Smallville celebrates 25 years of paving the way for superhero soap-operas

 ‘Smallville’ at 25: How the Superman Prequel Set the Stage for Today’s Comic Book Adaptations, It’s 25 birds, it’s 25 planes… it’s 25 years since “Smallville” premiered on The WB, introducing a more human take on Superman that would more than likely not fly in today’s over-saturated superhero climate, “Its legacy is being kind of the first superhero television show that really explored the character over the costume. That’s something we were very proud of at the time,” Gough shared. “Some of that, interestingly, was by design, and some of it was just the nature of where superheroes sat at that time; pre-Marvel Universe. The last iteration of Superman had been ‘Lois and Clark,’ and actually, the network asked us to kind of shy away from the actual superhero elements of it.” - R.T