It seems as if we may soon have a Smallville epilogue in novel form, penned by the lead writer on the series, Brian Q Miller.
Although Bleeding Cool doesn’t reveal its source, the site implies that an official announcement might be coming soon.
Smallville is a ten-season series which covers the high school and college years of Clark Kent, providing an interesting long-form origin-story for Superman.
It was unique because of the truely teenaged conflicts, mixing in awkward angst and (blown-out-of-proportion) romance issues, but it was mostly noteworthy for the staunch resistance to the Superman mythos.
Most stories of Kal-El’s youth have him put on the costume almost as soon as he discovers his powers, even adopting the name or some form of it, like Superboy, and then fighting the same kind of battles that Superman would wage later in life.
In Smallville, however, his powers evolve slowly over the ten-year period, with simple flight being one of the last to be discovered. In addition, while he was fighting crime most of the time, the actual Superman costume doesn’t show up until the very last episode, and even then, it’s just a glimpse in the final scene, as if to say, ‘now he’s finally Superman, the story of Smallville ends here.’
Personally, I find the ending epically compelling, a great, subtle pay-off after ten years of development and slow building to that moment, but a lot of fans wanted more. They wanted to see the Clark they grew up with actually fight as Superman. There were a lot of (wishful) rumors at the time that the new Superman film would pick up the Smallville story-line.
Yet, this proved to be false, as the new film, Man of Steel, instead follows the new original story presented in the graphic novel Birthright, and adheres more closely to the Superman of the New 52.
Personally, I think a novel seems like a good compromise for fans who just haven’t gotten enough of this particular version of the character.
