*Originally published on 6/8/10
Smallville has been making an effort to showcase Superman's major villains in season long arcs. Lex is an obvious example, but Brainiac, Doomsday and Zod have each been given story arcs that span the entire season. While the ninth season has just recently come to a close, there is already talk of what the tenth, and final, story arc of the hit CW show would be.
The big theory is that Darkseid, lord of Apokolips and one of the more notable members of Jack Kirby's New Gods, will be the primary antagonist.
Most shows want to go out with a bang and when it comes to Superman villains, Darkseid is one of the biggest. Fans have been clamoring for him to show up for a few years now, which surprises me considering that the show is known to tinker with characters' backgrounds. One need only look at Mxyzptlk for a prime example.
The idea of Darkseid showing up gained steam after the Absolute Justice special aired. It didn't take much to get the internet talking. Amanda Waller's line about a coming apocalypse immediately spurned questions about whether she said "apocalypse" or "Apokolips". Why they thought this when we clearly saw a future where Zod had enslaved mankind is an enigma to say the least. You also have to wonder how Checkmate would even be aware of the New Gods at all at this point as there has been no hint of their existence.
That changed with the season finale. There was nothing concrete mind you, but there were some teasers that were vague enough to suggest the arrival of the New Gods.
The first was that mysterious woman we saw knitting outside Tess' room after Zod two-faced her. The fan theory is that this was Granny Goodness, a creepy and sadistic minion of Darkseid. It's possible that Goodness showed up to recruit Tess as a female fury (elite soldiers of Darkseid).
The second clue is the attack on Green Arrow. During an operation, he's swarmed by enemies. We assume them to be Kandorians until he flat out says that they aren't the Kandorians. Fans suspect that these may have been Darkseid's parademons.
It's not a whole lot to go on, but there's nothing to disprove the idea. I'd raise suspicion on how you bring a character like Darkseid to life, but they handled Doomsday fairly well (at least as far as his appearance). If you do use Darkseid, try to get someone like Keith David to do the voice. That would be awesome sauce. The guy who voiced him in the Justice League Heroes game did a pretty good job as well. It has to be someone with a deep booming voice worthy of the lord of Apokolips.
It's a double edged sword. Darkseid's an awesome villain and it would be interesting to see him brought to life. On the other hand, CW doesn't exactly give this show a big enough budget to make it the superhero epic I keep hoping it will be.
I'm curious as to how they can make him an overarching villain. The split personality they used for Doomsday was pretty well done and Zod was without his powers for a vast majority of the season. If Darkseid does arrive in the premiere, he won't sit on his haunches and wait for the season finale, he'll go all out and try to crush all resistance from the get go.
My guess is that he'll be searching for the anti-life equation, as he is consistently shown to be doing in other incarnations. He might hold off if he wants that particular ace up his sleeve. If I were the writers, I would have him discover it at the halfway point of the season (around the time CW takes a long break anyway) and have the second half of the season show the heroes acting as a resistance to Darkseid's forces after he's essentially conquered the world.
I would also try to get every hero who's ever shown up to do at least one guest spot. While I always have this hope that the season will end with all the heroes coming together for an epic brawl, I'm sure it won't happen. That doesn't mean that they can't all play a part in the ongoing war though. If you do get a group of heroes together for the series finale, have them do something. This past finale had all these heroes appear on monitors and talk. It made sense within the context of the story, but is it too much to ask to see some superhero action in a superhero show?
This may also mark the point where he finally becomes Superman. We saw Clark open a box his mother left for him in the last episode. While we didn't get to see inside the box, we clearly saw the Superman logo reflected on his eyeball; the implication being that this was his costume. I'm sure they'll save that for the series finale. Maybe after Darkseid's oppression, Clark decides that the people need something to look up to and give them hope, thus he ditches the Matrix style get up and finally becomes the Man of Steel.
It'll be interesting to see how they handle that. Clark hasn't gone to great lengths to mask his appearance, so once he dons the costume, Lois will recognize him. There is also the matter of Lex, who knows Clark's background, not to mention the fact that he's "dead". While the show has done surprisingly well since Rosenbaum left (especially considering he was always the highlight of the show) it would be really cool to get him back for a couple of episodes, even if they are just the closing two or three.
There's still several months before season 10 premieres and we may be proven wrong. However, I'm not sure who else it could be. If it is Darkseid, I will be eager to see this version of Clark pushed into the upper limits of rage. There's been talk that Allison Mack will only be a recurring guest star, maybe Darkseid uses his Omega beams on her and delivers a crippling blow to both Clark and Ollie.
As I said, we'll have to wait and see. We should try to keep our expectations tempered as there are several instances of hope being built up only for it to dissipate. The writers made a lot of effort and made Zod a pretty interesting villain, hopefully they do the same with Darkseid.
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