athena606:

Cause we all know he was soooo checking out her legs….

I love Smallville, more than any other show in television history.  Not only is it a superhero on TV, it is a boy growing into a superhero on TV.  I’m super excited for season 10 knowing that we’re going to see Clark not only fly, but we’re going to at some point see SUPERMAN.  But like anything you spend enough time looking at, you’re going to notice a few things that don’t exactly add up.  Yes I know the show is about an alien that can shoot fire from his eyes, run faster than the speed of sound, and see through walls.  That’s no excuse for some of the things that don’t make sense on Smallville.

1. The “small town” population of 45,000: Seriously?  Who was in charge of that decision?  I mean who looks at the finished sign before shooting that scene and thinks that is right?  Smallville and it’s 45,000 residents would be the fourth largest city in Kansas behind Wichita, Kansas City, and Topeka.  Smallville would have a shopping mall, multiple Wal-Marts, Target, Kmart, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Books-a-Million, Starbucks, and probably a minor league baseball team.  There would be car dealerships everywhere, and one fertilizer plant wouldn’t employ HALF the city.
2. The abundance of Kryptonite: Walking thru Smallville and not tripping over a piece of ‘meteor rock’ must be like walking on the beach and trying to not step on sand.  I know there was a meteor shower, but they just left the shit everywhere?  There would have been a state of emergency, and the government would have gathered up every last chunk of it to study.  Not on Smallville though, it’s what they use to make necklaces, class rings, fertilizer, medicine, big screen televisions, cell phones batteries, dog food…you name it and it seems like we’ve seen it made of kryptonite on Smallville.  We’ve even seen it used as tattoo ink, and I’m not even joking about that one.
3. Clark and Lex don’t spend any time together: They’re supposed to be best friends, yet they don’t hang out.  Clark goes to the mansion to ask Lex a favor, Lex says okay, and Clark leaves.  Or Lex shows up at the farm, and says two or three things and leaves.  I know Lex is a busy guy, but he can’t spend any time with his best friend?  They dont’ even insinuate that they spend time together.  Clark never says “Sorry I got home late Dad I was playing basketball with Lex” or Jonathan asks Clark why his chores aren’t done, “Sorry Dad me and Lex with playing Playstation.” 
4. We never see Ben Hubbard: He’s been mentioned a dozen times or better, but we have no clue what the guy looks like.  Is he a white guy or black guy?  Is he short or tall?  Fat or skinny?  Just show Clark driving down the road and waving at him or something.
5. Exactly how far away is Metropolis?You can see Metropolis from the windmill, but it takes at least three hours to get there?  How high is that windmill?  Sometimes it takes three hours to make the drive, sometimes it takes six.  Even the three hour drive is non-challant to the residents of Smallville, like it’s a ten minute trip.  On the six hour drive argument, that’s twelve hours of driving time a day.  Lois lives in Smallville in the apartment over the talon, her drive and the eight hour workday leaves her…four hours.  Considering she needs sleep, no wonder Clark isn’t getting any action.
6. More knockouts than a Mike Tyson’s greatest hits DVD: Seriously, football players retire with far less knockout blows than the people on Smallville have suffered.  Here are a few numbers, Lex has been KO’ed 46 times, Lana 47 times, Lois 43 times, Chloe 39 times, Clark 35 times, Jonathan 19 times, Oliver 16 times, Jimmy 13 times, Martha 13, and there are more.  Lana would eat glue and wouldn’t be able to remember her name if she had been knocked out that many times.  Lex would piss himself every time the doorbell rang.
7. Clark’s secret isn’t so secret: According to the Superman homepage (also the source for the knockout count) there are 80 people living that know Clark’s secret, and an additional 73 either dead or in a coma.  You can’t tell me that with that many people knowing the secret, nobody goes to CNN or Yahoo and says “I know who the Blur is!”
8. All Clark’s friends get arrested:Lex, Lana, Chloe, Lois, Jonathan, & Jimmy have all been arrested on Smallville.  Clark has been to jail eight times himself.  The cast must have their faces plastered all over the walls of the Smallville post office.
9. Smallville apparantly inspired John Denver: It’s a wonder the song isn’t “Rocky Mountain High, Kansas”.  There aren’t any mountains in Kansas, maybe the flattest state in the union.  Yet Jason Teague tried to murder Lex and Lionel in what appeared to be the mountains somewhere in West Virginia, but was actually Kansas. 
10. Lana must forget she knows kung fu: Some episodes she’s a total badass, just a pair of fishnets away from looking like Black Canary laying a beatdown on someone.  The next episode she’s completely helpless, and couldn’t fight off someone on oxygen. 
11. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more…unless you live in Smallville:How many cars have exploded on Smallville?  How many windows have been broken?  How many times has the Kent barn been destroyed in some fashion?  No wonder the Kents are barely making ends meet, can you imagine how much their homeowner’s and car insurance must be?
12. How many fences are there on the Kent Farm: It seems like Clark was always using his super strength to drive fence posts into the ground.  They never put any actual fence on, but Clark sure did drive a lot of posts into the ground.
13. 14 is the legal driving age in Smallville: It must be, because from the early days of the show everyone was driving.  Unless you’re held back in school you’re usually fourteen when your freshman year starts and fifteen when it ends (unless your birthday is June, July, or August).  Everywhere else in America you have to be sixteen, except Smallville, Kansas.  Fourteen is good enough. 
14. The baseball superstar sucked: Zachary Ty Bryan might have been able to look like a soccer stud on Home Improvement, but he looked like a guy that would get cut the first day on a baseball team.  His swing was awful.  He looked like an eight year old kid trying to swing a bat that was way too heavy for him.
15. Whitney wanting a tryout with the Sharks: He wants Lex (thru Lana, thru Clark) to get him a tryout with the Metropolis Sharks…and he’s a high school senior.  It’s not the NBA, when you could skip college back in those days.  A pro football team woulnd’t let him be their waterboy, much less their quarterback.  Funny how Kansas State was sending a scout and he was hoping to get a scholorship, and the next thing he wants to go straight to the pros.
16. Lana living on her own at 17 How is that legal?  Don’t you have to live under the same roof as your parent/guardian until you’re eighteen?  So you can drive at fourteen and live on your own at seventeen.  In other news, you can buy alcohol in Smallville on your tenth birthday.
17. I bought stock in the red and blue jacket store: Seriously how many red or blue jackets does Clark Kent own?  I can see his favorite red jacket getting tore up and him buying a new one, but again and again?  No matter how many times he gets them destroyed, he always has a brand new one next week.  I know the producers want the red and blue jackets because it envokes thoughts of Superman, but the kid couldn’t have a regular jacket?  Maybe a Metropolis Sharks jacket or something?  And he’s impervious to hot and cold, why wear a jacket around the farm at all?  I can understand in publc places like school where everyone would ask “Aren’t you freezing with no coat?”  But on the farm?
18. Can you hear me now?  Of course not, I’m in Smallville: Does anybody on Smallville ever answer their phone?  Lana shows up at the barn, “Hey Clark I got your message.”  Lex shows up, “What’s up Clark I got your message, it sounded urgent.”  Chloe rolls up in her red VW, “Hey Clark I got your voicemail, what’s up?”  You know at some point Clark would have to be like “Damn it!  Does nobody answer their phone around here?!”  At one point I was convinced there was no phone service in Smallville, and communicating was done by carrier pigeon.  Hell Zach Morris had better reception on his phone than the residents of Smallville.

I’m sure there are a lot more if I thought hard enough.  Anything that bugs you that I left out?  Hit me up on Twitter @jason1040 and let me know and I’ll add it. Thanks to @_emilylove for helping me to compile this list.

Yesterday I listed 10 new villains I wanted to see on the final season of Smallville, and today it’s time for 10 new heroes.  Most of it is wishful thinking, but then again one I would have listed before any spoilers came out (Booster Gold) has already been revealed.  So here it is, my wish list:

1. Mister Miracle The hero I want to see the most isn’t as much of a stretch as I used to think, considering we’re getting Darkseid and Granny Goodness and he ties into that.  He’s the greatest escape artist in the universe, able to get of any confinement no matter how impossible it seems.  He’s loaded to the gills with technology from Apokolips including a Mother Box, Aero Discs, and more.  He’s been a member of the Justice League, and with him we might get…
2. Big Barda She was at one time the leader of the Granny Goodness’s Female Furies of Apokolips, and fought Wonder Woman to a draw.  She was as mean and evil as they came, until she met Scott Free, aka Mr Miracle.  She helped Scott escape, and eventually followed him to Earth.  How great would it be to see Granny Goodness’s Furies led by Barda, only to realize the error of her ways and turn against Granny?  I even have the perfect person in mind to play Big Barda…Lucy Lawless.  Nobody but her.
3. Atom We need to see Ray Palmer on Smallville.  He can reduce himself to the size of an atom, and has been a member of the Justice League of America.  He’s also the best friend of Carter Hall (Hawkman) so that could be a way to introduce him to Clark and friends.
4. Booster Gold Maybe the hero with the worst of intentions, Booster Gold is actually coming to Smallville.  Not sure how they’ll approach him but knowing Geoff Johns (@geoffjohns0 on Twitter) he’ll keep him true to his roots, and that means he comes from the future and takes up the superhero game to get rich.  He’s a media whore, endorsing anything and everything that he can.
5. Blue Beetle The introduction of the Beetle is very interesting, because Warner Brothers is working on a live action Blue Beetle TV show (footage has already leaked online).  To be perfectly honest, I’ve never been a Blue Beetle fan, but he is popular.  Considering WB has enough faith in him to work on a TV pilot I’m interested to see Smallville’s take on him.
6. Steel He’s had his own movie (starring Shaq…I said he had his own movie I never said it was good) so why haven’t see seen John Henry Irons on Smallville yet? 
7. Red Tornado A staple of the Justice League over the years, he is a very interesting character.  He’s a living cyclone inside an android body, who wants to be human more than anything.  He seems almost human in his actions, but always leaves just enough room to remind you he isn’t.
8. Black Lightning The dude can generate and hurl bolts of supercharged electricty, and served as Secretary of Education during Lex Luthor’s Presidency.  He could easily be a school teacher on Smallville considering his future…maybe the episode where we see Smallville High again?
9. Vixen An African-American supermodel, mari McCabe is the posessor of the mystical Tantu toem that gives her the abilities of one animal at a time.  She can have the abilities of a gorialla, a lion, whatever animal she wants.
10. Superboy Maybe more than anyone else, I want to see Conner Kent on Smallville.  Everything about his origin makes sense for Smallville.  He was created at Cadmus Labs using Superman’s DNA, but they need human DNA to complete the process and guess who’s they used?  That’s right, Lex Luthor.  I know Craig Bryne (@kryptonsite) has mentioned several times he would love to see Conner Kent on Smallville, and I would to.

 Smallville has given us some great bad guys for Clark Kent and crew to tangle with over the years, with season 10 promising even more.  This is more of a wish list than anything else, although more than one villain I’ve included (Darkseid, Deadshot, Granny Goodness) has been confirmed to make an appearance.  So without further ado, here are 10 villains I’d like to see appear on Smallville in season 10:

1. Deathstroke the TerminatorHands down he’s the most badass villain in the entire DC universe.  Even though he’s blind in one eye, he also has the use of 90% of his brain making him one dangerous opponent.  In Brad Meltzer’s (@bradmeltzer on Twitter) amazing graphic novel ‘Identity Crisis’, he is hired by Dr. Light to protect him from the Justice League.  He doesn’t just protect Dr. Light, he hands the Justice League their ass.  He wouldn’t be an expensive villain to do on Smallville either, since he just uses his hands and feet as weapons, along with his trusty sword.
2. Amazo An android that can borrow powers from any superpowered individual around him.  Any reason why that wouldn’t make an awesome episode involving the Justice League?  Superman’s strength and heat vision, Black Canary’s ‘Canary Cry’, Impulse’s speed…that makes one awesome fight scene if you ask me.
3. Prometheus Imagine an evil version of Batman, but not afraid to kill.  He has sophisticated technology at his disposal, as has downloaded the fighting skills of over 30 martial artists into his brain, he is lethal at hand to hand combat, and is also not afraid to shoot you either.
4. Soloman Grundy He was born on a Monday you know.  Armed with incredible strength and no conscious he is a dangerous opponent.  On more than one occasion he has given the Justice Society all the can handle.
5. Darkseid The biggest, baddest mofo in the DCU.  The ruler of Apokolips, there is no force of evil greater in all of comics.  According to some versions of the story, Darkseid is responsible for wiping out all life on Mars, resulting in J’onn J’onzz (Martian Manhunger) being the only surviving member of the martian race.  His omega beams he omits from his eyes have no limitations and can dissolve ANY organic being.  That includes Superman.
6. Deadshot DC’s most accurate assassin, Deadshot doesn’t miss.  He’s spent time in both Belle Reve and has been a member of the Suicide Squad, both of which have appeared on Smallville.
7. Despero Considering he first appeared way back in 1960 in Justice League of America #1, Despero is an obvious choice to make this list.  He has tremendous strength and durability, but his most dangerous ability is his thrid eye which has incredible hypnotic power.  He’s used it to bend the will of Justice League members to his whim before, including Smallville JL’ers Superman, Auqaman, Black Canary, Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow.
8. Granny Goodness Well she’s already been confirmed to appear, so why not incude her?  She’s the leader of the female furies, lethal killers on Apokolips.  She was also headmistress of nightmarish orphanges on Apokolips, meaning with her we might get to see a former resident of said ohphanges, Mister Miracle.
9. Mongul He nearly killed Superman in the gladiator pits on Warworld, so he has what it takes to be a dangerous foe.  He was also part of one of the greatest Superman stories every written (“For the man who has everything”), by the legendary Alan Moore.
10. Prankster By no means the most dangerous of Superman’s foes, but he is one of the oldest (Action Comics #51, August 1942).  He usually goes about trying to kill people by elaborate pranks.  Maybe not the scariest of foes, but he would be entertaining.  He also appeared in several episodes of Lois & Clark, so he has that going for him.

September 24 is less than two months away, which means the premiere of the final season of Smallville is almost upon us.  Inspired by Craig Byrne’s (follow him on Twitter @kryptonsite) annual list of what he wants to see in each season, it has inspired me to write what I want to see in the tenth and final season.  Of course I’d love to see Bruce Wayne appear, but we all know it’s not going to happen.  I’d like to think everything on my list at least has the possibility of taking place.  Some things on my list might be wishful thining, but that’s part of the fun of it.

1. The Superman suit Okay we all know we’re getting the suit already, but considering how much time I spent thinking we’d never get to see it I felt like I should include it in my list.  In all honesty, I always felt if we didn’t actually see him wear the suit for at least a few seconds in the final episode I would feel cheated after watching what will have been over 200 episodes.  Thank you to the producers and especially Tom for giving us Superman.
2. Clark Kent wearing glasses It’s part of the mythology they can’t ignore, and the writers and producers have talked about it several times.  The time is now people, you can’t wait any longer.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Clark without glasses but he kind of needs them.  I’m sure when we do get them there will be something else involed, a reason as to why a simple pair of glasses fools everyone. 
3. Flight Something else we know we’re getting, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be here.  We’ve seen him fly before, maybe most famously in the episode that introduced Lois Lane, 4.1 Crusade.  It’s one of my favorite moments of the entire series, Kal-El flying up to Lex’s jet and ripping the door of the hinges and taking his crystal back.  It was such a badass moment, and I can’t wait for more flight.
4. The entire Justice League together I know scheduling would be probably be a nightmare, but it’s not impossible.  Almost all of them at one time or another have acknowledged that Clark is the greatest of them all, pushing him towards greater things.  I’d love nothing more than to see Green Arrow, Black Canary, Auqaman, Impulse, Cyborg, Zatanna, and Martian Manhunter all together, along with Superman.  Even if they do nothing in the episode, and are all just gathered together in the Watchtower would be enough to make me happy.
5. The Legion Considering that James Marsters is returning in the 200th episode not as Brainiac but as Brainiac 5 there is a chance that we’ll get to see them again.  I think it would be awesome if they came back from the future and told Chloe or someone they were back because “Today is a special day”, knowing it would be the day that Clark becomes Superman.
6. Clark a little more laid back as he was in the first couple of seasons He spends too much time on screen looking serious.  We need to see Clark smile, and not just around Lois.  He needs to smile around Chloe, Oliver and the rest of the league some.  Instead of always telling them how they’ve screwed up, he should share a laugh or two with them.
7. The return of Captain Maggie Sawyer She’s had several different rankings through the years in the DC comics, but was mainly a Captain for the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, although she was promoted to Inspector in the time surround the inamous Death of Superman storyline.  We’ve seen her in four episodes, 2.12 Insurgence, 3.1 Exile, 5.6 Exposed, and 7.16 Descent, but not since.  Two of those episodes, Exile and Descent, are widely regarded as two of the best of the entire series. She was Superman’s main contact in the police force and we need to see that again, or at least hear Clark mention her name.
8. Something concerning Batman mentioned We all know we’re not getting Batman or even Bruce Wayne on Smallville, and that sucks.  But could we at least get a mention of the Gotham Gazette or hear Oliver complain about a business deal that he didn’t get because “that billionaire from Gotham” beat him out.  They wouldn’t have to say the name, but we would all know and that’s good enough for me.  Or maybe a computer server or something in the Watchtower could be the “latest from Waynetech”.
9. Perry White hired as the EIC of the Daily Planet To me that is a must for season 10.  If Michael McKean can’t be there schedule wise, at least talk about it in the finale.  See the old editor carrying boxes out of his offices, telling Lois & Clark as he passes that he was let go.  They just look at each other, and see a maintenence worker putting Perry White’s name on the door of the editor’s office. 
10. I spent the night with Superman by Lois Lane The article/interview that put Lois Lane on the map.  Picture this: Clark goes public in his Superman costume, hopefully when Lois coins him Superman on the front page of the Daily Planet.  Lois gets herself into trouble, and Superman saves her, maybe the first time Clark and Lois see each other since he went public.  He agrees to let Lois do the story on him, and they end up intimate with each other for the first time.  Can you imagine the look on Clark’s face at the headline “I spent the night with Superman”?  Naturally Lois doesn’t give away his secret idenity, just does the ‘alien from Krypton’ story, but it would be a great moment for the fans.
11. The return of Lana Lang By season 6 I grew to hate Lana, and that didn’t go away in seasons 7 or 8.  Clark always loved Lana, and even as he was about to kiss Lois at Chloe’s wedding the mention of Lana’s name made him forget all about Lois.  Now Clois is in full force and it’s not stopping anytime soon.  But I want to see Clark make the choice between Lana and Lois.  It’s almost now he’s with Lois because he couldn’t be with Lana because of that stupid kryptonite poisoning or whatever it was she had.  I want to see Lana come back, kryptonite free, and tell Clark she wants to be with him.  Then I want to hear Clark tell her he loves Lois more than anything in the world.
12. The return of Pete Ross I want to see Clark and his friend together one last time.  We all know that one day Lex Luthor becomes President of the United States, and who was his Vice President?  Pete Ross.  I’d like to see Pete return to Smallville and run for Mayor, or see his name of the front page of the Smallville Ledger with a headline about Pete winning a race for some type of political office.
13. The return of Lex Luthor This trumps everything except for the Suit for me.  Superman needs his arch-rival.  He has many (his rogue’s gallery is far greater than many give it credit for) villains like Toyman, Brainiac, Prankster, Mister Mxyzptlyk, Darkseid, Mongul, Doomsday, General Zod, Maxima, Parasite, and others.  But just as Batman has the maybe the greatest rogue’s gallery in comics (he and Spider-Man are neck and neck), what is Batman without the Joker?  The same goes for Superman, what is he without Lex Luthor.  We need to see Michael Rosenbaum return for at least the series finale and give us Lex one last time.

In 1978 Warner Brothers promoted Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie with the tagline, “You’ll believe a man can fly”…and we did.  Thirty years after release Superman: The Movie is one of the greatest superhero movies ever made, one of those rare flicks that hold up over time.  1980 gave us the sequel, Superman II, and it was as good if not better than the original.

Since then we’ve been devoid of a quality Superman film.  Superman III was terrible, though no fault of Christopher Reeve.  Superman IV wasn’t good either, but it was a improvement on the third entry.  The Superman franchise set in development hell for years, despite those who tried to do something with it.  Jon Peters was hired to direct ‘Superman Lives’ with a script by Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallcops) but didn’t like certain aspects of it.  The two things he told Smith were (1) I don’t want him to fly (2) I don’t want to see that suit.  Hard to imagine why the film never got off the ground.  Peters also wanted a non-flying non-suit wearing Superman to fight a huge spider at one point in the movie.  Nicolas Cage was attached to star in the movie, yet another bad decision that somebody involved made.  Nicolas Cage is a talented actor, but why would somebody think he’d make a good Superman?  Dustin Hoffman is a great actor, doesn’t mean he should play Kal-El.

Brett Ratner was up next, the man who for a time was seemingly attached to every comic book movie coming down the pipe.  Tom Welling was rumored to be attached, and even confirmed to Carson Daly that he had met with Ratner about the possibility.  Citing scheduling to be a big issue, and knowing that Smallville would have to end if he did the movie, Welling stepped aside.  Not long after the movie died as well.  Ratner finally went on to direct a superhero movie, thanks to the man who would finally get Superman back in theaters.

Bryan Singer had gained credibility as a director thanks to ‘The Usual Suspects’ and the first two X-Men films.  He jumped at the chance to direct a new Superman movie and abandoned the X-Men, and both franchised suffered because of it.  Instead of wanting to do his own thing, Singer was too preoccupied with making his film a homage to the Richard Donner films.  He wanted someone who looked like Christopher Reeve, and never considered Smallville’s Tom Welling for the role.  He found his Superman in Brandon Routh, who looks like he could be Reeve’s son.  While Singer’s film did give us one of the most amazing scenes (Superman saving the jet) in cinematic history, most everything else was bad.  The lighting was awful, the red and blue of Superman’s suit seemingly the only thing of color in the movie.  Kevin Spacey, despite being a fantastic actor, turned out to be a terrible Lex Luthor.  Kate Bosworth’s take on Lois Lane was awful.  The worse part of the movie?  Singer gives us a great airplane scene and gives us a bullet bouncing off Superman’s eye, but he doesn’t have Superman throw a punch?  The movie went on to gross $200 million domestically, but there was to be no sequel.  Batman Begins made $205 million and a sequel was immediately greenlit.  What’s the difference?  Warner didn’t like Singer’s take on Superman.

Fast forward to 2010, and Warner Brothers made the best decision they could have possibly made by announcing that Christopher Nolan, the genius behind Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, would produce the new Superman film.  Nolan did the impossible by making fans forget the AWFUL Joel Schumacher movies, and fans have nothing but confidence that he can do the same for the Superman franchise.  The popular opinion seems to be that his brother Jonathan Nolan will be named director of the new Superman film in the very near future, to be called “The Man of Steel”.  There are already a ton of names floating around for the coveted role as the Last Son of Krypton, including Chuck’s Zachary Levi and Mad Men’s Jon Hamm.  Both would be terrible choices.  Levi wouldn’t make a bad Flash (I think he would be great as either Wally West or Barry Allen) but not a good Superman.  Jon Hamm is a great actor, but not right for Superman.  He’s almost forty, and looks every day of it, and that is a problem when you talking about a franchise.  I will say this for Jon Hamm though, he’d make a damn fine Lex Luthor.  Looks just like what you always envisioned him to look like.  His comedic take on Lex on Funnyordie.com is hilarious.  In my opinion there is only one man who should be considered.

That man is Tom Welling, who is right for the role for so many reasons.  Rumors used to float around that he had zero interest in doing a Superman movie, but he recently told MTV’s Splashpage: ”I’ve always been open to the idea. It’s not as simple as everyone would like to think.  It’s not as simple as me wanting to do it or not wanting to do it,” he explained. “I know that a lot of people want to jump on me or jump on Warner Brothers. It’s just not that simple. So there’s a lot of elements that have to come together.”

Well they need to come together.  Maybe he’s talking about Jonathan Nolan getting the director’s job, as rumor has it Welling is his pick to play Superman.  I feel very strongly that Welling is the best choice for the role, and here are a few reason why:

1.)  We’ve watched him grow into Superman.  He’s played Clark Kent for going on ten seasons on Smallville.  Not we see him superleap as a kid and then we see him fly out of the Fortress of Solitude as in Superman: The Movie, but we seem him actually grow up on the WB/CW series.  We watched him get his X-ray vision (1.3 X-Ray), heat vision (2.2 Heat), super breath (6.2 Sneeze), super-leaping (2.12 Insurgence) and super-hearing (3.10 Whisper).  We watched him be a typical high school freshman, pining after the girl who dated the quarterback.  We saw him get break someone’s heat (Chloe) and we saw him get his heart broken (Lana).  We watched as his parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, taught him the values that define him. 

2.) He looks the part.  He’s tall and has the stature of Superman.  He has the hair.  Fans have photoshopped countless actors in the Superman costume.  Most of the actors look out of place in the costume, Tom does not.  He looks like he belongs in the iconic costume.

3.) We watched him fall in love with Lois Lane.  That part always drove me crazy about every other incarnation of Superman, Clark was instantly in love with Lois, and let’s be honest Lois doesn’t have that type of personality that you just fall in love with.  She can be a little abrasive at times, and you don’t just fall in love with that type of woman.  Christopher Reeve’s Clark was in love with Margot Kidder’s Lois the moment he saw her.  Dean Cain’s Clark was the same way.  Tom Welling’s Clark despised Erica Durance’s Lois the first time he met her (4.1 Crusade).  They were like oil and water, as they should be.  Over the past six seasons we watched Clark grow to tolerate her, become friends with her, and finally fall in love with her.  Now we understand why Clark does the things he does to protect Lois, and not just because we’re told he loves her, but because we watched it happen.

4.) You can’t touch the origin story anymore.  Because of the greedy heirs of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (Yes I said greedy and I stand by that), WB and DC no longer hold the rights to the origin story of Superman.  They’re not allowed to show Krypton exploding, the ship coming to Earth, none of that.  In a movie that’s a reboot as Man of Steel is to be, you kind of have to have an origin story.  I know we don’t really need one, since people in third world countries know who Superman is and where he comes from, but studios don’t think the same way as you or I do.  Smallville has told the origin story of Superman, and did it better than any other form has done.

5.) Money.  In the end, WB wants to make money from the Man of Steel.  That’s what Hollywood revolves around.  If it was just about making “great” movies, we’d have nothing but borefest movies like ‘Romeo in Love’ and ‘The English Patient’.  Thankfully Hollywood doesn’t work that way.  Recently Hollywood has paid more attention to DVD sales, making movies with so-so box offices and good DVD/BluRay sales more likely to get a sequel.  If they cast Tom Welling as Superman, how many sets of Smallville could they sell?  Kids that have never watched the show and see Welling as Superman on the big screen will want to see more, and what happens when they’re in Wal-Mart or Target with Mommy or Daddy and see Smallville with Tom Welling on the front?  That season of Smallville is going home with that little boy.  By that time there will be ten seasons of Smallville out there, and that’s a lot of potential dough for Warner Brothers.

6.) Smallville is grounded.  It’s not bright and glossy, it’s a little darker and more like the real world.  Not unlike Nolan’s Batman franchise.  Tom Welling’s Clark Kent lines up well with the type of world that the Nolan’s will bring to the table.  The producers of Smallville have changed the villains up a little giving up more realistic (if that’s the right choice of words) bad guys than you typically see in the superhero world, and not unlike how Nolan has done Batman.

There are more reasons, but that’s enough to get my point across.  Some people will disagree, and that’s their right.  I just wanted to get my opinion out there, and I have.

Alex Ross envisions what Tom Welling would look like as the Man of Steel