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Why Smallville’s Finale Sucked

This maybe the only decent shot fans got to see of Clark Kent (played by Tom Welling) in the Superman outfit. And it's only because it's a still image.

(Spoiler alert: This column is for only those who have watched Smallville’s 2-hour series finale.)

Do you know what burns my bacon? Smallville’s 2-hour series finale was so totally disappointing that it was like watching a Star Wars movie without the Jedi using their lightsabers.

For the last five years of Smallville — the decade-long show of Clark Kent finding his destiny to become Superman — fans were treated (or teased) with other superbeings flying around, using their superhero, or villain, code names and wearing their uniforms, such as:

• Green Arrow
• Hawkman
• Black Manta
• Zod
• Doomsday
• Dr. Fate
• Stargirl
• Aquaman

Yes, Aquaman, the butt of all jokes in the superhero community actually one-upped the star of the series by running, or swimming, around in his near-classic orange swimsuit.

Sure, if the show — and believe me, I’ve been a devoted fan of the show and defended it for years and loved it deeply — had ended five seasons ago, I could understand why we wouldn’t see Clark Kent wearing the outfit. But it’s been 10 years of seeing other people running around in tights and leather and we couldn’t even been treated to a lousy 10 minutes of getting a decent view of Clark wearing the “Superman Returns” suit.

Now, in my heart of hearts, I knew that Smallville wouldn’t give fans not even a half an hour of Tom Welling, the actor who plays Clark Kent, flying around in the Superman uniform. Hell, no one even called him “Superman” once while wearing the outfit!

But what we got was only 10 minutes of pure insult near the end. Sure, we got to see Clark Kent in the Superman uniform, but it was either at a great distance or an extremely close up. Either way you couldn’t get a well-mannered view of him just standing still while doing a super-pose. It was as if Welling was embarrassed to even wear or being seen in the suit.

Now there is a lot wrong with the last episode, from the non-superpowered fight between Superman and the actual Darkseid to how the villain’s planet Apokolips could get so close to Earth’s orbit but somehow doesn’t destroy it to Lex Luthor getting smeared by some dust and forgetting his life and past sins in the hope of becoming a good person to only somehow becoming evil again years later.

(And somehow, I want to think that Luthor will eventually remember what he had forgotten.) And trust me, I can really rip into the final episode, but who wants to read a 1,000-word rant?

And you know what? There was a lot good with the final episode too.

But what I personally wanted, and I’m sure many other fans wanted, was to see Clark Kent becoming the Man of Steel, slowly flying around (no speeding blurs all the time!) and watching him do heroic feats while us fans can visually feast on the near-classic red-and-blue outfit.

But no, we didn’t get that. Sure, we got bloody Green Arrow standing still at a good distance and we got to see him in all of his leathery goodness, but not the star of the show.

As far as I’m concern, the episode was a slap in the face to all Superman fans and the long wait was not worth the 10 minutes of Kryptonite-flavored poo-poo fest we were given.

Maybe the next live-action Superman-themed TV show won’t focus so much on attracting the pre-teen Twilight girls and actually put a bit more focus on Superman himself and some realistic action. Is romance needed? Yes, but for crying out loud, we all know that Superman ends up with Lois Lane. It’s not actually that big of a surprise. It would have been a bigger shocker if Clark ended up with Green Arrow!

Because once again Smallville refused to deliver the goods at the final hour, I have to boldly say that a once great show ended on a bad note that smeared the name of the Man of Steel and it has to be one of the worst Superman-themed shows ever.