Smallville Deserves A Superman Legacy On Par With Christopher Reeve
This article does not intend to knock the great Christopher Reeve off his well-established pedestal. Instead, it is meant to argue, and very convincingly I believe, that Tom Welling’s Superman in Smallville is just as worthy of a pedestal right alongside Reeve. Let’s look at why.
Christopher Reeve Made Us Believe A Man Can Fly
Decades before Smallville, Christopher Reeve came into our theaters and onto our television screens in 1978 in Superman. For lovers of the comic book and even those who had little idea of who the superhero was, this film was a huge win. We had the all-American hero on the big screen. Reeve was a sweet and slightly goofy Clark Kent with his glasses on, falling all over himself for Lois Lane. His Superman was a grown man, though.
Indeed, Reeve’s Superman battles have very grown-up issues — Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor, the decision to turn back time to save Lois, the transition to becoming human, and more. He was the new Superman for Baby Boomers and the only Superman for Gen Xers.
For a decade, Reeve returned to us as Clark and Kal-El across four movies. For many of us, regardless of what other films he made, Christopher Reeve was Superman. Then Smallville came along.
Tom Welling Showed Us How To Learn To Fly
By the time Tom Welling was strung up on a scarecrow cross in a cornfield in the first episode of Smallville, I was already a grown woman and uninterested in shows on The WB, a network for kids, in my humble opinion at the time. Fortunately, my baby brother forced me to watch the series on DVD many years later, insisting that Smallville needed to be accepted into the canon as one of the greatest superhero artifacts in existence. And I’m so glad he did because I heartily agree with him.
Smallville Addressed Fan Questions
Smallville brought a new, updated version of Clark Kent into our awareness, one that many of us had never met or even thought of. Who was Clark before he was Superman? How did he manage high school and his early college years? Did he fall in love before Lois? When did he meet Lex Luthor? Why was Lex a bad guy?
All of these questions, and so many more, are answers over the span of ten excellent seasons. We came to love our hero, and generations of kids welcomed the only Superman they knew into their hearts. My brother was born in 1991, so Tom Welling’s Superman was the Superman for him.
Young And Hip Clark Kent
We all know that 1980s films, looking back now, had a hefty serving of cheesiness, and we enjoyed them for what they were. Reeve’s Superman wore spandex and his underwear on the outside, and that’s okay. But Smallville gave us a young, modern, fresh Superman, long before the red cape and underwear.
Tom Welling shows us Clark’s vulnerable side as he falls in love with Lana despite her toying with his emotions. He scared us when he was infected by red kryptonite, and we mourned with him when his father, Jonathan, died.
The Journey Of Tom Welling’s Clark
The journey Tom Welling took us on as Clark grew from a naive, sweet young boy into a fully grown man who was finally ready to fly lasted a decade, just as long as the journey we traveled with Reeve. Smallville set a record as the highest-rated series debut for the pilot, and the entire saga has had the most critics raving.
Smallville Deserves Recognition
Indeed, it holds a 78 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with many people praising the show as among their top 10 favorite shows of all time. Thus, we cannot simply let Smallville and Tom Welling’s Superman fade into history as “just a show.”
This is not even to mention the spinoffs, merchandise, and comic books, among other things, that came from Smallville. If Christopher Reeve deserves to go down in history as an iconic Superman, then so too does Tom Welling. He’ll forever be young Clark.
