Superman’s Freaks of the Week: The Best Smallville Villains

This article contains spoilers for all ten seasons of Smallville.

Across 10 seasons, The CW series Smallville offered its own take on many villains from Superman’s extensive rogues’ gallery and also introduced its own unique characters into the mix. From season-long antagonists to freaks-of-the-week, Clark Kent (Tom Welling) and his allies faced off against a number of baddies on his journey to becoming Superman. Here are the best of the best, in chronological order.

The Freaks of the Week

In Smallville’s early seasons, the “freak of the week” format was incredibly popular for giving a young Clark Kent powerful, but not too powerful, villains to go up against as he was developing his powers. These characters were infected by kryptonite, a byproduct of the meteor shower that brought Clark to Smallville. This often gave them strange abilities, sometimes beyond their control. Amy Adams guest-starred as one of these “meteor freaks” in a Jennifer’s Body-esque episode in the show’s first season, as did Adam Brody as an injured artist who develops telekinetic abilities. Not all of these characters were inherently villainous, but they still proved to be interesting adversaries for Clark to go up against.

Brainiac

One of Superman’s most infamous villains, Brainiac took on a number of forms over several seasons on Smallville. He first appeared as Clark’s college professor Milton Fine in season five and manipulates him into opening a portal to the Phantom Zone and nearly destroying the Fortress of Solitude for good. Even though Clark foils Brainiac’s initial attempt at releasing Zod from the Phantom Zone, Brainiac still finds a way to unleash his spirit into Lex’s body, though Brainiac loses his human form in the process.

Though he’s not a primary villain for the next couple of seasons, Brainiac is still lurking in the background as he tries to find a way to regain his human form and his strength. Eventually a part of him ends up in Chloe and through her he releases yet another one of Superman’s most notorious villains – Doomsday. Brainiac is essentially a sentient supercomputer, which makes him an incredibly intelligent and cunning villain to beat.

Phantom Zone Escapees

When Clark returned from the Phantom Zone in season 6, he accidentally brought a bunch of baddies back with him. While most of these intergalactic criminals were easily taken care of within an episode, tracking them all down still proved to be a massive undertaking for Clark and Chloe. From Aldar (a wonderful guest appearance by Dave Bautista), the bone sucking menace to Gloria, whose love of plants and distaste for men might just put Poison Ivy to shame, these weekly villains proved to be entertaining villains to watch.

General Zod and His Disciples

Smallville’s take on General Zod is a little…different, but that doesn’t mean he and his disciples aren’t still powerful adversaries. A couple of Zod’s disciples first arrive in season 5, Aethyr and Nam-Ek. Unlike Zod himself and his other followers, these two weren’t sent to the Phantom Zone. Instead they survived the destruction of Krypton in a black ship (the same black ship that Brainiac arrives on) that crashes into Smallville during another meteor shower.

Zod’s followers try (and ultimately fail) to bring Zod and the others back from the Phantom Zone, despite their best efforts. Brainiac does succeed though, and brings Zod back into Lex Luthor’s body for a time. Despite Zod’s military prowess, Clark is able to defeat Lex Zod and return him to the Phantom Zone before he achieves his goals of remaking Earth into a new Krypton.

At the end of season 8, a young Zod clone is brought to life from a Kryptonian orb and becomes one of the primary villains of season 9. This clone only retained the original Zod’s memories up until the point of DNA extraction, which was when Zod was only a Major. Clone Zod doesn’t remember his role in Krypton’s downfall, only that he hates Jor-El for refusing to resurrect his son. This version of Zod also doesn’t have his Kryptonian abilities thanks to blue Kryptonite, thus begins his plan to replace the Earth’s yellow sun with a red one.

Davis Bloome a.k.a. Doomsday

In season 8 we discovered that Clark wasn’t the only Kryptonian lifeform who arrived on Earth in his ship. It turns out that Zod attached the combined genetic material of himself and his wife Faora to the ship before it left Krypton. This genetic material, which was also combined with the DNA of some ferocious monsters, eventually became a young boy who grew up to be Davis Bloome. At first Bloome didn’t know of his true Kryptonian nature, nor that he was made to be Kal-el’s undoing, but a Brainiac-possessed Chloe awakens the dormant beast within him transforming him into Doomsday. Clark eventually defeats Doomsday by using black Kryptonite to separate Davis from the monster within and burying said monster deep within the Earth’s crust.

But it’s not an easy fight. It takes Clark and a number of Justice League members to subdue Doomsday long enough for Clark to gather enough strength to finish the job. There’s a reason that Doomsday is the villain that many comics, movies, and TV shows use to tell the Death of Superman story. It makes sense though why they wouldn’t do that quite yet in Smallville. It’s hard tell a story of that magnitude when this version of Clark is not yet Superman.

Lex Luthor

Lex Luthor might not be the most physically intimidating villain that Clark goes up against, but he knows Clark better than most of the villains on this list. In Smallville, Lex and Clark start off as close friends after Clark saves his life, but Lex’s obsessive need to find out Clark’s secret eventually drives a wedge between them. When Lex does finally find out the truth, it’s too late.

In later seasons, Lex is more of a puppet master, manipulating other villains behind the scenes. But this doesn’t make him any less of a fierce opponent to Clark. After Darkseid’s defeat and Lex’s resurrection, the series really makes sure we know that Lex and Clark are fated to be adversaries from here on out, and it’s kind of a shame we didn’t get to see more of them going toe-to-toe.

Darkseid and His Prophets

The final Big Bad that Clark faces off against in season 10 of Smallville is Darkseid and his Prophets – Granny Goodness, Desaad, and Gordon Godfrey. In the show we mostly see Darkseid as either a ghostly spirit or possessing a human host, as he does with Godfrey and eventually Lionel Luthor. Granny Goodness and Desaad, on the other hand, have been on Earth for a while, as Clark comes to find out. Darkseid has had his eye on the planet, and Clark, for some time, hoping to possess him and take over Earth. But despite Darkseid’s influence growing on Earth, there are still those who believe in Clark as The Blur and what he and the Justice League stand for. 

Darkseid is one of the most formidable villains that Clark has to face in the series. Even though Clark and his friends aren’t the easiest targets for Darkseid’s corruption, they aren’t infallible. Oliver even becomes tempted by his power for a time when he thinks he’s lost Chloe for good. But in the end, Clark and the symbol for good that he represents is enough to push Darkseid off the planet.