Clark Kent: The Boy Who Would Be Superman--Not on THIS Show!

[GHScorpiosRule]

I fee so bad, but it's true. This Show's Clark Kent, started out so Earnest, charming and sweet. From the pilot, you could, well I could, picture him as Superman.

 

But the motherfuckingassholesincharge ruined it. And Clark ending up moping and making Cow Eyes at Lana for most of the show's run, didn't help.

[catrox14]

I just watched "Luthor" and holy crap, I forgot how great Tom was at playing Ultraman. He was legit scary.

 

Of course I always think Welling gets a bad rap about Clark, but I think he did a great job creating this Clark Kent and it's thankless playing the earnest, good guy. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

I just watched "Luthor" and holy crap, I forgot how great Tom was at playing Ultraman. He was legit scary.

 

Of course I always think Welling gets a bad rap about Clark, but I think he did a great job creating this Clark Kent and it's thankless playing the earnest, good guy. 

 

I loved when Tom played Clark as earnest and charming! But that didn't last very long. He spent a lot, and I mean a LOT of years, moping and angsty over that twat in pink, Lana.  I loved "Transference" and hell whenever he was under Red K's influence or stuck in the Phantom Zone, all messy, and yummy looking.

[Athena]

Something that bugged me about this Clark was that I never saw him as that much capable of being a leader. I also never thought this Clark really wanted to be reporter. He was just a bit of a nonentity in personality at times. I don't blame that on Welling; I blame it on the writing. It focused mostly on Clark's romantic life or lack there of or his incredible nosiness with respect to Lex. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

Clark was never a leader. Even as far back as season 7? When we got the "justice league" episode? or whatever season that was? Clark spent most of the season, whining and complaining that he couldn't or wouldn't use his powers because people kept getting hurt, and then for whatever whackadoodle reason, Oliver, who displayed more leadership qualities, goes to Clark and tells him "they NEED" Clark. Whatthefuckever.

 

Then the rest of the series, is a whole bunch of people "telling" Clark what an awesometacular leader he is.

 

The show should have watched Superman: The Animated Series to learn how to set up Clark as the great leader Supes would become. A whole bunch of hacks, who were only ever interviewed by people who didn't ask the tough questions.

[Bitterswete]

Of course I always think Welling gets a bad rap about Clark, but I think he did a great job creating this Clark Kent and it's thankless playing the earnest, good guy.

 

My problems with Clark weren't that he was the earnest good guy. I liked him most when he was like that. And him being so hung up on Lana also wasn't my main issue with him. (Although that didn't help his character.) My problem with Clark was that he became less likable as the show went on.

 

Like remember how he said that Lionel would've been proud of Lex if Lex had just "tried harder." Never mind that Clark knows Lionel had been abusing Lex since he was a little boy, and was still abusing him into adulthood. Maybe Lionel wouldn't have done all of those horrible things to him if Lex had just been better. Because that's not a totally sucky thing to say to an abuse survivor.

 

Or the time Clark threw a hissy fit and then went stomping out of Chloe's life just after her husband was brutally murdered right in front of her. But Clark was too wrapped up in his own stuff to care about that.

 

And how many times did Clark sit around, hoping the problem of the season would go away, until things got so bad he had to do something. This kind of thing is maybe understandable the first time. But, by the second or third, you'd think he would've learned that "wait and see" wasn't the best way to handle such situations.

 

Then there was how he implied that Lex had actually gone crazy, even though he knew full well that Lionel drugged Lex into a psychotic break. Never mind that implying someone went crazy when you know they didn't is one of the cruelest things you can do to a person.

 

Really, I could go on and on. My problems with Clark were that he was a sucky friend, treated people like crap way too often, never seemed to learn anything, so kept on making the same mistakes over and over again, was more than a little hypocrtical (it was totally fine for him to snoop into other people's business, but how dare anyone be curious about the wierdness surrounding him), etc.

 

It was like the longer the show went on, the less Supermanly Clark became.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Bitterswete

[catrox14]

I was just trying to address that I think Welling is a much better actor than he's given credit for in creating Clark Kent.  I'm saying that Welling wasn't the problem with Clark Kent from an acting standpoint, IMO.

[Bitterswete]

I was just trying to address that I think Welling is a much better actor than he's given credit for in creating Clark Kent.  I'm saying that Welling wasn't the problem with Clark Kent from an acting standpoint, IMO.

I never thought TW was the problem. I do think that because of the way Clark was written (doing and saying the same things over and over, reacting to things in the same ways, having to keep learning the same lessons again and again) TW just got bored with the part, and that it showed.

 

But when he was actually given something to do that wasn't the same-old-same-old, TW would often did a great job.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Bitterswete

[GHScorpiosRule]

I never thought TW was the problem. I do think that because of the way Clark was written (doing and saying the same things over and over, reacting to things in the same ways, having to keep learning the same lessons again and again) TW just got bored with the part, and that it showed.

 

But when he was actually given something to do that wasn't the same-old-same-old, TW would often did a great job.

 

I agree with this. A good example is "Transference." And you could tell Tom was having fun with the body switching, playing Lionel, pretending to be Clark.

[Flyingwoman]

Response to Blair's post on the Lois thread; sorry I can't figure out how to make quote tags work on this site:

Well, I think we all want to be worshipped to some extent. I know I do. : )

With Clark I think there were two factors at play, and the first was fear: mostly fear of revealing his secret, but also your basic fear of rejection. From there he developed a desire for something easy. Through all their ups and downs Lana was constantly badgering him for something he was afraid to give, and the few times he and Chloe might have had a chance she threw up very mixed signals. That was the killer for them, because unless he was high, he wasn't the guy who was going to go after someone. All of the women he dated had to come on pretty strong to him. As he told Lex after he met Kyla, "It's different when she likes you back." ( Not an exact quote, as I can't remember the actual line). So a woman who didn't give up on wanting to be with him, even as he was obviously excluding her from his confidence, was the one who was going to win out in the end - especially after Brainiac assured his risk-averse self that all would be well.

Which, come to think about it, wasn't the first time he talked himself into continuing a relationship by stepping out of the present moment, so to speak. He did that at the end of Labyrinth, too. And yes, one vision was provided by a good guy and one by a bad guy, and one showed him powerless and the other showed him trying to help people, but they both offered what looked like a woman's unconditional love.

And that's where I think the second factor comes into play, which is laziness. one of the greatest frustrations I had - one of the greatest frustrations a lot of people had - with this version of Clark is that he spent a lot of time sitting on his ass when he should have been out there kicking it. I think that same lack of willingness deal with whatever unpleasantness was before him was true with his relationships. The classic examples would be the way he left Lex to rot in Belle Reve and the way he bailed on Chloe after Doomsday, but you can see it in both the Labyrinth and the Homecoming visions too. In the first he is presented with a Lana who never existed, who had evidently never left Smallville to go to Paris or to college, who had never re-habbed the Talon, who had loved him since he was 5. She was not pining over her dead parents or trying to shake her off her victim status; all she apparently did was sit up in his old loft waiting for him to come home. And yes, that was a fantasy spun by the phantom to manipulate him into giving up his powers for real, but even Clark admitted that it had almost worked. In the fantasy he was "normal" and he didn't have to face any of the hard choices his real relationship with Lana entailed. The phantom knew what it was about.

And so obviously did Brainiac. The woman changed, the setting changed, there is sunlight and heroics rather than darkness and surrender, but there is still a sense that Clark doesn't have to do anything in this relationship because Lois, in spite of her busy-ness and her importance and her forgetting their "anniversary", is still centered around and willing to drop everything for him. Like Lana in Labyrinth, she spends a great deal of time talking about him and how great their relationship is, as if she was given a sales script. She also tosses in a couple of lines about his Kryptonian tchotchkes, as if to say, "No big, Smallville; you might be an alien but you're still as normal as they come!" If there were fights previous to this future, say, about her family; or if she suddenly freaked out thinking that he was a demi-god who shouldn't be tied down by human remembrances; or if she ever left for an extended assignment; or if she was allergic to his dog; we wouldn't know from this snippet of his supposed future (and I say "supposed" because Clark has changed the future on at least two occasions on this show). The one mention of a problem evidently involved different colors of kryptonite, and even that is brushed past, because Clark's weaknesses are not a problem or a safety concern. Of course he takes the bait Brainiac offers. Better to live with the vision in his head than to address the facts on the ground.

Of course, in Lois' case, he did get lucky. The facts on the ground were, as you said, that she seemed to be working full-time at being undemanding.Who wouldn't want to be with someone who is never negatively affected by anything that you do or that happens to you? So much easier than making it up to the folks who suffered because you've lied to and abandoned them when it got rough.

[BkWurm1]

I swear Lois took it past undemanding into almost uninterested. Worse, more like she considered it none of her business. I can't help but think one day Clark would wake up to how shallow their relationship was and be very disappointed that Lois didn't have any desire to change the way they worked.

There has to be a good reason why seven years later they still weren't married (and people didn't even know they were dating!)

I've always found Brainiac's visit to Clark fascinating since there had to be a reason why he showed up since like the phantom in Labyrinth, it was a manipulation. Did that mean that in the timeline that Brainiac came from Clark had made a different choice? Because of Lois's hands off policy, it's not like she greatly influenced the choices Clark made so why was it important that Clark accepted Lois as a fait accompli?

Clearly, somehow the kids from the future decided it was in THEIR best interest if Clark connected with Lois at least up to the future they allowed him to see. At the same time, we run into a contradiction because Brainiac5 is also trying to convince Clark to let go of his past and not just let go, but bury it and never look back but when it came time to defeat Darkseid, it took him embracing all of his past experiences and accepting them as a part of him before he could fly and ultimately beat Darkseid. So we know that Brainiac didn't have all the answers.

My head canon can't help but go back to when the Legion of Superheroes first traveled back in time. I can't help wonder if they sent Brainiac to try and make their history go back to the way they remembered it though just the fact that they still existed in the future says that whatever alternate choice Clark had made hadn't messed the continuum up.

Edited September 28, 2014 by BkWurm1

[Flyingwoman]

I've always found Brainiac's visit to Clark fascinating since there had to be a reason why he showed up since like the phantom in Labyrinth, it was a manipulation. Did that mean that in the timeline that Brainiac came from Clark had made a different choice? Because of Lois's hands off policy, it's not like she greatly influenced the choices Clark made so why was it important that Clark accepted Lois as a fait accompli?

Clearly, somehow the kids from the future decided it was in THEIR best interest if Clark connected with Lois at least up to the future they allowed him to see.

My head canon can't help but go back to when the Legion of Superheroes first traveled back in time. I can't help wonder if they sent Brainiac to try and make their history go back to the way they remembered it though just the fact that they still existed in the future says that whatever alternate choice Clark had made hadn't messed the continuum up.

For a while I had a pet theory that the Rokk &Co we saw in Legion and Doomsday were actually the Legion of Supervillians (I'd just read Superman/Batman Absolute Power). Actually I still kinda hold to that, in that it's a favorite fanwank that makes so much more sense than the show to me - after all, why WOULD Lois go forward to some crazy Zod ruled dystopia where Clark was still alive if Rokk wasn't up to something - but I just don't think there's any evidence in the episodes to support it. Now that the show is over, I'm stuck with the fact that the show-runners probably just thought, "Hey, since we can't bribe any of the people who were actually on the show in season 1 to come back for Homecoming, let's get James Marsters! That'll boost ratings!"

Same thing with the Eradicator wank that was going on around season 9. We knew the AI had tried to brainwash Clark in the past, we'd never gotten an on-screen explanation as to why the Fortress was functional again, it would have fit in beautifully with the S9 theme of Clark's struggle between his human and Kryptonian heritages, it would have given Emil an actual storyline (what was he doing on the show anyway?), and it would have given them the chance to resurrect Clark's rep from the abyss of terrorism. Well, it seemed plausible at the time. Didn't happen. Apparently* someone asked Souders and Peterson about it at a con and they were all "Eradicator who?"

All of which is to say that we are, sadly, stuck with the Clark they gave us. And that Clark, manipulated or not, made a choice. As with Labyrinth, he could have exercised a little rational thought before making a life-changing decision like that, but he didn't. Whuddya thunk?

*I don't have a link to this, so if I've got that wrong someone let me know.

[BkWurm1]

Same thing with the Eradicator wank that was going on around season 9. We knew the AI had tried to brainwash Clark in the past, we'd never gotten an on-screen explanation as to why the Fortress was functional again, it would have fit in beautifully with the S9 theme of Clark's struggle between his human and Kryptonian heritages, it would have given Emil an actual storyline (what was he doing on the show anyway?), and it would have given them the chance to resurrect Clark's rep from the abyss of terrorism

 

This so much.  No amount of fanwanking can explain or justify his complete lack of compassion at the end of season 8 or the douchestastic way he treated Chloe (and everyone but Lois) for most of season 9.  The Clark we saw for the previous 8 seasons just wouldn't make those choices without manipulation from Jor-El or some other outside source. 

 

I mean, they never even explained how or why he was alive after his fight with Doomsday.  It would be one thing if Clark just didn't talk about it but for him to flat out say he didn't know????  Huh???

 

Even if they didn't know about the Eradicator storyline, I have to believe they had some kind of better reveal or twist than just Clark decided to go dark just because. 

 

Arggg!!!!  Now all my hatred and rage against Clark is swarming all around me. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

For the longest time, I honestly thought (and I was giving waaaaay too much credit to the fucktards in charge) that the Clark we got in Season 9 wasn't the real Clark. I was hoping he was Eradikator or Bizarro or something else.

 

And then I remembered who was running this fakakta show.

[DigitalCount]

That was the best moment in Smallville. I'm grinning about it just thinking about it right now, sitting on the bus. "How did you survive?" "I don't know." It's like a lead balloon, or a gas tank filled with mustard. This is essentially the Death of Superman arc, and the reason why he lives is...too hard to write. What kind of resolution is that? Who shot JR? It wasn't even the shifty eyed dog, it was nobody! Nobody shot him, he's fine, folks!

Seriously, what.

[Firebunny]

I remember there was a TV Guide Online (or some place like that) with Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson before Doomsday aired and they were all, "There's going to be a real death, but also a metaphorical death."  In the comments people were specutlating about who the real death would be and I jokingly said "The metaphorical death will be my love for this show."

 

One of the few times I've speculated something and it turned out to be right.

[BkWurm1]

"There's going to be a real death, but also a metaphorical death."  In the comments people were specutlating about who the real death would be and I jokingly said "The metaphorical death will be my love for this show."

 

One of the few times I've speculated something and it turned out to be right.

 

I remember thinking there is no possible way they can screw this up. 

 

Hahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhha!

Edited October 3, 2014 by BkWurm1