Okay, so I’m a comic book geek wannabe. How sad is that? I’ve never read a Superman comic in my life, but I’m attracted to everything Superman, even that cheesy “Adventures of Lois and Clark” that was on in the mid-90’s for a few seasons. Now I’m sucked into Smallville, which is alternatingly cheesy and captivating, dumb and entertaining. So, since I can’t catch the shows at their regular times, I have to wait till they come out on DVD and watch them in a row. I’m wondering, though-how much of this stuff did the show’s writers make up, and how much of it is actually Superman lore? I’ve heard there actually was a Lona Lang, and it seems like the Native American caves are just a version of the ice caves in the North Pole where Jor-El’s spirit is. I know the storylines themselves are new to the show, but are there any obscure Superman themes that have been transplanted?
There’s a confluence of Superman themes that have cropped up in SMALLVILLE that existed at one time or another in comics, mostly in older SUPERBOY comics prior to 1986. See, there’s this little thing called “Crisis”… oh, never mind.
Ma and Pa Kent were just as loving and committed as portrayed in the series, only somewhat older. Ma Kent had a miscarriage on TV; in comics, she could never bear children, period. Pa Kent was a merchant and a farmer who ran the local dry goods store.
Lana Lang existed. But in comics she was Clark’s snoopy neighbor and was always trying to ‘out’ Clark as Superboy.
Pete Lang knew Clark Kent’s secret. But in comics he was far more involved in covering up for Clark, and he wasn’t black. Nor did he make a lame out of town move in the middle of Clark’s childhood.
Lex Luthor was a teenaged genius in Smallville. But in comics, he was friends with Superboy, not Clark Kent, and had a full head of hair, which Superboy accidentally made fall out after some sort of biochemical accident of Luthor’s went awry. This caused him to be Superboy’s sworn enemy (I cannot believe Superboy didn’t create a kryptonian cure for baldness.)
Lois Lane being Chloe’s cousin is made up for TV, but she is an army brat and her father is an army general.
Clark Kent being a school reporter and high school football hero were revamps that were made in the character’s history.
Green kryptonite having bizarre transformations on humans is made for TV. Red kryptonite bestowing strange effects on Clark Kent is from the comics. Black kryptonite didn’t exist at all in comics.
Perry White, Clark Kent’s future boss at the Daily Planet, never visited Smallville while Clark Kent was a teenager insofar as I can recall. Clark Kent didn’t make semi-regular trips to visit Metropolis in the comics.
The caves are made up, and are analogous to Superman’s arctic Fortress only in the sense that there are kryptonian artifacts in both places.
In one 1960s story Clark Kent tried out as a cb reporter under Perry White, but was a miserable failure. White dubbed him “Cluck” Kent, and evidently forgot about him.
BTW, Ma and Pa Kent were white-haired folks until the mid-1960s, when DC decided they should be younger, so some sort of quasi-SF quasi-mystical event turned them (and some other Smallville folks) younger again, and Kent’s folks were ever after depicted with brown hair and seemingly in their 40s or 50s.
It depends. If the residents of Smallville know of Supes weakness to kryptonite and if they have enough time to prepare it would be like the Chinese beating up on Yalan Gur.
BlueMit11: If you want the best live-action tv Superman show, what you want is The Adventures of Superboy. It was produced by the Salkinds, who did the movies, and many of the episodes were written by comic book writers. It stays very close to the traditional Superboy/Superman mythos. Unfortunately there has been no official release of this show on dvd–if you see dvd’s for sale those are pirated copies and should be avoided.
Notice I said “live action”? That’s because the best tv version of Superman ever is the 90’s cartoon version. The fist DVD set will be released on the 25th.
The Fleisher cartoons are also very, very well done. Interesting bit of trivia: As originally conceived, Superman didn’t fly, he leapt 1/8 of a mile at a time. The character became so popular so quickly that there was pretty quickly a radio show and a series of cartoons produced to be used as shorts in movie houses.
Superman became a flier because his leaping looked silly in the cartoons and flying was much easier to animate. This change almost immediately migrated over to the comics. Likewise, Jimmy Olsen was a character created for the radio show, and migrated to the comics from there.
[quoe]Ma and Pa Kent were white-haired folks until the mid-1960s, when DC decided they should be younger, so some sort of quasi-SF quasi-mystical event turned them (and some other Smallville folks) younger again, and Kent’s folks were ever after depicted with brown hair and seemingly in their 40s or 50s.
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In the earlier stories, Superman didn’t move to Metropolis until after Ma and Pa Kent had died. Thus, they started out as older (white-haired) when they found the baby in the rocket.
My personal guess: It sort of made sense that Superman and Clark both be orphaned, and back in the 1930s and 40s (pre-antibiotic days) it would not have been unusual for a 25- to 30-year old to have lost both parents.
I’m not sure exactly when the hair color change came in, but it was basically because they were younger and still alive, reflecting the demographics after the advent of antibiotics and other medical life-enhancing treatments. By the mid to late 1960s, it was unusal for a 25- to 30- year old to have lost both parents, so the rewrote the story line. Query: Was this change part of Crisis?
Note that even in the 1970s Christopher Reeve movie, Pa Kent dies before Clark moves to Metropolis. And Ma Kent gets white-haired by that time.
No, it happened well before Crisis. An alien’s youth potion ended up in the Kent’s well water (I can’t remember if this was on purpose as thanks for help or by accident), Ma Kent made lemonade from the water and she and Pa drank it, becoming younger. They wore masks to hide this until they had a party, Ma served the lemonade, Superboy faked a comet(?, maybe meteor) flying by as everyone drank and became young, Ma & Pa whipped off the masks during the distraction, and it was all blamed on the meteor (?, comet).
See, perfectly reasonable. 
Best retelling I have read lately in the comics is the Birthright story by Mark Waid. Really great story using element of pretty much all the various origins, including the movies and Smallville. I really like the hardcover with the afterward from Waid talking about the genesis of the project.
Excellent memory, Lok! The story “The Fantastic Faces” took place in Superboy #145 (March, 1968). Summary: On the planet Thraxx, in another dimension, a movie studio head named Jolax uses a super-space camera to film Superboy’s life and exploits on Earth and passes Superboy off as an “original created, fictional character” for a popular tv show. Viewers on the planet love the show, except for one overwhelming complaint – Superboy’s parents’, the Kents, look too old to have a teen-age son like Superboy. The show’s sponsors tell Jolax to hire younger actors for the roles of Ma and Pa Kent.
Jolax’s female assitant Mya then gets an idea. It seems on Thraxx when a criminal is to be executed, he’s given a youth serum which turns him into a baby so he can start a new life with honest parents. Jolax then transports a bottle of diluted serum into the water well of the Kent’s home. At the same time, Superboy returns from space with a giant jewel from an asteroid belt as Martha arrives with lemonade for the family. The next day, the Kents appear 20 years younger. Immediately, everyone thinks it was due to them being exposed to the space gem. (Still with me? Stories were a bit silly and complicated back then.) While the Kents like their new looks, they’re faced with a problem. If anyone sees them, they’ll think Superboy had something to do with the transformation and that compromises Clark’s ID. Superboy builds his parents a cabana outside of town which shows us a silly panel of Pa doing push-ups and Ma dancing and singing. Time passes and they realize that the youth change is permanent and they can never go back to Smallville.
The family does return to Smallville, but the Kents now wear old-age masks. After a close call with Lana, Superboy decides to expose the senior population to the gem, thereby making them ALL young, so no one will question the Kents. When this doesn’t work, Superboy then realizes it was the lemonade tainted with water used from the well after finding the bottle, but not knowing where it came from. Meanwhile, back on Thraxx, the sponsors are pleased with the “new actors” on the show “playing” as Clark/Superboy’s parents. Superboy then gets the idea for his parents to invite the entire senior population of Smallville to their home for an “old-timers” party (complete with the words, **“old-timers party” ** underlined on the invitation. Obviously, the Kents weren’t too concerned about sensitivity at this point). At the party, with the guests drinking the tainted lemonade, Superboy flies overhead with a “comet” he created out of luminescent chemicals. The guests suddenly turn youthful, including a prize-fighter and beauty queen who were scorned earlier, and an escaped convict who had a life sentence. The convict pulls one job, is promptly caught by Superboy, and realizes he’ll have to re-spend 20 years of his sentence again. The local Smallville paper attributes the change in elderly to the comet. And on Thraxx, the sponsors demand a new show with a “Superman” and older parents. In the last panel, Clark and his parents tell us that this change is permanent and he wouldn’t change them back if he could.
Lana Lang was always a red head. Kirsten Kreuk ain’t, but I am willing to make the exception for her. All other Lanas must be red heads though.
I don’t remember Superboy/Clark Kent having such a problem with wanting to be an ordinary person - it was always trying to keep his identity secret. But then again, since the whole premise of the show is that there is no Super anybody yet, you have to give him something to worry about.
Lex was either a friend or a foe, his migrating from friend to foe is one of the best parts of the show.
By the way, the Smallville mom - Annette O’Tool - played Lana Lang in one of the Christopher Reeves Superman movies. I guess the producers wanted to get the incest audience as well.