Smallville Overview Pt. 2

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Chloe Sullivan

     Clark's best friend whose ambition is to be The Daily Planet's next big reporter. Chloe grows up remarkably throughout the show. During the high school seasons, Chloe is the editor of the school paper The Torch and is absolutely determined to dig up the weird and abnormal that goes around in Smallville. Although a good journalist, Chloe is an even more loyal friend. In spite of her crush on Clark in the first several seasons, she is always by his side. She and Lana may have been on two opposite ends of the high school spectrum in the beginning, but overtime they become intensely close and protective of each other. In Season 4, Chloe's cousin Lois Lane joins the Smallville youth contingency and both of them bring a good amount of much needed humor and fun to the show. 

From The Torch to The Daily Planet

      When Chloe transitions from Smallville High to The Daily Planet, she sees her once small world broaden in many ways. One of them is finally discovering Clark's secret of his alien heritage. Afterwards, Chloe becomes devoted to Clark's journey and assists him with her journalistic and computer skills. Keeping Clark's secret is never easy and more often than not, becomes detrimental to Chloe and the relationships in her life, namely Jimmy Olsen whom she falls in love with while working at The Daily Planet or the undercover agencies who find her through her hacking skills.

     By the end of the show, Chloe has definitely made her mark as one of the most loyal and faithful of Clark's friends as well as an instrumental and integral part of the beginnings of the Justice League. Love never came easily for Chloe and she finds her heart broken many times, but the joy and completion she finds in the end was worth all the heartbreak she endure and that only made her stronger. 

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The Daily Planet

Tess Mercer & Jimmy Olsen

The Daily Planet: Tess Mercer - Editor-in-chief and Jimmy Olson - photographer

      With Chloe came the introduction to Metropolis and The Daily Planet which became the transition from Smallville and The Torch. The Daily Planet becomes the major hub activity for Clark, Lois, Chloe and other character in the later seasons of the show. 

     Tess Mercer - Brought on to be Lex's replacement in Seasons 8-10, Tess starts out as a conniving, manipulative and destructive woman capable of doing anything a Luthor can do. As the editor-in-chief for The Daily Planet, Tess could care really care less for the people working there, except the mysterious new reporter, Clark Kent, whom she knows about from her mentor Lex Luthor. Tess' curiosity about Clark and his life, ultimately become her redemption and by the end of the show, proves herself to be a worthy hero, who would willingly lay down her life.

     Jimmy Olson - Introduced in Season 6, Jimmy is a young rookie photographer at The Daily Planet who loved his job, but even more, loves pretty Chloe Sullivan. Their relationship is on-again, off-again, due to Chloe's friendship with Clark and having to harbor his secret from everyone else. Jimmy is a fun character that gives the later seasons of the show a lightheartedness, especially as the show's storylines grow darker. Jimmy, himself, begins to see the darkness that begins to envelop the world he lives in, but keeps constant faith with the heroes who are emerging from their shadows to fight and overcome it. 

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The House of El

Top: Lara-El and Jor-El
Bottom: Kara-El//Kara Kent//Supergirl

     From Seasons 7-10, the show did a fantastic job on exploring Clark's Kryptonian heritage. Jor-El becomes Clark constant voice of reason and disciplinarian from Season 2 to the show's end. Although Clark can communicate with his father vocally in The Fortress of Solitude, he never actually meets him until the end of Season 9, where Jor-El's digital copy of himself makes it way to earth. Clark's mother appears in Season 7, where she does actually meet her son if only for a short amount of time. Both parents give Clark an intense insight on the universe beyond Earth, what Krypton was destroyed for and what they died for. Jor and Lara were wonderful characters and solid parental figures; heartbreaking and bittersweet, they gave Clark a greater purpose for the protection of universal humanity.

     Kara Kent: Clark's beautiful Kryptonian cousin who was introduced in Season 7. During the destruction of Krypton, Kara's father Zor (brother of Jor-El) hid 13 year old Kara into an escape pod which shuttled her to the three year journey to Earth. Before Kara leaves, Zor tells her that she must locate and protect her baby cousin Kal-El, no matter what happens. So you can imagine her shock when she finds that Kal-El is no longer a baby, but a tall twenty year old with a sense a superiority as well as the same strange powers that she inherited when she first crashed onto Earth. 

     In Season 7, Clark becomes the paternal father figure to Kara and helps her to settle into Smallville life, while also teaching her to hone her new-found powers. At the end of the show, Kara becomes an independent and responsible young woman who has carried on her family's legacy as a force for good in the world.

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Oliver Queen & The Justice League

     Members of The Justice League are slowly introduced throughout the seasons. Starting with Bart Allan (Impulse) in Season 4, Arthur Curry (Aquaman) and Oliver Stone (Cyborg) in Season 5, Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) in Season 6 and Dinah Lance (Black Canary) in Season 7.

      Oliver Queen: Of all of the characters, Oliver Queen is the only character that has a lead role in the show as well as the creator of the Justice League. Oliver in a way is like a moral Lex Luthor. Although incredible wealthy, Oliver is a humanitarian who was been though a crucible of pain and loss in which created a hero for Metropolis and the world, as well as a counterpart for Clark Kent. Oliver has a habit of taking people off the streets like stray animals, especially if they have some unique power that they can contribute to the bettering of mankind. 

     Oliver and Clark's friendship springs from their known former pasts with the Luthors' as well as the death of Jonathan Kent, which causes Clark to rely on Oliver's advice. Oliver himself goes through extreme trial during his time on the show; sometimes the past can never be forgotten and the future is always uncertain, but it only made him a more admirable and honorable character and hero. 

     Bart Allan (Impulse): First appearing in Season 4, Bart is a runaway and thief that comes across the Kents after he stole from them. Clark sees the good person Bart can be and trusts that maybe he can turn out all right. When Bart returns in Season 7, he is Oliver Queen's right hand man for exposing LuthorCorp's secrets and a fundamental part of the Justice League.

     Arthur Curry (Aquaman): After he rescues Lois Lane from a drowning accident in Season 5, Arthur Curry makes a name for himself as a animal rights activist, plotting to destroy Lex's new nuclear water weapon. In the midst of thwarting Lex's plans, he falls in love with Lois, but after he gets into trouble with the Luthors', must literally make a dive for it. He returns as a member of The Justice League and by the end is a happily married man, forging his own destiny with his wife, Mera.

     Victor Stone (Cyborg): Victor was a former football star who was supposedly killed in a freak car accident, but was actually taken to Luthor labs to be experimented on. The experiments turned him into a full functioning human robot with extreme strength, durability, and computer/electronic hacking skills. Reserved by nature, but completed by a generous heart, Victor can understand Clark's want to be a normal human and craving a real life with the loved ones he had to leave behind.

     Dinah Lance (Black Canary): A conservative talk show host at the Daily Planet by day, but at night a mercenary with a deafening supersonic scream. Dinah Lance starts off as a pawn for Lex Luthor, but begins to see into Lex's diabolical plan and ultimately ends up joining Oliver's little save-the-world group. Dinah's character isn't as explored as much as the others, but what time she makes on the show is great, seeing as she's the only woman who can stead head-to-head with Lois and still live to talk about it. 

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Otherworldly Villains

L-R: Dr. Milton Fine (Brainiac/Brainiac 5), Davis Bloome (Doosmday), General Zod

      In the beginning of Season 5, other major villains from the DC Superman universe are introduced through the series. It's bad enough that Clark has to fight off Lex Luthor and his plans to overtake the world, but villainous alien life forms, begin to creep to the surfaces of Smallville and Metropolis. 

      Dr. Milton Fine (Brainiac): In the form of an opinionated and biased history teacher at Smallville University, Dr. Milton Fine is really a Kryptonian artificial intelligence that comes to Earth to control Kal-El. An antagonistic and manipulative character that will torment, harass, and kill to get his plan fulfilled, Brainiac is finally destroyed. However, he returns as a redeemed character in the the final season to help Clark focus on his relationship with Lois and how it will affect the world.

     Davis Bloome (Doomsday): In Season 8, a young and handsome EMT who seems completely harmless ends up becoming a colossal destructive force. Davis Bloome has no idea that he is really the human disguise for one of of Krypton's most horrific villains. The genetically mutated son of General Zod and his wife, Faora, the creature was also sent to Earth the same time baby Kal-El was. Instead he was found by Lionel Luthor and was then thrown into a chain foster homes, where he received hardly any love or affection. Throughout Season 8, Doomsday slowly starts to break through Davis Bloome's camouflage and becomes the monster he was bred to be.

     General Zod: Krypton's most decorated general and best friend to its top scientist, Jor-El, General Zod believes that destructive bloodlines could ruin Krypton's future and stages a coup to end them. Before the war, Zod asked Jor-El to create copies of themselves and Zod's army to send to Earth in hopes of obtaining the powers of the yellow sun. Jor-El complies, but strips the copies of the ability to gain their abilities of the sun. When the the copies are found and released in Season 9, General Zod emerges and is ready to take over Earth, while hunting down and murdering the son of his betrayer Jor-El. 

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     WOW! I did it!!! I manged to do a general overview of the whole Smallville series! This show is going down as one of my favorite shows (and I have a lot) as well as my favorite fandom. 10 Seasons is a long, long run, but every single season was worth the watch and subsequent re-watch.