By TrinityVixen
It’s official: Al Gough and Miles Millar hate you.Don’t worry—it’s nothing personal. They hate me, too. They hate you, me, and anyone still watching Smallville with the hope that Clark Kent will ever be Superman. Because you (and by “you,” I mean “we”) are crazy, what with your webtubes postings and your anger.
Why can’t you (we!) just give in to the love? The love of one Kansas farm boy for his home, his cows, and his beloved girlfriend? Why must you nitpick and criticize when they’re really bringing you something so much better? They bring you Lana, for Lang’s sake!
But you, you only want Clark. It’s like we’re stuck in the DC equivalent of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In our case, the Grinches are Gough and Millar. Someone never gave either them a comic in their life, so all they ever heard was the mouth breathing over who would win a fight between Batman and Superman and the noise—the inconsiderate obsession—with a bunch of over-muscled clods in tights. They just snapped. They got their hands on Superman and they stripped him down to a remnant of the hero that is sadder than Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. That would teach the fans. Let’s see them celebrate their Superman now!
We’re still here, though. According to Dr. Seuss, this is where Gough and Millar are supposed to grow their hearts three sizes, and Clark will go off to the arctic lands and train to become the hero we’ve waited for. Alas, that is just the pleasant fiction of youth. In our grown-up reality, Gough and Millar have had it. “You comic book crazies, you just won’t stop with your “blogging” on the internets sites, your insistent slavery to some dead guys’ mythology, and your devotion to logic (such as comics even have, puh-leeze). Quit being so damned picky…
“…or we’ll make you into the villain of the week! Mwah-ha-ha!!!”
That’s right. This week’s villain is a fan who is decidedly unhappy with the script doctoring to the film version of the Smallville favorite comic Warrior Angel (random aside: I totally did not remember Warrior Angel was a dude until this episode). Gough and Millar prove they’re equal-opportunity comic canon nay-sayers by setting up Warrior Angel with a girlfriend fated to pull a Gwen Stacy; in comic canon, her death is a major turning point for Warrior Angel, but in the film, she’s breathing just fine by the time the credits roll. It’s perfectly reasonable. After all, wouldn’t it show more dedication to the pursuit of truth, justice, and all that stuff if Warrior Angel’s woman was still alive but he had to leave her to meet his destiny? That’s genius, that is.
Only insane, rabid fanboys (because girls don’t read comics, gawd) would disagree with the clever writers. And those same stupid money-makers would totally try to kill anyone who wasn’t one-hundred-percent dedicated to bringing about the right version of the superhero to the screen. It’s true. No one who’s a good person reads comics. Bitch, please. Who reads comics that we know about in Smallville? This week’s murderous puritanical comic devotee, Lex Luthor, and Chloe (but not a lot, just enough to convey that she’s not nearly as cool and good and wonderful as those more desirable females who are half as useful and twice as annoying).
And that’s how I know (and now so do you) and Gough and Millar hate us all. Because once the would-be preserver of comic canon gets to explain himself, you agree with him. The fannish audience counterpart, Ben, discovers, in his zeal to correct the Warrior Angel plot on the silver screen, that there is a real-life superhero in the world. He-as-we goggles at how Clark can be so powerful and powerfully minded to do good and yet choose to stay in Smallville and hide for ever playing house with a woman he cannot and does not seem to trust. Ben, God bless, even tries to free Clark of his greatest obstacle to self actualization: he tries to kill Lana for keeping Clark down. As Lana’s supposed death at the end of last season was exactly what it took for Clark to buckle down and go fulfill the destiny laid out for him by Jor-El, Ben’s only crazy accurate with his plan. Get rid of Lana, get Superman. It’s that simple.
Now, your average fan weighs the two evils—murdering the hero’s stumbling block versus murdering an innocent, if annoying person because of something they can’t control—and would, if forced to choose, opt for the first in the name of greater good. According to Gough and Millar, that’s why your average fan is insane. Obviously, an attempt on Lana Lang’s life is worse than strapping the Dalai Lama to a bomb and aiming him at a village of small children holding a bake sale to raise funds for disadvantaged veterans to travel to the Holy Land. It’s better to kill people at random for arbitrary reasons beyond their control (like this actress is really so demanding that she has any say over whether her character lives or dies) than to attack the source of all fandom’s misery. Yes.
Needless to say, all who threaten the Lana are destroyed without mercy. Or, in Ben’s case, locked up in an asylum (WHERE ALL COMIC BOOK GEEKS BELONG, so sayeth Gough and Millar) to be buggered by the bad guy. Personally, if attempted murder got me a private cell with a clean toilet, three squares a day, a chance to vent my spleen at a therapist, and all the limited-edition, priceless comic books I could want dropped off personally by a handsome billionaire…Jesus, why am I still writing? I need to get on this ASAP.
It’s not like I don’t have reasons to want Lana dead, either. Just this episode, we learn that she is responsible for leaving us bereft of Lionel Luthor so far this season. If that doesn’t count as cause for justifiable homicide, I don’t know what does. In the two seconds Papa Luthor comes to, he kicks more ass than Lana’s sucked in seven seasons of serious sucking (previously thought to be an unsurpassable amount—not so; that’s how awesome Lionel Luthor is, especially when he’s pissed-off righteous). He also figures out instantly who’s penned him up with Kathy Bates’ mellower cousin (dude, how can anyone be so hostile with all that chronic around?). There’s some horror involving a bear trap attached to his wrist that I’d rather not go into. I will end only on the warm fuzzy feeling I get from seeing that fabulous tyrant back on his feet. Papa’s been known to butcher people on his lazy days. Now, Lana’s given him a reason.
I guess there’s something to salvage from the complete contempt in which Gough and Millar hold all us Superman fans. We know, at the very least, they loves them some Lionel Luthor about as much as they like Lana Lang. Watching them slaughter one of their babies to keep the other should be entertaining enough to make up for the character assassination of the show’s purported protagonist. It probably won’t go that far, per the show’s track record, seeing as Papa Luthor’s threat on Lana is meant only to drive her farther from Clark (keeping the lovers in the permanent suspended animation that allows Gough and Millar to prevent Superman’s evolution indefinitely). Still, it could happen. I wouldn’t object to Lionel’s visiting some horror on Lana Lang. Which, hey, will save me a lifetime commitment to Belle Reve and be a lot more entertaining to watch. I’ll be over here purring.
Next week: Kara returns! From…someplace. What? She wasn’t important this week, so why should it matter where she went or what she did after storming off in a huff, angry at Clark and possessed of all his secrets and a weakness for Lex Luthor? Dude, they were shooting a movie at the Kent farm. And Lana was being sneaky! Did I mention that fans are insane? Clearly, there were more demands on viewer attention than the escapades of some half-dressed Kryptonian.
About TrinityVixen: There’s an asterisk on TrinityVixen’scollege transcript that assures anyone who reads it that, though there is no specific major, degree, or certificate for it, she did, in fact, complete some kind of creative writing program as an undergrad. Armed with that symbol of irrelevant experience, she has polluted the internet with her opinions and horrible fanworks ever since (and for quite a long while before). Living poor in New York until she finds a means to become independently wealthy, she must subsist on the juicy meat of fandom. Fandom and noodles. And instant soup.
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There’s an asterisk on TrinityVixen’scollege transcript that assures anyone who reads it that, though there is no specific major, degree, or certificate for it, she did, in fact, complete some kind of creative writing program as an undergrad. Armed with that symbol of irrelevant experience, she has polluted the internet with her opinions and horrible fanworks ever since (and for quite a long while before). Living poor in New York until she finds a means to become independently wealthy, she must subsist on the juicy meat of fandom. Fandom and noodles. And instant soup. 
