Smallville: Michael Rosenbaum Returns as Lex Luther

Although I’m a fan of many things, I have always consistently been a fan of Superman. I confess that I haven’t often picked up Superman comics, nor have I bought a lot of Superman memorabilia or spent a lot of money on my Superman interests. But I have always been a fan of Superman. Naturally, I’ve been watching Smallville since the show debuted ten years ago, despite the often tedious formulaic nature of the show. None of the negatives mattered, the show was and is great! And you couldn’t have a better villain than Lex Luthor, portrayed by Michael Rosenbaum. Eventually, Mr. Rosenbaum left the show for multiple reasons, and the producers panicked, and tried to keep Lex Luthor a part of the show without recasting the role.

I think the idea was that they would eventually convince Mr. Rosenbaum to return to the show, so they didn’t want to recast his role. Of course, he left right after filming a season finale centered around Lex Luthor’s final discovery of Clark Kent’s secrets, so they couldn’t just go on without the character either. As a result, they played games with us… Having an actor act out the role, but never showing him from the front, or always in darkness with only enough clothing visible to reveal that it’s supposed to be Lex.  As they probably expected, and you certainly expect, this sucked. Badly. So after a while, they killed off Lex, which completely screws the continuity of the Superman/DC Universe. Since the death of Lex, we’ve been visited by a lot of major Superman villains, and none have had the same staying power as Lex had. I’m sure Smallville‘s ratings have suffered as a result, and they finally scheduled the end of the series with season 10.

But that’s not where the story ends. In season 9, new Lex Luthor clones sprung up, and rumors began to surface that Mr. Rosenbaum was returning for the final season. Those rumors were repeatedly squashed by both sides, but they persisted nonetheless. We eventually saw a clone of Lex that was an old man, and began to think that they finally decided to recast the part, especially since a younger clone was growing up so rapidly.

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Then the news finally hit about two weeks ago (when I originally started writing this post): Michael Rosenbaum is returning to Smallville as Lex Luthor in the series finale! This past Friday, Mr. Rosenbaum had this to say via his Twitter account: @mrosenbaum711: “Guess who’s on the SMALLVILLE set right now? Good to see some familiar faces. What a day!!!!!!!!”

Indeed, welcome back Michael, and thank you very much! If I may speak for the entire Smallville fan community, WELCOME BACK!!

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