your right...I like that Lex Luthor.
I really wanted to like Smallville, I thought they got some of the core cast right...but I felt they never truly let the show mature...and never putting Clark into the suit was a mistake.
They should have moved the series like this: Smallville 2-3 seasons, Renamed Metropolis or Daily Planet, and covered Lois Lane and that side of Clark...but still not have him in the suit yet. They could have done this for 1-2 seasons, and finally 5-6th season start putting him in the suit and giving introducing more DC heroes. Finally creating a TV series called Justice...which would have rocked.
The WB did not have enough vision...but I think their TV presence is stronger than their film. If somebody would just give a small DC team rights to work on building the DC universe in television under one series or two eventually merging them, then they would have a huge franchise that could go into a Justice League movie by 2015-2016.
Well they do kind of do that
season 1-4 are the high school years
5-7 are pretty aimless but add to the mythology and expanded universe
8-10 is pretty much a Superman/DC Universe show with clark being a superhero (the Blur) and even getting two proto costumes. We also got a lot of cameos (Legion of superheroes, Wonder Twins, JSA, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold. The last three seasons are adaptions of comic storylines as well Season 8 (Doomsday), season 9 (Zod and New Krypton) and season 10 (Legends/Darksied)
I would recommend the weekly season 11 comic book since it meets a lot of the potential of smallville. Takes place a year after the season finale and is written by one of the shows writers Bryan Q Miller. SO far the story arcs have been (very loose descriptions)
Guardian- Comparable to a show's season opener showing the daily life of the cast a year later. Deals with a variation of the cyborg superman concept.
Detective- A Batman/Superman team up story with Prankster and Mr.Freeze.
Haunted- Superman and impulse team up issue. Deals with the speed force for the main story.
Effigy- A four part serial that's a team up between Batman and Martian Manhunter. apart of a new backup series that runs every Friday. Story wise takes place concurrently to Haunted which is pretty cool.
Argo- the upcoming story after haunted. Clark and Booster go to the future and team team up with Supergirl and the Legion of superheroes.