There's a little show on TV lately called Smallville.
Some of you may have heard of it. It's another telling of the Superman mythology, this time centered on-- you guessed it-- Clark Kent's youth in Smallville.
The Superman story is our modern mythology-- the story is told and retold from different angles, giving us new perspective on this ideal man, this hero of generations. Smallville modernizes the story, making Clark Kent more believeable for today's audiences and less goody-two-shoes hokey than he may have been even as recently as the early 90's (remember Lois and Clark?)
But I'm not here to talk about Clark Kent.
No, Smallville has given us a new hero-- or rather an antihero-- to look at. Someone topical. Someone current. Someone hip. Someone REAL.
Lex Luthor is the new hero of Smallville.
We all know the story: Lex Luthor is Superman's archnemesis-- using his brains and wealth against Superman's überhuman abilities, his streetwise savvy against the Kryptonian farm boy's guileless good.
But not this time.
Michael Rosenbaum is the best Lex Luthor I have ever seen. His portrayal of Lex-- so deep, so complex, so interesting-- is nothing short of riveting. And he has to be-- Smallville is a cast of pretty young people, and some pretty hot older people as well. Tom Welling, who plays Clark, is a former Abercrombie & Fitch model, for god's sake. Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang) is the new miss Cover Girl. Michael has to play the bald evil guy. Sure, he's not butt-ugly or anything, but that's not the point.
The point is that he doesn't play for looks in this show. He plays for presence, and for my money, that's the sexiest thing on television if you can make it work-- and he does. In spades.
In Smallville, Lex Luthor is the son of a despotic tyrant, Lionel Luthor, whose relationship with Lex is adversarial at best. Betraying him at every turn, ripping his trust out by the roots, it's almost as if his whole goal in life is to turn Lex evil.
But Lex ISN'T evil. And that's what glues me to the screen every week. We all know that Lex Luthor is destined to be Superman's greatest enemy-- we KNOW this. It's a fait accompli, a foregone conclusion, destined to be. But in this amazingly creative interpretation, Lex doesn't just lose his hair and blame it on Superman, putting him at odds with the hero for the rest of eternity.
No-- Lex is Clark Kent's friend. They're close. Clark is the only one who will give Lex a chance in the anti-Luthor climate of Smallville, and Lex is the only one observant enough to realize that there's more to Clark than meets the eye (and more, to actually investigate what that might be.)
And throughout the first one-and-a-half seasons of this hit WB series, we have seen Lex try time and again to do the right thing. To be a humanitarian. To remove himself from the shadow of his prepossessing father. He's no angel-- many and varied allusions are made to his troubled, angry past-- but he continually strives for equitable balance in his life between all the forces which pull him in different directions.
He mounts a business coup against his father when Lionel threatens to shut down the Smallville plant, source of the majority of jobs in town, and buys it out from under him to keep it open. He continually tries to help the Kents financially, only to be turned down by the prejudices of Jonathan Kent.
Slowly, inexorably, we see the tide begin to turn. The hand of friendship that Lex extends is continually slapped away; the phrase "no good deed goes unpunished" is made manifest at every turn.
But tonight was a turning point; tonight we got to see a bit of the Lex that will eventually be. Tonight's episode reveals that Lex's father has been spying on him, in fact wired his office with electronic surveillance to gain the upper hand in business. Infuriated, Lex smashes everything in the office and hires a crack team to do the same to Lionel.
He attempts to do something nice for Jonathan and Martha Kent, and is harshly rebuffed by Jonathan, who does this every time Lex approaches him. And this time, after SO MANY helpless, hurt rejections by this man, Lex shuts him down. There's a hint of a threat, a hint of violence-- but no more.
Michael Rosenbaum is treating us to a subtle blend of motivations and circumstances that create his character and lead Lex inexorably toward the inevitable conclusion. No one could withstand the harsh world of the Luthors and not be changed by it; even Lex's prodigious willpower must eventually yield to the undeniable. And thanks to Rosenbaum's superb acting, we get to SEE it. Every step of the way.
I want to take apart tonight's episode scene by scene to share with you how brilliant it is, but I won't. WATCH the show. You'll see more than you thought the WB's target twentysomething market shows were capable of. Depth. Thought. Foresight. Continuity.
It's easy to be Superman. Being Lex Luthor is hard. It takes more work than anyone ever thought. And that's why, in Smallville, Lex Luthor is the real hero.