Smallville versus comics: ten years without a costume

The longest comic book adaptation ever broadcast, built on a prohibition. Decryption source by source, without disclosing the outcomes.

As in each article in this series, only verified information (creators, distribution, dates, publishers) is stated; the comparative analysis is ours, without reproducing dialogue or protected images.

The Superman problem, again

This corpus has established, aboutthe 1996 animated series, what we call the Superman problem: an invulnerable and virtuous character does not produce tension. Adaptations generally solve this in one of two ways — either by calibrating the power or by darkening the character.

Smallville invents a third way, and it is the most radical:remove Superman. Not the character, but everything that makes him recognizable. No costume, no flight, no hero name. A teenager from Kansas who discovers his abilities and hides them.

The rule was held for ten years. It became famous among spectators, who saw it in turn as a production constraint, a recurring gag and a sustained frustration.

What the forbidden makes possible

The constraint seems absurd. It is in reality what authorizes duration.

A constituted Superman is a character completed: he knows who he is, what he can, what he must. The stories that can be drawn from it are stories of threat — something happens, he fixes it. This format does not last ten seasons without repetition.

A Clark Kent who is not yet Superman is a character in become. Each episode can be about a discovery, a doubt, a renunciation. The subject is no longer the threat but the training — and the training itself stretches indefinitely.

This is exactly the reasoning that this corpus followed regardingThe Batman (2004), which rejuvenated his character for the same reason. The difference is in scale: where the animated series covered learning in four seasons, Smallville makes its entire point over ten years.

The price to pay is known to all those who have followed the series: an expectation that must constantly be pushed back, and which ends up weighing down. A promise kept too late is a promise that wears out.

Lex Luthor, the most fertile gap

The second move is more important than the costume rule, and much more interesting.

In the comics, Lex Luthor is Superman's adversary. Versions differ — mad scientist originally, industrialist since the 1986 refoundation by John Byrne in The Man of Steel— but the hostility is constant.

Smallville makes one childhood friend. The two boys bond, owe each other, and the viewer witnesses the slow deterioration of this friendship.

It's an invention of the series, and it's its best idea. It changes the nature of the character: Luthor ceases to be an obstacle and becomes a path. The spectator does not wonder if he will be defeated, but at what moment he will change - and above all what Clark will have done, or failed to do, to contribute to it.

This idea has also traveled. The treatment of Luthor as a man who could have been something else became, after Smallville, a common reading of the character. This corpus noted several of these reverse flows — an element born on screen then adopted by paper; this one is more diffuse than a character, but just as real.

The characters, from paper to screen

• Clark Kent— In permanent becoming, never completed.
• Lex Luthor— Youth friend, invention of the series.
• Lana Lang— Promoted to leading role, far beyond the paper.
• The Kents— The moral background, faithful to the comics.
• Kryptonite— The only flaw, and the driving force behind the intrigues.

Ten years: what duration does to an adaptation

Smallville was, upon its release, the longest comic book adaptation ever produced. This length deserves examination, as it produces effects that no other format produces.

First one derivative inevitable. A ten-year series cannot stay on its original idea: high school ends, the actors age, the small town intrigues wear out. The last seasons of Smallville bear little resemblance to the first - other DC heroes appear, the scale grows, the series becomes what it was forbidden to be.

Then a device exhaustion. The secret, the driving force of the first seasons, supposes that few people know. Over the years, those around us have to learn — and each revelation takes away some of the fuel.

Finally, and this is the most interesting point, a convergence with paper. A long series ends up encountering the same problems as a comic book series: how to maintain a status quo, how to age it, how to reintroduce what has been discarded. Smallville resolved these questions the way comics resolve them — by expanding the universe and accepting that the character changes.

For the reader, this is an observation worth remembering. Length is the closest an adaptation comes to the nature of the comic. A film is a closed object; a ten-year series is a continuity, with its inconsistencies, its repetitions and its retroactive corrections. This is not a fault of Smallville: it is the consequence of having lasted long enough to become what it adapted.

The adolescent soap opera, a format that the comic does not have

A final point, on form this time, because it explains part of the success and a lasting misunderstanding.

Smallville is not built as a superhero series but as a teenage soap opera: high school, friendships, first loves, family secrets, and a threat of the week which serves as a pretext. It was the dominant format of the channel that broadcast it, and the series embraces it without reservation.

This choice was widely criticized at the time, on the grounds that it diluted the character. The criticism misses the point: this format is the one that allows the story to be told moral training of an individual, a subject to which Superman lends himself better than any other hero. What defines this character is neither his strength nor his costume, it is being raised by Kansas farmers.

But comics have never really had this format. The long-running superhero narrative follows threats, not education; the rare titles that attempted the opposite – adolescence as a subject rather than a setting – remained marginal. It is therefore a case where the screen offers the character something that the paper had not given him.

For the reader who comes from the series, the consequence is a little disappointing and worth saying frankly: there is no comic that resembles Smallville. Titles dedicated to teenage Superman exist, but they tell of adventures, not training. This is the reverse of the usual situation — usually, adaptation impoverishes a richer source; here she offers an angle that the source never exploited.

Collection side: which numbers to aim for after the series

The designated route combines inaccessible peaks and very affordable trails.

Action Comics #1(1938) is the most expensive comic in the world and is only of documentary interest here - this body of work situates it in the context ofmarket records.

Action Comics #23(1940) contains the first appearance of Lex Luthor. It's an authentic golden age key, expensive but much more attainable than the first issue, and its interest is direct: it's the character that the series has most profoundly reworked.

More Fun Comics #101(1945) marks the first appearance of Superboy, that is to say of the very principle of the series: adolescent Superman. The title is little sought after outside of golden age collectors, making it an underrated key.

The truly accessible track remains The Man of Steel(1986), recast by John Byrne. This corpus has pointed out this profile on several occasions: a very well drawn 1980s issue, therefore common, but which defined the modern character - and in particular the industrial Luthor which Smallville inherits. You can find it for a few euros, and you can read it without any prior knowledge.

As always, condition and gradation determine value; relying on real recent sales is strongly recommended.

Where to start reading

The Man of Steel(1986) is the entry to favor: it is there that Superman is rebuilt from scratch, that Luthor becomes an industrialist, and that Kansas takes on the importance that the series will give it. Six numbers, no knowledge required.

Timeline to know

• 1938— Action Comics #1: First appearance of Superman.
• 1940— Action Comics #23: First appearance of Lex Luthor.
• 1945— More Fun Comics #101: Superboy, the principle of the series.
• 1986— The Man of Steel recasts the character and Luthor.
• 2001-2011— Smallville is on a ten-year ban.

Its place in the saga and for the collector

This series will remain as the third way in front of the Superman problem: neither calibrate the power, nor darken the character, but remove everything that makes the character recognizable— and last ten years on this deprivation. It also provided Luthor's character with his best modern angle, the rocking friend, adopted well beyond the series. And it demonstrates that a long enough adaptation ends up becoming a continuity, with the same problems as a comic. For the collector, it leads above all to More Fun Comics #101, an underestimated golden age key, and to The Man of Steel, accessible to all.

The verdict: the character kept, his attributes forbidden

• Loyalty: Kansas and the Kent farm, secrecy as the driving force, kryptonite as the only flaw, the Daily Planet and the moral foundation coming from the adoptive parents.
• Freedoms: a Lex Luthor friend from his youth, the costume and theft prohibited for ten years, Lana Lang promoted to leading role, weekly adversaries invented and a chronology of meetings redone.
• Collectible numbers: Action Comics #23 (1940), More Fun Comics #101 (1945), The Man of Steel (1986).

Ten seasons of not showing what everyone expected. It is a deprivation, and it is this which made the duration possible - a completed character would not have lasted three years.

Frequently asked questions