October 15, 2001

Superman: New teen titan bolsters franchise

At first glance, the WB Network's "Smallville" seems to have more in common with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Roswell" than "Batman and Robin" in that the new series follows a teenager with a secret legacy who is confronted by bizarre goings-on in a seemingly tranquil town.

But the name of "Smallville's" teen hero — Clark Kent — is a big clue that the program offers the latest reimagining of a very old superhero franchise. Yes, he's that Clark Kent, the bespectacled alter ego of one of pop culture's most enduring icons, Superman, but this time around, he will sport neither his trademark eyewear nor his counterpart's signature red and blue tights.

Like UPN's latest "Star Trek" series, "Enterprise," "Smallville," which debuts Tuesday, jettisons many of its parent franchise's familiar trappings in a bid to lure new fans. There's no Metropolis, Lois Lane or Daily Planet; instead, the series will explore Clark Kent's trials and tribulations as he discovers his special abilities as a young man.

"It's a reintroduction of the character for an older audience and a new introduction for a younger audience," WB president of entertainment Jordan Levin said.

Since comic book readers first met the Man of Steel in 1938, he has proved to be surprisingly elastic. In his first outings in D.C. Comics' Action Comics series, Superman was the kind of wisecracking tough guy who appealed to Depression-era audiences. A few years later, America found itself in a World War, and the cynical super-vigilante became a law-abiding super-patriot.

But while Superman lost his edge, he gained an audience, appearing in cartoons, a syndicated newspaper comic strip, a popular radio show and, after the war, low-budget movie serials.

"From the very beginning, there has been media crossover that has helped boost the circulation for the comic book," said Maggie Thompson, editor of the Comics Buyer's Guide, a magazine catering to comics fans. "Each media aspect promotes all the other media aspects that keep that icon strong."

Les Daniels, author of "Superman: The Complete History," said that ability to shift with the times is one of the secrets behind the character's continuing popularity. "Superman has been constantly reinvented ever since he first appeared in the comic books," Daniels said. "The character is really an ongoing creative process. He's always being re-created for a new generation."

Superman scored one of his biggest media successes just as his core fan base — comic book readers — began to shrink drastically. Superhero comics went into decline during the 1950s, replaced on most newsstands by horror, crime and Western titles. But Superman survived, due in large part to the ratings of "The Adventures of Superman," a 1951-1957 TV series starring George Reeves. Thanks to the show's popularity in syndication, the stocky, genial Reeves remained the archetypal Superman for decades.

That changed in 1978, when producer Ilya Salkind introduced audiences to a new Superman — played by a then-unknown actor named Christopher Reeve. Unlike the TV show and movie serials that preceded it, Salkind's film series featured name actors (including Gene Hackman and Richard Pryor) and big budgets — a formula that yielded great success. Warner Bros.' "Superman" grossed $134.2 million domestically; its sequel, 1980's "Superman II," pulled in $108.2 million.

Reeve hung up his cape in 1987 after the poorly received "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace," but Salkind forged on, producing a syndicated TV spinoff called "The Adventures of Superboy." Although the series managed to survive for three seasons, it never garnered much attention outside of its comic book-loving fan base.

A subsequent TV series, "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," ran from 1993-97 on ABC, pulling in a wider audience by reinterpreting the Superman legend as a "Moonlighting"-style romantic comedy.

"The fundamental myth of Superman really doesn't change much. It just tells its story differently for different times," D.C. Comics publisher Paul Levitz said. "George Reeves looked like our idea of what a powerful man should be in the 1950s. Christopher Reeve is very different physically, very different in style and mannerism. But he was right in his own magic way for another generation. And the same can be said of Dean Cain (of 'Lois & Clark'). It's not that Superman is the Man of Rubber, but the character can be reshaped whenever you're telling the story again."

Superman nearly got his biggest reshaping of all in the late 1990s, when Warner Bros. and producer Jon Peters attempted to launch a new film series with Nicolas Cage as the Man of Steel. The studio worked for years to develop a new take on the classic character, whom Oscar winner Cage had signed on to portray, but script problems and budget concerns kept the project grounded.

Warners hasn't given up on future theatrical flights for "Superman," however. Earlier this year, it hired screenwriter Paul Attanasio ("Quiz Show") to pen a new screenplay for Peters, and, separately, it contracted with Andrew Kevin Walker ("Sleepy Hollow") to write an adventure that would team Superman and Batman for a potential feature to be directed by Wolfgang Petersen.

A Warner Bros. spokesman declined comment on the current status of attempts to bring the man of steel back to the big screen.

The renewed interest in the superhero couldn't come at a better time. Superman comics aren't exactly selling faster than a speeding bullet; they often barely make it onto the list of the 50 top-selling titles. And while a recent animated series on the WB helped introduce young children to the Superman mythos, Levitz admits that very few of those kids have become comic book buyers.

The character will appear regularly in the new Cartoon Network series "Justice League" beginning next month. But that show — like "Lois & Clark," the Christopher Reeve films and the George Reeves series — features the classic cape-wearing hero who battles supercriminals in Metropolis.

By introducing Clark Kent, high school student, who must save lives while worrying about getting a date to the prom, "Smallville" could attract teen viewers who probably wouldn't identify with Clark Kent, mild-mannered newspaper reporter.

"We're treating this as puberty with super powers," said executive producer Alfred Gough, who co-created "Smallville" with Miles Millar. "It's essentially about a teenager who gets X-ray vision and super speed instead of pimples and facial hair."

Tom Welling as Kent, Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang and Michael Rosenbaum as Alexander "Lex" Luthor lead the show's young cast.

"The point of entry to the series is a young man who's dealing with his coming of age and his realization that he's from another planet," Warner Bros. Television president Peter Roth said. "So, when the center of a series is a teenage boy, one would expect that a large youthful audience will follow."

While today's teens might find it hard to identify with a guy who leaps tall buildings wearing a bodystocking, Roth is confident that they can identify with what has made Superman so appealing to so many people over the years.

"We all wish that we could be invulnerable. We all wish that we could fly. And we all wish that we could be heroic and upright and uphold the best values of our society," Roth said. "It comes down to wish fulfillment, and Superman is the one of the greatest wish fulfillment characters ever created."