version of Action Comics 1. The original Superman fought rampant political corruption and criminal gangs by overwhelming them with his power. He was like everyone's big brother and protector. If a helpless person was victimized by a big, tough "bully", Superman was bigger and tougher than the "bully" and he'd beat the snot out of him. The victims were saved and they had someone who would always look out for them.

Times changed.

If you look at the development of Superman and Batman across the 1940s through the 1970s for example, you'll see their very natures and characters changed dramatically. Batman and Robin really were as corny as their 1960s TV show counterparts (it really wasn't Adam West's and Burt Ward's fault after all). The tough, action oriented, no-nonsense heroes of the 1930s became the clowns in capes of the 1950s and 60s. No wonder the movie Superman of 1978 acted the way he did. "Darkness" in comic books didn't return until the 1980s and 90s and certainly by the 2000s, it was time to try and take them back to their roots.

With Batman, that's certainly possible, but will it work with Superman? In 1938, there really were "great metropolitan newspapers" which were a force for "truth, justice, and the American" way. It was completely realistic for Clark Kent to work as a reporter to get the inside scoop on the latest emergencies and crimes happening in Metropolis and beyond. Today, newspapers are dying, and instead of being beacons of truth and information (OK, I'm exaggerating, there's always been "yellow journalism"), they're now (for the most part) propaganda machines, selling a single social and political vision of the world that hardly resembles the lives we really lead (kind of like "reality TV"). Who would Clark Kent be today, where would he work, and how would he act if we didn't have the model of the 1930s Man of Steel?

What would happen if we just tossed the 21st century into the trash can as far as Superman goes? What would happen if the next Superman film was set in 1938? Little Clark's spaceship would have crashlanded in a Kansas wheat field during or near World War I. Clark would have grown up in a world without the Internet, without TV, without microwaves, or iPhones, or Lady Gaga. In that place and time, his adoptive parents, the Kents, would have almost certainly been Christians, so Clark would have been raised with a specific set of attitudes. He would have grown up in a world where Chicago was completely dominated by the mobs. Tales of Capone and Dillinger would have been all over the news as would Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and Joe DiMaggio.

The tough part for modern film makers would be to capture the essence of the era and the people living in it, including Clark Kent/Superman, without imposing 21st century politically correct attitudes on the movie. Superman would have to be a Superman who was completely a child of his environment. Who would he be like? The Superman of Action Comics 1, June of 1938? Certainly. But could we relate to him? Could we even stand him?

Maybe or maybe not. I love the time period and am a big fan of dieselpunk, so I think he'd work out just fine for me, but how about you?

Will Superman, the iconic image, the "greatest American hero", be able to survive, let alone thrive, in the 21st century and be taken seriously? We won't find out until 2013. I certainly hope so. I'm still hoping that someday the film studios will become bold again, groundbreaking again, and make Superman 1938. I think it would be a blast!

Smallville is Dead!

I realize this is difficult for many Smallville fans to accept, but the series is over. It's over. Repeat after me: "The Smallville series has ended." Please try to accept it.

OK, OK, the Smallville Complete Series DVD Set won't be released for several months yet, but no new episodes are being made. While you will still be able to thrill to each and every telecast of the show online, on the DVDs you own, or after the complete series DVD set is released, those are old shows. Tom Welling, Erica Durance, Michael Rosenbaum, Allison Mack, and all of the other Smallville actors have moved on.

So should you.

Oh I'm not saying you can't continue to be a fan of an old TV show. I'm very fond of the original Star Trek series with Shatner and Nimoy, but I don't obsess about it on twitter or Facebook, either. I know, STTOS is decades old while Smallville died just last spring, but the principle is the same. What's dead is dead.

I've heard exactly one loose rumor on twitter about a possible "Metropolis" series, perhaps starring some of the other superheroes who originally appeared on Smallville, but I can find absolutely nothing credible on the web to say that it's even a possibility. As far as anyone can tell, there will be no Smallville spin-off. If there were, they'd have to be filming by now and news like that would be impossible to keep secret.

Face it. It's over. Clark Kent is dead. Long live Superman: Man of Steel. Starting in 2013, Henry Cavill will be the Last Son of Krypton (no, the photo isn't really Cavill in "the suit", just a photoshopped simulation).

Now please go watch a different TV show and let Welling and Co. get a well-deserved rest.

Peace, out.

The End of Smallville: A Review

I know. I'm terrible. I didn't watch the series finale of Smallville until last night. I almost didn't watch it at all, even though I had the time and opportunity. Let me explain.

My wife isn't a Smallville fan in any way shape or form. She's not a Superman fan. She's not into science fiction and fantasy (well, she does like Star Trek and the Indiana Jones films). We don't watch a lot of TV.

Here's another confession. I didn't start watching Smallville in 2001 when it first came on the air. I can't remember when Smallville first registered on my radar. I think I saw a friend's collection of DVDs of the early seasons a few years ago and started watching them just to see what they were like.

I was hooked. I blew through his DVD collection and then started renting the rest of the DVDs (up to the 6th or 7th season I think) from the local video store. Even then, I couldn't really make the time to try and watch the actual TV broadcasts. In fact, I stopped watching Smallville again until the summer before season 10 came out.

I had to go back to the video store and rent the rest of the videos, supplementing them with whatever I could find on the CW Smallville site. Eventually, I made my way to almost the "present" last fall. I was watching new season 10 episodes on the CW site and watching season 9 episodes on disc. I never got to see the last two episodes of season 9 because that set of discs was always rented out. Oh well, I might get to them some day.

I managed to watch most of the season 10 episodes via the CW but my schedule didn't allow me to watch the last two episodes, "Prophecy" and "Finale". Last night, opportunity arrived.

I figured I'd just sacrifice "Prophecy" and pursue "Finale" since that's where the whole answer to "How does Clark become Superman?" lived.

How did I like it?

The episode was sort of a rollercoast ride of "I like this" highs and "this sucks" lows. The experience reminded me of the patchwork Lex clone that Lionel (OK, he probably had some evil doctors do the work) put together (funny how he managed to find a "working" brain with all of Lex's memories, but he couldn't manage a heart). It was a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of the other thing.

I can't blame the Smallville writers too much for this. Michael Rosenbaum took forever to sign up to play Lex for the final episode, so I'm sure the writers had to scramble to move things around and figure out where and how to use him. It's pretty likely that they had a similar task to perform relative to Allison Mack, since she was originally scheduled to play Chloe in only five episodes in season 10, not including the finale.

I thought it was pretty lame that the show opened with Lois "suddenly" having doubts about her marrying Clark and then on the heels of her concerns, Clark resurrecting his own doubts (remember, I haven't seen "Prophecy", so maybe that's all explained in that show). I thought they'd gotten past all these worries. The "conflict" felt like so much filler material, written just to take up time until the actual wedding was supposed to happen (and Clark and Lois never got married on the show...so much for "Clois" fans).

A big pet peeve for me was how a planet-sized body could enter our solar system completely unnoticed. Depending on how fast Apokolips was traveling, the gravitational effects should have been observable on the various objects in our system for months. It couldn't possibly "sneak up" on the Earth. In fact, Apokolips didn't seem to cause any demonstratable tidal effects on Earth until it was inside the Moon's orbit! Amazing (though as someone on twitter pointed out, how can I bitch about all this if I'm willing to believe an alien from another galaxy with a perfectly human looking body can fly?)!

One of my other frustrations with the finale is that it seemed like Clark was going to talk everyone to death. Long conversations with Lois, his Mom, Lex, Darkseid (inhabiting Lionel's literally heartless body), Jonathan's ghost, and finally Jor-El. Oy. Just shut up, put on the f*cking suit, and stop Apokolips, you moron!

OK, Ok. What did I like?

I really liked the framing sequence with Chloe and her little boy, reading the "Smallville" comic book and with "Mom" explaining how Clark became Superman (if DC in her world really published this story, Clark's identity must have been completely sanitized from the magazine). Mack even successfully pulled off looking like a woman in her early 30s rather than her actual age of 28 (29 this coming July). OK, not much of a stretch here. She probably just cut back on the makeup.

I did like how the suspense managed to build until after about 80 minutes (including opening credits and commercials) I was about ready to beat up Clark around the head and shoulders with a kryptonite baseball bat while screaming "Just become Superman, already!" (the flip side is that if the writing had been tighter, the entire finale could have been compressed into a single, regular-length episode).

It could have been better. I felt like a lot of loose ends had to be quickly tied up in the last hour and a half (even with commercials, the running time of the finale was less than 90 minutes, at least as broadcast on the CW site) and how it was done was really uneven. In many ways, I'm just glad it's over. Smallville is a story about Clark's journey to become Superman but sooner or later he actually has to be the Man of Steel. Either that, or Smallville goes on forever and Clark becomes the only 75 year old "almost-but-not-quite-superhero" in history.

I did think that Smallville did nearly nail my biggest expectation for the finale in the last few minutes. An emergency is announced at the Daily Planet. Clark manages to get to an isolated area (in this case, the roof). He takes off his glasses and tie, the camera moves in on his chest, he opens his shirt, the Superman shield is flashed. Fade to black.

Good-bye Smallville. Hello Superman.

The end.

From Smallville to Superman: Man of Steel

The cast for Superman: Man of Steel (2012) is forming and boy are the Smallville fans pissed. Well, at least some of them are pissed.

After all, Tom Welling wasn't cast in the role as Clark Kent/Superman and Erica Durance wasn't picked to play Lois Lane. What's worse, the actors selected aren't the names that were being tossed about the Superman/Comic Book/Fantasy blogosphere. The producers chose to select actors we never saw coming over the horizon. Let's see what we have.

(Click the photos below to see larger versions. I had to shrink them down so they didn't overwhelm the text)

Tom Welling vs. Henry Cavill. I'm not going to attempt to compare these individuals as actors. Welling has played Clark for ten years and that's (as far as I know) the only role he's been playing. Sad to say, I've not seen a single thing that Cavill has acted in, so I have no idea about him at all.

But how to these two guys compare as far as "the look"? Do you see either one in the big red cape and long blue tights? That's where it at least has to start. You have to "look" the part. We've all gotten used to Welling defining his own "Clark look" but we'll have to wait and see about Cavill. Unlike Welling, he'll have to pull off a convincing Clark and Superman. That's not easy.

Let's take Christian Bale as an example. Of all the actors that have played Bruce Wayne/Batman over the years, Bale was the only one (in my opinion) who was convincing as both. All of the other actors did a good, or at least decent Batman and a lousy Wayne or vice versa. It's hard to be both. That's Cavill's challenge. Welling will be "Superman" for maybe a few minutes screen time in the tail end of the last episode of Smallville, just to fulfill his destiny...not to really play the role.

Moving onward, how about Lois Lane? We have Durance vs. Adams. A lot really depends on how Adams will be playing Lane. I didn't like Margot Kidder's Lois because she was both an airhead and frankly, not very tough. Durance's Lane can be an airhead but at least she's got a lot of fight in her (and she looks great in a tight tank top). I think Adams has the moxie to pull off Lane, but I hope she plays her as both tough and smart. In the comic books, Lois is smart (but for most of her history, not smart enough to figure out that the guy she works with every day is really Superman).

The roles of Jonathan and Martha Kent probably generate a lot less angst than those of Clark and Lois, but since those roles have been cast in the film, we might as well examine them.

Annette O'Toole vs. Diane Lane. O'Toole is beautiful and she's able to communicate "Mom" on the screen. How about Lane, who's not that much younger than "sonny boy" Clark? Of course, she could play Martha when Clark is a boy and not appear in the film when he's a (Super)man, or she can be artificially aged, either by makeup or CGI. The main thing is that she has to convince the audience that she really is Mom. She practically has to be our Mom. I always thought of O'Toole's Martha as Mom.

John Schneider vs. Kevin Costner. I've never liked anything I've seen Costner in. I don't know. Maybe I just don't respond to his style of acting. He kind of bores me. When I first started watching Smallville, I didn't connect Schneider with his role in the Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1985), thank God. Let's just say I'm not a fan of that show.

At first, I thought Schneider was a little too young and active to be Jonathan. I got used to thinking of Glenn Ford (from Superman the Movie 1978) as "Dad", but Schneider's portrayal of Jonathan as the loving but hot-tempered, hard-headed Kansas farmer quickly appealed to me. I just hope Costner can make me feel like he's the same "man of the earth" kind of guy as Schneider's Jonathan.

Oh...that's it. No more cast members (so far). I guess we still need a few other primary roles filled, such as Perry and Jimmy. Then, of course, there's the villain(s) whoever that/they will be.

I know that Smallville fans will have a difficult time making the transition. Thanks to DVD technology, they can continue to experience Welling and Durance as Clark and Lois for years to come and even ignore the new Cavill/Adams film that will be released next year.

But for this up and coming generation, especially for those people who are really young now, Smallville will be an "old" TV show and Superman: Man of Steel will be Superman. That's not evil, that's the passage of time.

One more thing. This is for Tom Welling fans. I found this photo at a fan website and thought I'd share. Oh my! Tom Welling with long hair, a beard, and carrying a few extra pounds around the middle. See? He can look like any other guy. Looking like a hero takes a lot of work. Welling's only human after all.

Just thought I'd add a bit of perspective.

Peace.

We Are the Heroes!

All of the news and social networking outlets are flooded with information about the magnitude 8.9 earthquake in Japan. A significant part of my twitter community is involved in comic book, TV, and movie superheroes. It's almost too easy to imagine Superman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman racing to Japan to put out oil refinery fires, stabilize "at risk" nuclear reactors, and evacuate the thousands of injured victims.

Would the Martian Manhunter and the Flash show up and help cities like San Francisco prepare for the arrival of the quake-created tsunami (and thankfully, Hawaii survived its passing)? Which heroes would be patroling the Pacific, keeping ships and the populations of the many islands in harms way safe?

But we live in the real world. There are no superheroes...

...except us.

I'm not suggesting that we can put on a costume, exercise heretofore unknown super abilities, and "save the day", but we can do something more than sit around and watch it all happen on CNN.

For instance, New York City will help direct local donations to quake and tsunami victims and there is very likely a local or national group you can donate to, as well. Google has already pitched in by launching a person finder for Japanese quake victims, so if you work in technology, you may be able to leverage your skills and your business to assist.

Text "Red Cross" to 90999. $10 will be automatically charged to your phone bill as a donation to the disaster relief. Please Text "Red Cross" to 90999.

This is a link to a Reuters.com page containing links to a number of ways you can help the Japan quake victims.

And, if you are a religious or a spiritual person, you can pray.

Whoever you are, where ever you live, you don't have to turn into someone else and use fantastic, metahuman powers to make a difference. You can help by being just who you are. The only power you need to have is the power of compassion and the will to act on your humanity.

Be a hero. Help.

The Japan Earthquake Seen by Millions of Digital Cameras (Updating Live)

Save Me!

What Will You Do After Smallville Ends?

What will you do after Smallville is over? It's ending, you know...forever. On May 13th, 2011, the two-hour Smallville series finale will air. Less than 120 minutes after the opening credits, it will be gone.

And you Smallville fan...what will you do after it's over?

I suppose you could hope, pray, scream, threaten, and beg for a Smallville spinoff series. Maybe a JLA or JSA show is in the works for this fall. After all, if the CW can squeeze a few extra bucks out of Smallville's ten-year run by appealing to it's rather large fan base, I'm sure they will. We've seen how quality always takes a back seat to profits (although in my opinion, producing a quality show would be the best way to ensure profits), so if you swear to buy enough junk that the sponsors sell during the commercials, your hopes (dreams and fantasies) may come true...or not.

Dear Clois fans, what will you do with no new Clark and Lois banter, bickering, and bedding? Superman fans, will the last few seconds of Tom Welling on the small screen, finally dressed in "the suit" really be enough for you? Once the final credits end and the screen goes black, will you still crave more Clark, Lois, Chloe, Ollie, Tess, Lionel, and ... Lex?

Too bad.

Of course, if you don't already own the entire series on DVD, you could go out and buy it. I'm sure after the series ends, there will be a commemorative full ten-season package you can buy at inflated prices. Then, you can start all over again, beginning with the series pilot, and watch each and every episode over again...and again and again.

And keep doing it until you finally get sick of Smallville.

I know I sound harsh, and many of you actually grew up with the series, but keep in mind, popular TV shows have been coming and going for decades. You're just not aware of it. Gunsmoke was one of the longest running prime time shows in the history of American television, having been aired from 1955 (virtually the beginning of television for most U.S. households) through 1975 (this was back when the western was king of TV and films). Star Trek: The Next Generation ran for only seven-years and deliberately ended while they were still producing high quality material (something I wish Smallville would have done) and no one wanted the ride to end.

But those shows and a many, many others, which were loved and cherished by their fans, just as much as you adore Smallville, ended.

And their fans moved on.

Don't worry, though. While there may not be any new Smallville episodes being created, there is always ComicCon and similar venues. Superman: The Man of Steel (2012) is right around the corner, so there'll be plenty of Superman buzz in the months to come. I'm sure, along with the cast and crew of the new Superman movie, Smallville luminaries such as Welling, Durance, and others will proudly appear on stage to thrill the fans. Heck, Shatner, Nimoy, Spiner, and Beltran are still showing up at conventions, years and even decades after their shows ended.

Naturally, they're doing other work that's completely disconnected from the Star Trek venues that made them famous. So will the Smallville actors. In fact, they already are. Allison Mack only signed up for five episodes in the final season and has already appeared on stage. Michael Rosenbaum has been doing other things in the almost four years since he's appeared on the show, and Annette O'Toole continues to act in non-Smallville shows and films.

They've moved on. Welling and Durance will move on. It was fun while it lasted, but it's over now. Savor the sweetness of the departure, miss it a little, and then find something else to do. Smallville was a story about the fictional life and development of the person who would eventually become Superman. That's right, a fictional life. You live a real one. Time to get back to living.

Say good-bye, Clark.

What will you do after Smallville ends? Time to start answering that question. If you want, you can answer the question here.

Inconsistent Smallville

I'm so confused. In the recent Smallville episode Masquerade, two important (I think, anyway) events occurred. The first is that Clark officially took on "the glasses" as part of his "disguise", to prevent people from connecting him too closely to the Blur. He also agreed to take on a sudden personality transplant from dynamic, courageous Clark, to "mild mannered reporter for the Daily Planet." Oddly enough, it worked...at least in the one encounter he had to test the change, the guy he (literally) ran into bought it hook, line, and sinker. Even though the guy probably had known Clark for months, if not years, he didn't blink at the fact that Clark was acting in a very "unClark-like" manner. Oh well.

The second big event in this episode was we see, under ultraviolet light, that the Omega symbol is on Ollie's forehead, indicating that he's now an "agent of the darkness". Yeah, when he was beating the living crap out of Desaad (which that jerk totally deserved), the darkness took him over.

Now, in the very next episode, Fortune, two things happen that virtually un-create the events created in Masquerade.

First off, Clark isn't wearing glasses. Yeah, he was just among his friends and who would care, but if he's really serious about establishing Clark as separate from the Blur, and if the glasses are part of that disguise, he should wear them all the time, except for when he's being the Blur (or in the shower, asleep, being "conjugal" with Lois, and the like). It is a foregone conclusion that after he got smashed on the magic booze, he'd probably dump the glasses anyway, but he should have been wearing them at the very beginning of the episode (and by the way, if I were Clark, when all was said and done, I would track down Zatanna, spank her nasty, fishnet-covered ass..which would be fun..and make her wish she'd never heard of words like "magic" and "cigam").

The next is just weird. At the end of "Fortune", Ollie and Chloe apparently have a "happily ever after" moment, realize that, while under the influence, they really did get legally married (even though when Chloe called the wedding chapel, they told her the whole thing had been a gag and no one had gotten married), and (again, apparently) left Metropolis (and the show "Smallville") to go live in Star City, where Chloe would be a reporter by day and hero builder by night, and Ollie would...I don't know, practice archery or eventually be a stay-at-home Dad (once they start having kids).

But if Ollie is "evil", his evilness is a total waste as a story element if he's just left the show, unless off camera, the gang at Watchtower hear a few episodes down the road, that Ollie went on a rampage, skewered his blushing bride with his favorite arrow, and then mysteriously died.

It's like these two different episodes of Smallville didn't happen in the same universe or at least in the same year. I know that different writers write different episodes, and different directors direct different episodes, but they're supposed to at least create the illusion that they're telling one, large, overarching story about Clark and Co.

Is this just another Smallville writer's fubar or can Smallville pull these inconsistencies together in the final reel?

Should Tom Welling Actually be Superman?

No, I'm not asking if Tom Welling should portray Clark Kent/Superman in the upcoming Superman: Man of Steel (2012) film. Henry Cavill already won that role. Let it go, rabid Tom Welling/Smallville fans. Let it go.

I mean, should Tom Welling actually portray the Man of Steel in full Superman costume in the last reel of the two-hour Smallville series finale scheduled to air on May 13th? In other words, should Tom Welling actually be Superman on the small screen for any length of time at the end of the series?

My answer is "no".

OK, here's my take. The entire series is based on the audience watching Clark develop his abilities and his personality, from a 15 year old kid who, at the start of the series, is just beginning to become aware of his powers, who he is, and (gasp) where he really comes from ("You mean you're not my real Mommy and Daddy?") to a 25 year old (plus) young man who is just a heartbeat away from donning the red cape.

For ten years, it's been "no tights and no flights". The "no flights" part has become tiresome lately, but once you etch it in stone, that's that.

The show is called "Smallville" because this is the time in Clark's life before he's Superman. This is where we see what happened to him in all of his "pre-flight" experiences that eventually turns him into earth's greatest hero.

It's not about him actually being Superman. That's what the movies are for. Making Clark Superman (and the Smallville writers have come dangerously close on more than a few occasions) completely trashes the premise of the series (not that season 10 hasn't been sufficiently trashed already).

The best...the very best I think should happen in the last 30 seconds of the series, is that some emergency should occur, Clark ducks into a storage room or something, we get a close up of his chest as he opens the shirt (iconic moment, please), and reveals the Superman shield.

Fade to black. End of series. Run the closing credits and play the show's theme.

Disappointed?

Probably...but that's where the show demands to end. Anything more hopelessly blurs the line between Clark's journey of self-discovery and the realization of being Superman. Clark's adventures in Smallville lead him to become Superman but they're not about actually existing as Superman, even for a few minutes.

Tom Welling is Clark Kent; a sort of "diamond-in-the-rough". He's "Superman-in-the-making", but he was never meant to really be Superman. It's time for Welling to pass the torch. We've already learned that it will be Henry Cavill who receives that torch and who carries it as the fully realized Man of Steel. Smallville is dead. Long live Superman: Man of Steel.