Questions About Lex

I am way behind with Smallville because I am only now watching the early episodes of Season 1 on DVD. It follows that I have questions to which others already know the answers but I am content to stay with the questions for the time being and to come across the answers maybe later.

(i) Since Lex knows Clark so well, how can he not recognise Superman as Clark later on?

(ii) Or does he recognise him? That could be just another of the ways in which this version of the story differs from earlier versions. On the other hand, in Superman stories, there are plenty of ways for a character's memories to be tampered with.

(iii) How will Lex become a villain? The early Lex is willing to help friends and neighbours by investing in their businesses. On the other hand, he is of course calculating that these businesses will be profitable. He is generous and values friendship but suspects that Clark may be concealing something from him. If he discovers that he has been deceived, this will strain the friendship. He says that he wants to do not good things but great things so his motivation at this stage is amoral but not yet immoral.

The series is a victim of its own success. Knowing that two characters will become enemies, they are to be shown as originally having been friends, which accords with one earlier version of the story, but Lex is shown to be such a likeable guy that it is a great pity to think that he is going to become thoroughly evil. I am told that the solution in a later season is to kill off the original Lex and to replace him with his evil clone. This sounds like a cop out but maybe it was the only way to go. Lex had been so completely devillainised that it became implausible, and certainly unwelcome, to revillainise him again.