Line #117 Headscratchers/Smallville


1	'''Please arrange the entries according to seasons, as shown in NightmareFuel.{{Smallville}}.'''
2
3	[[WMG:Series/{{Smallville}}]]
4	* In this universe, why does it take Clark Kent so long to adopt his superhero alter-ego (nickname, costume, etc.)? Usually, the M.O. for writers of comic books or works based on them is that a person discovers that he/she has superhuman powers, and within days, sometimes weeks, they become the full-fledged superhero/villain we know them as. But in ''Smallville'', as far as I'm aware, Clark Kent is an adolescent kid with superpowers. No superhero codename, no costume, no secret identity, nothing. For a ''long'' time (and it's not as if costumed heroes/villains don't exist in the ''Smallville'' universe). In-universe, why is this the case? How did Clark avoid all the problems of being a non-traditional "superhero" (might be a bad word in this series), and why did he avert the common "superhero birth" trope?[[note]]Keep in mind I haven't seen this series, and I'm not criticizing it-- just curious. If I'm wrong about anything, please correct me.[[/note]]
5	** This is a mix of Clark wanting to have a normal life, being too humble to want to become a larger-than-life alter-ego when he does use his powers, and just flat out not needing a costume for the most part. When you move so fast anyone can only see or commit to video a blur, you don't need a silly costume to hide your real self.
6	** It's basically a ten-year-long origin story for Superman (granted, they put iconic villains like Doomsday in WAY early by that metric, but hey). As such, Clark doesn't actually become "Superman" until the very last episode of the very last season, and even then, we never really get to see a shot of Tom Welling in the Superman costume (apparently, because either the network or the showrunners thought it would look too cheesy). When creating a superhero character, you need to answer two very important questions: how they became "super," and ''why'' they became a "hero." Well, we all know how Clark Kent became super, this is ten years of explaining why he chose to become a hero.
7	* What's the deal with the inconsistent mind control rules in "Delete" from Season 3? The last mind control email, the one directed to Clark's parents, implies that the victims are given very general, must-be-obeyed instructions and use their own knowledge to carry them out, hence the specifics of their plan and the fact that Jonathan used the kryptonite on Clark despite that mind controller not knowing about his weakness to it. But if that's the case, why didn't Clark, while mind controlled, decide that the best way to kill Chloe would be to actually use his powers and snap her neck like a toothpick at super speed? The only explanation I can think of was that the mind control message was overly-specific, specifically demanding she be run over with a truck, but it still seems like the victims are given quite a bit of "creative freedom" and do things not specifically demanded that further the general goal.
8	** Maybe mind control email works differently on Clark because he is [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Clark]]. He was repeatedly shown to be immune to various meteor mind-related powers like compelling voices, mind reading or make-you-speak-the-truth voice. It's possible he couldn't resist the email completely but, since it was making him do something he really didn't want to, he subconsciously decided to not try particularly hard.
9	* Lionel tried to kill Chloe at the end of season three. Two seasons later he's rescuing her from the season six premiere riot caused by Zod. Did I miss the episode where they sorted out their differences or is Chloe just really awesome at letting things go?
10	** Both, sort of. Lionel did an unexplained HeelFaceTurn in ''Transference''. Guess you can't have two bad Luthors around or the place would implode with the evilness. [[spoiler:[[HilariousInHindsight Come season ten, on Earth-2, Lex is dead but Lionel is alive, Lionel comes to Earth-1 where Lex has been killed, and ''then'' is killed to resurrect Lex...]]]]
11	** The aforementioned episode had Clark and Lionel switching bodies. At the end of the episode, and others after that, it is heavily implied through the rest of the series that some of Clark's inherent goodness lingered in Lionel, inspiring him to be good and do better things.
12	** Lionel's motivations for the early seasons were eventually revealed that he was dying of something terminal, and he believes somehow he can find a miracle cure somehow by all the abnormalities occurring in Smallville. When he and Clark switched bodies back at the end of the episode he was revealed to be cured. It is also worth noting that Lionel was the primary antagonist for the first few seasons, but behind the scenes they wanted to give some other villains a chance in that particular spotlight, thus to keep Lionel on the show, he needed new motivations. The characters still take awhile to warm up to and trust him however.
13	** Lots of people have tried to kill Chloe by that point. It's just not the big deal it used to be.
14	* Why doesn't Clark just tell Lex, Lana, Pete, or Chloe that he's an alien 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)
15	** His parents have made him as paranoid as they became, after Lionel threatened to expose their illegal adoption, by drilling into him "You must keep your secret" all his life. Understandable but, as you say, unfortunate.
16	*** And as for Pete, he ''is'' Clark's supposed best friend despite his lack of screentime. And even then, Clark didn't willingly give up his secret until circumstances forced his hand.
17	** Pete was never really shown to be all that stable to begin with. If you remember in the episode Nicodemus while everyone who was affected by the flower eventually escalated to violence Pete was the only one who went instantly to killing someone.
18	** Clark's friends are all "normal" in his eyes, so he feels like admitting to being different is a shameful thing. Just like every other teenager doesn't want to tell his friends, who are presumably normal, about anything that would make them seem less normal. It's like if Clark was gay, and didn't immediately come out of the closet.
19	** There's also the prevalent TheyWouldCutYouUp rationale for the Kent's to keep Clark's nature a secret. Once Clark lets Pete, Chloe, Lana, etc. in on the secret, they now need to keep it with him. It's actually easier on their relationships if Clark keeps the secret himself, rather then telling his friends and burdening them with the knowledge that they have to be ''extra'' careful to make sure they don't spill the beans to the wrong person. Pete's arc after he learns Clark's secret is all about how difficult that makes everyday life for him, resulting in him eventually leaving Smallville completely. The others only handle it better because, by the time they figure it out, they're in positions to actually help Clark keep the whole thing under wraps.
20	* Similarly to the above, why doesn't Clark think to tell his friends (maybe Lana and ''maybe'' Lex in the early seasons, but definitely Pete and Chloe) that he's just a meteor freak, instead of the full truth about him being an alien? It's a ready-made explanation given all the craziness that happens in Smallville during the first few seasons, and he can easily explain away his initial reluctance to tell them as fear that he'd be pegged as another freak of the week waiting to happen. It'd not only give him an element of plausible deniability when the inescapably Kryptonian elements like Zod or Brainiac, but it'd lull them into a sense of security in thinking that they know the secret without knowing the half of it.
21	** Most of the above arguments still apply to a Meteor Freak origin.
22	* 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.
23	** 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? 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.
24	** 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.
25	** Because the producers haven't caught onto the GlassesAreSexy or Main/NerdsAreSexy trends and don't want their Bishonen model-actor star covering his face too much.
26	*** Okay why there hell would a guy with NO vision problems wear glasses? He wears glasses to draw attention away from his face provide a subtle distinction between him and Superman. Which doesn't exist yet.
27	** There was a brief Main/ShoutOut 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.
28	** 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.
29	** 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!
30	** 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?
31	* Why is Clark's obsessing and stalk/spying of Lana portrayed as okay, while the Kryptonite Mutants doing the same thing isn't?
32	** Because they usually want to eat or mate with Lana, and without Clark's Main/NighInvulnerability, they'd die from sugar overdose.
33	*** 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. [[FridgeBrilliance Meteor-rock necklace, anyone?]]
34	** Also, it's never really implied that Clark uses his telescope for anything "inappropriate" regarding Lana. He just watches her go in and out of her house sometimes, he doesn't, say, use it to see into her bedroom while she's changing clothes. In that context, it's not really any different than watching someone from the other side of the classroom in school. And the kicker is, while Clark may watch Lana more than is socially acceptable, he doesn't ''act'' on it. When he does try to get closer to Lana, physically and emotionally, he does it using only his normal personality.
35	* 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.
36	** Fine, on a moral standpoint. But there are still rules against it, so he would and did lose his job over it.
37	* 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.
38	** Other episodes have shown Lois herself to be a horrible speller.
39	** May have been a joke. Who takes 100% of what Lois says ''seriously''?
40	* 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.
41	** It's from an alien planet and has alien properties. Odds are it's some sort of crystalline metal.
42	* How many former residents of Smallville will come back under a different name to wreak their meteor-infected havoc?
43	** ...Huh?
44	*** ALL OF THEM.
45	* 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 BabyTrap 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?
46	** 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.
47	*** 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."
48	*** 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.
49	*** The implication was that he was only acting, but...it sure didn't seem like it...
50	*** 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?
51	* 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?
52	-->'''1st Bystander''': Oh My God, Clark Kent is the Blur!
53	-->'''2nd Bystander''': Don't be ridiculous, the Blur dresses in black. Clark Kent only wears blue and red.
54	** 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.
55	* 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.
56	** You can see it as a MythologyGag. 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.
57	** The in-universe explanation is that Clark's emotional baggage is, quite literally, weighing him down. Make of that what you will.
58	** Revealed in the SeriesFinale's JourneyToTheCentreOfTheMind 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.
59	*** That and Jor-El taking away his powers for awhile never made sense to me though. His powers were never granted by Jor-El. They were a natural occurance of the Kryptonian genes under an Earth sun. How can Jor-El take away, or hold back these things that are naturally occuring, any more than a father can just turn off his childs ability to see, or to walk? And if Jor-El has some special way to turn off a Kryptonian on Earths powers why doesn't he just do so to Zod?
60	*** Jor-El has a Kryptonian supertech solution that only works on Kal-El, because he never honestly expected any other Kryptonians to appear on Earth (he had information stored away in the unlikely event it happened, but wasn't CrazyPrepared enough to come up with something that would curtail any possible Kryptonian that could possibly show up ever)?
61	* 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?
62	** They live in a [[http://www.ksrevenue.org/dmvteen.htm 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.
63	* 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 FridgeLogic.[[note]]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?[[/note]]
64	** 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.
65	* After watching "Lazarus", I'm wondering how Oliver knew the guy that grabbed him wasn't a Kandorian?
66	** 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.
67	* 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.
68	** 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, [[spoiler: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 AlternateUniverse [[RunningGag episode of it coming up.]]
69	** 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.
70	*** 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?
71	*** You could make a drinking game out of how often Chloe is threatened/blackmailed involving his secret, or how her relationships with Lana, Jimmy or someone else is damaged.
72	*** FridgeLogic: Her relationships with Lana or Jimmy wouldn't get damaged if they knew about Clark's powers and she didn't have to cover for him.
73	* 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? ([[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands ...As far as we know.]])
74	** 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 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 [[spoiler: 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.
75	*** Pretty sure the main problem was ther her powers sucked not that she had them.
76	** I think it is a very bad idea to remove it without explanation. Not to mention in ''Cure'' that Chloe has a large amount of kryptonite near her heart, which is obviously never removed. I don't see how it "ruined" her character - [[EmpathicHealer Empathic Healing]] is perfectly in line with her IncorruptiblePurePureness. It reflects her personality - "I'd die before I'd ever betray you", "you care more about other people than anyone else I know". As for resurrecting the said character, it could pack even more emotional impact if Clark adamantly stops her from trying and that she would die permanently if she heals anything that grievous. After all, "with all my powers, I couldn't save everyone" is a strong recurring theme in Superman stories.
77	* The "Kandor" episode shows us an AfterTheEnd AlternateUniverse 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 MarySue Event Horizon, and they didn't want to cross it?
78	** Maybe she tried and DIED? They were powered by a Red Sun robbing Clark of his powers and had access to LuthorCorp documents, so they knew about her. Assuming Super Lana even existed in this time line. TimeTravel 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?
79	*** While powered by the red sun, they regained their weakness against kryptonite. And Lana was Super Kryptonite Woman. The same FlyingBrick powers and a DeathTouch 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...
80	*** 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.
81	*** 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.
82	*** 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.
83	*** 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.
84	*** [[TheScrappy You don't know how many fans would love to see that]].
85	* 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 CivvieSpandex) while doing it" - ???
86	** 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 RealLife example of this, just check out what stuff Berlusconi got away with.
87	** 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 ''ComicBook/ThePunisherWelcomeBackFrank'' 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."
88	*** At that point he was the CEO of both Queen Industries and LuthorCorp, the two largest employers in Metropolis. If you were the mayor would you piss him off?
89	* 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!
90	** 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.
91	* How come Batman hasn't made an appearance yet?
92	** Him and Wonder Woman were mentioned though....
93	*** He hasn't appeared because of Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy. The rights to those movies prevent him from appearing on the show.
94	*** 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.
95	*** To elaborate, the "rights" to DC characters belong to Warner Bros., which owns DC Comics. Both ''Smallville'' and ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' 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 ViewersAreMorons and would be confused if they had two different Batmen running around.
96	*** 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.
97	*** No, there is an actual embargo on using the Batman character because of the movies. It had nothing to do with issues of over-exposure.
98	*** Wonder Woman was also in DevelopmentHell at the time, precluding her involvement in the series.
99	* In the recent Phantom Zone episode, how come Clark didn't take Bart with him?
100	** 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.
101	** It is stated somewhere that he has no powers in the Phantom Zone because there is no yellow sun. Bart would trash everyone in there in no time. [[TooDumbToLive Although going into the Zone in the first place was a dumb idea.]]
102	* I've looked all over the internet and can't find an answer. I figure someone here will know because [[CheapHeat tropers are the smartest people in the world.]] In "Finale," [[spoiler:why haven't Lois and Clark gotten married after 7 years?! WTF?]]
103	** 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.
104	** 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.
105	** Word of God says that they're legally married, but they decided after 7 years that they wanted another "official" ceremony
106	*** 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.
107	*** It's entirely possible that Lois and Clark were living together long enough to be considered Common Law Married, but were both just too busy to schedule an actual wedding ceremony until seven years had passed (or they tried several times to have an actual wedding, but stories/supervillains/apocalypses kept disrupting their schedules).
108	* So what was the deal exactly with Jonathan's appearance in "Finale"? Was he a ghost or what?
109	** 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.
110	*** 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 ComicBook/ThePhantomStranger or someone similar.
111	** WildMassGuessing: When Jor-El gave Jonathan Kryptonian powers to bring Red Kryptonite Influenced Clark back home, Jor-El also copied Jonathan's memories and personality the same way he copied his own into the Caves/Fortress. Jor-El never let AI-Jonathan out of the box because Clark needed more from Jor-El at that point (learning to control and use his powers), but kept Jonathan "online" because he knew that, sooner or later, Clark would have questions/problems that ''only'' his "Earth-father" could answer. In Finale, it was appropriate for Jor-El and Jonathan Kent to give Clark their mutual blessing for fully assuming the mantle of Superman.
112	* So Tess ends up having a HeroicSacrifice 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)?
113	** 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.
114	** 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.
115	** Maybe the writers wanted to show us that even without the FreudianExcuse, Lex would still be bad.
116	** 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 Killer}}s 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 SerialKillers. 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...
117	** 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 [[FreudianExcuse abusive father]].
118	*** 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 LuthorCorp 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....
119	*** As of now, the Season 11 comic book is actually going to great lengths to address this, as Lex is slowly regaining pieces of his memory, re-learning others through investigation (as described in the theory above), and in general is working on ways to regain more memories. He also has a lingering, inexplicable feeling that he should hate Superman, though he himself isn't completely sure why...but he trusts his gut, so he goes with the feeling. Also, Lex's ''philosophy'' seems to still be intact, and Superman rubs that worldview the wrong way in the Season 11 comic.
120	** The fact of the matter is that the episodes like final and apacholypse were written more for the benefit of the good guy’s. Lex’s decent to evil came across more like he was clinically insane then actually evil due to the fact that the good guy’s were using his actions more as an excuse then to actually stop him. Look at it in order from season 1 to 3 everybody said Lex was evil not because of his actions but because of his father no matter what he did he always had some interior motive he couldn’t be trusted. Then you have his start of darkness in shattered and asylum. Lex proved equivocally that he was trust worthy he took all of the responsibility of stopping his father from chloe and all the while he was being tortured he never once mentioned her name or even hinted that some one else knew. Also he never used clarks secret to try and get out. Yet everybody said he couldn’t be trusted and needed to stay in the crazy house causing clark to wait to save him until the last moment. After he got out his control freak nature started to show because up until that moment he had no control over his life. It started out small he tried to get his memory back but not only did his best friend actively try to stop him he chastised him for it even though he wasn’t putting anyone at risk. So clark was working against him for reasons that he wouldn’t say. Then came the incredibly stupid episode lex’s ex trying to kill him and everyone saying he treated woman horribly forgetting that up until then every women he’s been in a relationship with has betrayed him and the woman whose life he ruined cheated on. Then came oliver who was introduced after he kidnapped and tortured lex. He knew what lex was like because after he mercilessly bullying lex they accidently caused the death of lex’s friend. Lana’s response to finding out that lex baby trapped her was to first leave him to die then framing him for her death. Conveniently forgetting that not only did she only get with lex because she was mad at clark but she used him to find out clarks secret. Literally the moment she found out she was no longer in love with him. Lex comes back shows actual remorse but instead he forgives lana and shows signs of moving on but do they help him no lana mercilessly spys on him which given his need to control psycosis is a bad thing and everybody blames literally everything on him. So that doesn’t last the final nail on the coffin was lionel. Lex is bad because of his father but when his father turns good not only does everyone trust him but he still treats lex the same way he always does. Lex spent his life thinking that this was because he killed julien but then finds out that his father always put his second to everything so he no longer cared about what other people think. These are not the actions of an evil man these are the actions of someone not in control of themselves.
121	*** I agree you forgot about the MoralMyopia of the show things are only bad if lex does it. When she first met him the first thing lois said was that he was a spoiled rich kid trying to buy peoples votes when he insulted her back he had to pay. Experimenting on meteor freaks is wrong but lana can find a sick person lying in the street and instead of taking her to the hospital she locks her in a room and watches her die. Oliver killed lex because lionel killed his parents. Tess tried to kill lex because she found out he put a chip in her eye yet later she put nano bombs in the brains on the injustice league. Lex main flaw was his need to be liked by everyone and to that in he was accountable for his actions but the good guy’s are to blame as well that is why he’s so sympathetic. Everyone kept pushing his buttons repeatedly. They dragged him kicking and screaming towards the edge then had the gaul to act surprised when he jumped off. So with they final they were hoping the viewers would forget that by showing that he was always going to be evil regardless of what the heroes did.
122	** None of those things were treated as good when the heroes did them. Oliver killing Lex got a lot of pushback from Clark and Clark was furious with Lana for what she did to that woman. The different between them and Lex is that they didn't do stuff like frequently and where capable of remorse if/when they did. Lana locking the woman up is explicitly stated to be a result of Lex's corrupting influence on her.
123	** Does lex remind anyone else of batman both are control freaks due to tragedies in their past who repeatedly cross the line however while bruce uses his control freak nature as a tool lex let his consume him.
124	*** Lex is owlman
125
126	* 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?
127	** 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.
128	*** Actually, Post-Crisis Superman was nowhere near capable of that level of power because several writers thought Superman needed to be toned down. Of course, Smallville is based off of a lot of Golden/Silver/Bronze age stuff (like multicolored Kryptonite), so I guess a Superman capable of shoving planets around still fits.
129	*** 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.
130	*** Then again, the Season 11 comics have mentioned more than once that Clark shoved the planet away with his bare hands.
131	* 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?
132	** 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?
133	*** 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.
134	* 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?
135	** 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?
136	* 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.
137	* 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.
138	** Was he ever 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).
139	* Speaking of Lucas, how easy would it have been for the showrunners to feature Lucas in another episode instead of giving him ChuckCunninghamSyndrome? His S2 ep left the impression that he would return to cause more trouble down the line, but he was never seen or mentioned again. Even worse, in a later episode, Clark--horrified at Lionel's latest abuse of Lex--gasps "But Lex is your child! Your only son!" apparently, forgetting the misadventure he, Lex, and Pete had had involving Lucas.
140	** This troper assumed that Lex had had Lucas killed when he went off the deep end, since that way only he would be even in the running for inheriting anything with Lionel dead, and then later when Lex himself is "dead," the only person in any position to take over is Tess, who he has control over.
141	* In "Ryan," after Clark busts Ryan out of Summerholt, Dr. Garner calls the cops and reports him for kidnapping. But the only reason Clark needed to resort to that was that Garner had already sworn up and down to the Metropolis cops that he didn't have Ryan, and even let them search the clinic twice to see for themselves. When he then turns around and reports Ryan's abduction, shouldn't he then himself be arrested for multiple counts of obstruction of justice and making false statements?
142	** They have records of Ryan being held there, plus Lex and his battalion of lawyers helped.
143	* This has been bugging me for a very long time, especially now that I'm in season five: why on Earth did Chloe break up with Clark in ''Vortex''? She even immediately started crying once he left.
144	** Season four and five takes this further. Clark willingly gives [[spoiler:Alicia]], a murderous psychopath, the second chance just because she knows his secret. And no luck for Chloe. Face it, she loves him as much as [[spoiler:Alicia]] does and has proven countless times of her many good qualities. No, this is [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial definitely not]] just SugarWiki/GushingAboutCharactersYouLike.
145	*** Gets ridiculous in season five when Lana broke up with Clark because he thinks he would keep hurting her with his secrecy. And in all the {{Angst}}ing and drama, every single person forgot about Chloe. You know? His only secret keeper other than his parents? All the way in season five Lana is just there to have/try to have sex with Clark and make trouble concerning his secret.
146	*** Why does Chloe break up with Clark in Vortex? She says it herself; she paniced when faced with real intimacy, something that actually bares out in later behaviour. And Clark simply decided that, on reflection, he wasn't into Chloe romanticaly. It has nothing to do with giving her a second chance or not, as with [[spoiler: Alicia,]] he simply was romanticly interested in her and wasn't in Chloe. You don't choose who you fall for. That this happens and that Chloe eventually gets over it and has healthy realationships with others is, in my opinion, a sign of maturity for the show. Not every teenage crush becomes true love. Plus on a personal note I find Chloe far more interesting when she gets over Clark. Using her as just another love interest would have been a waste of a great character.
147	*** If anything, Lana is Clark's teenage crush and there is barely any development past the "telescope stalking" stage other than that now Lana is into him too. All the time in season five Clark and Chloe has so many beautiful moments (Beginning ''and'' ending with two of the most[[note]]I know you can run faster than a speeding bullet, Clark... Take me along for the ride.[[/note]] powerful[[note]]Clark...I don't know if I'm ever gonna see you again NowOrNeverKiss[[/note]] Chloe/Clark scenes, or just two greatest scenes period). Probably why they had to suddenly brought back Jimmy - are they grasping at straws to keep them apart or something? Last time I checked Jimmy is mentioned only once before, two seasons ago; a very brief summertime fling, a guy who took Chloe's virginity and left without a word for ''over four years'' (as implied in ''Zod''). Then Chloe just went back to him before you could blink. Seriously, even ''Superman'' had a lot more difficulty with ComicBook/LoisLane[[note]]a.k.a. the character Chloe is something of an {{Expy}} of[[/note]] in ''Film/SupermanReturns'', with a much more believable reason for his absence[[note]]you'd think the "checking out my home planet because there is a chance I might not be the last of my kind after all" thing gets him off the hook[[/note]]. What were the producers thinking?
148	*** Maybe they aren't.
149	*** And about the using Chloe just as another love interest thing, you seems to have got something inverted. Lana is a bland character because she exists (more or less) solely to be Clark's love interest. That won't happen to Chloe who already has a very deep character with lots of great interactions with Clark.
150	*** FridgeLogic: Maybe the never-resolved and everlasting {{UST}} between them is what kept ''Smallville'' running after all. Many fans kept watching just to see them get together. [[spoiler:Which never happens.]]
151	*** Or . . . it really is like the person above said - Clark was just not romantically interested in Chloe. Yes, he loved her as a friend - family even. But never once did he ever chose to be with her romantically if he ever had another option available; be it Lana, Kyla, Alicia or Lois. Clark said it himself in the episode Crimson, he kept Chloe in his "back pocket" - which is really kinda sad, but there you go. Smallville as a show wasn't terrible consistent about everything, but this was one thing they were consistent about - Clark not being into Chloe romantically as much as she was into him.
152	* ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} repeatedly does one very stupid thing despite all his intelligence. He is almost a match to a true kryptonian. And he is unaffected by kryptonite. Shouldn't he be carrying Kryptonite at all times? The only time I remember him using kryptonite against Clark is [[spoiler:''Solitude'']]. He would have won easily if he had a piece in [[spoiler:''Veritas'' or ''Arctic'']]. And you know, in Smallville, KryptoniteIsEverywhere.
153	* How does Chloe know to call Doomsday by that name in ''Infamous''? I thought only Brainiac calls it Doomsday and everyone else just refer to it as "the monster" or something like that?
154	** Chloe through the whole series had a penchant of name dropping iconic DC characters and identifying them for the general audience. It was just one of her things.
155	* Kryptonite radiation is technically only shielded by lead. However, in Smallville, kryptonite has absolutely no effect if it is not seen, even if it is just in a shirt pocket.
156	** Except when Tess weakens Zod by K, refusing to reveal to him how exactly she did it.
157	* The [[StrangledByTheRedString awkwardness (to put it mildly) of the whole deal]] notwithstanding... In ''Beacon'', [[spoiler:did Oliver and Chloe just had sex in the Watchtower? You know, the place where Clark frequently crashes in without warning?]]
158	* Zod and Jor-El call each other just that, which is odd because they are supposed to be very close friends (I think Zod said at one point that Jor-El was like a brother to him), so shouldn't they call each other by their given names, instead? For the record, Zod is his last name. His full name is Dru-Zod.
159	** Maybe Jor-El thought that [[LastNameBasis Zod's]] name was [[Film/TheAvengers2012 "Major"]]?
160	*** Most if not all, of the characters refer to him as Zod in the comics, maybe the good major/general just prefers it?
161	* High School Freshman driving wtf? Yes Clark could have a farmers license, yes you can get a Restricted license at the age of 15 in Kansas but these kids are driving all the way to Metropolis even in season 1 without a parent in the car. And they have really expensive cars wtf.
162	** They are also all beautiful and have clothing that perfectly suits them. Welcome to TV Land.
163
164	* So I've rewatched season 5 a couple times now but something still doesn't make sense to me: How and when did Lana fall in love with Lex? All they really did together that season was research the black spaceship and all of a sudden they are having a make out session. I know Lex was already in love with Lana,but she wasn't interested so what changed?
165	** What, you want an exact moment? Relationships don't work that way. They just got gradually closer.
166	* In season 7 Clark is shown how the world would be if he had never arrived. Lex is the President. Clark saved Lex from drowning in the first season. What?
167	** Maybe the accident just didn't happen in this alternate world?
168	** Exactly; Clark's absence could have set off a subtle domino effect where Lex was never on the bridge to suffer that specific accident. Plus, since that timeline would have been created by Brainiac stopping Kal-El leaving Krypton in the first place, who's to say he didn't also find a way back to Earth to manipulate the Luthor family earlier than he did in the original course of events.
169
170	* When Clark first meets the Legion and he asks about Chloe's future why does he refer to her as Chloe Sullivan? She'd just married Jimmy so shouldn't she be Chloe Olson at this point?
171	** Not all women change their names on getting married. And besides, as we later see, [[spoiler: Jimmy gets killed at the end of the season.]]
172
173	* In season 8 a phantom zone Faora ghost appears and she is every bit as evil as her husband General Zod. Come next season we see a copy of a younger Faora and she is an ActualPacifist. What has turned season 9 Faora into season 8 Faora? Just Zod's influence or something more?
174	** Decades of brutal warfare working for a progressively more insane dictator.
175	** Not being able to have children of her own could have had a very negative effect as well.
176
177	* After watching through the series again, in the episodes before Clark completely ends his friendship with Lex... why didn't Lex ever just lie to Clark about knowing that he had powers? He had suspected for awhile anyway, and it was clear that Lex was not above lying to Clark, it'd be as easy as Lex saying: "I saw what you did." when the next mysterious event around Clark happens, or hell, in the season 4 episode where Clark loses his memory and then gets it all back, simply lie again and tell Clark that while he was suffering from amnesia he let Lex know... I mean, am I the only one thinking this?
178	** Lex suspected various things but never had proof (at least not proof he remembered) so any lie he'd tell on that front would be very vague and Clark, to his credit, tends not to fall for similar fishing attempts from others so it probably wouldn't work.
179
180	* How did Tess exposing Earth-2 Lionel as a fraud actually work? Someone above noted the issue with Earth-2 Lionel passing himself off as a NotQuiteDead Lionel Luther despite FakingTheDead being a serious legal problem, but as he seemed to pull the trick off and take [=LuthorCorp=] over without any real hassle, Tess's method of exposing him seems legally questionable. She showed that fingerprints that she had collected him were actually a mirror image of the "real" Lionel's fingerprints. This seems to have instantly nullified all of Lionel's claims of ownership of the company without so much as a cursory investigation. Were federal officials readily won over by the argument that the "mirror match" of fingerprints was a result of "Lionel" being a doppelgänger from a parallel universe because the idea that either the fingerprints submitted as evidence or the fingerprints existing on file were accidentally reversed was so much less plausible?
181	** I think the intention was more that Tess was able to provide evidence that Lionel-2's fingerprints didn't match the fingerprints of the original Lionel, but it took her a while to find a sample of original Lionel's fingerprints that she could be sure Lionel-2 hadn't already altered (she had to use her original adoption papers because Lionel-2 wouldn't have known about them and wouldn't know to adjust them). Once Tess could find evidence that Lionel was a fake, she may have taken time to deal with other loose ends before she actually confronted Lionel to inform him that the fraud had been discovered, because if she tipped her hand too early Lionel-2 could have been smart enough to outmaneouvre her.

Context Headscratchers / Smallville