‘Smallville’ at 15: An imperfect Superman show, but the best Clark Kent story ever told

For 10 seasons, Tom Welling’s Clark Kent stood for truth, justice, and teen melodrama on “Smallville”.

On May 13, 2011 — 15 years ago to this day — the popular DC show concluded with a fist-pumping final scene where Clark rips open his shirt to display the iconic Superman logo while John Williams’ unmistakable score rings like a battle cry. The perfect ending to an imperfect series that treated canon like a piñata, beating the tar out of it until it resembled whatever the showrunners wanted. Yet, at its core, it’s still the most human story about the man beneath the Man of Steel.

Created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the show that would become “Smallville” started off as a vehicle for Bruce Wayne, not Clark Kent. As “Gotham” would do years later, there was a plan to follow a younger Bruce’s journey from billionaire orphan to every criminal’s worst nightmare as Batman. Warner Bros. put a pin in that idea, though, and there was a pivot to do something similar for Superman.

Part superhero series, part teen drama, the show spotlights a teenage Clark living with his loving adopted parents — Jonathan (John Schneider) and Martha Kent (Annette O’Toole) — all the way to him becoming a reporter (albeit an unreliable and flaky one) for the Daily Planet. It’s both a coming-of-age and coming-of-powers story, but it doesn’t put the character in the famous costume until the very end. Even though Clark often wears red and blue clothing as an allusion to his alter ego, he isn’t zipping around as the Man of Steel throughout the episodes. The reason is simple: this show is about Clark – not Superman.