In the landscape of superhero media, 2017 was a year of cosmic spectacle. Wonder Woman finally delivered a critical hit for the DCEU, while Logan offered a gritty, R-rated elegy for the mutant hero. Yet, looking back from that vantage point, the legacy of Smallville , the television series that had ended six years prior, felt more resonant than ever. Created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, Smallville ran from 2001 to 2011, but its thematic core—exploring the agonizing, human-scale journey of becoming a hero—offered a powerful counterpoint to the CGI-laden blockbusters of 2017. The show’s central tenet, “No flights, no tights,” was not a constraint but a philosophy: a belief that the most compelling origin story is not about the first public save, but about the private struggle to earn the right to make that save. In an era increasingly concerned with superheroes’ humanity, Smallville had already spent a decade proving that the cape is earned long before it is ever worn.
Ultimately, Smallville in 2017 stands as the definitive chronicle of the hero’s formation , as opposed to his function . The films of 2017 were concerned with what Superman does ; Smallville was always concerned with who he is when no one is watching. In an age of shared universes and franchise crossovers, the show’s modest, character-driven focus feels almost revolutionary. It argued that the most important battle is not the one that levels a city, but the one fought in a barn in Kansas, between a father and a son, over the meaning of destiny. As we continue to dissect superheroes as avatars of modern anxiety, Smallville remains the essential text for understanding that before Superman could save the world, he first had to save himself. And that, in 2017 as much as ever, was a story worth telling. Smallville 2017
Furthermore, Smallville ’s structure as a “meteor freak” procedural feels prescient in the context of the 2017 streaming boom. While network procedurals were dying, the show’s blend of standalone monster stories with a sprawling, ten-season serialized arc anticipated the “case of the week” model that shows like The X-Files reboot and even Supernatural perfected. However, Smallville ’s true innovation was its transformation of the love triangle. The Clark-Lana-Lex dynamic is not merely romantic; it is a philosophical battlefield for the soul of the hero. Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) is not yet a villain but a friend, and his slow, tragic fall is the direct consequence of Clark’s secret. In 2017, with debates raging about privacy, surveillance, and the ethics of transparency in the digital age, Smallville presented a painfully human dilemma: can true friendship survive absolute secrecy? Clark’s lie is not malicious; it is protective. Yet, it is the engine of Lex’s corruption. The show argued, bravely, that the hero’s burden is not just fighting monsters, but accepting the collateral damage of his own goodness. In the landscape of superhero media, 2017 was
Of course, Smallville is a product of its time, and viewing it through a 2017 lens reveals its dated textures. The CGI of the early seasons looks like a PlayStation 2 cutscene. The “will they/won’t they” angst between Clark and Lana (Kristin Kreuk) stretches credulity to its breaking point. And the show’s predominantly white, Midwestern cast lacks the diversity that became a non-negotiable standard in the late 2010s. One can only imagine the critical backlash a 2017 version of the “red kryptonite” episodes—where Clark becomes a rebellious, ethically loose “bad boy”—would receive. Yet, these flaws also feel endearing. They are artifacts of a transitional era, a time when superheroes were still slightly embarrassed to be on television, relegated to the WB and The CW, before Daredevil and Watchmen made “prestige superhero TV” a category. Created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, Smallville
The most striking aspect of revisiting Smallville in 2017 was its patient, almost novelistic approach to trauma. The decade’s most acclaimed superhero films— Logan (2017) and The Dark Knight (2008)—were fundamentally about scarred, weary men. Smallville anticipated this fascination with heroic pain, but framed it not as an endpoint, but as a daily negotiation. The show’s famous “freak of the week” format, often dismissed as filler, was actually a sophisticated allegorical engine. Each villain, poisoned by the show’s signature element, Kryptonite, was a mirror for Clark Kent’s (Tom Welling) own internal conflicts: the rage of the bullied, the terror of the closeted outsider, the seductive pull of power without accountability. In 2017, as television was entering a new golden age of complex, anti-heroic protagonists, Smallville ’s Clark stood out as a different kind of radical figure: a hero defined not by his darkness, but by his relentless, often frustrating, commitment to restraint. He was a god learning to be a man, and the drama came from the thousand small choices not to dominate.
