Smallville / Tropes A to C

Tropes A to C | Tropes D to G | Tropes H to M | Tropes N to S | Tropes T to Z

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Smallville provides examples of the following tropes:

A

• '90s Anti-Hero: Conversational Troping in "Warrior":
  Alec/Devilicus: [threatening to push Chloe off a building] Lethal enforcers are way more interesting. They were big in the nineties.
• Above the Influence:
  • In "Nicodemus", Lana tries to seduce Clark while she's under the influence of a mind-altering flower that makes her not herself. This includes her stripping down to her underwear, going for a swim at the pool and them doing a Sexy Surfacing Shot in front of him. Despite his attraction to her, he puts up a fight and she ends up "only" kissing him.
  • During "Persuasion", Clark does his best not to take advantage of people while they're under the influence of his newly gained Compelling Voice powers.
• Absurd Phobia: Clark has a crippling fear of heights, despite his Nigh-Invulnerability. He eventually gets over it.
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Chloe seems to believe that Smallville High has one. When Clark decides to run for Student Council President, she grills him on his positions on issues ranging from the menu prices in the cafeteria to the administration's habit of searching student lockers for drugs, in a manner that suggests she thinks he'll have some influence over those policies.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Lex's dad, Lionel, withholds affection and approval from his son in the warped belief that it will make him stronger. Their tortured relationship is one of the keystones of the series, and ends very badly when Lex kills his dad.
  • It is revealed in Season 3 that Lionel himself suffered physical abuse from his drunken, alcoholic parents, who sought to keep him down in the gutter with them, and prevent him from succeeding at anything; this is one of the reasons he's so oblivious to his abuse of Lex, as he thinks he has a firm grasp of what abuse looks like.
  • And then there's Tess Mercer, whose real parents abandoned her and whose foster father broke her eardrums and arm through physical violence.
  • Then in Season 10, we meet Earth-2 Lionel, who takes this Up to Eleven, being far worse than his Earth-1 counterpart, encouraging his kids to plot against one another for the privilege of being his Bastard Understudy, and eventually tries to have them all killed off at one point or another. Archnemesis Dad indeed.
  • In Season 4, we meet Jason Teague, who's parents were also less than loving. His father, Edward, subjects him to Financial Abuse, disinheriting him when he sets off on his own. His mother, Evil Matriarch Genevieve is even worse, being more or less Lionel's Distaff Counterpart. She's emotionally manipulative of Jason and his girlfriend, whom she plans to murder in order to fulfill a prophecy; her control of Jason is so extreme that by the end of the season he's unwilling to do anything without seeking her permission first.
  • Jor-El towards Clark. The reasons behind his behavior and actions toward Kal-El may have been well-meaning and noble, but the fact remains AI!Jor-El's actions were downright, often unnecessarily, cruel and dickish. He's burned the mark of Clark's Kryptonian ancestors onto his chest as part of his efforts to control his son, even brainwashed Clark outright, froze Clark in a solid pillar of ice, and even disowns him early in Season 10.
  • Davis only meets his mother Faora a single time, but in that single meeting, she lectures him on not having killed enough people before running him through with a pole to activate his Healing Factor. She definitely counts, and given that it's Zod's plan, he does as well.
  • In "Obsession", we learn Alicia's parents locked her in a lead-lined room in their house when she was a child to prevent her from using her teleportation powers, and that Alicia is now psychotic. But Alicia is the only one we hear talking about this, and it's ambiguous whether she went crazy due to this abuse or whether this was just their attempt to keep an already-crazy Alicia in line.
  • In "Leech", Eric's parents are this to him. Mr. Summers is a total asshole towards his son (for the most part, he's emotionally and psychologically abusive, though physical abuse is strongly implied), while Mrs. Summers does little to help Eric.
  • "Stray" has James Gibson and Debra Birch, Ryan's stepparents who try to take advantage of his Telepathy powers to commit crimes and treat him as a tool.
• Academy of Adventure: Smallville High ends up as one of these, not just because the Kryptonian Clark Kent is a student there, but due to the meteor shower that hit the town, which caused many of its students and faculty to develop odd powers and ending up as a Monster of the Week.
• Accidental Athlete: In "Hothead", a bullying football team member throws a football at Chloe's head. Clark Kent catches it and throws it back hard enough to floor the bully. The coach lets Clark on the team after this.

• Accidental Pervert:
  • "X-Ray", has Clark gain his X-Ray Vision spontaneously and he just so happens to turn in the direction of the girls' locker room at that time and ends up seeing Lana's Toplessness from the Back as she's getting changed. And while it started as an accident, his reaction goes from confused to happy very quickly.
  • In "Fade", Clark accidentally sees Lois naked when she burst out of her bathroom starkers, not knowing he was on the other side (she thought he was an intruder, and decided to confront said intruder with nothing but a shower bush).
  • In "Escape", Clark ended up with Chloe in his arms and both of them are covered with nothing but a Modesty Towel when Silver Banshee possessed her and she tried to seduce Clark in the shower, only to be transferred away to Lois, resulting in Chloe having no memory of how she got there but being extremely freaked out.
• Action Girl:
  • Lois Lane has earned a third-degree black belt in Karate and finds herself involved in plenty of the action in the series.
  • Most of the female superheroes (like Black Canary and Supergirl) are obviously this as well.
  • Lana becomes one in season 8 after she Took a Level in Badass and donned the Prometheus Suit that gives her Super-Strength and Super-Speed.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Happens a few time with Jonathan who is played by John Schneider, who played one of the main characters in The Dukes of Hazzard:
    • "Nicodemus" opens with Jonathan driving his pickup truck while the Dukes of Hazzard Theme Tune plays on the radio.
    • "Exposed" introduces Senator Jack Jennings, who is played by John's Dukes of Hazzard co-star Tom Wopat, as one of Jonathan's oldest friends. One scene has him bringing up that he was "under the bleachers with the sheriff's daughters", which is hilarious as the sheriff on Dukes of Hazzard was the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain. And Lex is the one who says "good ol' boy" this time.
    • "Precipice" has the new sheriff telling Jonathan to his face that "those Good Ol' Boy days are over".
  • When Margot Kidder, the Lois Lane actress from Christopher Reeve's Superman movies, shows up as the assistant to Reeve's character Dr. Swann, she implies that she and Dr. Swann were/are attracted to each other. When questioned as to whether they had ever been in a relationship together, Kidder's character wistfully replies "In another lifetime."
  • When Dean Cain, Lois & Clark's Clark Kent actor, shows up, we briefly see a handkerchief with his character's initials: "C.K." He also tells Clark that he has "powers beyond those of ordinary men".
  • When we see the Video Will of Lois Lane's mother, she is played by Teri Hatcher, who played Lois in Lois & Clark.
  • James Marsters, famous for playing the vampire Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plays a professor who denies the existence of vampires. The main villain of the episode is a girl named Buffy who has been turned into a vampire-like being. Though the Buffy name is an In-Universe reference, as Chloe says she's changed the names.
  • Michael Shanks playing Carter Hall, an Adventurer Archaeologist using technology left behind by Ancient Astronauts. Oh, and his superpower is reincarnation.
  • Colonel Tigh appears as a military commander who later gets an eye patch.
  • Being cast as Metallo, we have Brian Austin Green as a cyborg again.
  • In "Progeny", Moira Sullivan's (Lynda Carter) Mind Controls a Meteor Freak who's able to grab people with an air lasso.
• Adaptation Dye-Job:
  • Lana Lang was a redhead in the comics, and Lois Lane had jet-black hair. In this version, Lana is a brunette and Lois starts out with light-brown hair, before dying her hair darker in later seasons.
  • The eye colors of most main characters are different. Lex Luthor has grey instead of green, Clark Kent has green instead of blue, Lana Lang has brown instead of green, Lois Lane has brown instead of blue/violet.
• Adaptation Name Change: In the comics, Andrea Rojas codename as a vigilante is Acrata, while in Smallville she calls herself "The Angel of Vengeance", but the name Acrata is still used for as the name of the organization her mother worked for.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Some of the Meteor Freaks are established characters in the comics that have completely different origins, like Plastique and Parasite.
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • Zod is depicted as more of a strategic planner due to being de-powered for the most part, he actually seeks out to befriend Clark, believing he can help their people gain their powers like him, and actually strikes up a friendship with Lois (mostly to manipulate her). His motivation is also changed; instead of wishing to rule For the Evulz, he was originally a noble, charismatic military leader whose family died in the battle of Kandor, and was denied the chance to clone his beloved son, resulting in his Start of Darkness. He's a literal Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds in this case too, as he's responsible for the destruction of Krypton in this continuity.
  • In the comics Lex's father has varied from a normal, unmemorable man to an alcoholic brute. Lionel Luthor in Smallville is one of the most important figures in both Lex and Clark's life, being a shrewd but heartless Corrupt Corporate Executive and Manipulative Bastard much like Lex is in the comics and is The Heavy for most of the early seasons.
  • Comic Lana Lang was Clark's Childhood Friend, with her, Clark and Pete forming a trio during their younger years. She's often one of his closest's confidants, being the first person to learn about his powers and her romantic interest on him is often one-sided on her part. In Smallville, while they both grow up in the same town they're not particularly close until late high-school, and Clark is the one that's pinning for her attention, with Lana being portrayed as the Girl of his dreams that's just out of reach. Most of Lana's comic traits are instead given to Chloe.
  • In the comics, Mr. Mxyzptlk is an omnipotent Reality Warper imp from another dimension who often has a Blue-and-Orange Morality and is often Played for Laughs with a quirky personality. His Smallville incarnation is far less impressive, being a simple human student with metahuman powers that give him a Compelling Voice and his personality is more of a smug Jerkass that uses his powers for his own benefit, including forcing Chloe to kiss him.
  • The comic version of Bizarro is either a confused Harmless Villain or an Obliviously Evil one. Smallville's version is dangerously intelligent and fully intends to Kill and Replace Clark.
  • In the comics, Maxima is a proud alien queen that wants Superman for his genes to breed powerful warriors as her heirs for the glory of her people and reacts violently when he dares to reject her and attempts to make him her Breeding Slave by force, uncaring for whether or not he loves her. Her Smallville incarnation portrays her more as a selfish brat, who has no interest in heirs for her people and desires Clark as a mate for her own needs since she's sexually frustrated due to a combination of her Living Aphrodisiac powers, her beauty and sexual prowess that makes her unable to find a partner that is able to "keep up" with her. Her Lack of Empathy manifests in her seeing Clark's human friends as disposable, and attempting to kill Lois for holding Clark's interest. But when Clark himself firmly rejects her and sends her away, she respects his wish and antagonizes him no further.
  • The comic book version of Cat Grant is a Good Bad Girl who Really Gets Around, wears slutty outfits, has breast implants, and couldn't care less about politics. Her Smallville counterpart dresses very conservatively, is pudgy, can't even say the word "sex" and has to spell it, and is a passionately Straw Conservative. Comic Cat only has a vendetta against Supergirl, while Smallville Cat dislikes all caped vigilantes.
  • Smallville's Mera is a Smug Super who looks down on normal people, traits that are absent from her comic counterpart. And while they're both Fiery Redheads, Smallville Mera's feistiness is more cool and collected as opposed to comic Mera who's more prone to big outbursts.
• Adaptation Title Change: Smallville is based loosely on the Superboy comics that focused on Clark Kent.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • In the comics Lex Luthor's fighting abilities vary, but typically he isn't much of a physical threat (intellectually is another matter) without his warsuit. On Smallville he was a deadly martial artist who once battled Green Arrow to a draw in a Gun Kata duel.
  • Lionel Luthor, Lex's Abusive Dad, is usually little more than an alcoholic brute. Smallville makes him the prototypical Lex, a grandiose Corrupt Corporate Executive and master manipulator, as well as a top-tier Badass Normal.
  • Season 9 transformed B-list villain The Icicle II into a Game-Breaker whose presence alone was enough to turn any room into an arctic wasteland. He's able to take out three Justice Society members before being stopped.
  • Season 10 also does this with Desaad, changing his from a sniveling Dirty Coward into a Serial Killer whose Psychic Powers allow him to take on Clark.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: A lot of characters (specifically Lex Luthor, Lois Lane and various superheroes and supervillains) in the show showed up years before Clark Kent even became Superman.
• Adaptational Nationality: In the comics, Andrea Rojas is a member of Mexico's national superhero team, but in Smallville she's American.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Believe it or not, Jor-El is one of the main antagonists of Season 3. Even after the season, he still does pretty nasty stuff like freezing Chloe almost to death and intending to trap Clark in a crystal until everyone he cares for has died. The Grand Finale does reveal this was all to test Clark's will in order to make him the hero he's meant to be... though he did some pretty dark stuff in pursuit of that, and it's all fairly unneeded given how well Clark fared without Jor-El's intervention.
  • Zor-El was a good guy in the comics, who sent his daughter Kara, to Earth as a protector for her cousin. Smallville made him an outright villain who sent his daughter to Earth as part of a plot to have himself resurrected as a conqueror.
• Affably Evil: Lionel Luthor has no interest in hurting people pointlessly. As long as you're not in his way (and aren't related to him), you're in no danger. The same can be said of his daughter Tess Mercer, who eventually took over LuthorCorp; the same can not be said for his son Lex, or his Alternate Universe counterpart, Earth-2 Lionel, who are both classic examples of Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head:
  • Clark and Lois start patting each other's head after they drop the Vitriolic Best Buds facade and start acknowledging their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
  • Chloe tenderly pats Clark, who is unconscious, in "Fever".
  • Clark pats Chloe in "Onyx" when evil (well, eviler) Lex knocked her out cold.
  • Clark gently touches Chloe in "Abyss" along with a forehead kiss before wiping her memories of his secret.
• Afraid of Needles: Played with, Clark is not actually afraid of needles, but pretends he is since if someone tries to inject it will expose his secret since he's Made of Iron.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Lex in "Requiem" attracts this reaction In-Universe, with Clark visiting the site of his death and spreads a handful of ashes.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Keeping up with its comic book origins, has Lois Lane, Lionel Luthor, Lana Lang, Lucy Lane, and Lex Luthor (though his first name is actually short for Alexander). The Luthor tree also gets another one after The Reveal that Tess Mercer was born Lutessa Lena Luthor. Several other minor character also apply, such as Zatanna Zatara, J'onn J'onnz, and Gordon Godfrey.
  • We also get some expanded family trees that run with the theme, such as Lana's parents (Laura and Lewis) and Lex's mom Lillian and grandparents (Lachlan and Eliza.) Also, in a dream world, Lex married Lana and their daughter's name was Lily. Mind you, some of Smallville's LL names are Older Than They Think, mentioned once or twice in gold/silver age comic stories.
• All Love Is Unrequited: The series starts in this scenario: Pete has a crush on Chloe, who has a crush on Clark, who has a crush on Lana, who is with Whitney.
• Already Met Everyone: Since Smallville is supposed to be a prequel to Clark's life as Superman, the early seasons avoided introducing characters Clark would meet much later in his career, with the notable exception of Lex Luthor. This was dropped in the later half of the show, which introduced several characters and concepts from 'the 'Superman'' mythos and DC Comics.
• Alternate Continuity: It's not impossible to reconcile the Arrowverse version of the Crisis with the one that already happened in the Smallville Season 11 comics — it might explain why Clark was so blasé about the idea — but it's probably best to regard them as two separate continuities.
• Alternate Universe: While the show itself had examples in "Noir", "Apocalypse," and "Luthor", Smallville itself is one relative to the rest of the Arrowverse.
• Amazonian Beauty:
  • Smallville has one of the more athletic versions of Lois Lane, and she gets quite a few Workout Fanservice scenes that shows off her muscle tone.
  • Minor villain Athena from "Combat" is a striking woman with a muscular physique, and is even played by Wrestling/WWE Diva Ashley Massaro. Her intro involves a lot of Male Gaze as she gets dressed in a locker room, purely for fanservice.
• Amnesiac Liar: When Chloe tells Clark he's a meteor freak in "Blank" though she didn't know that she was lying since she really did think he was meteor-infected.
  • Criminal Amnesiac: Lex, on the other hand, immediately exploits the situation to learn something important about the Kawatche Caves.
• And I Must Scream:
  • "Forever" features this trope with the Monster of the Week, whose touch can turn people to wax. They clearly remain conscious during this, though, as the camera shows their eyes still moving. Shattering the wax statue, however, is implied to be fatal.
  • "Cure": Implied to be the fate of the immortal doctor Knox (An Expy of Vandal Savage).
    Clark: What'd you do with Knox?
    Martian Manhunter: Your father and I had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it came to crime and punishment. I suggest we abide by the same rules.
    Clark: You didn't kill him, did you?
    Martian Manhunter: Knox is immortal, Kal-El. You can't kill him.
  • Lana suffered a temporary case of this when Brainiac placed her in an "anesthesia awareness" state during the last few episodes of Season 7. According to what Brainiac told Clark, Lana was fully aware of her surroundings and in a constant state of excruciating pain, but she was also fully paralyzed so that she could do nothing to try to ease her pain or communicate with anybody else in any way. She was left in this condition for over a month until Clark finally defeated Brainiac and freed her. Brainiac could have been claiming this just to emotionally torture Clark as Lana did not seem to be suffering any psychological aftereffects from the experience when she returned as a Special Guest the following season.
• And Then What?: One could deconstruct Zod's motivation as failing to take this into account, since he doesn't appear to have any long-term goal other than to take over Earth to turn it into a New Krypton. In fact, the Bad Future seen in "Pandora" shows that the Kandorians don't seem to be doing more than spinning their wheels, rounding up humans in slave camps, all while letting the planet fall into a state of disrepair. Behold the glorious New Krypton, folks?!
• Anguished Declaration of Love: While "love" doesn't get said, Lois meets Clark in the barn in the season 9 finale to tell him that she got offered a job as a foreign correspondent in Africa. She says that she would stay in Metropolis to be with him, as long as he stops keeping secrets from her. He doesn't take her up on the offer.
• Apocalypse Anarchy: Riots break out all over the world when Brainiac unleashes a computer virus which starts shutting down all technology on Earth during the episodes "Vessel" and "Zod".
• Apologises a Lot: Pretty much every character is prone to this in the first few seasons, but especially Clark and Lana. Sometimes an "apology duel" occurs, where two characters try to out-apologize each other.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: All over the place.
  • A good example is "Legion", where despite having spent the last eight years dealing with meteor-infected humans, naturally occurring superheroes, and alien visitors from other worlds... apparently time travel is considered to be too ridiculous?! Clark himself had actually time-traveled at least twice ("Reckoning" and "Apocalypse") beforehand.
  • Jonathan and Martha, the foster parents of a human-looking alien with physics-defying superpowers, balk at the idea that magic exists.
  • Glaringly subverted in "Spirit" where a case of Body Surf is handwaved by Chloe saying "We are in Smallville."
• Artifact Alias: Oliver Queen continues using his Green Arrow alias and costume, right down to the voice-changer that gives him a deep voice, even after revealing his identity on national TV at the end of "Supergirl".
• Artifact Title: By Season 8, Clark had left Smallville to join the Daily Planet in Metropolis (as he obviously had to, sooner or later), though an argument could be made that "Smallville" is now more a reference to Clark himself, via Lois' Affectionate Nickname for him. Also, Clark doesn't think of himself as Superman at this point; Seasons 8-10 are about him letting go of his Smallville life to become the man he needs to be. "Smallville" was how he hid in the shadows; "Superman" is when he steps into the light.
• Artistic License – Law: In "Nemesis", Lana threatened Lionel with the fact that she has power of attorney and is in charge of making his medical decisions. The problem is that not only is Lionel recovering but he is conscious so not only can’t Lana do anything besides creating mild inconveniences but he can revoke the power of attorney.
• Artistic License – Medicine: In "Action", Lionel was stuck in a trap for at least a day that should for all intents and purposes had caused him to lose his hand due to how long he was trapped and how sharp the trap was.
• Ascended Extra: Lois Lane was originally only going to be in 4 episodes, however because of fan demand her number of episodes in season 4 was increased to 13, before her Promotion to Opening Titles and a series regular and main character from season 5 onward.
• Aside Glance: Halfway into the tenth and final season, Clark returns from the dystopian Earth-2, but not without someone tagging along for the ride: Earth-2's Lionel, still alive and well, takes in the sights while a newspaperman tries to fix him in his memory. John Glover buys a paper, looks straight in the camera, and basically says he's pumped for the series finale.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Clark finally putting on the iconic Superman suit in "Finale".
• Axes at School:
  • The Trope Namer, from the Season 3 episode "Delete" when a brainwashed Lana attempts to kill Chloe in public in the middle of the school, at one point even resorting to a fire axe. This somehow only led to them getting suspended.
  • In "Spirit", a possessed Chloe uses a fire axe to attack Jonathan and later attempts to burn down the entire school.

B

• Baby-Doll Baby: In the episode "Memoria", Lex is sitting on a high balcony, in the rain, apparently hallucinating that he is rocking his baby brother Julian to sleep. He's singing to the blanket and tells his father to be quiet or he'll wake the baby. He thinks he found the baby inside of his dorm, crying, and told Julian that he'd never let anyone hurt him again.
• Back for the Finale:
  • Michael Rosenbaum. If you seriously wanna know as whom, you're not paying attention.
  • Chloe Sullivan.
  • Earth-2 Lionel (John Glover) also came back, and Zod returned for the episode "Dominion."
  • Aaron Ashmore reappeared as Jimmy Olsen ... the real Jimmy Olsen.
  • Also, Jonathan Kent reappears multiple times in the finale, most notably appearing as a ghost to hand Clark his iconic suit in the Fortress of Solitude.
• Badass Boast:
  • "Onyx" has Alexander (Lex's Enemy Without) deliver this excellent gem after shooting Jonathan in the leg:
    Alexander: You were right about me all along, Mr. Kent. [Beat] I am the villain of the story.
  • Amusingly, we get one from the surgeon about to undo life-threatening AND crippling shots to Lex Luthor on Christmas Eve no less, in "Lexmas".
    "Somebody kill the carols. I'm about to perform a miracle."^note And Status Quo Is God demands that he pull it off!
  • Brainiac also gets one, although it helps to understand the context. Having been nearly destroyed by Clark in Season 5, it takes him until Season 7 to rebuild From a Single Cell. When Bizarro finds him halfway through Season 7, he is therefore weak, dying, barely holding himself together, and feeding off of people and animals in order to hold his Nanomachines in place. When he and Bizarro team up, he proposes that he be the one to kill Clark. Bizarro tells him: "You? You can barely catch a rat." Brainiac responds with the following short, but sweet boast:
    Brainiac: I am the Brain Inter Active Construct. No matter my form, my intellect remains formidable. Do not underestimate me.
  • Doomsday gets one in "Beast".
    Clark: I don't wanna hurt you, Davis.
    Davis/Doomsday: Don't worry. You can't.
  • One is delivered by Martian Manhunter (whose powers are restored by Doctor Fate) to Icicle during the final battle in "Absolute Justice":
    J'onn: I'm Mars last survivor. There's a reason for that.
  • Major Zod when he delivers his famous line:
    Zod: Unlike you, I will lead from a throne, not from the shadows. Every human on earth, including the woman you love will Kneel Before Zod!"
  • He did an earlier one when he found out one of his soldiers (and lover) turned against him:
    Zod: If I ever learned that insurrection had spread across my ranks... If I ever discovered that my men had aligned themselves against me, I would raze this planet. I would burn it to the ground till the last ember went cold beneath my boot! Now only I will lead us to the next age. All will follow Zod.
  • Lois gets one in "Dominion".
    Lois: Being a hero's wife means never accepting defeat.
• Badass Family:
  • The Kents/The Els. You've got Clark himself, Jonathan, Kara, Jor-El (who Minored In Ass Kicking), and his evil brother and Mad Scientist Zor-El. In Season 9, Martha became The Chessmaster, making the family complete.
  • The Luthors are a villainous example. Between Lionel, Lex, and Tess, they definitely count.
  • There is also Conner Kent, who is the clone of Lex and Clark.
• Badass in Distress:
  • Clark himself gets into easily as much distress as any other character. He has a more dedicated nemesis than anybody else on the show, a crippling weakness, and any number of people who want to capture him to exploit his powers/study the alien. Chloe and Lois have rescued him several times.
  • Several other superheroes are captured and in need of rescue, such as Aquaman and Oliver.
• Badass Longcoat: Clark's costume in Season 9; Lionel and Lex all the time.
• Bad Future: Lois visited one between seasons 8 and 9 in which Major Zod and his Kandorian army conquered Earth. We only get glimpses of it via her confused memories in season 9, until we finally get see it in "Pandora". Most of humanity either dead or enslaved, the Earth turned into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the Kent Farm—aka the homiest, warm and loving place on the show—being used as a gulag by the Kryptonian invaders, Green Arrow was shredded by a literal swarm of Kryptonians, and a very detailed shot of Alia impaling Chloe on a sword.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work:
  • The end of "Vortex". Nixon threatens to expose Clark to the world and there's nothing Jonathan can do about it... Lex and a bullet though...
  • "Checkmate": Both the Justice League and Zod have a bone to pick with Checkmate. Oliver and John get captured at different points, although they managed to escape. Chloe is also kidnapped and almost killed in an attempt to blackmail Clark into revealing more about their team. Zod simply comes over to visit and burns down their entire castle base with heat vision.
• Bathtub Scene:
  • In "Shimmer", Lex's girlfriend Victoria is taking a bubble bath when she's attacked by an invisible assailant who almost drowns her before Clark arrives and rescues her.
  • In "Persuasion", Tess is having a relaxing Candlelit Bath when Major Zod invades her bathroom to catch her in a moment of weakness. She turns the tables on him by acting unperturbed and nonchalantly climbing out of the tub right in front of him to prove she's not intimidated.
• Batman Gambit:
  • "Abyss": Brainiac started removing Chloe's memories, knowing that in his desperation, Clark would rebuild the Fortress to save her, which allows Brainiac to take over the Fortress, fully morph Davis into Doomsday and possess Chloe, which is another gambit as Brainiac knows Clark will never hurt Chloe even with Brainiac inside her.
  • The whole episode of "Roulette" is one courtesy of Chloe Sullivan, who's revealed to have hired the villain in order to get Oliver to return to heroism and did it right under Clark's nose. Like all things involving Oliver, it is of rather dubious morality. She claims she did what she had to do, and for the most part she anticipated Oliver's actions, but with Clark involved but not knowing the plan, it could go horribly wrong very easily.
  • Amanda Waller pulls off one in "Absolute Justice". It looks like she's having the members of the long-retired Justice Society of America killed as a continuation of the government frame that originally put them out of business. Reality is she's provoking the surviving JSA members to come out of retirement to get back in the game, and meet and inspire the new generation of superheroes, because of something coming that will cause the planet to need all of its heroes.
• Battle in the Rain: Clark vs. Zod in "Salvation".
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: The three main females characters: Dude Magnet Lana (beauty), Smart Girl Chloe (brain) and Military Brat Lois (brawn).
• Because Destiny Says So: Jor-El's favorite trope, apparently, everything he does is to ensure Clark becomes the destined champion and savior of Earth, as Superman.
• Behind the Black: Apparently Kryptonite only affects Clark when he can see it.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Soon after Lois joined the story, there was extremely heavy UST between Lois and Clark, starting with a Naked First Impression, and continuing throughout the middle seasons of the show. They were both clearly attracted to each other, but Lois's big-city girl personality would often clash with Clark's small-town guy and they would often get into arguments or antagonize each other.
• Beneficial Disease: In "Ryan", the titular character has a brain tumor that gives him telepathy. It's revealed to be fatal, however, and they are unable to reach an expert who could possibly save him before it's too late.
• Betrayal Insurance: Chloe has (or had) caches of Kryptonite stashed around the world. It is not clearly stated if it is for the Kandorians or Clark, but Clark is understandably upset when he finds out.
• Big Bad: Several, with most of the season's forming a Big Bad Ensemble.
  • Season 1 to 3 has Lionel Luthor as the overarching antagonist, although other secondary antagonists, like reporter Roger Nixon, Kal and Jor-El also took a stab at this role in each season respectively.
  • Season 4: Genevieve Teague, with her son Jason as The Dragon and Margaret Isobel Thoreaux as her archrival.
  • Season 5: Brainiac with General Zod as the Greater-Scope Villain he was seeking to unleash.
  • Season 6: Lex Luthor. Yeah. The Zoners are out there, and Bizarro's waiting in the wings, but Lex is The Heavy for the season, and is behind almost every problem in series.
  • Season 7: Lex and Brainiac form a Big Bad Duumvirate.
  • Season 8: The most complicated season, with a huge Big Bad Ensemble, including Tess Mercer, Faora, Lex, and Disc-One Final Boss Brainiac all vying for the role. All of them have their own agendas, and the complicated plans to back it up. Yet when the smoke clears it's Serial Killer and Antihero Davis Bloome and his Superpowered Evil Side Doomsday who step up to the plate as The Heavy, providing most of the drama in the season's latter half, and serving as the Final Boss to boot.
  • Season 9: Major Zod and his cloned Kandorian army, with Tess as a sometimes ally, and Checkmate trying to stop him.
  • Season 10: Darkseid, with Granny Goodness, Desaad, and Glorious Godfrey doing his dirty work. Rick Flag, Alexander, Earth-2 Lionel, and the real Lex are all competing for the title, but compared to Darkseid's ominous presence they just don't cut it.
  • The Season 11 continuation comics have Lex back and causing trouble again on a mostly regular basis, but also have a story arc dealing with the larger threat of the Monitors, who seek to impose order by destroying all life and have already succeeded with Earth-2.
  • The parallel-universe Lionel Luthor will seem to be even more evil and dangerous than his counterpart in the "original" universe was before he was changed by Jor-El.
• Big Bad Friend: This describes Lex Luthor for the first four seasons and intermittently afterward. Notable in that this isn't presented as a twist, but as a continuing theme throughout the series — he legitimately likes the protagonists, he just sees their demands that he stop digging up their secrets as a requirement to tell them he's stopped in the interest of courtesy (rather than a moral need to actually stop).
• Black Dude Dies First: The first person to die of chronic kryptonite exposure was a black guy. So was the second, for that matter.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The first few seasons of the show in Hungarian were shockingly badly translated. The official dubbing script was a shoddy Fansub that the translator got a hold of. Besides the amateurish translation work (that often left out plot-important details to boot), the dub also had some spelling goof-ups. The most infamous incident was the word "takarodó" (curfew) being misspoken as "takaród" (your blanket).
• Bling of War: In "Rogue", Lex shows Clark a breastplate that once belonged to Alexander the Great. In addition to looking strikingly like Superman's costume, it's made out of gold and crusted all over with sapphires and rubies.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead:
  • Chloe, Lois, and Tess, respectively.
  • Also, the Kent family, with Jonathan, Clark, and Martha.
• Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: Chloe in "Bride" and "Legion" after Doomsday attacks her wedding and it becomes a component of strong horror when she is possessed by Brainiac.
• Body Surf: Possession is one of the most common Plot Devices in Smallville, with various antagonists, minor and major, being able to possess or take control of other bodies, sometimes hopping from body to body during the course of an episode. Most of the main characters have been possessed multiple times by different beings.
  • Kryptonian, in general, are able to possess other bodies, which they refer to as a "vessel". This usually requires some sort of preparation ahead of time, often done by a third party. They usually are able to use their Kryptonian powers even while possessing another body.
  • Jor-El managed to make both Lionel (via being exposed to the Crystal of Water) and Jonathan (via a pact) as his vessels, and would often possess them for short periods of time to assist Clark.
  • "Spirit" has Alpha Bitch Dawn Stiles drives her car into a gorge which contained meteor rocks. She was put into a coma, but acquired the ability to travel out of her body and to transfer her spirit into other people through physical touch and ended up possessing the bodies of Lana, Martha, Lois, Chloe, and Clark.
  • The witches in season 4 are capable of possessing people via magic, with Lana becoming the vessel of of her ancestress Countess Isobel after touching her tomb, which allowed Isobel to possess Lana seemingly at will. In "Spell", Isobel (possessing Lana) uses her magic that allows the spirits of her fellow witches to possess Lois and Chloe. After Clark destroyed Isobel's spellbook, the possessions were all lifted. However, Isobel still had power over Lana and would resume to possess her in later episodes, until she finally exacted her revenge on her Arch-Enemy descendant and her spirit was finally laid to rest.
  • In "Tomb", Chloe becomes possessed by a teenager named Gretchen Winters after touching the kryptonite bracelet Gretchen was wearing the day she was murdered and Gretchen uses Chloe body to track down her killer. Once she finds him, Gretchen is able to transfer her spirit into him, when he touches the bracelet and then commits suicide with possessing him to enact her revenge, freeing her spirit.
  • Possessing another body is the most common way for criminals trapped in the Phantom Zone to escape, usually giving their host all the powers they previously had and leaving them with no memories about the time they spent possessed:
    • In Season Five, Brainiac prepares Lex Luthor to become a vessel for General Zod, which came to happen in the season 5 finale but Clark managed to return General Zod to the Phantom Zone using the Crystal of El, and Lex's possession is lifted, leaving him with no memories of his time as Zod.
    • In "Fallout, a phantom wraith named Baern possesses a human naked Lamar for several weeks, before being found by Clark and being sent back to the Phantom Zone, with his host left unharmed, but with no memories of the time he was possessed.
    • Bizarro had to hop from person to person, wearing each body out as he went. When he attempted to possess Clark, it resulted in the creation of a new, cloned body and he became Clark's Evil Twin instead and sought to Kill and Replace Clark.
    • In "Bloodline", Faora escapes the Phantom Zone by possessing Lois, but Kara eventually manages to cast Faora out of Lois' body.
  • "Escape" has the Silver Banshee as the Monster of the Week, an evil spirit that can possess other women that was released after Lois accidentally damaged her painting. Burning the painting banishes her back into the afterlife.
  • In "Isis", the cursed Amulet of Isis has Isis's soul trapped in it and if a person wears it and makes contact with the sunlight it allows Isis to possess the person, which in this episode turn out to be Lois.
  • Season 10 Big Bad Darkseid can possess any host that can't control the darkness in their heart.
• Book Ends:
  • An almost perfect example—in the "Pilot" episode, Lex rescues Clark from a prank of being strung up on a scarecrow post in the middle of a field. In the first episode of the last season, the Old Lex clone ties Lois up on the same post as bait for his and Clark's The Last Dance. The clone actually comments on this to both of them.
  • Also both the Season 1 premiere and finale feature a school dance and a natural disaster (though how natural the meteor shower was depends on how you look at it).
  • The Grand Finale. It starts with Chloe reading a Smallville comic book to her son, and not counting the obligatory final scene of Superman going off the save the world, it ended with her finishing the story and tucking him into bed.
• Bound and Gagged: This occurs often, especially to Lana and Clark, but the show seems to like convenient unconsciousness better. Plus, the bad guys usually need the captive to talk so the gagged part is rarer. Played straight with Chloe in "Checkmate", and Clark rescues her in an epic Bullet Time Stop Motion Lighting scene.
• Boys Like Creepy Critters: In "Metamorphosis", the Monster of the Week boy who was into bugs. His mother didn't know what he could do with such a hobby; apparently she's never heard of entomology.
• Brainwashed: Several villains have Mind Manipulation powers that are able to leave other characters Brainwashed and Crazy, Not Himself or enslaved to their will.
  • Jor-El is likely the most notable example, having brainwashed an innocent human girl into believing she was a Kryptonian, giving her new memories, Kryptonian-like abilities, and longevity, all so he could manipulate Clark. He also ends up doing it to Clark himself at the end of season 3, re-programming as Kal-El of Krypton, a more obedient version of Clark who fully embraces his destiny, although it doesn't stick past the first episode of season 4.
  • Moira Sullivan's Mind Control powers leave the person in a brainwashed state, she doesn't fully control them, only gives them orders. In "Odyssey", Moira's abilities have been manufactured into a serum that briefly leaves the person brainwashed.
  • "Heat" has the Monster of the Week using her Living Aphrodisiac powers to enslave men to her will.
  • In "Magnetic", the Monster of the Week uses his Magnetism Manipulation to leave Lana Brainwashed and Crazy.
  • "Delete" has Clark, Lana, Martha and Jonathan being brainwashed by the Monster of the Week's hypnotic e-mails and they all become Brainwashed and Crazy and attempt to murder Chloe violently.
  • "Hypnotic" has the Monster of the Week using a hypnotic gem to leave people under her thrall.
  • In "Persuasion," Clark accidentally brainwashed Lois when he unknowingly becomes infected by gemstone kryptonite, which gives wish-fulfilling properties.
  • Brainiac 5 inverts the Brainwashed and Crazy part, as he's is quite sane and nice after he is reprogrammed.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Earth-2 Lionel Luthor gives us this:
  "I'm from out of town. Unexpected visit. But I guess I'm back in the nick of time. Wouldn't want to miss how it all turns out."
• Brick Joke:
  • In "Fragile", Clark hopes to relate to the young budding artist and meteor freak of the week Maddie through her art — but he's a Terrible Artist. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that Maddie took Clark's drawing and did her best to improve on it.
  • In "Committed", after Clark and Lois find the Kinky Cuffs presumably prepared by Jimmy, Macy keeps his word and frees Jimmy and Chloe when they pass his test. Then Chloe realizes it's not over... when she sees the handcuffs.
• Broken Aesop:
  • At the end of "Unsafe", Martha lectures Clark on using better judgment about something he did while he was on red kryptonite, which impairs his judgment. Characters in the show are pretty consistently forgiven for things they did while they weren't themselves, including at the beginning of Season 3 when Clark comes home after a much longer bout with red kryptonite in Metropolis during which he was committing serious crimes. And for all of that he was on red kryptonite voluntarily, whereas in "Unsafe", Alicia gives it to him without his knowledge.
  • The moral of "Bound" seems to be that if you use women like a paper towel, it will come back to haunt you, even if you're rich. Problem is, it's not what plays out in the show; the women were shown to be perfectly willing parties, with the victim being the one who initiated the relationship. The episode seems to completely ignore that given Lex’s past relationships with women, it is perfectly understandable why he would opt for meaningless flings, but of the only two women who had a problem with this, the murderer and her victim both proved to be completely insane. The victim coming across as a stalker and the murderer trying to invoke Never My Fault.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Clark's female companions/Love Interests tend to play this role to his brooding boy on his bad days: Lana, Chloe, and Lois have all played this role at various times, and Lois ends up being the one who helps him move out of his formerly brooding ways completely by the end.
• Brought Down to Badass:
  • Clark is still badass even after being depowered. When a Kandorian woman brings blue Kryptonite with her and tries to kill him. Clark defends himself quite handily, even though he hasn't had the military combat training his opponent had.
  • Zod and his Kandorian army are still skilled combatants even though they don't have their powers for most of their screentime.
• Brought Down to Normal:
  • Clark ends up losing his powers several times through the course of the show. It never sticks. The longest it stuck was for three episodes, longer than it's ever stuck in a Superman series outside of the comics.
    • "Leech": A kid accidentally leeches Clark's power with Kryptonite and lightning and it's reversed in a similar manner
    • "Asylum": The same kid now purposely leeches off Clark's power with more Kryptonite and a power generator and once again it's reversed via the same method.
    • "Perry": Played with, as a solar flare causes Power Incontinence in Clark that leaves him powerless half the time, and even stronger the other half.
    • "Spell": Isobel and her witch coven use their magic to De-power Clark. He gets them back in the same episode when he touches the Crystal of Fire.
    • At the end of "Arrival", Jor-El takes away Clark's powers at the end of the episode, because Clark disobeyed Jor-El's orders to return to the Fortress before sundown. "Mortal" has Clark spend the entire episode without his powers, happy to pursue a normal life without a "Kryptonian destiny" and he still manages to save the day without his powers. In "Hidden" Clark's is fatally wounded, but Jor-El brings him Back from the Dead with all his powers, but at the price of having the life force of someone close to him in exchange. Clark is less than pleased.
    • Clark is powerless during his time in the Phantom Zone, in "Zod", "Bloodline" and Dominion, but his powers return after he escapes.
    • "Labyrinth": Played with; Clark gets trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine where he's made to believe he lost his powers.
    • "Blue": Clark is tricked into putting on a Blue Kryptonite ring that acts as a Power Limiter and they don't return until he manages to destroy it.
    • " Odyssey": Clark loses his powers when Lex places the Orb laced with blue kryptonite in the Fortress of Solitude console. They get restored when Martian Manhunter flies him into the heart of the yellow sun.
    • "Injustice": Parasite steals Clark's powers with a single touch. But he also gains Clark's weakness for Kryptonite, so he's easily defeated and returns Clark's powers.
    • "Pandora": In the Bad Future, Clark due to Zod's Solar tower that turns the yellow sun into a red sun.
    • "Harvest": Clark's powers are temporarily suppressed under the low-level radiation of blue kryptonite that resides in the bodies of Metropolis' citizens due to their water supply being infected by blue kryptonite.
    • "Prophecy": As a trial, Jor-El takes away Clark's powers and transfers them to Lois for a whole day.
  • Martian Manhunter was stuck without powers till Doctor Fate was able to restore his abilities.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S":
  • In "Rosetta", Clark meets Virgil Swann and discovers his Kryptonian heritage, it's made clear the "S" is the Kryptonian symbol for "hope". When Clark finally starts using the shield for a calling card (as The Blur) in later seasons, and in season 9 starts wearing a silver version on a black uniform, it therefore sort of counts as Brought To You By The Letter Hope.
  • When Lois Lane is briefly the superhero "Stiletto", she mentioned wanting to sew an "S" on her chest but thinks it is too tacky.
• Buffy Speak:
  • "Bug bites boy, and boy becomes bug boy!"
  • When Jimmy Olsen discovers Clark's secret:
    Jimmy: You're some kind of super... guy!
• Bullet Catch: Clark uses his powers to stop bullets every other episode, usually using his strength and speed to stop bullets and sometimes using his heat vision to destroy the bullets mid-flight. It only failed once, when his attacker was using Kryptonite bullets.
• Bullet Time: The "Clark time" when Clark goes into Super-Speed mode.
• Bullying a Dragon: In the episode "Rogue", a Dirty Cop who sees Clark using his powers uses that knowledge to blackmail him. Sure, Clark's Thou Shalt Not Kill philosophy prevents him from easily killing the guy with said powers, but he doesn't know that. All he knows is that Clark is tough enough to stop an out-of-control bus by stepping in front of it and strong enough to toss a generator across a room like a wad of paper. And yet, he keeps on provoking him and even threatening his family. Karmic Death took care of him.
• Buried Alive:
  • In "X-Ray", Psycho Lesbian Tina Greer does this to Lana. Clark frees her after she passes out.
  • In "Obscura", Chloe is also buried alive, but Clark manages to rescue her. She is later shown to be traumatized by the event. The man who did it was a cop who wanted the credit of finding her. Whether he would have done so before or after she died is unclear.
  • In "Fade", after Graham incapacitates Clark with Kryptonite, he buries him with it leaving him to die, but Chloe and Lois rescue him.
  • In "Harvest", an angry mob of crazed villagers do this to Clark, who has lost his powers from blue kryptonite exposure. Fortunately, the soil shields him enough from the kryptonite to give him back some of his strength, allowing him to break free.
• The Bus Came Back: Pete Ross returned for one episode in Season 7, and Lana returned partway through Season 8 for a small story arc. Kara in Season 8's "Bloodline" and Season 10's "Supergirl". Season 10 had practically every major character who had departed the show Back for the Finale during the season. Notably, Pete and Lana were the only living characters not to return during the season, whilst any other characters who didn't come back had been Killed Off for Real. Not that being dead managed to stop Jonathan, Lionel, and Lex from returning in some capacity.
• Busman's Holiday: Clark, Lois, Oliver, and Chloe all choose the Bed & Breakfast with the legend about a woman who felt so betrayed that she made a deal with the underworld and was allowed to walk among the living again to kill any man who crosses her path.
• But Now I Must Go:
  • "Justice" (in an awesome closing scene), "Requiem"
  • Episodes that introduce a Super Hero from The DCU end with this—"Run", "Aqua", and "Cyborg".

C

• Cain and Abel:
  • In Season 7, Lex ends up creating his own Cain and Abel, when it's revealed he made Grant Gabriel as a clone of his dead baby brother. When Grant discovers this, he becomes very angry and hateful of Lex. Grant tries to form a familial relationship with their father Lionel against Lex's wishes. So Lex hires a hitman to gun him down. Then Lex goes outside to scream in the rain.
  • Smallville also has Zor-El, Kara's father, who is antagonistic towards his brother Jor-El because of his love for Jor-El's wife Lara.
  • Lex and Clark have been billed as being in a Cain-and-Abel relationship since the very first episode, it seems. On Earth-2, Clark was adopted by Lionel Luthor and it didn't end well for Lex. And Lionel is OK with that because he believes in social Darwinism. However, Lionel was furious that his adoptive son hadn't killed him yet, as should be expected. After coming to "our" universe, he soon began to miss his son and planned to revive "our" Lex. Which he did.
  • Lex ultimately ends up the Cain to yet another sibling: younger half-sister Tess Mercer, who he murders in the Grand Finale. His reasoning is that it's a version of a Mercy Kill so that she doesn't end up like him, but few people buy that; he almost definitely killed her so that she was out of his way, since at the time she had control of LuthorCorp.
• California University: Smallville almost did this. Clark and Lana were supposed to be attending the fictional Central Kansas A&M, which was close to Smallville. But then Clark discovered that his professor was a super-powered alien robot from another galaxy bent on world domination, which derailed his studies. He dropped out, ostensibly temporarily, but then the whole college storyline was just quietly forgotten, and Clark somehow managed to become a newspaper reporter with a half-semester of education under his belt. ...So really, this is a near-miss trope.
• Call-Back:
  • "Asylum" has several past villains reappear when the action enters Belle Reve.
  • In "Onyx", Alexander and Lionel's fencing match echoes the one between Lex and Lionel in Season 1's "Hothead".
  • Near the end of "Ageless", when Evan tells Clark he's lucky he was found by him, Clark replies "I don't think we found you; I think you found us," echoing Martha's words to Jonathan in "Pilot" after they found Kal-El.
  • "Justice":
    • Lex and Oliver refer to the time they shot each other in the chest in "Rage".
    • Bart continues to flirt with Chloe from "Run", although this time she maintains that she already has a boyfriend. Clark tells him to knock it off just like last time.
    • Clark mentions twice to Oliver that he needs to take care of a problem he caused, referring to the release of several Phantom Zone prisoners.
    • When Victor and AC walk out to reveal themselves in Oliver's clock tower, Victor says to Chloe, "I guess we're not that good at the whole secret part of this yet," to which she responds "Yeah, but you're great at getting caught by the villian". Both Victor and AC did indeed get caught by Lex and needed to be rescued by Clark in "Cyborg" and "Aqua".
    • In "Scion", while confronting Conner (who's on Red Kryptonite), Clark tells him "You're coming home with me," the exact same words that Jonathan said to him in the final scene of "Exile" while he was on Red Kryptonite.
• Call-Forward: As mentioned elsewhere, this happens constantly and in spades. Though it comes up rather naturally. Properly the most notable one is Clark becoming Superman, Lois and Clark hooking up, and Lex becoming the villain. However, there were twists that did come out of nowhere, such as Conner Kent in Season 10 and Jonathan Kent dying in Season 5 but do occur if you have seen the right clue.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Jor-El knows more than where Clark lives. He is perfectly fine in (usually indirectly) harming his loved ones if it drives him to fulfill his destiny. Like freezing Chloe half to death in "Arrival" and intending to trap Clark in the Fortress until everyone he loves is dead in "Gemini".
• Canon Character All Along: Zig-Zagging Trope with Chloe Sullivan who, when she writes her first piece for the Daily Planet, uses her cousin's Lois Lane's name as her nom de plume - setting up that Chloe is the Smallville-verse Lois. But later in the series Lois proper shows up. Chloe does become that universe's analogue of Oracle.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • At Comic-Con 2010, it was announced that Chloe Sullivan had become part of the official DC Superman comics.
  • Played straight with Lionel Luthor, who is now canonically Lex's father. Lionel, and John Glover's portrayal of him, resonated so well that he was written into the comics as Lex's canonical (and deceased) father. While Lex had obviously always had a (deceased by the time of the "present-day") father, this character had never had a consistent name or physical appearance and usually had no importance. But ever since Smallville, Lex's father is explicitly named "Lionel Luthor" and flashback scenes have depicted him as looking very similar to the actor. A zombified, Black Lantern version of Lionel even showed up for revenge against Lex in Blackest Night.
  • Besides characters, various elements from Smallville that have made their way into the comics include the Smallville version of Green Arrow's costume which—as of the New 52—is now Ollie's official costume. Also, Oliver's clean-shaven appearance from Smallville has made its way into the comics as of the New 52 (these last two changes can be attributed to the fact that Smallville's version of Ollie is probably the best-known version to the general public). Also the idea of Lex Luthor spending time in Smallville during Clark's teenage years—though originally an idea from the Silver Age Superboy comic books that was retconned away at the start of the Post-Crisis era—was brought back into continuity largely thanks to Smallville. And more, Ma and Pa Kent in the comics have started to look like older versions of Annette O'Toole and John Schneider, even though it often depends on the artist.
  • As of Geoff Johns's Superman: Secret Origin miniseries, Smallville's idea of a young Clark learning how to use his powers while secretly defending the citizens of Smallville from meteor freaks is now officially part of Superman's backstory in the comics.
  • Black Kryptonite and its Literal Split Personality properties first appeared on Smallville and rather quickly made it's way into the comics, most notably appearing in Jeph Loeb's run on Supergirl.
• Cape Busters:
  • LuthorCorp's "Level 3/ Project 33.1" is an ongoing effort started by Lex to produce Super Soldiers to defend humanity from Meteor Freaks and aliens, and incidentally to help Lex secure his power base.
  • Season 9 introduced Checkmate who wanted all the metahumans either dead or under the control of the US government.
  • Season 10 introduced the Smallville version of Deathstroke as an army colonel who wanted to use the Vigilante Registration Act as a justification to capture and experiment on metahumans.
• Captain Ersatz: The show has Captain Ersatzes for a shockingly-large number of DC characters. Ironically several of them would actually be introduced in the season 11 comics.
  • Pete Ross ended up becoming a Captain Ersatz of Plastic Man (or Jimmy Olsen as Elastic Lad)
  • Adam Knight is one to a young Bruce Wayne, due to his status as an orphan who shows skills in diverse areas as martial arts and computer hacking and has an emotionally distant personality.
  • Gloria in "Wither" was one to Poison Ivy, with her talent for seduction, control over plants and overall valuing vegetation over human life.
  • Vordigan is one to Merlyn, as Green Arrow's Evil Mentor who both go under the tile of "the Dark Archer".
  • "Warrior":
    • Lois is shown cosplaying as an in-universe Captain Ersatz of Wonder Woman.
    • That same episode has a boy transformed by a magic comic book into Warrior Angel. Whereas Warrior Angel was always an Expy of Superman (with his nemesis Devilicus as an Expy for Lex), this "Warrior Angel" was a clear one of Captain Marvel.
• Cartwright Curse: Clark's Temporary Love Interest Kyla and Alicia both died after being involved with him.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Several people who know Clark's secret have been committed to a mental hospital, and so their claims aren't believed. Pete also once tried to expose Clark but predictably failed.
  • Lex's story of being possessed by an alien warlord is also ridiculed.
• Casual Crucifixion: Clark is basically crucified in the first episode as part of Smallville High's yearly "Scarecrow" hazing prank, and Lex Luthor (on friendly terms with Clark at this point) shows up to rescue him. Of course, Clark was only in this position because he was made to wear Lana's Kryptonite necklace, and Lex unknowingly dislodges it during the rescue. Once it's off, Clark switches right back to being, well, Clark.
• Cataclysm Climax:
  • "Tempest": The season 1 finale has a tornado hits Smallville.
  • "Commencement": The season 4 finale has another meteor shower hitting the town.
  • "Vessel": The Season 5 finale has Brainiac unleashing a computer virus that causes all technology on Earth to shut down, causing mass hysteria.
• Celebrity Star: The show had a lot of musical guests. Whenever The WB has a new album being released by a big or up and coming music group, that group will always end up in Smallville for a show, no matter how much of a stretch or departure from the main plot it is.
• Character Development:
  • Clark and Lex start as friends, but fall apart as Clark grows into a superhero and Lex into a supervillain.
  • Likewise, Clark and Lois, who initially found each other's company difficult, grow closer as they both discover their journalistic callings and shared passion for justice.
  • Lana changes from Damsel in Distress to Action Girl in the very later seasons. Of course, it's not always consistent.
  • Chloe is an outstanding example of Character Development. In the early seasons, she was rash, impulsive, and always eager to expose the truth about everything. When she got extremely jealous of Clark and Lana's relationship, she made an ill-advised deal with Lionel to spy on him as revenge, though she quickly regretted it. A year-long Break the Cutie Story Arc and a ton of character growth in Season 3 made Chloe become more mature as time went on. Season 4 opened with Chloe and her father living in hiding as part of the fallout of her actions a year earlier. Eventually, they were able to come out of hiding. By the time Chloe learned Clark's secret in mid-Season 4, she had matured to the point where she told no one, not even telling Clark himself that she knew, choosing to allow him to tell her when he was ready. In Season 5, once Clark knew she had discovered his secret, she became a valuable sidekick and helped him save the day on many occasions.
  • Lionel, too. At the beginning of the series, he was The Chess Master and Season 3 featured him as the show's true villain, while Lex during these seasons was a somewhat dark but generally good man. By the time both Luthors exited the show in Season 7, Lex had transitioned all the way to The Dark Side, while Lionel had been redeemed by Clark.
  • Cat Grant (the one introduced in Season 10, not Season 9) went through this as well, as she comes to appreciate The Blur in "Booster".
• Character Shilling: Lana spent the first several years of the show's run being the girl everyone was in love with; she was Clark's long-term hopeless crush, the object of several villain's twisted affection (so that Clark could rescue her every week or so), and everyone else's bestest friend. All of the praise heaped upon the character couldn't hide the fact that she really wasn't all that amazing and would often indulge in petty behavior and she started coming off as the Creator's Pet or even The Scrappy to a portion of the fanbase.
• Character Title: The One-Word Title episode names frequently refer to a key character in the episode, either the villain or the Special Guest character.
• Chekhov's Gun: Plenty throughout the series run:
  • The Kryptonian device put in the time capsule in "Fierce", would later becomes an important Plot Device in "Persona".
  • Pamela Jenkins, a former nanny of Lex's who made a single appearance in the season 1 episode "Crush", is revealed in Season 10 to be Tess Mercer's biological mother.
  • In "Icarus", Lois escapes from Slade's soldiers in the Daily Planet building by using the escape tube in Tess' office, which was established as existing a season earlier.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Tess is REALLY good at doing this. Whenever she's plotting something, or something she plotted has come through, she'll pull one of these. Somewhat subverted, in that she does have a genuine smile she can use when happy, and her intentions are always for the greater good, but when plotting, her smile can be downright scary.
• Chess Motifs: Checkmate, an agency introduced in Season 9 that attempts to weaponize superpowered beings, uses chess terms and puns. Their leaders are codenamed "White Queen" and "Black King", Mooks are called pawns, etc. Their base even has black and white squares all over the place.
• Chick Magnet:
  • Clark Kent attracts several girls during the course of the show due to his good looks and good-natured personality. From main characters like Chloe, Lana, Lois and Tess, to minor characters like Zatanna, Maxima, Vala, Alicia and Kyla. In "Infamous", he becomes a celebrity In-Universe and gains his share of crazy fangirls. Due to his low self-esteem, he never seems to notice it.
  • Lex and Oliver are both charming and witty guys that frequently act like The Casanova and attract several beautiful women.
• Childhood Friend Romance:
  • Clark and Lana had been classmates since childhood, with Clark harboring a crush on her. Eventually, they hook up but they ultimately don't work out.
  • Chloe Sullivan was one of Clark's closest friends since the eighth grade and has a crush on him, though she eventually matures out of it, similar to how Clark himself grew out of his former crush on Lana.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • Season 2 introduces Henry Smalls who is Lana's biological father. The two try to have a relationship for a while before Henry decides to focus on repairing his marriage. Henry is never seen nor mentioned after Season 3.
  • The second episode of Season 6 had a Queen Industries employee named Wagner whom Oliver hired to kidnap Lex and find out how he acquired superpowers in the Season 6 premiere. Wagner is never seen nor mentioned after this one episode.
• Christmas Episode:
  • "Lexmas" centered on Lex's "perfect" dream in which he is married with Lana, with a young boy and expecting a girl, and Clark is with Chloe. He gives up the senator race but wins the Humanitarian award of the year, and is on excellent terms with everyone except Lionel, but who cares? At least, not until the dreaded Dream Apocalypse...
  • "Gemini" also takes place around Christmas, but the festival tones are much less prevalent. Other than the bit with the secret Santa putting a bomb in Chloe's handbag...
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
  • Brainiac, unless you are Zod, working with him will end up with you getting backstabbed.
  • During season 8, Chloe successfully manages to stab Clark, Jimmy (her fiance and then husband), and villain Davis in the back almost simultaneously. Then in Season 9, she implements Orwellian measures against Clark's will, ostensibly to "protect Metropolis." This includes putting up cameras in Clark's house and casually mentioning that she spends large chunks of the day surfing through everyone in Metropolis's cell phone conversations.
  • Tess Mercer. By season 9, there's really no reason for anyone on any side to believe anything she says. She manages to go the entirety of Season 10 on the Face side of things without actively betraying anyone. The other characters are aware that she is this trope, though, because whenever something bad happens, they accuse her of turning on them.
    Chloe: At this rate, you're gonna run out of people to betray.
• The City Narrows: The seedy part of Metropolis is called Suicide Slums.
• Civvie Spandex:
  • The nascent Justice League members dress in either casual clothes with Cool Shades and hoodies that make them look like the League of Unabombers, or color-coded sports gear. Clark always did his thing in red-and-blue civvies, until season 9 when he adopted "The Blur" persona.
  • Black Canary's look is pretty close to the comic version save shorter hair and facepaint shaped like a domino mask, though the fact that her costume consists of a rather Stripperiffic outfit with fishnets is most likely the cause.
  • Green Arrow goes full-out in this mode in the Season 10 episode "Beacon". Wisely, because at that point both his civilian AND his superhero identity were among the most-wanted by the Vigilante Registration Act officers. He adopts a basic hoodie in order to fight crime (as well as just to set foot outdoors in general).
• Clark Kenting:
  • The show is defined by its "No Tights, No Flights" rule, so strictly speaking, there’s no "Superman" identity. In the appropriately-named "Identity", Jimmy Olsen accidentally catches Clark saving him and Lois on camera, but Clark is moving too quickly to be seen clearly. Chloe encourages him to adopt a superhero identity, the "Red-Blue Blur, as that’s all anyone could see. Clark uses this strategy to protect his identity. By "Masquerade", he has also adopted his "bespectacled wimp" persona.
  • Oliver Queen dresses up like Robin Hood for a party in "Wither". Then in the next episode, "Arrow", the Green Arrow (Oliver in disguise) steals a necklace at a party. Lois, of course, doesn't see a connection.
  • "Homecoming" has a scene where Clark meets his future self and is taken aback by the glasses and slicked-back hair.

• Cliffhanger: Every Season Finale up until the Grand Finale ends with one. Usually with major characters in mortal peril.
• Cliffhanger Copout: The season 3 finale "Covenant" ends with Chloe's house exploding the instant she closes the door upon entering it, but a flashback in the second episode of Season 4, "Gone", shows her escaping, with the time between closing the door and the explosion miraculously expanding to fit Lex's men getting her to safety.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Chloe was this during early seasons, to the point where, by her own admission later on, she was willing to sell Clark out to Lionel Luthor after she saw him with Lana. "Devoted" centered on her being slipped a "Love Potion" which made all who drank it this trope temporarily, during which she tried to kill her cousin Lois in a jealous rage. Thankfully, she outgrows this mindset and becomes a more mature person as the show goes on.
• C-List Fodder: In the early days of Smallville, they used the Body of the Week more, but slowly more C-list fodder is Killed Off for Real. Not counting one-episode characters, or we'll be here all day.
  • Season 1: Lewis & Laura Lang (appeared in flashbacks), Principal Kwan.
  • Season 2: Roger Nixon, Steven Hamilton, Ryan James, Tina Greer, Dr. Walden.
  • Season 3: Morgan Edge, Ian Randall, Pete Dinsmore, Frank Loder.
  • Season 4: Alicia Baker, Bridgette Crosby, Genevieve and Jason Teague.
  • Season 5: Sheriff Nancy Adams.
  • Season 6: Raya, Dr. Langston.
  • Season 7: Sasha Woodman, Agent Carter, clone Lara and Zor-El, Patricia Swann, Gina, Edward Teague.
  • Season 8: Regan Matthews, Linda Lake. While this season has the highest body count thanks to Doomsday being around, tons of it are one-episode appearances or even unnamed.
  • Season 9: Alia (twice, It Makes Sense in Context), clone Jor-El, Basqat, Doctor Fate, Faora, Zod may have killed more of the C-List Checkmate agents offscreen.
  • Season 10: Hawkman, Earth-2 Lionel Luthor.
• Clones Are People, Too: Alexander Luthor is considered his own person in Smallville, and not just a clone of Lex. Tess even raises him as her own son in an attempt to keep him from turning out like his progenitor. Eventually we find out that half of his DNA comes from Clark and he changes his name to Conner Kent, becoming like Clark's little brother.
• Clothes Make the Maniac: Clark has stumbled upon jewelry made of red kryptonite at least three times, usually to the detriment of his personality.
• Clothes Make the Superman: The "Prometheus Suit" is a Nanomachine skin graft that is capable of providing Super-Strength and Super-Speed to its wearer. It was made by LuthorCorp for Lex, but Lana convinces the scientist in charge to give it to her instead.
• Clothing Damage: This happens a few times with Clark, since while Clark is Nigh-Invulnerable, the clothes he wears aren't. In "Witness", some villains throw him into a furnace and lock him in; once they're gone he emerges, clearly without clothes, but unharmed.
• Coconut Superpowers:
  • The show was guilty of this where Clark was concerned. While his powers were mostly physical, so not too budget straining, there was a reason that he very rarely flew and didn't actually master the power until the finale.
  • This also had an effect on which characters they could use or what they could do with them. Darkseid was famously reimagined as a non-corporeal entity that possessed others since the show didn't have the budget to satisfyingly depict him as a Serkis Folk or a practical rubber monster. Some characters had their power reimagined to be more manageable like Mr. Mxyzptlk's Reality Warper power changing to Mind Control.
  • This is why the sequel comic, Smallville Season 11, proved so popular. It not only featured Clark finally cutting loose and using his powers in ways the show couldn't afford, but also had him interact with characters who could not have been done properly on live television, like John Stewart and the Green Lantern Corps, or the Monitors.
• Colony Drop: Apokolips comes within a few miles of impacting Earth before Clark, as Superman, pushes it away].
• Color Motif: Early episodes also liked to use primary colors for anything related to Clark Kent, hinting at his future as Superman. It was also done for environments. The town of Smallville—and the Kent Farm, in particular—were given very warm tones, while Metropolis was portrayed for many seasons through a bluish filter to give the sense that pre-Superman Metropolis was a much more cold and uncaring place.
  Jessie: [about Clark] Who's the hottie in the primary colors?
  Chloe: [about Kara] I should have known you were Clark's cousin, what with all the primary colors.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Clark's (and Kara's) primary colors, against Lex's more muted or darker colors.
  • Clark (Red Jacket/Blue Top) and Bizarro (Blue Jacket/Red Top).
    • Though something of a subversion, since Clark has been shown in the blue jacket/red shirt combo on several previous occasions. The actual episode with both Clark and Bizarro play it straight, once we know that they're both active.
  • Kryptonite affects Clark differently depending on what color it is.
  • In Season 8, Clark only wore red and blue when operating as a hero. In Season 9, after declaring himself "dead" [[spoiler: after the death of Henry "Jimmy" Olsen and disappearance of Lois,]] he wears black, the color he wore as Kal-El in the Season 4 opener.
  • Lana wore baby pink and baby blue for the first three seasons of the show. Then she switched to black the season she gets possessed by an evil witch. Then she started wearing either all black or all white as her character got more morally ambiguous in the later seasons.
  • The proto-Justice League that forms about halfway through the series. Clark (obviously) in red and blue, Green Arrow (again, obviously) in green, Cyborg in silver, Aquaman in orange, Impulse in red.
• Combat Pragmatist: Clark, especially when he fights without powers. To elaborate, Clark often uses his Super-Speed to sneak up on people to attack them. Often justified in that he DOES have to keep his identity secret. In episodes where his powers are removed, Clark turns out to be quite the battle strategist, actually.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: DC Comics, not surprisingly, published about a dozen issues of its own Smallville comic book.
• Composite Character:
  • Chloe has several aspects taken from Lois Lane (Being an Intrepid Reporter) and Lana Lang (Being part of Clark's crew along with Pete and being his closest confidant and Secret-Keeper), this is despite both Lois and Lana being part of the cast. In later seasons she also took aspects from Oracle, both being tech experts that become the Mission Control and information broker to the members of the superhero community.
  • Tess Mercer is a combination of Mercy Graves (Lex Luthor's assistant from Superman: The Animated Series), Miss Tessmacher (One of Lex's underlings from Superman: The Movie), and Lena Luthor (Lex's sister from the comics). In the Season 11 comics she becomes Red Tornado, essentially the New 52 Brain Uploading Gynoid version of the Tornado decomposited from Earth-2 Lois and composited onto Tess.
  • Smallville's version of Green Arrow is essentially Oliver Queen filling Bruce Wayne's role in the DC Universe. Like the comics' Green Arrow, he's a Badass Normal vigilante from Star City with a Robin Hood-themed M.O. and an arsenal of deadly arrows. Like Batman, he's the main force behind the founding of the Justice League and Clark's closest ally in the superhero community. ^note  This was likely done because the producers of Smallville couldn't get the television rights to Batman. They only made Smallville in the first place because they couldn't make a series about a young Bruce Wayne, as they'd originally intended.
  • The Star-Spangled Kid is Sylvester Pemberton, but sports a Badass Long Coat and Cosmic Staff like the Jack Knight version of Starman.
  • While his true name is Bart Allen and he is eventually given the codename Impulse, he's advertised as The Flash for his debut episode, and is a composite of all of them: his fake ID cards have the names Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West.
  • Smallville's version of Slade Wilson combines elements of Deathstroke (His physical appearance and ability as a swordsman) with General Wade Eiling (His position as a patriot General Ripper with a vendetta against vigilantes).
  • The comic book continuation introduces a version of Batman's archenemy The Joker, who in this continuity is an evil version of Bruce Wayne from another reality, which makes him similar to Batman's Crime Syndicate counterpart Owlman.
• Compressed Vice: Pete's sudden interest in building and racing cars in "Velocity" despite never talking about it before.
• Consulting a Convicted Killer: After someone frames Lex for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Clark visits Lex's father in prison, wondering if he somehow managed to orchestrate this from behind bars. Lionel denies involvement, but he does help Clark figure out the killer's identity, another one of Lex's exes.
• Contagious Powers: Everyone—EVERYONE—on the show has at one point or another gotten (and lost!) powers from: Kryptonite, genetic engineering, holding onto Clark and Kryptonite simultaneously during a lightning strike, Jor-El, Kryptonian technology, possession by someone with powers or mystically. In fact, it happens to Chloe FOUR times and three times to Lana.
• Continuity Nod: The show generally has made nods to virtually every major era/incarnation of Superman. Ideas from the Byrne reboot, the Silver Age, the Donnerverse, Superman: The Animated Series, the current comics era, and several new ideas have been blended together and all manage to co-exist on Smallville.

• Convection, Schmonvection: In "Metamorphosis", Clark saves Whitney from a fireball by covering his back with his body. We actually see the fireball engulfing Whitney's uncovered front, and we are shown that the blast super-heats Clark's body to the point that his father is burned just by touching him, but Whitney is fine... somehow. Actually, the same kind of "fireball rescue" happens often enough that the show might as well be saying that Clark can extend his Nigh-Invulnerability to someone else by hugging them.
• Cool Car: Lex Luthor, naturally. He is always driving a car that is fast, pricey and, most of all, cool.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive:
  • Lionel Luthor and later, his son Lex. Much like his hair follicle-challenged son in the Superman timeline, his agribusiness LuthorCorp has plenty of underworld connections: Lionel killed his parents in a staged 'accident' and used the insurance payout as a startup for his company. (This backstory was borrowed from the post-Crisis Lex Luthor.) His friend and partner in crime was Morgan Edge, who of course later went on to become a major kingpin in Intergang. LuthorCorp functions as a standard soap opera antagonist in the series, meddling in small-town politics and running clandestine mutant research in underground labs.
  • Tess Mercer, who replaced the Luthors at the company's helm, is a different variation: a well-intentioned ecoterrorist who used her position to try and order around Clark Kent, her chosen messiah. (Of course, saying that she "replaced" the Luthors isn't really accurate since she is a Luthor.) Once she does a Heel–Face Turn to join Clark's team, she actually uses her habits of this in almost a Token Evil Teammate way to help the JLA out (mostly by using LuthorCorp to fund things just like Oliver does, and using her position as Clark's and Lois's boss to cover for them).
  • Then there's Earth-2 Lionel, who managed to combine this trope with Diabolical Mastermind, fusing LuthorCorp with the Metropolis underworld and essentially becoming The Emperor.
  • "Hug" had corrupted executive Bob Rickman as the Monster of the Week, that have "Kryptonite handshakes" that persuade anyone to do whatever they want them to do, usually involving his shady business deals.

• Crash-Into Hello: A rather twisted version. For starters, Lex is driving a car when he crashes into Clark. This not only is the start of their friendship, but increasingly contributes to Lex's obsession with Clark.
• Crapsack World: "Luthor" has an establishing shot of Earth-2, home of Clark... Luthor (Ultraman). What would be the results of the Luthors adopting Clark? Seriously, what could go wrong? Well...◊.
• Create Your Own Villain: Lionel eventually becomes a better person... only to realize (too late) that his horrible parenting and the amoral value system he instilled in Lex over the years have finally borne fruit, and while Lionel is on his way to redemption, Lex is on his way to becoming an even more terrifying person than Lionel ever was. Ultimately, this comes back to bite Lionel.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Clark gets this trope on occasion. It starts in "Pilot" when he's strung up as the Scarecrow in a very literal crucifixion, he gets another in "Hidden" after being shot by Gabriel, and in "Salvation" after being stabbed by Zod with blue kryptonite. As Superman can be seen as a Jesus allegory, this makes sense.
  Lex: Clark, they left you tied to a stake in the middle of a field. Even the Romans saved that for special occasions.
• Cuckoo Nest: "Labyrinth"
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The vast majority of villains get one of these at the hands of Clark. Really, most episodes revolve around him having to find out who the villain is and/or figure out how to separate them from their chunk of Kryptonite. Once that's done, everything goes into slow motion, Clark walks up to the motionless bad guy, and takes them down with one punch. Or finger-flick.
• Curb Stomp Cushion:
  • Clark vs Titan. With Titan being Strong and Skilled, he is able to deliver some pretty good hits, leaving Clark roughed up, and though Clark ultimately ends up winning, he still gives a good fight.
  • Clark's final fight with Zod is this. Clark has greatly improved his fighting prowess compared to when he was curb-stomped by Zod, but ultimately months of training is insufficient to deal with Zod's years of experience. He gives it a pretty good shot, managing to down Zod and land some good hits and even disarm him, but he only wins because he lets Zod stab him so Zod will be sent to New Krypton.

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