Smallville: Wrath

Superman, a modern myth, draws on ancient myths. Siegel and Shuster wanted him to be like Samson and Hercules. In Smallville: Wrath:

Lionel compares Clark and Lana to Samson and Delilah;

Lex compares himself to St Paul;

Chloe compares Lana to the goddess, Isis.

Clark has to wind up with Lois and against Lex even though he starts out with Lana and friendly with Lex. In Wrath, he starts to question what he knows about Lana. Lex's mission is to protect Earth from alien invaders, including Kryptonians.

In previous episodes:

If Lara and Kara were able to visit Earth via a "portal," then why did Kal-El and Kara later need spaceships?
What is the status of Kryptonian constructs of dead people?

Returning Actors

I am watching Smallville Season 7 too quickly to post about individual episodes. It becomes evident that we have seen certain actors before:

two previous Superman actors play new characters, one a mentor to Clark, the other a villain;

the actor who played Lana Lang in a Christopher Reeve film plays Martha Kent;

the actor who played Wonder Woman on TV plays Chloe Sullivan's mother;

the actor who played Supergirl in a feature film plays Lara and later played Supergirl's step-mother on TV;

I have been told that the actor who played a dying elderly woman conned by Lex Luthor at the beginning of Superman Returns had played Lana Lang in the 1950s;

I think I have missed one.

Dishonesty In Smallville

Smallville is about the destructive consequences of dishonesty.

Dishonest
Jonathan Kent
Clark Kent
Lionel Luthor
Lex Luthor
Lana Lang-Luthor
Oliver Queen

Honest
Martha Kent
Pete Ross
Chloe Sullivan
James Olsen

I am not sure about Lois Lane and various others.

The dishonesty involved in a secret identity is transformed into a tragedy of Greek proportions, motivating the conflict between Superman and Lex Luthor.

Superman Returns And Smallville Season 6

Watching dvds: 

Superman Returns almost gives us another Death of Superman. He has fallen to Earth and is unconscious in a Metropolitan hospital. We see a Daily Planet headline, "SUPERMAN IS DEAD," then, as the camera pulls back, we realize that it is one of two possible headlines prepared in advance. The other is "SUPERMAN LIVES!" An empty hospital bed is like the Empty Tomb.

Kevin Spacey continues Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor very well. Luthor continues his fascination with real estate. Perry White turns out to have a convenient nephew, Richard. Perry had one son, T.J., in the Superboy TV series and another, Jerry, in Superman comics.

This film is in the same continuity as the Christopher Reeve films but thematically is intermediate between them and the current film series.

In Smallville Season 6, Green Arrow has a mini-series within the series. Instead of a boxing glove arrow, he develops an electromagnetic pulse arrow that neutralizes nearby electrical systems and even dissipates an astral projection. In the Arrow TV series, Ollie has an embezzlement arrow. Striking a wall near a computer, it affects the computer and transfers funds out of a bank account. Both versions of Ollie go after corporate crime instead of street crime. Excelsior!

Raya could have been a version of Supergirl but died fighting a Zoner. In Season 7, Kara arrived.

Smallville Season 7

Viewing is interrupted because one disc is defective so the box has to be replaced. It is weird seeing yet another former Superman actor playing a completely different and, in this case villainous, role. Is Dean Cain's immortal villain related to Vandal Savage?

In an earlier season, Clark and Lana had a frustratingly off-off relationship whereas now they have a satisfyingly on-on relationship, especially when Lana is temporarily super-powered and their sexual activity causes seismic activity.

Zor-El was a traitor who tried to kill Jor-El? The Martian Manhunter cannot be lying so this must be true. The idea that Jor-El and the Manhunter cooperated in interstellar law enforcement is a total continuity change. The Manhunter is no longer just an alien stranded on Earth by teleportation.

Also, Kara just being called Kara Kent and living on the farm is a big change. When script-writers already know the relationships between the characters, they can change them around any way they want.

Smallville: Kara

Lana faked her death with her inanimate clone which she had stolen from Lex but why had Lex cloned Lana? And was her fake pregnancy ever explained?

Even with two hearing aids and the volume turned high, I am having trouble hearing much of the dialogue.

A premise throughout this series is that Clark cannot fly yet, although he has done so once or twice in emergencies, but this is contradicted by Kara flying without effort.

Krypton was in a civil war against Zod when Kara departed shortly after Kal-El. She has spent eighteen years in suspended animation and it is news to her that Krypton is no more.

Lois gets her job at the planet, sitting opposite Chloe.

The DCU equivalent of SHIELD got Kara's spaceship but lost it but have its crystal. The voice of Jor-El tells Clark that Zor-El did not have good motives and that he, Clark, must watch Kara.

Death

"'I think you look on death as your friend,' she murmured. 'That is a strange friend for a young man to have.'
"The only faithful friend in this world,' he said. 'Death is always sure to be at your side.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Broken Sword (London, 1977), Chapter XXI, p. 153.

Because death defines its opposite, life, Neil Gaiman personifies Death (and see here) not as a hooded man with a scythe but as a perpetually young and beautiful woman. Gaiman also quotes this poem.

Death waits for us all and is always with us as Anderson's character, Skafloc, says. Skafloc and Anderson avoid using a personal pronoun but we need to persuade writers to follow Gaiman's example by calling Death "she." Dream's sister can permeate fiction as she permeates life.