Dan Liebke's Astonishing Tales

Now how in red and blue blazes do you think that Native American cave paintings got muddled up with the Smallville experience? After all, he’s growing up to be Superman, not Batman. Caves should have little to no bearing on his origin.

And yet, if we are to believe those zany Smallville writers, cave paintings reveal important aspects of Superlad’s Kryptonian heritage. We first groan with despair at the introduction of the caves in the tenth episode of the second season where Superlad falls down into the caves and meets a wise old Native American who, as befits tradition, can also turn into a werewolf.

Such shenanigans end as one might expect (ie with a wolf fighting a blind man and dying as a result) but, alas, we are not allowed to forget the caves so easily. They are thrust into our face at every opportunity. Smallville becomes Spelunky Town as both sets of Luthors purchase the caves and attempt to unravel the Kryptonian symbols on the wall.

Later on, the caves become inhabited with the spirit of The SS Jor-El who decides that shooting things into people, giving them random powers, heart attacks and/or bouts of insanity are all really neat ways of spending one’s time. Still, give him a break – he’s a disembodied spaceship living in the wall of a cave. Presumably, he doesn’t even have access to a TiVo.

It also turns out that the SS Jor-El visited the set of Smallville thirty years earlier in one of the very worst Smallville episodes ever. Oh yes, and Superlad’s appearance was prophesied or some damn thing. For no good reason they called him Naman – a stupid name, salvaged only by its palindromity.

In short, nobody understands the caves one iota. Not the cast, not the special effects people and certainly not the writers. I plan to forgive the introduction of the caves into the series under one, and only one, specific set of circumstances. Namely, if Superlad grows up to be not the Man of Steel we all expect, but, bizarrely and with no pretense of explanation, Captain Caveman.

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