"You'll believe a man can fly!" - The End of Smallville (some spoilers)

"You'll believe a man can fly!"

That was a tagline for Superman: The Movie back in '78. When I went and watched that movie, I was 5. At that age, due to the reading and story selection my mother provided, I was already well on my way to believing a few important things, including the idea that one man can make a difference, and that America was worth a life (if you follow The Destroyer, you see where that one might have come from). Did Superman make me believe a man could fly? Well duh! I was 5. Of course it did!

Superman wasn't a perfect movie, and I know that now (when I'm 38) it is not as magical as it was then. But Christopher Reeve was Superman as far as I was concerned. He set the bar for the performance of both Superman and Clark Kent. This has been a truth for as long as I can remember.

Until now.

Now, Tom Welling is Superman in my mind. Partially because it was 2 movies (there were only 2 Superman movies. Shut up! I'm not to listening to you! Next you'll try and tell me there was a Highlander 2!) compared to 10 years or Smallville (10 years! Can you believe that?)  Partially it's because at times, Welling has done a masterful job of channeling Reeve in his performance (It's a truth that without the Superman movies, Smallville would be a very different show). Watch the recent episodes of Smallville. At one point, Clark pushes his glasses up, and you'll think he was possessed by the spirit of Christopher Reeve. But mainly, it's because after years of dicking around with it, touching on it peripherally (I squealed when the see-the-future-kid had a vision of the cape going on forever), the makers of Smallville spent the last couple of seasons thinking "This show is about the birth of Superman. It needs more Superman, less Dawson's Creek".  I'm not slamming on Dawson's Creek btw. I caught an ep of that by accident one day and I was hooked all the way to the finale. And it’s not like the Dawson's Creek aspect of Smallville was a surprise that we didn't know was coming. They never hid the fact that it was teen drama with super powers.

But Smallville changed showrunners a couple of years ago, and the new guys got it. The story lines changed a bit, the characterization became stronger, the comic book aspects were made much more prominent, and the photography (which has always been pretty good) became wonderful. They realized they could experiment a bit with the filming, resulting in some of the coolest shots ever in television (and movies and comics). Did they make the show perfect? Obviously not. They still had dictates from on high, a core mission statement, and 8 years of baggage to deal with. But I didn't expect perfect. Even B5 wasn't perfect (B5 is my benchmark for TV shows for the most part).

But they got it.

They realized they were dealing with an American mythology. Our Hercules, our Jesus, our iconic immigrant. And they worked hard to bring that myth to life every week on our little screens. And they failed sometimes. Hard. At other times, they succeeded, wonderfully.

The series finale of Smallville aired recently (probably spoilers ahead). And it was a Smallville episode to the very end. It had all those Smallville elements. Relationship drama that makes you want to smack people and say "Quit being idjits!" Moments of character interaction that could make you roll your eyes, but instead you go Hell yeah! (Clark purged Oliver with his words! Cheesy? Oh yeah. Awesome because Clark just rocks that much? Oh yeah). A supers fight that just didn't deliver? Yep. Some absolutely beautiful visuals? Oh my yes. Tear-jerking interaction with characters that probably shouldn't have even been there? Yep (you know you shed a tear or two up when the ghost of Pa Kent handed Clark the costume and said "Always hold onto Smallville" even if you were also wondering WTF the ghost of Pa Kent was doing there in the first place). A sense of almost-but-not-quite grandeur? In spades.

But for whatever flaws it had, none were so big or so glaring as to make it less fun for me. I know some people were expecting some kind of knock-down drag-out fight with Superman and Darkseid as the climax. I know some folks think Superman throwing the planet was a letdown. "WTF is this shit?" some wonder. And while I accept that some people just wanted a big ol' fight (in any other episode I would have wanted the same), I honestly believe some viewers simply didn't get it and haven't been paying attention.

The point they've been hammering in isn't that Superman is more powerful than a locomotive or faster than a speeding bullet. There have been other characters as powerful if not more so than him on the program. The point they hammered in is that this was a world in need of hope. A world that needed someone they could look up to as a guiding light. The climax was never meant to be a tremendous fight between Superman and some evil bent on world conquest/destruction/control of water rights (That was a classic old school villain plan BTW. Brilliant I thought!) The climax was that when the despair and lack of hope in the people nearly brought the world to its metaphorical knees, one man with the power, the conviction, and the goodness he learned from his adopted people, stepped up and showed them that there was hope. There was someone who, in the face of Armageddon (or Apokolips in this case), would fight for them, and would save them. He'll never stop, never surrender, and never give up on them.

He's Alien Jesus and he made them believe a man could fly.

The knock-down drag-outs are for later movies, cartoons, or another series. This was about him becoming the symbol, and in that, the show succeeded spectacularly. Now for those of you who did get it but simply wanted something different. That sucks. After Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda, I understand what it's like for a show to just let you down completely. I hope you find other things that deliver for you.

I sincerely hope that there are some youngsters out there who watched this, maybe even grew up with it, and came away with the same feeling of possibility that the movie gave to me.

This is a thank you for 10 years of laughs, tears, and thrills. For bringing back some of that magic that once allowed me to believe that a man could fly.