Broken Frontier

I recently wrote a diatribe about the Avengers fiasco that was forced down our throats at SDCC, but between that, the Thor and Captain America footage, Green Lantern hullabaloo and Walking Dead madness, there was one item that seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle: Smallville.

Yes, there was a Smallville panel. It was on Sunday, the “quiet” day, after most of the big celebs had gone back to their beachfront houses in Malibu. And I’ll admit, the footage they showed was pretty exciting, even for the most jaded Smallville fans. After a lengthy montage of previous season footage (all the way back to numero uno), the season 10 footage showed Clark flying and grabbing the falling (as it often does) Daily Planet globe, the reveal of a Superman Returns-ish Superman costume, the return of both Jonathan Kent and Lionel Luthor, and Lois Lane uttering “Superman”. Still no glasses though.

Regardless, all of this sounds immensely appealing, no? Well, it would if this was season 6 or so. The problem is that the teased events of season 10 should have happened years ago. While the introduction of Green Arrow and other DCU characters spiced things up a bit, the show dwelled on the Clark/Lana/Lex drama for much too long after the characters graduated high school. Once Lex was out of the equation, Smallville shifted focus to establishing Clark in Metropolis, but that soon started treading water, getting to the point of silliness with “The Blur” and that ridiculous Matrix-style Superman costume.

Now that it’s ten years later, and all signs point to Superman actually making a full-fledged appearance, can the show make up for past wrongs? I think so. Wading through 4-5 seasons of drivel with a few pieces of meat thrown in once in a while would ordinarily be an offense that is not fixable, but Smallville has one significant advantage that other television programs do not: a large portion of its fans originated in the comic book community. As comic fans, we have an abnormally large tolerance for unsatisfactory product that can be nullified by one amazing story arc - or in this case, television season. Think about the number of books that tread water for years, that we still read and complain about, that suddenly gets rejuvenated into a fan-acclaimed (and less importantly, critically-acclaimed) hit. Geoff Johns taking over Action Comics comes to mind.

The same principle applies to Smallville. Even though we’ve endured years of drudgery, if season 10 can deliver on all the things we’ve waited to see (and the reason we started watching the show in the first place), then maybe - just maybe - we’ll absolve the show of its past sins.

And hey, I also wouldn’t be opposed to renaming it Metropolis and having it be a straight up Superman show. Just throwing that out there.