DC appears to be basking in the reflected glory of the success of the current 'Smallville' television series. More power to them, but still I'm having a hard time reconciling Bo Duke as Pa Kent. Maybe I just keep expecting to see Lex drive up in the General Lee or Boss Hogg try to foreclose on the Kent family farm. Weird stuff, I tell you.
Lana Lang and Pete Ross are the two stalwart supporting cast members from Clark Kent's Smallville days, playing the girlfriend and the best friend respectively. In the post-Crisis chronology, they've ended up married to each other, which does break the usual rule about not dating your friend's ex's. Pete, Pete, Pete. We're very disappointed in you. That just ain't kosher.
Repetition being the hallmark of so many comic book stories, it's hardly surprising that Lana and Pete rarely deviated from their particular shticks in all of those Superboy stories. Lana was the girl constantly trying to prove that Clark was Superboy, and Superboy kept tripping up her clumsy attempts, often in a publicly humiliating manner, just to drive the point home. Pete, on the other hand, knew about the secret identity, but kept his knowledge hidden from young Clark, while deliberately creating opportunities for Clark to steal away to deal with assorted crises as Superboy.
This eventually earned Pete an honorary membership in the Legion of Super-Heroes, which should have raised at least some alarm bells with Superboy. "So, why exactly did you give my alter ego's best friend an honourary membership?" "Well, um, it's because...uh..." At least Lana had a valid reason behind her honorary membership. She had a ring that bestowed various insect-like powers upon her, notwithstanding the Legion rule against device-based powers.
I haven't seen too many of the Smallville episodes yet, but so far it seems like a cross between Dawson's Creek and Eerie, Indiana. I gather that the writers are having green kryptonite affect ordinary humans the way that red kryptonite used to affect Superman, causing unpredictable side effects and mutations. It's a nice gimmick, but easily overused to become a freak-of-the-week routine.
Still, with the decline of newsstand sales, it's great to see the DC Universe get a chunk of prime time mindshare outside of the comic book stores. The Justice League cartoon is doing well, and it looks like the 'Birds of Prey' series is moving ahead nicely too, featuring Oracle, the Huntress, Harley Quinn, and Black Canary. Now, if all of those other optioned properties can get pried out of Development Hell, then we'd really be talking. Personally, I'm holding out for a live-action/animation 'Stanley and His Monster' weekly series.
- NP
