Smallville: Duplicity

Season 2, Episode 3

In the comics, Pete Ross was introduced as the friend who found out that Clark Kent was Superboy. In a later comic book version, Pete did not know that Clark was super-powered although his wife, Lana, did because Clark had shared this with her before leaving Smallville.

In the Smallville TV series, Pete has existed as a friend for one season and two episodes before Clark is forced to confide in him in a story that bears no resemblance to the original "Pete finds out" scenario. This Pete cannot see Clark changing costume because this Clark does not wear a costume.

What else happens? Hamilton is yet another character who learns too much but then dies. Will there be another mad scientist coincidentally called Professor Hamilton in Metropolis? Luthor Castle gains the now blind Lionel Luthor as a semi-permanent resident. Lionel has felt the spaceship... The truth is always just out of Lex's reach. Lex tells Clark that he has a problem trusting anyone who has deceived him once... This is the basic tragedy of this version of the Superman story.

In the current film series, a Lexcorp logo is seen while Kal-El fights Zod in Metropolis. Kal and Lex will first meet there, as they did in the first Christopher Reeves film and in John Byrne's comic book revamp.

Some elements in the alloy of the spaceship not in the periodic table? Is that possible?

The Understated Clark And The Heroic Lex

In Whodunnit by Dean Wesley Smith (Smallville Omnibus 2, London, 2006), Chloe, Clark and Lana have found two bodies in a pond at the Franklin farm and alerted the police. Later, investigating a second pond hidden in a swamp at the back of the farm, they see from a distance flannel and human hair on a tree and again contact the police. Clark alone has discerned two human bodies among the weeds but must wait, like everyone else, for police divers to recover a body that can be identified as a third murdered Franklin.

This is a far cry from the Superman that Clark will become or even from the Superboy that he was in earlier versions of the story. Apart from his more acute vision, he is just one of the crew. There are a couple of less obvious differences. He does not sweat. Insects rarely bite him and do not like it when they do. As for his special vision, Chloe notices:

"Clark...looked past her, staring at the spot where the divers had gone down. She doubted that he was really looking there. He seemed to be seeing something beyond all of them." (p. 109)

In one of the comics, Lois Lane comments on Clark Kent zoning out yet again. Chloe calls him "Eagle Eyes" and quips that he has "X-ray vision" (pp. 87, 82). It would be difficult to conceal the use of such powers especially when sharing information with someone as observant and suspicious as Chloe.

In Metropolis, Lex, not yet a villain, is instead a veritable hero marshalling not only the resources of Luthorcorp but also his own shady Metropolitan contacts to track down his father's kidnappers. At his command, a team of hackers traces the blackmailers' email and fax. This Lex is simply a different character from the original comic book villain. Even when he does become evil, it cannot possibly be in the same way as the earlier version.

Meanwhile, it is ironic but also appropriate, that Superman was first published in 1938 yet this novel, which was published in 2003 and is about Clark Kent before he became Superman, is fully up to date with its references to the Internet, faxes and emails. Superman exists in the eternal present.

NDE

Although the Smallville TV series presents a new version of Superman's youth, it can be expected that its background details will broadly correspond to those of the DC Universe depicted in DC Comics. That fictitious universe comprises some stories that are science fiction, like Superman's extraterrestrial origin, and others that are fantasy, including accounts of a hereafter. In fact, Superman returned from his "Death" twenty years ago because his foster father, during a Near Death Experience, met the already dead Clark and persuaded him to return.

The third novel in Smallville Omnibus 1 (New York, 2006) is Hauntings by Nancy Holder which I will have to reread but, as far as I can remember, it does involve real ghosts. In the pilot episode of the Smallville TV series, Lex Luthor asks Clark Kent whether he believes that a man can fly and then describes his own Near Death Experience, soaring over Smallville.

In the light of all this, it makes sense that Alan Grant writes Pete Ross' NDE into Dragons, the second novel in the first omnibus. Passing through the hospital roof but able to look down and through it, Pete sees his family and friends in the waiting room. We had already been told that they were there. Next Pete sees and enters the tunnel of light with, he thinks, figures waiting at the other end but, not wanting to leave his family and friends, he returns to himself.

Does he remember any of it? I don't think so but I will have to reread the rest of the novel. Do such things really happen? They are reported and need to be investigated but meanwhile I will continue to suspect that persons end when brains stop just as dreams end when brains wake.