Look up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s…. well, Clark Kent. When Smallville was first developed for television, the showrunners made a few conscious decisions that have, for the most part, been kept for the show’s first 8 seasons. There was a strict “no flights, no tights” rule that was in effect for anyone hoping to pen an adventure for the show. Everyone knows we’re talking about Superman here, but the term is avoided like a deadly disease. All of the familiar places and names are firmly in place, but make no mistake. This is the world before Superman began to make his presence known to the world.

For those of you who have been living under a rock since the 1930’s, Smallville was the Kansas farm town where young Kal-El’s space ship from the dying planet Krypton crash landed. He was discovered by Jonathan (Schneider) and Martha (O’Toole) Kent and raised as their adopted son. The series began with Clark’s high school years. Clark always had a crush on neighbor Lana Lang (Kreuk). In a nod to the 1978 film, Martha is played by Annette O’Toole, who played Lana in that second film. Clark’s high school friends include Chloe Sullivan (Mack) who is somewhat of a computer whiz and ace school paper reporter. Clark also befriends local billionaire son Lex Luthor (Rosenbaum) after saving his life. In these early seasons the characters would slowly build towards the eventual hero/villain relationship that Luthor and Superman would share. Lex Luthor’s father Lionel Luthor (Glover) would go from being a bad guy to a good guy and back again as the show progressed. Much of these early episodes dealt with Clark discovering his powers as he matured. Eventually all but the flight ability would surface. The show also took on a freak of the week aspect at times. It seems that while Kryptonite robs Clark of his power, it has created mutant powers in many humans who have encountered it over the years. Clark and Chloe would spend many a season tracking down and stopping these “meteor freaks”.