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In the ongoing TV series Smallville, Clark Kent (Tom Welling) is portrayed as being a shy teenager who is very unsure of himself. At the start of the series he is unaware of his origins or of any future powers he will develop. Initially he is shown as having a close friendship with Pete Ross (Sam Jones III) and original character Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack), with whom he works on the school's newspaper: The Torch. Also, in a twist on the accepted canon, he is portrayed as having a long-term crush on "girl next door" Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk); much of the show's premise revolves around the permutations of their relationship. He also develops a close friendship with Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) after saving his life.

During the show's second season, viewers were first introduced to another side of Clark that appeared when he came into close contact with red kryptonite. This version (who referred to himself as Kal in the season three episode 'Exile') is often quantified as being Clark without inhibitions: he becomes less concerned with those around him and tends to act on impulse for instant gratification. He appears to act in an increasingly amoral way that correlates to the amount of time that he has been exposed to the red kryptonite. Kal is often used as a plot device, like amnesia, by the writers to explore thoughts and feelings Clark might not otherwise express due to his inhibitions. He also tends to dress in darker colours like black and green, in contrast to the red and blue staple of Clark's normal wardrobe, to symbolise the change in character.

It was also during the second season that Clark first came into contact with an AI acting as a proxy to his biological father, Jor-El (Terence Stamp). This marked the start of a largely antagonistic relationship between them: the AI, generally referred to simply as Jor-El, strongly suggested to Clark that he was sent to Earth to conquer. This prompted Clark, by and large, to reject his "destiny" as dictated to him by Jor-El from then on. Jor-El is frequently contrasted with Jonathan Kent (John Schneider), Clark's adoptive father, who takes a diametric opinion on what Clark's destiny is, and what is best for him. However, when Clark spends three months in Metropolis as Kal, Jonathan and Jor-El work together to bring him back to Smallville. Christopher Reeve played Dr. Virgil Swann during this season, a character who provides Clark with more information about his origins.

Season three is somewhat preoccupied by Clark's revelations about his Kryptonian heritage. Clark also meets Perry White (Michael McKean) for the first time during season three, as a down-and-out tabloid journalist. During this season, Pete Ross, as a result of circumstances that evolved partly as a result of his finding out about Clark's secret leaves Smallville to live in Wichita, Kansas. This sparked a shift in relationships around Clark. At the end of this season, Clark is approached by a girl named Kara, in a nod to Supergirl, who displayed Kryptonian-esque powers and claimed to be from Krypton. She is later revealed to be a human called Lindsey who was granted these powers by Jor-El.

In the season finale, Clark is "reprogrammed" by Jor-El into an automaton who goes by "Kal-El", his Kryptonian name. It is surmised that even with Kryptonian tutelage, Kal-El was made more of soldier type purposely. This was presumably necessary as Clark had resisted the advice of Jor-El. It is during his time as Kal-El that he first flies. Brigette Crosby (Margot Kidder) reveals that he had come into his full power as a result of accepting his Kryptonian destiny. When Clark is later restored (using black kryptonite), he can no longer fly and it is implied[citation needed] that this is because he has not yet accepted his destiny as Superman. It was also during the season opener of season four that the character of Lois Lane (Erica Durance) is first introduced, initially to Kal-El, and later to Clark.

Season four revolved around a plot concerning a set of Kryptonian crystals that contained the knowledge of the universe. When Clark collected them, they formed a "mother crystal" and he was transported from the show's Kawatche caves to the Arctic where the crystal forms his Fortress of Solitude. Chloe also discovered his secret during season four, having had it revealed to her by Clark's girlfriend, Alicia Baker (Sarah Carter).

Season five saw the introduction of Milton Fine as a lecturer at Clark's college, initially playing the role of mentor and later revealed to be the comic book villain Brainiac (Brain InterActive Construct) who ends up forging a tenuous alliance with Lex Luthor. This season also saw what is purported to be the final breakup of Clark and Lana's romantic relationship, with Lana moving towards a romantic relationship with Lex towards the end of the season. Clark learns about the existence of the Phantom Zone and also about the Kryptonian villain Zod who escapes from the Phantom Zone to possess Lex Luthor in the season finale. During this season is also when his father, Jonathan, dies.

Season six opens on Clark inside the Phantom Zone, where he is powerless. He forges a relationship with fellow Kryptonian prisoner, Raya, who claims to have been Jor-El's lab assistant on Krypton. She teaches him more about what his father was like in real life and frees him from the Phantom Zone, along with a crystal with which he can defeat Zod and other Phantom Zone-escapees. She continues in this capacity when she escapes from the Phantom Zone herself later on. Jor-El is no longer considered without compassion, now simply acting as he sees best in the dire circumstances.

By the end of season six, Clark has defeated all of the Phantom Zoners (with the help of the Martian Manhunter) except for one, who momentarily bonds with Clark (stealing his DNA in the process) and becomes Bizarro. In the opening of season seven, Clark eventually defeats Bizarro when he realizes that their strengths and weaknesses work the opposite way. Also in season seven, Clark meets his cousin Kara Zor-El, but is warned by Jor-El about the danger she poses, something that the Manhunter also warns Clark about. At the same time, Clark has started his real relationship with Lana again, who now knows his secret, and is now dealing with life without his parents always around.

Smallville shows a steady development of Clark's powers over time. When the show begins, he already possesses some of his exceptional strength and speed, but seems unaware that he can resist major damage until the moment in the pilot when he is hit by a car and suffers no injuries. During the course of the series, Clark comes into many of his iconic powers, including heat vision, X-ray vision, super-hearing and, most recently, super-breath. All of his powers show a steady increase in intensity from season to season, with his invulnerability extending to being bulletproof by the end of the first season, for example. It also tracks changes in relationships and Clark's own characteristics that lead him eventually to taking up the mantle of Superman. Another allusion to Superman lies in the colors of Clark's clothing: throughout the series, more or less all of Clark's clothes reflect the colors of the Superman-suit in some way. The most striking example of this is how Clark is commonly seen wearing either a blue jacket over a red shirt, or a red jacket over a blue shirt, or else wearing some combination of either red, white, and blue, or red, yellow, and blue.

Two traits of this version of Clark Kent that have been prominent for most of the series has been his positive view on humanity and his self-loathing of not being human, which are likely to be linked as they both reflect his view on humanity. Clark prefers to see the good in people (an exception by season 3 to be Lionel Luthor) and like his father, strongly believes that positives feelings such as compassion are synonymous to the human race. Although he admits that his "faith in humanity" is somewhat shaken by the beginning of season three, he appears to have overcome this crisis of thought.

In the season five episode 'Splinter', Clark is rather shocked at Fine's negative conclusions on humans, telling him that despite their misgivings, humans are on the whole noble beings. This positive view of humanity is rather a contrast to how humanity sees itself, more inclined like Fine to believe in the worst of themselves rather than the best, although this is a view more synchronized with Clark's view of himself. Clark has often expressed a desire to be human and despises being an alien, the reason most likely is that he feels being an alien hinders what he thinks of as his 'humanity'.

This utmost self-loathing of himself is probably the reasons for his need to blame himself entirely for anything that he is connected to (e.g. the meteor shower), no matter how little a part he played in the event or if he was responsible at all. It may also explain part of his constant fear (before mid-way into season five) of telling Lana his secret, fearing that she will be repulsed by what he is because that's how he feels himself.

This inferiority complex also extends to how he feels about his own race, quick to judge that they are evil when he reads the message in his spaceship. The reason for both opinions probably stem from his father, who throughout the series has used 'human rhetoric' to express the instinctive goodness that is in humans, but which lacks from any other species. His father also taught him to see the good in people, as Clark reminds him in the season four episode 'Pariah'. His optimistic opinions may also be somewhat inherent in Clark, as seen in the episode 'Blank', when although amnesiac he retains a positive attitude of the people around him.