Smallville "Plastique" (9/25/08)

Advertisements

Heh. I love how people can say stuff like that with a straight face. It's completely ridiculous, it's always been completely ridiculous, and when you say stuff like that, you're just enabling.

I know that on those VERY rare occasions when I don't wear my glasses, people don't say "Hey, who's that guy? Whoever he is, he sure looks super!" They say, "You look different, Rob. Did you get a haircut?"

 

I shaved my head and got black plastic glasses about a year ago. I've had people fail to recognize me. In fact, I walked right up to my father and had to say something to him before he recognized me when picking me up at the airport. So maybe if Clark shaved his head and got a wig and plastic glasses, he'd be hard to recognize.

 

This episode had a completely different feel to it, and I liked it.

As for people recognizing him, I have a story (some may have already heard it)...

For the year or two before Smallville aired I had neighbors, Tom and Mandy. They were really nice and both incredibly good looking. Our dogs were friends. The billboards for Smallville started going up all over town, I watched the early scenes they released with Clark and Lex. It wasn't until a week or so before I saw Mandy and the moving truck that I realized Tom was the guy on the billboards who would be playing Clark Kent. He looked completely different. I felt like Lois in that episode of Lois & Clark mentioned above where she was chided as being "galactically stupid".

 

It's from the "It's a Wonderful Life" episode from last season.

 

Advertisements

LOL... Well, I mean "plausible" within the context of a movie/show/etc. about a man from another planet who can fly, lift entire buildings, reverse the rotation of the earth thereby reversing time (except for himself), etc. So it's more a matter of ability to suspend disbelief than real-life plausibility. And, in comparison to the point about Lois having known him as Clark without glasses.

 

I think that has something to do with hairline.

I worked at a private golf course for years. At the start of a new season, a member came up to get his clubs. The voice was familiar, but couldn't place the face. I had to ask his name.

When I came back with his bag, I realized, he always had a cap on his head. He showed up to pick his clubs up w/o any head wear. As soon as I imagined the "hairline," all came together.

When my nephew was born, my brother shaved his head. Every time he picked up his son, he would cry. He had to wear a hat for awhile while he grew his hair back.

 

That was on an ep from last season.


There was an "it's a wonderful life" ripoff episode where Jor-El made Clark live through a version of his life where Kal-El never came to Earth. In that episode Clark was a DP reported with the suit and glasses. That's the scene they show in the opening credits.

 

Good point. Just imagine if he'd been wearing tights and a cape!

 

It just goes to show, in the skintight costume, Lois is 100% focused on the "package" not the bow on the top.

 

Forgot to mention...he had a receding hairline...by a few inches

 

It's not just the glasses that make the disguise. It's the lack of the SuperCurl that seals the deal.

Could it be that Bette may be a member of a new Legion of Doom?

 

Clark.

As for it being Clark Kent who wears the mask (the glasses) instead of Superman, in the comics there's been two basic approaches.

Traditionally, he wore them as a kid, so they were always there. He starts going out in the costume without the glasses, and nobody recognizes him. (They came pretty close to convincing me of it, the way it was discussed in the two hour opener of LOIS AND CLARK.)

The other method the comics has used started 20 years ago, with Superman's backstory being rebooted. This is the version that was in place when SMALLVILLE was launched, so it's why Clark doesn't have glasses on the show.

In this rebooted version, Clark never wore the glasses as a kid, but after high school traveled the world for seven years. His looks changed in a major way, so that if anyone who knew him from back home suddenly met up with him, they really wouldn't recognize him. At this point he decides to create the Superman identity so's to be able to use his powers in public to help more people, and returns secretly to Smallville, getting help from his parents. They sort of "reinvent" Clark, with a softer voice, slouchy posture, a certain hairstyle, and the glasses.

Superman gets a better stance, a deeper voice, the costume, and the "S" curl in his hair. (Don't ask, cuz they've never explained.)

Anyone meeting him now can accept him as the kid they knew nearly a decade ago, but there wouldn't be any automatic recognition with or without the glasses, because his face has matured and changed so much. This results in nobody recognizing Superman when his face is finally seen in public, both because his looks have changed enough over seven years, but also because they know what Clark looks like...now.

Again, that was the way the comics were handling it when SMALLVILLE started, so the show went that route. The problem is, on the show Clark hasn't been traveling for seven years, and he's already working at the Daily Planet.

In the meantime, the comics had a major reboot again over a year ago, and now Clark once again wore the glasses as a kid, so the show isn't gonna get any help from there any more.

I'm guessing that if Brainiac's virus could so quickly shut tech down all over the Earth, and maybe even somehow contributed to people going crazy at that time, Jor-El may be able to do something. He erased Kara's memory at one point, and all of Lara's and Zor-El's memories were stored along with their DNA...

What if Jor-El has the ability to reach out and alter the memories of every...

I won't finish that. I don't want the writers to end up not using the idea because some fan suggested it and they don't want to get sued.

 

Also known as the wussifying of Superman.

 

Well, with Lois, maybe he can do the Superman II Super-amnesia-kiss.

Jimmy... heh... might be harder to explain..

 

I think Bette's going to wind up in the Injustice League, since Ms. Mercer mentioned, "...the injustice of it all."

 

I still wonder if Tess is a female clone of Lex...

Literally.

 

You mean the Byrne version, which had Clark NOT being a wimp as a kid, even playing football in High School?

Can't quite see that as a "wussifying" of Superman.

Didn't like him having his powers reduced in potency, tho', nor his being unable to go without air or travel thru time on his own.

Is that the type of thing you meant?

 

She's his long lost sister, Lena.

 

Since when has the Talon moved to Metropolis?

 

I don't think that word means what you think it means. (either "literally" or "clone")