Smallville/Headscratchers

Smallville

• Why doesn't Clark just tell Lex, Lana, or Chloe that he's Superman throughout seasons 1, 2, and 3? That just seems like a stupid choice because it would just backfire so badly. He's supposed to be close to them, closer than he is to Pete, at least, yet he doesn't tell them. (still watching the series, halfway through season 3)
  • His parents have made him paranoid, what with drilling into him "You must keep your secret" all his life. Understandable but, as you say, unfortunate.
• Why doesn't Clark *ever* wear glasses? That's the defining thing about Clark Kent and the only thing that ever kept Lois and Lex from figuring out his secret identity. Once he becomes Superman and gets the costume in Metropolis, his secret's going to be out within the day.
  • It's called Clark Kenting for a reason.
    • But it only works if you actually do it.
  • Because Clark Kent doesn't need glasses. His friends would probably think it was sort of odd if he just started wearing fake glasses all the time. And he doesn't have a secret identity at this point in his life so why would he?
    • So he makes up a story about going to an eye doctor, and people say "Oh," and leave it at that. And unless he's lifting cars and setting them on fire in the middle of main street, he does have a secret identity.
      • But again why would Clark decide to wear glasses? Back during the early seasons there is absolutely no reason for him to just randomly say "Hey maybe I should start wearing glasses to hide myself in plain sight." He had no active superhero persona to protect at the time . . . he didn't think of himself as Superman, or as having two different personas and lives. He was, to himself, just Clark Kent who occasionally saved people. There's no logic to a young Clark deciding to do such a thing. When older Clark actually, finally decided to wear glasses, he came to the decision late, but logically . . . because by then he actually has a real super-hero alter ego life that needed protecting.
  • Clark doesn't wear glasses because they wanted to establish that there is no concept of Superman. Simply put he has no secret identity, and even taking off the glasses would be a step towards that. Until recently, Clark has not been trying to be a super hero and thus doesn't have any reason to start wearing glasses.
  • Because the producers haven't caught onto the Meganekko or Nerds Are Sexy trends and don't want their Bishonen model-actor star covering his face too much.
  • There was a brief Shout-Out to his wearing glasses in one episode, Whisper, where Clark loses his sight temporarily, and it gradually comes back. Between being blind and being okay again in the next episode, he wears the traditional glasses for about five minutes.
  • There's another one where Lois(?) gives him glasses as a "disguise." Or they had a camera built-in. Or something like that. They were definitely of a Clark Kent style.
  • The lack of glasses didn't bother me until Clark actually started using them as a cover story...for about 30 seconds at the end of one episode in Season 9...and hasn't worn them SINCE (as of halfway through season TEN). Even after seeing firsthand how they would play a vital role in his future dual identity! AH!!! But as of "Masquerade," I feel much better!
  • So apparently the ONLY place Clark is going to wear the glasses regularly is within the four walls of the Daily Planet building? He wasn't even wearing them at his wedding, which was filled with people who did not know his secret! And it's one situation where he's guaranteed to get photographed at some point. It's a flimsy disguise as it is, but what the hell, writers?
• Why is Clark's obsessing and stalk/spying of Lana portrayed as okay, while the Kryptonite Mutants doing the same thing isn't?
  • Because they usually want to eat or mate with Lana, and without Clark's Nigh Invulnerability, they'd die from sugar overdose.
    • This (err, minus that last part) is pretty much spelled-out in the commentary for "Metamorphosis", which was done by the creators of the show. They noted the similarities between Clark's and Greg's stalking of Lana, but point out that while bug!Greg uses all his power to try and take Lana for himself, Clark would never use his powers that way. The only reason he really spied on her earlier on in the show was because he couldn't really get near her. Meteor-rock necklace, anyone?
• Did anyone else feel that the whole Lana dating teacher thing early in season four was blown just a little out of proportion? I mean, there can't be more than a few years difference in their ages, their relationship started before he got the job, and laws against student/teacher relationships are to prevent someone in a position of power taking advantage. And seeing as how Lana doesn't belong to any sports groups, he doesn't have any power over her.
  • Fine, on a moral standpoint. But there are still rules against it, so he would and did lose his job over it.
• So now Lois is correcting Clark's spelling mistakes? Yet another example of this show wanting to make Clark suck as much as they can get away with. Lois has always been the better reporter but Clark traditionally corrects her spelling mistakes. He has perfect memory. Trust me, it's popped up enough in other media that flipping it here is yet another big F*U to Superman fans.
  • Other episodes have shown Lois herself to be a horrible speller.
  • May have been a joke. Who takes 100% of what Lois says seriously?
• What's with the way kryptonite is used? It's clearly crystaline in nature, yet the way characters "refine" and shape it is treated like a metal.
  • It's from an alien planet and has alien properties. Odds are it's some sort of crystalline metal.
• How many former residents of Smallville will come back under a different name to wreak their meteor-infected havoc?
  • ...Huh?
    • ALL OF THEM.
• Did we ever get a conclusive resolution to the pregnant Lana storyline? As I understand it, the idea ended up being "Lana was blackmailed into pretending to be pregnant to Baby Trap Lex." However, I was going in the direction of "Lex was using Lana as an incubator for a 33.1 plot to clone Clark." However both of these are positively ludicrous. I'd almost rather have had it turn out that the Lana that married Lex was the clone, and the one in the tank was the real Lana, who had no idea any of this was happening. Am I still making sense, or have I started into the deranged babbling?
  • Lana believed she was pregnant and as far as she was concerned she had a miscarriage, until the doctor told her that she had been given synthetic hormones to simulate a pregnancy. Whether it was Lex or Lionel who fed her the hormones (and co-opted her usual doctor) was never clarified. So no, not conclusive.
    • Actually, the show made it very clear Lex was behind it, in order to baby trap Lana herself. He destroyed the evidence, Lionel was disgusted about it in "Promise," and Lana actually called him out on it in "Phantom."
    • It is interesting that he never actually confirmed that he was responsible for this crime, although he had no real reason to hide it anymore. Plus, his reaction at the news of Lana's pregnancy in "Static" makes absolutely no sense if it really was a fake pregnancy that he had planned.
    • The implication was that he was only acting, but...it sure didn't seem like it...
      • Why would he act, though? When we were shown his reaction to the news of Lana's pregnancy, he was unobserved by anyone. Who was he trying to fool? Himself?
• Why is Clark bothering to wear a costume if he's not going to even try and disguise his face? If anything, it draws even more attention to himself. I mean, how does he think the disguise is going to work?

1st Bystander: Oh My God, Clark Kent is the Blur!
2nd Bystander: Don't be ridiculous, the Blur dresses in black. Clark Kent only wears blue and red.

• • If the "Previously on Smallville" thing we got last episode is any indication, the writers haven't forgotten about introducing the glasses in "Idol." Sure, they may not fool Lois after all this time, but this being an unofficial alternate universe, she could just be privy to the identity this time around once the Blur goes public.
• Clark's continued lack of flight bugs me. Why is he still unable to fly? We've seen repeatedly that it's no big deal. Every single Kandorian with powers is capable of flight - and they've just picked up the powers from Zod. I guess it kind of made sense in the beginning to showcase the progression of Clark's powers (incidentally, what's up with that? No other Kryptonian had to absorb solar energy for years to empower themselves - they got their powers instantly) but it's been a couple of seasons since we've seen anything new with Clark's powers. It's time for flight, seriously.
  • You can see it as a Mythology Gag. Originally, Superman couldn't fly, he could just jump really high/far. Over time, he started switching directions while 'jumping', eventually becoming true flight. As for every other Kryptonian getting powers right upon reaching Earth, they were all adults when they arrived on Earth. Clark arrived when he was three-years-old, and it took him years to manifest all his powers. By the time he started encountering other Kryptonians, they were all his age or older, so they immediately were as strong as him. Maybe older Kryptonians absorb solar-energy quicker and more effectively.
  • The in-universe explanation is that Clark's emotional baggage is, quite literally, weighing him down. Make of that what you will.
  • Revealed in the Series Finale's Journey to The Centre of The Mind that Jor-El was holding him back, because he wasn't ready. Once he passes his final trial, Jor-El gives him access to his full powers.
• After going on a binge through the first few seasons again, I noticed something I hadn't before... Why do Chloe, Pete, and Clark all know how to drive (and have cars) as freshmen/sophomores in high school?
  • They live in a state that lets people as young as 15 have restricted drivers' permits, and farm permits, which Clark at least would be eligible for, at 14.
• Honestly don't know the answer to this: is Clark the only person from Smallville that Lois knows? In other media, the nickname "Smallville" makes sense enough, but given that Lois spent a sizable amount of time in Smallville, it leads to a bit of Fridge Logic.^[1]
  • Well, he was the first person in, or at least "from", Smallville, and she believed his personality "sums up" Smallville. Anyway, it's just an affectionate nickname.
• After watching "Lazarus", I'm wondering how Oliver knew the guy that grabbed him wasn't a Kandorian?
  • The guy probably used a method of kidnapping Oliver that the Kandorians wouldn't--probably broke into the ventilation shaft Oliver was in using a battering ram or something, while the Kandorians would have just broke in with their super-strength or used their heat-vision.
• So, exactly how many times would it have made perfect sense for Clark to let Lex in on his secret, and Clark still never told him? I know I already lost count.
  • It would have made sense in Seasons One, Two and Three. As for S4 and onward, not so much. "Shattered"/"Asylum" (Season Three) showed that he could have known and be trusted with it, though he was kind-of crazy at the time. Then he forgot because of electroshock-therapy... However, there's no way of knowing if Lex would have remained Clark's friend and not turned on him if he hadn't forgot Clark's secret in "Asylum". We'll never know. Unless there's an Alternate Universe episode of it coming up.
  • It was almost painfully enforced throughout the show that telling people Clark's secret is a bad idea. That is, after all, why he never tells Lana. For Lex, it would have been obviously an even worse idea.
    • YMMV on that. They SAID it was a bad thing a lot, but can you name one person, aside from Pete who got stressed out because he was the only one who knew, that had something bad happen to them explicitly because they knew Clark's secret?
• The "Chloe having a meteor-power" storyline being completely discarded in Season Eight. Why was it that becoming BrainIAC's 'vessel' suddenly got rid of her power, and why didn't she get it back when BrainIAC left her body? (...As far as we know.)
  • It's likely due to the massive backlash from Chloe's online fanbase. The writers thought that making Chloe turn out to be a meteor freak would be ironic and interesting (and this troper thought so too), but enough of Chloe's fans shrieked that the character was Ruined FOREVER that they backed off and decided they needed a quick way to drop that storyline. In any case, Chloe being able to heal anyone and everyone would have allowed her to resurrect Henry James Olsen and thus take all the drama out of that death scene, so in retrospect it's kind of understandable that the writers would decide not to let a character have a power that was THAT much of a deus ex machina quick-fix for any character death.
• The "Kandor" episode shows us an After the End Alternate Universe where the Kandorians reign over the Earth. Where in heavens was Lana, Super Kryptonite Woman? Lana would have killed or at least defeated the full Kandorian army just by being near of them! She was not just hated, she was a character that I loved to hate! How could the writers think that we would just forget her existence? Was it perhaps their Mary Sue Event Horizon, and they didn't want to cross it?
  • Maybe she tried and DIED? They were powered by a Red Sun robbing Clark of his powers and had access to Luthor Corp documents, so they knew about her. Assuming Super Lana even existed in this time line. Time Travel tends to screw with side stories. I mean look at the Justice Lords in JLU, was Shayera still a mole or not? If she was, what happened with the Thanagarian Invasion?
    • While powered by the red sun, they regained their weakness against kryptonite. And Lana was Super Kryptonite Woman. The same Flying Brick powers and a Death Touch against them. Also, they tried to make sense with the whole time travel stuff, but well, I could believe that she was squashed out of reality by the paradox or something. That would explain why no one remembers or mentions her anymore...
    • Or she could have been outnumbered by the Kryptonians and shredded. Or shot from a long way away. God only knows what kind of tech Zod has to compensate for his disadvantages.
      • Outnumbered by a bunch of agonizing, almost depowered Kandorians? And shot with what, seeing that she hasn't any apparent weaknesses? The ultratech argument is the first that really works for me.
      • Her powers came from nanotech grafted onto her in place of her skin in a very painful procedure. An EMP would have knocked out her powers and left her in excruciating pain.
        • Imagine, if you will, that Lana initially managed to get the jump on some of the Kandorians, but not Zod himself. Zod now knows what she can do (either one of the Kandorians she attacked managed to escape and warn him, or Zod was observing the battle from a distance). So when Lana shows up in Metropolis to confront Zod himself, Zod, perched comfortably atop the Daily Planet globe, simply zaps her from a distance with heat vision, and all the other Kandorians floating around him do the same with their own heat vision. *POOF!* Lana's vaporized. Problem solved.
• When Oliver outed himself as the Green Arrow, I thought one of the first things that he'd have to deal with would be the cops - after all, in most places I know of in the "real world," vigilantism is strongly frowned upon by the authorities. Cops were trying to take him down a few seasons before (the episode when Clark went undercover with the MPD), but now I guess that was JUST because they were corrupt themselves? So in other words, not until the V.R.A. did it occur for the PTB in Kansas to codify into law "going around and looking for criminals to get into fights with isn't cool, mmkay, even if you're wearing a cool costume (or at least Civvie Spandex) while doing it" - ???
  • Actually that one made perfect sense to me. He's not an ordinary person, he's a rich guy, and he's not actually doing something evil. The police not going after him for this reason is exactly what I expect in this case. For an extreme Real Life example of this, just check out what stuff Berlusconi got away with.
  • Not evil, no, but still illegal in the eyes of the law. Actually, I could have even lived with an example one often sees with The Punisher and his relationship with the cops (at least in the Welcome Back Frank story). The cops support what he does but of course they have to make a show of trying to catch him. Especially when the Mayor is in bed with the Mafia. So they create a "task force" of the department's biggest loser and a civilian psychologist with EXTREME issues of his own. As a character explains, "it's like saying 'you got it boss,' and 'drop dead asshole' to the Mayor at the same time."
    • At that point he was the CEO of both Queen Industries and Luthor Corp, the two largest employers in Metropolis. If you were the mayor would you piss him off?
• If Lionel and Lex are dead in our reality, and Lionel's body was publicly identified and not to mention all the paparazzi taking photos when he was thrown out of a window... how can Lionel threaten to blackmail everyone? It'd be like he faked his own death, which is a pretty severe crime in and of itself and would land him a pretty long jail term. Given that all of his assets and money are now in Tess' hands, how does he even buy off anyone, he has NO power in this reality!
  • Smallville isn't known to handle business issues realistically. Lionel, for example, is quite early on able to just try to take over Lex's imperium with the help of some Asian companies, before Lex blackmails him to stop it. That would never work in reality. If someone owns a company, you cannot, through business actions, actually FORCE them to give it to you. That is only possible if the company is actually owned by shareholders. Even then, it's not possible to do so without any compensation, as Lionel apparently somehow manages to do to Lex on the show.
• How come Batman hasn't made an appearance yet?
  • Him and Wonder Woman were mentioned though....
    • He hasn't appeared because of the Dark Knight Trilogy. The rights to those movies prevent him from appearing on the show.
    • http://dcanimated.wikia.com/wiki/Bat-Embargo may help explain somewhat. "Rights" issues are apparently far more complicated than just "Marvel Characters" and "DC Characters." Though at least we've GOTTEN plenty of other media with Batman during Smallville's run, which is more than we can say for Wonder Woman.
      • To elaborate, the "rights" to DC characters belong to Warner Bros., which owns DC Comics. Both Smallville and the Dark Knight series are produced by the same studio, because that studio owns the rights to the characters, and isn't simply renting them. They simply didn't want Batman on the show because they thought Viewers are Morons and would be confused if they had two different Batmen running around.
        • Or, maybe they didn't want two different Batmen running around because...well...they didn't need two different Batmen running around when one is enough. Batman doesn't have to appear in every single DC Adaptation, you know.
• In the recent Phantom Zone episode, how come Clark didn't take Bart with him?
  • Why would he? The Phantom Zone would probably take his powers as well and even if it didn't Bart isn't the best choice. He wasn't racing someone. Vic would be the best choice: super strength, invulnerability and all. Plus, he made it clear he wasn't taking anyone so as not to risk them.
• I've looked all over the internet and can't find an answer. I figure someone here will know because tropers are the smartest people in the world. In "Finale," why haven't Lois and Clark gotten married after 7 years?! WTF?
  • He's been busy establishing himself as Superman (with Lois influencing media coverage) would explain maybe a couple of years. That's all this troper's got.
  • The Death of Superman. Remember, at the end of Season 8, Doomsday got buried under a geothermal plant - which is the same place he was buried at the start of the Death of Superman story in the comics. So I'm thinking, at some point during those seven years, Clark died and then came back again after a fight to the death with Doomsday. So, along with him establishing himself as Superman (and Lois establishing herself after her interview with the President) for a year or two, throw in a year of him probably being dead as well.
  • Word of God says that they're legally married, but they decided after 7 years that they wanted another "official" ceremony
    • That's what I figured, but just because waiting 7 years was implausible. I don't expect every little detail handed to me, but major plot details like that really should be made clearer on screen.
• So what was the deal exactly with Jonathan's appearance in "Finale"? Was he a ghost or what?
  • And if he was a ghost, does this mean that he saw everything that went on since his death? If he could talk to Clark like that, why didn't he before? Not making this clear really has opened a can of worms.
    • If the Smallville afterlife is anything like the main DCU afterlife, it's bloody complicated and you usually don't get to do that sort of thing without help. Maybe he got some help from Deadman or The Phantom Stranger or someone similar.
• So Tess ends up having a Heroic Sacrifice to erase Lex Luthor's knowledge of Clark's dual identity, with a drug that supposedly erases "his life up until this moment" from his memories. So why is Lex Luthor still evil and diametrically opposed to Superman and not a mindless vegetable, then? Further, what's the point of erasing Lex's knowledge of the dual identity when there's apparently a comic book chronicling Superman's life in-universe (as seen being utilized by Chloe as the framing device of the final episode)?
  • I theorize that Tess was being dramatic when she said it would wipe his entire memory, and everything seen flashing on the screen is what he remembers. Therefore, he remembers losing his hair in a meteor shower that brought Superman to Earth, he remembers being bullied and having an abusive father, he remembers killing that father, he remembers the experiments he conducted, he remembers the Fortress of Solitude, and he remembers Clark's face and that he once knew him. I think that's why he hates Superman and what drives him to villainy. As for the comic book... I have no idea.
  • One theory for the comic book? The kid's (strongly hinted) dad is quite rich. I think he (or mom) had it made as a present for the child. So there's only the ONE copy of the comic out there.
  • Maybe the writers wanted to show us that even without the Freudian Excuse, Lex would still be bad.
  • First of all, the drug clearly wasn't meant to effect his muscle memory or general knowledge. It's the same one used by Summerholt, so it's aimed at actual life memories. Secondly, we don't know how many memories were lost, how many were kept, and how many were damaged. Finally, many Serial Killers who were horribly abused as children don't remember it. They blot out the memories, yet subconsciously retain the attitudes and personality that the abuse gave them. It's why they become Serial Killers. So if the drug did something similar to Lex, it's entirely believeable that he will still be an angry, bitter, twisted young man. He'll just need something to point it all at. And then along comes Superman...
  • Who says Lex remained evil? After getting the mind wipe he just kinda stares out the window, and then ran for Presidency some years later, nothing that indicates he's still bad. We never find out for sure whether or not he was truly evil or just evil because of his abusive father.
    • Also, there's actually A LOT of stuff from his Smallville years that Lex will likely rediscover even if he no longer has firsthand memories of them. For instance, his disastrous marriages to Desire Atkins, Helen Bryce, and Lana Lang have always been public knowledge (even if the grittier details are unknown to the public, knowing how paranoid and obsessive Lex was, he probably kept creepily meticulous files about these 3 women and his relationships with them, so we can assume that Lex will be able to re-learn a lot of the secret details). Then there's the fact that Luthor Corp likely still has TONS of case files and research from the 33.1 and Level 3 projects in storage, so Lex will be able to re-learn those details as well. If he studies the plane manifests of his own travels from 2004-2005, he'll likely rediscover the details of his quest for the Stones of Power. Also, Lex will be able to re-learn at least something about his relationship to Clark Kent simply by asking any of the literally hundreds of staff members who worked at the Luthor Mansion over the previous decade. Lex won't be able to re-learn everything, but he'll be able to re-learn ENOUGH information to know that he should keep Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and their allies on his radar in the future....
• Since when has Clark been powerful enough to shove planets back into space. Name one episode where Clark demonstrated even one thousandth of the power necessary to do this. You can't. For that matter, it's not just a planet, it's a planet with powerful planet moving engines so Clark isn't just moving the planet, he's countering all that planet moving force. And why doesn't the thing just turn around? Sure, Clark shoved it back into space, but it should be able to counter this change in its momentum after a few minutes. And why did Darkseid need to prepare an army on Earth if he was bringing his whole planet here? To kill Clark so he couldn't do his planet shoving thing? How would Darkseid know Clark is capable of this when no one in the series has ever demonstrated this kind of power?
  • Jor-el has been holding back Clark's power back until the end of his trials. His trials are over, he's now at full power. This may be more power than he's had in Smallville, but it's very much in line with Superman's power in the comics.
    • Actually, post-Crisis (the only Crisis that actually matters) Superman was nowhere near capable of that level of power, because... well, it was overpowered and ridiculous, even the writers realized that Superman not solving everything that came at him in a single page meant that he was basically screwing around and entertaining himself for thirty pages. Of course, Smallville is based off of a lot of ridiculous Golden/Silver age stuff (like multicolored Kryptonite) mixed with a dash of ridiculous retro-reintroduced Golden/Silver age stuff, so I guess nonsense like shoving planets around still fits.
    • Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison are now practically running the DC Universe, and are unnecessarily reintroducing tons of wall-banging Silver Age details, such as the silly "Superman can juggle planets" stuff, and Geoff Johns became at least somewhat involved with Smallville in the last two seasons, so we can assume that he and Morrison may have had a hand in this.
    • Actually I never thought he pushed the damn thing at all. In that very episode he says that the Omegas are drawing Apokolips in and getting rid of them would make it go away. That was Darkseid's army. What happened was people the world over saw their hero go to fight their impending doom and, since he'd won their confidence through the season, that killed the Omegas and sent the planet away.
• In an episode, I forget which one, possibly season 8 or 9, Clark throws Lois out of the way of a car, and Jimmy gets a photo of the blur he leaves behind. However, we see Clark standing still for a few seconds, so why does it still seem to show him moving at superspeed?
  • Same in the episode that first introduced Mia. Clark shields Oliver and Mia from several bullets, which would mean he's standing still for at least a short span of time. Why can nobody see him when he's standing still?
    • First question: Judging from the way everyone's stock still Clark was still less than a second. Second question: He had his back to Mia.
• Watchtower. While it's mentioned that Queen Industries paid for most of the tech inside, how on earth did any of it get installed without arousing any suspicion from the other residents? Given that Clark often doesn't seem to know what new gear Chloe has, it's clear that he's not the one installing things and the last thing you want in your super-secret base is to get outside contractors in? Also, we routinely see various forces attack Watchtower, yet the other people in the building never notice something strange is going on?
  • I've always assumed that Oliver either owned the whole building from the start or bought the whole building after learning that Chloe wanted to use the penthouse as a home base for the superheroes (i.e. he could have done this after "Doomsday"). If it's true that Oliver bought over the building, then he could have just converted the upper floors into his own personal storage space and given the former residents hefty amounts of money to relocate to new homes (he couldn't have just evicted them, but Oliver is rich enough that he could have easily just offered each resident a huge sum of money). As for moving in the technology, maybe Emil and Cyborg did that with help from super-fast Bart?
• Where was Tess during Collateral? She wasn't at Carter's funeral, so she wasn't caught by Trotter, but nobody says or asks what she was doing during the space of time when her entire team was missing. She's mentioned briefly at the end of the episode, having apparently taken care of Trotter, but at no point does anyone mention where she was during the rest of the plot.
• What's up with Lucas's age? Rachel is convinced that Clark is her son, which would make Lucas fifteen in Season Two, but it's heavily implied that Lucas was given up as a baby, and since the adoption agency in question was only open for six months he should, by rights, be twelve. Then he shows up later in that same season and he's eighteen.
  • Was he stated to be eighteen? I don't remember. Anyway the impression I got was that Lucas was born within the same year that Clark arrived on Earth, so their ages weren't very far off. In any case, Rachel was cuckoo, and her believing Clark was Lucas was basically stated to be her desperately clinging to the shreds of supposed evidence she had (i.e. Lionel's charity having processed only one adoption on record).

1. ↑ Originally, I was going to ask about Chloe, but after a quick trip to Smallville Wiki I realized she was born in Metropolis. Anyone else, though?