Superhero fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction examining the adventures , personalities and ethics of costumed crime fighters known as superheroes , who often possess superhuman powers and battle similarly powered criminals known as supervillains . The genre primarily falls between hard fantasy and soft science fiction in the spectrum of scientific realism. It is most commonly associated with American comic books , though it has expanded into other media through adaptations and original works.
173-537: Smallville is an American superhero television series developed by writer-producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar , based on the DC Comics character Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster . The series was produced by Millar/Gough Ink , Tollin/Robbins Productions , DC Comics , and Warner Bros. Television . Initially broadcast by the WB , the show premiered on October 16, 2001. After its fifth season ,
346-798: A DVD release , including its content, release date, and price, all according to the appropriate region. This is achieved by way of region-locked DVD players , which will play back only DVDs encoded to their region (plus those without any region code). The American DVD Copy Control Association also requires that DVD player manufacturers incorporate the Regional Playback Control (RPC) system. However, region-free DVD players, which ignore region coding, are also commercially available, and many DVD players can be modified to be region-free, allowing playback of all discs. DVDs may use one code, multiple codes (multi-region), or all codes (region free). Any combination of regions can be applied to
519-649: A Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Tom Welling won a Teen Choice Award for Choice Breakout TV Star — Male in 2002. Allison Mack won the Teen Choice Best Sidekick award in 2006 and 2007, and in 2009 Welling received the Choice TV Actor Action Adventure award. Millar stated that Smallville "visually and aesthetically, was a celebration of Americana", with aspects such as Clark's red, white, and blue apparel. Being an "idyllic portrait of America", he said, helped
692-520: A space opera story where the team goes to another planet to oppose the imperial forces of Blackfire and then return to Earth only to get involved in a relatively realistic urban crime story about runaways . The mythologies of many ancient civilizations feature pantheons of gods and goddesses with superhuman powers, as well as heroes such as Hanuman , Gilgamesh , Perseus , Odysseus and David and demigods like Heracles . Real life inspirations behind costumed superheroes can be traced back to
865-494: A " rogues gallery " of such enemies. One of these supervillains might be the superhero's archenemy. Superheroes will sometimes combat other threats such as aliens, magical/fantasy entities, natural disasters, political ideologies such as Nazism or communism (and their proponents), and godlike or demonic creatures. Some superhero fiction portrays discrimination against superheroes, such as by the way of "Registration Acts" that mandate registration of superpowered individuals with
1038-572: A "Middle America landscape". The city provided a site for the Kent farm, doubled for Metropolis, provided a cheaper shooting location and was in the Los Angeles time zone. Smallville's Main Street is a combination of two locations in the town of Merritt and Cloverdale . Vancouver Technical School doubled as the exterior for Smallville High, since the school had the "mid-American largess" wanted by
1211-479: A "Superhero Registration Act" is passed, that requires superpowered individuals to not only register with the government, but to make themselves available to be drafted to respond to emergencies. The backlash against superheroes and metahumans in JLA: The Nail series has been compared to the real-life moral campaign against comic book superheroes in the mid-1950s. In an essay Ethan Faust argued that
1384-459: A "serialized show". According to Gough, although each succeeding season relied more on season-long story arcs, an occasional villain-of-the-week story was necessary. The villain-of-the-week stories were more harshly criticized by fans of the Superman mythology, but Gough wanted to please them and the WB's general audience (teenagers who preferred villain-of-the-week stories over episodes focusing on
1557-437: A DVD video player because of the restrictions that limit their ability to play imported DVDs." The report stated, "These restrictions are artificially imposed by a group of multinational film entertainment companies and are not caused by the existing differences in television display formats such as PAL, NTSC and SECAM [...] The ACCC is currently investigating whether Australian consumers are paying higher prices for DVDs because of
1730-400: A Dramatic Series for "Sacred". Smallville's sixth season won a Best Dramatic Series Leo. James Marshall won Best Direction for "Zod", Caroline Cranstoun won Best Costume Design for her work on "Arrow" and James Philpott won Best Production Design for "Justice". In 2008, Smallville won Leos for Best Dramatic Series and Best Cinematography. The visual-effects team was recognized for its work on
1903-469: A French exchange student. Aspect published its final novel on March 1, 2004. Written by Devin K. Grayson , City follows Clark and Lex on a trip to Metropolis. In the city, they are caught between the Japanese Yakuza and a secret agent who thinks he has found an alien. In Little, Brown Young Readers' final novel, "Sparks" by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld, Chloe is hit by kryptonite sparks from
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#17327829277392076-446: A Series Emmy for season seven's "Bizarro". Smallville has received a number of Leo Awards . Make-up artist Natalie Cosco won two Leo Awards for Best Make-Up: for her work in the fourth-season episode "Scare" and in the sixth season's "Hypnotic" and "Wither". At the 2006 Leo Awards, Barry Donlevy won Best Cinematography in a Dramatic Series for his work on the fourth-season episode "Spirit" and David Wilson won Best Production Design in
2249-612: A camp for disadvantaged youths. When a boy falls into Crater Lake, he develops the ability to foretell the future and Lionel tries to exploit this. Pete also tries to exploit Clark's abilities by tricking him into playing in a basketball game and betting on the outcome. Alan Grant returned to write Curse , about a gravedigger who unleashes a 150-year-old curse onto Smallville and Clark's attempts to put things right. On February 1, 2004 Little, Brown Young Readers published Suzan Colon's Temptation , where Clark uses red kryptonite in an attempt to impress Lana and Chloe when they are infatuated with
2422-423: A configuration flag is set in each player's firmware at the factory. This flag holds the region number that the machine is allowed to play. Region-free players are DVD players shipped without the ability to enforce regional lockout (usually by means of a chip that ignores any region coding), or without this flag set. However, if the player is not region-free, it can often be unlocked with an unlock code entered via
2595-612: A dark path. Roth appreciated Clark's conflict in dealing with the fact that his arrival caused so much pain. The creators also had to address why Lex Luthor would socialize with young people. They created a loneliness in the character which they felt would drive him to reach out to the teenagers, a loneliness echoed in Clark and Lana. Gough and Millar wanted a parallel to the Kents and created Lionel Luthor , Lex's father, whom they saw as conducting an "experiment in extreme parenting". They wanted
2768-462: A disc that is encoded for Region 1 but not Regions 2–8 will have the value 2+4+8+16+32+64+128=254. A disc encoded for Regions 1, 2 and 4 will have the value 4+16+32+64+128=244. A region-free or RCE-protected DVD will carry the value zero, since no regions are excluded. The Xbox , Xbox 360 , PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 consoles are all region-locked for DVD playback. The PlayStation 2 can be modified to have its regional-locking disabled through
2941-454: A disc's region code or allowing the user to manually select a particular region. Some manufacturers of DVD players now freely supply information on how to disable regional lockout, and on some recent models, it appears to be disabled by default. Computer programs such as DVD Shrink can make copies of region-coded DVDs without RCE restriction. One purpose of region coding is controlling release dates. One practice of movie marketing which
3114-470: A film for public exhibition in a cinema has always been expensive, but a large number of release prints are needed only for a narrow window of time during the first few weeks after a film's release. Spreading out release dates allows for reuse of some release prints in other regions. For example, the film 28 Days Later was available on DVD in the United Kingdom before it was released in theaters in
3287-464: A fireworks display. The sparks make Chloe the desire of every man, but when they wear off an admirer kidnaps her and she is rescued by Clark. Smallville ' s first venture into comics was "Elemental", a one-off story by Gough and Millar which appeared in TV Guide during the series' first season and set in that period. Before the start of season two, DC Comics published a one-off comic based on
3460-409: A ghostly presence in a Smallville house. Little, Brown Young Readers then published Animal Rage by David and Bobby Weiss, about animal-rights activist Heather Fox (who can change into any animal she touches). Heather uses this ability to harm people who hurt animals until Clark discovers it and stops her. Aspect published Dean Wesley Smith 's Whodunit , in which Clark, Chloe, Lana and Pete investigate
3633-568: A global audience. The first original major shared superhero universe to develop on the Internet was Superguy , which first appeared on a UMNEWS mailing list in 1989. In 1992, a cascade on the USENET newsgroup rec.arts.comics would give birth to the Legion of Net. Heroes shared universe. In 1994, LNH writers contributed to the creation of the newsgroup rec.arts.comics.creative , which spawned
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#17327829277393806-467: A letter column of the pulp magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories , the word superhero was used to define the title character of the comic strip Zarnak by Max Plaisted. Historians point to the first appearance of Superman , created by Jerome "Jerry" Siegel and designed by Joseph "Joe" Shuster , in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) as the debut of the comic-book archetype of the superhero. Outside
3979-435: A local multicultural festival. In Buried Secrets Clark and Lex fall in love with a mind-reading substitute Spanish teacher, jeopardizing their friendship. On September 9, 2004, Aspect published Diana G. Gallagher 's Shadows , about a girl and her father who move to Smallville; the father creates murderous monsters. Jonathan Kent assumes that the deaths are related to LuthorCorp, creating tension with his son. Clark discovers
4152-639: A moral crusade in which comics were blamed for juvenile delinquency and the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency began. The movement was spearheaded by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham , who argued in Seduction of the Innocent , that "deviant" sexual undertones ran rampant in superhero comics . In 2012, his methodology was reviewed and his results were found to be misleading if not falsified. In response,
4325-545: A more somber tone. Superboy ran from 1988 to 1992 in syndication. In the 1990s, the Power Rangers , adapted from the Japanese Super Sentai , became popular. Other shows targeting teenage and young adult audiences that decade included Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman . In 2001, Smallville retooled Superman 's origin as a teen drama. The 2006 NBC series Heroes tells
4498-409: A nostalgic treatment in the 2004 Disney / Pixar release The Incredibles , which utilized computer animation . Original superheroes with basis in older trends have also been made for television, such as Disney's Gargoyles by Greg Weisman and Cartoon Network 's Ben 10 franchise and Nickelodeon 's Danny Phantom . Beginning 1940s, the radio serial Superman starred Bud Collyer as
4671-470: A number of opportunities to try different music to enhance an episode's storyline. Pyken and Wade-Reed chose and coordinated music on the show when Snow and Febre's scores were not used. In season three's "Slumber", producer Ken Horton wondered if they could get a band to provide music for the entire episode. During a breakfast meeting with the music department of Warner Bros. R.E.M. was suggested, and Pyken and Wade-Reed immediately saw an opportunity to connect
4844-428: A number of original superhero shared universes. Magazine-style websites that publish superhero fiction include Metahuman Press , active since 2005, and Freedom Fiction Journal . Superhuman fiction has also appeared in general science fiction / speculative fiction web publications, such as the weekly Strange Horizons , a publication that pays its contributors. Two examples there are Paul Melko's "Doctor Mighty and
5017-608: A plot device developed by Gough and Millar. Smallville ' s first season primarily dealt with Clark Kent 's coming to terms with his alien origin and the revelation that his arrival on Earth was connected to the death of Lana Lang 's parents. After the first season the series had fewer villain-of-the-week episodes, focusing instead on individual-character story arcs and exploring Clark's origins. Major storylines include Clark's discovery of his Kryptonian heritage and Lex Luthor 's escalating conflict with his father, Lionel. The disembodied voice of Clark's biological father, Jor-El ,
5190-457: A ratings record for a WB debut, with 8.4 million viewers. Over ten seasons, the series averaged about 4.34 million viewers per episode, with season two the highest-rated at 6.3 million. By the end of its run, Smallville passed Stargate SG-1 as the longest-running North American science fiction series by episode count. Since its first season , the series has received accolades ranging from Emmys to Teen Choice Awards . Smallville spawned
5363-660: A region-free player to view NTSC discs (with the possible exception of Japanese discs in most European countries, since they are in the same region - this means European region 2 users could import Japanese discs and play them on their players without any obstacles.) There are also differences in pixel aspect ratio (720 × 480 vs. 720 × 576 with the same image aspect ratio ) and display frame rate (29.97 vs. 25). Most computer-based DVD software and hardware can play both NTSC and PAL video and both audio standards. Blu-ray players, which use up to 1080p signals, are backwards compatible with both NTSC and PAL DVDs. Usually,
Smallville - Misplaced Pages Continue
5536-560: A region-free player tries to play a disc using the last region that worked with the previously inserted disc. If it cannot play the disc, then it tries another region until one is found that works. RCE could be defeated by briefly playing a "normal" region 1 disc, and then inserting the RCE protected region 1 disc, which would now play. RCE also caused a few problems with genuine region 1 players. Many "multi-region" DVD players defeated regional lockout and RCE by automatically identifying and matching
5709-565: A relatively minor Marvel Comics character that premiered at over $ 100 million in February, a time of year generally considered poor for movie audience interest . It was an observation further confirmed in 2018 when Black Panther was an even grander success with a $ 235 million debut in the same time of year, and later became the first superhero film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture . Avengers: Endgame became
5882-614: A secret identity; such characters as the Green Hornet and the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh , would follow. Likewise, the science-fiction heroes John Carter of Mars , Buck Rogers , and Flash Gordon , with their futuristic weapons and gadgets; Tarzan , with his high degree of athleticism and strength, and his ability to communicate with animals; Robert E. Howard 's Conan the Barbarian and the biologically modified Hugo Danner of
6055-473: A series of young adult novels , a DC Comics bimonthly comic book, soundtracks , and series-related merchandise. All ten seasons are available on DVD in regions 1, 2, and 4 . After the series finale in 2011, the story resumed in comic book form, with 22 issues of Season 11 from April 2012 to November 2013. The regular cast is introduced in season one , with storylines involving a villain deriving power from kryptonite exposure. The one-episode villains were
6228-443: A series on a young Superman. That year, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar developed a pilot based on the film Eraser . After watching the pilot, Roth approached Gough and Millar about developing a pilot about a young Superman; the two made a "no tights, no flights" rule that Clark would not fly or wear the Superman suit during the series. Gough and Millar wanted to strip Superman to his "bare essence", exploring why Clark Kent became
6401-419: A short video loop of a map of the world showing the regions, which was coded as region 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The intention was that when the disc was played in a non-region 1 player, the player would default to playing the material for its native region. This played the aforementioned video loop of a map, which was impossible to escape from, as the user controls were disabled. The scheme was fundamentally flawed, as
6574-580: A single disc. For example, a DVD designated Region 2/4 is suitable for playback in Europe, Latin America, Oceania, and any other Region 2 or Region 4 area. So-called "Region 0" and "ALL" discs are meant to be playable worldwide. The term "Region 0" also describes the DVD players designed or modified to incorporate Regions 1–8, thereby providing compatibility with most discs, regardless of region. This apparent solution
6747-406: A supernatural weapon, Penny dreadfuls , shilling shockers , dime novels , radio programs , and other popular fiction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries featured mysterious, swashbuckling heroes with distinct costumes, unusual abilities and altruistic missions. The 1903 play The Scarlet Pimpernel and its spinoffs further popularized the idea of a masked avenger and the superhero trope of
6920-604: A supervillain to advance the plot. Comic book writer Gail Simone has coined the term " Women in Refrigerators " (named after an incident in Green Lantern #54 where Kyle Rayner 's girlfriend Alex DeWitt is murdered by the supervillain Major Force and stuffed into Rayner's refrigerator ) to refer to this practice. Many works of superhero fiction occur in a shared fictional universe , sometimes (as in
7093-777: A switch to region 2. European region 2 DVDs may be sub-coded "D1" to "D4". "D1" are the UK only releases; "D2" and "D3" are not sold in the UK and Ireland; "D4" are distributed throughout Europe. Overseas territories of the United Kingdom and France (both in region 2) often have other regions (4 or 5, depending on geographical situation) than their homelands. Most DVDs sold in Mexico and the rest of Latin America carry both region 1 and 4 codes. Some are region 1 only after 2006 to coincide with Blu-ray region A. Egypt, Eswatini, Lesotho, and South Africa are in DVD region 2, while all other African countries are in region 5, but all African countries are in
Smallville - Misplaced Pages Continue
7266-404: A week. After the series concluded, TNT began airing episodes on October 3, 2011. Smallville began streaming on Hulu on October 1, 2016. Smallville set a WB record as its highest-rated series debut, with 8.4 million viewers tuned in for the pilot. Its premiere set a WB record for adults aged 18–34 and finished first among viewers aged 12–34, with Warner Bros. president Jordan Levin crediting
7439-407: A weekly TV show. It gives it a lot more production value and inventiveness than I thought I was going to see when I first heard about the series. I think the show is doing a really good job following the mythology, and Tom is doing a good job following the tradition. According to MTV's Karl Heitmueller, Smallville's Clark Kent was a better representation of the original material and remained "true to
7612-514: A wide variety of story genres such as Fantasy , Science fiction , Mystery , Horror , Crime fiction etc. that put superhero characters in a vast variety and combinations of story settings and fiction tropes with their presence the major common element. As such, it has become an expected element to superhero fiction for the heroic characters to be placed in nearly any story situation, including relatively down-to-Earth drama with their personal lives out of costume. For instance, The New Teen Titans
7785-414: A young actress who wants to attend Juilliard . Dawn, who can become invisible, wants to get revenge on the people who have been talking behind her back but is stopped by Clark. See No Evil was one of the original storylines for season one's "Shimmer". On November 1, 2002, Aspect published Alan Grant's Smallville: Dragon , about an ex-convict who assumes the abilities and appearance of a dragon after he
7958-478: A younger Kent couple, to be involved in Clark's life and help him on his journey. Chloe Sullivan (another character created for the series) was considered the "outsider" the show needed to ensure that someone would notice the strange happenings in Smallville rather than a "precursor to Lois Lane ". Smallville has been described by Warner Bros. as a from-the-roots reinterpretation of Superman mythology. Since
8131-502: Is Sarutobi Sasuke , a superhero ninja from children's novels in the 1910s. By 1914, his abilities included superhuman strength, chanting incantations, appearing and disappearing, jumping to the top of the highest trees, riding on clouds, conjuring the elements (water, fire and wind), and transforming into other people or animals. In 1938, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster , who had previously worked in pulp science fiction magazines, introduced Superman . (Siegel, as
8304-405: Is a type of stock character possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers" and dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes—ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas—have dominated American comic books and crossed over into other media. The word itself dates to at least 1917. A female superhero
8477-457: Is being abused by her father, and teach her to overcome her fear of flying so she can find her mother. Flight (like See No Evil ) was a planned episode, but the crew was uncertain that they could get the flying effects right and the idea was scrapped. Nancy Holder wrote the third novel in the Aspect series. Published on January 1, 2003, Hauntings follows Clark and his friends as they investigate
8650-422: Is exposed to kryptonite in a cave; the mutation drives him to try to kill everyone who testified against him. In the novel, Clark is hypnotized into believing that he is a normal teenager with no special abilities. A month after the publication of Grant's novel Bennett and Gottesfeld wrote Little, Brown Young Readers' Flight , about a young girl (Tia) who Clark discovers has wings. He and his friends believe that Tia
8823-779: Is introduced; he communicates to Clark through his spaceship, setting the stage for plots involving his role in fulfilling Clark's earthly destiny. In a fourth-season arc Clark, instructed by Jor-El, searches for three Kryptonian stones which contain the knowledge of the universe and form his Fortress of Solitude . Clark battles Brainiac in his attempts to release the Kryptonian criminal General Zod , and must capture (or destroy) other escaped Phantom Zone criminals. His cousin Kara arrives, and Lex Luthor discovers Clark's secret. The eighth season introduces Davis Bloome ( Smallville ' s version of Doomsday ), and Tess Mercer replaces
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#17327829277398996-430: Is rarely permanent, as characters who die are often brought back to life through supernatural means or via retcons (retroactive changes to the continuity), the alteration of previously established facts in the continuity of a fictional work. Fans have termed the practice of bringing back dead characters " comic book death ". Another common trait of superhero fiction is the killing off of a superhero's significant other by
9169-432: Is safe at home, the colors are "warm and gentle" earth tones and the camera movement is "very gentle". When Clark is keeping his secret and not in danger, the lighting is more neutral and the camera more mobile. When danger is present, the lighting becomes colder and the camera is handheld to allow for more "extreme angles". In Metropolis "clean, hard-lined architecture" predominates, with blues, purples and reflective metals
9342-637: Is sometimes called a superheroine (also rendered super-heroine or super heroine). In the United States, the term "SUPER HEROES" is a registered trademark co-owned by DC Comics and Marvel Comics . By most definitions, characters do not strictly require actual superhuman powers to be deemed superheroes, although terms such as costumed crime fighters or masked vigilantes are sometimes used to refer to those such as Batman and Green Arrow without such powers who share other common superhero traits. Such characters were generally referred to as "mystery men" in
9515-583: The Daily Planet and introducing other DC comic book superheroes and villains . Before the production, Bruce Wayne , a drama series chronicling the young protagonist's journey toward Batman , was proposed first. Although that series failed to generate interest, it inspired the idea of a Superman origin story , which later became Smallville . Gotham later used that idea three years after Smallville ' s conclusion. Series developers Gough and Millar pitched their "no tights, no flights" rule to
9688-539: The Silver Age of comic books . The Flash , Green Lantern , Hawkman and several others were recreated with new origin stories. While past superheroes resembled mythological heroes in their origins and abilities, these heroes were inspired by contemporary science fiction . In 1960, DC banded its most popular heroes together in the Justice League of America , which became a sales phenomenon. Empowered by
9861-642: The X-Men , and the Justice League , have been published, often marketed in association with TV series , as have Big Little Books starring the Fantastic Four and others. In the 1990s and 2000s, Marvel and DC released novels adapting such story arcs as " The Death of Superman ", " Planet Hulk ", " Wonder Woman: Earth One ", " Spider-Man: Birth of Venom " and Batman 's " No Man's Land ". Original superhero or superhuman fiction has appeared in both novel and short story print forms unrelated to adaptations from
10034-516: The comic-strip hero The Phantom , starting with 1943's Son of the Phantom . The character likewise returned in 1970s books, with a 15-installment series from Avon Books beginning in 1972, written by Phantom creator Lee Falk , Ron Goulart , and others. Also during the 1970s, Pocket Books published 11 novels based on Marvel Comics characters. Juvenile novels featuring Marvel Comics and DC Comics characters including Batman , Spider-Man ,
10207-530: The government , or laws that regulate extra-legal vigilante activity. For example, in the alternate universe of the Watchmen , first published in 1986, a backlash against superheroes leads to the passage of the "Keene Act", a federal law that prohibits "costumed adventuring" except by superheroes working for the government. A similar device was used in the Marvel Comics universe in the mid-2000s, where
10380-419: The highest-grossing film of all time . In 2017, the film Sign Gene featured about deaf superheroes who use sign language . Several live-action superhero programs aired from the early 1950s until the late 1970s. These included Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves , the action-comedy Batman series of the 1960s (often interpreted as being campy ) starring Adam West and Burt Ward . In
10553-528: The remote control . This code simply allows the user to change the factory-set configuration flag to another region, or to the special region "0". Once unlocked this way, the DVD player allows the owner to watch DVDs from any region. Many websites exist on the Internet offering these codes, often known informally as hacks . Many websites provide instructions for different models of standalone DVD players, to hack, and their factory codes. Older DVD drives use RPC-1 (Regional Playback Control) firmware, which means
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#173278292773910726-612: The " masked vigilantes " of the American Old West such as the San Diego Vigilantes and the Bald Knobbers who fought and killed outlaws while wearing masks. The character of Spring Heeled Jack , who first emerged as an urban legend of the early 19th century, was re-conceived as a masked and costumed adventurer during the 1890s. The hero's journey is a well-known archetypal story type in which
10899-585: The 1940s with the first film adaptation of a comic book superhero being The Adventures of Captain Marvel in 1941. The decline of these serials meant the death of superhero films until the release of 1978's Superman , a critical and commercial success. Several sequels followed in the 1980s. 1989's Batman was also highly successful and followed by several sequels in the 1990s. Yet while both franchises were initially successful, later sequels in both series fared poorly both artistically and financially, stunting
11072-424: The 1940s. When Fawcett Comics went out of business as such, DC Comics, which had been embroiled in a bitter copyright dispute with Fawcett Comics over Captain Marvel, bought out the copyright to not only the character but also his ancillary "Marvel Family" of heroes and villains. During World War II , superheroes grew in popularity, surviving paper rationing and the loss of many writers and illustrators to service in
11245-433: The 1960s, superhero cartoons have been a staple of children's television, particularly in the U.S.. However, by the early 1970s, US broadcasting restrictions on violence in children's entertainment led to series that were extremely tame, a trend exemplified by the series Super Friends . Meanwhile, Japan's anime industry successfully contributed its own style of superhero series, such as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman . In
11418-420: The 1970s however, the genre would find a newfound credibility in the medium with the original series, The Six Million Dollar Man and its spinoff, The Bionic Woman , being sustained successes. This led to direct adaptations of comic-book superheroes such as ABC / CBS drama series Wonder Woman of the 1970s starring Lynda Carter . The Incredible Hulk of the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, had
11591-580: The 1980s, the Saturday morning cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends brought together Spider-Man , Iceman , and Firestar . The following decade, Batman: The Animated Series , which was aimed at somewhat older audiences, found critical success in mainstream publications. This series led to the successful DC Animated Universe franchise and other adaptations such as Teen Titans , which Marvel emulated with X-Men and Spider-Man: The Animated Series . Comics' superhero mythos itself received
11764-623: The American comics industry, superpowered, costumed superheroes, such as Ōgon Bat (1931) and the Prince of Gamma ( ガンマ王子 ) (early 1930s), were visualized in painted panels used by kamishibai oral storytellers in Japan. They both anticipated elements of Superman and Batman. Prince of Gamma, for example, had an extraterrestrial origin story and a secret identity (his alter ego was a street urchin ), much like Superman. An earlier example from Japan
11937-690: The Case of Ennui" and Saladin Ahmed's "Doctor Diablo Goes Through the Motions". The web serial Worm began publication in 2011 and completed in 2013 while its sequel, Ward , began in November 2017 and completed in May 2020. DVD region code DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique introduced in 1997. It is designed to allow rights holders to control the international distribution of
12110-817: The Coast Discoveries imprint, 2008); Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible ( Pantheon Books , 2007); Lavie Tidhar 's The Violent Century (Hodder & Stoughton, 2013), David J. Schwartz's Superpowers: A Novel ( Three Rivers Press , 2008); Matthew Cody's Powerless ( Knopf , 2009); Van Allen Plexico 's Sentinels series of superhero novels (Swarm/Permuted Press, beginning in 2008); and Marissa Meyer 's Renegades trilogy. Collections of superhuman short stories include Who Can Save Us Now?: Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories , edited by Owen King and John McNally (Free Press, 2008), and Masked , edited by Lou Anders (Gallery, 2010). With
12283-602: The Golden Age and the Sub-Mariner , from Marvel Comics (then called Timely Comics and later re-branded Atlas Comics ), and Plastic Man and Phantom Lady from Quality Comics were also hits. Will Eisner 's The Spirit , featured in a comic strip , would become a considerable artistic inspiration to later comic book creators. The era's most popular superhero, however, was Fawcett Comics 's Captain Marvel , whose exploits regularly outsold those of Superman during
12456-492: The Man of Steel. They felt that because they were not comic book fans or familiar with the universe, they would have an unbiased approach to the series. Gough and Millar learned about the characters, researching the comics and choosing what they liked. They pitched their idea to the WB and Fox on the same day. A bidding war between the networks followed, with the WB committing to thirteen episodes. Although Roth, Gough and Millar knew
12629-568: The November 2004 reacquisition of Superboy by the Siegel family , a copyright infringement dispute has arisen over ownership of the fictional town of Smallville and a claimed similarity between Superboy and Smallville ' s Clark Kent. According to the Siegel heirs, " Smallville is part of the Superboy copyright" (which they hold). In April 2008, after seven seasons with the series, Gough and Millar left Smallville . The developers thanked
12802-486: The Superman mythology). Christopher Reeve , star of the Superman films , expressed his approval of the show: I was a little bit skeptical when I heard about [ Smallville ] at first, but I must say the writing, the acting, and the special effects are quite remarkable. In 1977, a big stunt scene would have taken us a week to film—it's pretty impressive what they are able to do with computers and effects technology today on
12975-528: The TV series, there was an occasional continuity overlap because of differences in production schedule between the comic and the series. In one instance, the comic book showed Clark robbing an ATM and the season-three premiere showed him robbing multiple ATMs. The series tied into the TV series, the Chloe Chronicles webisodes and Smallville -related webpages, with cast and crew interviews and information on
13148-409: The United States. Videotapes were inherently regional since formats had to match those of the encoding system used by television stations in that particular region, such as NTSC and PAL , although from the early 1990s PAL machines increasingly offered NTSC playback . DVDs are less restricted in that sense. Region coding allows movie studios to better control the global release dates of DVDs. Also,
13321-525: The Vampire Slayer , Angel , The Phantom Captain Nice , Mr. Terrific , The Green Hornet , Electra Woman and Dyna Girl , The Greatest American Hero , Dark Angel , No Ordinary Family and Alias . In the 1940s, Fleischer / Famous Studios produced a number of groundbreaking Superman cartoons, which became the first examples of superheroes in animation . Since
13494-774: The WB and UPN merged to form The CW , the series' later United States broadcaster until its tenth and final season ended on May 13, 2011. Smallville follows the coming-of-age adventures of teenage Clark Kent ( Tom Welling ) in his fictional hometown of Smallville , Kansas , before he formally becomes the Man of Steel. The first four seasons focus on the high school life of Clark and his friends, his complicated romance with neighbor girl Lana Lang ( Kristin Kreuk ), and his friendship with future nemesis Lex Luthor ( Michael Rosenbaum ). From season five onwards, Smallville ventures into Clark's early adult years, eventually focusing on his career alongside Lois Lane ( Erica Durance ) at
13667-687: The ability of copyright owners, such as film companies, to prevent competition by restricting imports from countries where the same (authorised) video titles are sold more cheaply." In 2012, a report from The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that region-free DVD players were legal in Australia, as they were exempt from the Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) included in the US Free Trade Agreement. Under New Zealand copyright law, DVD region codes and
13840-505: The armed forces. The need for simple tales of good triumphing over evil may explain the wartime popularity of superheroes. Publishers responded with stories in which superheroes battled the Axis Powers and the patriotically themed superheroes, most notably Marvel's Captain America as well as DC's Wonder Woman . Like other pop-culture figures of the time, Superheroes were used to promote domestic propaganda during wartime, ranging from
14013-691: The bulk of their properties to the copyright owner's, Disney , to its own streaming service, Disney+ . DC series include Shazam! , The Secrets of Isis , The Flash (1990 TV series) , Birds of Prey and Gotham . Arrowverse series include The Flash (2014 TV series) , Supergirl , Legends of Tomorrow and Constantine . Marvel series include The Amazing Spider-Man , Spidey Super Stories and Mutant X . Netflix series include Daredevil , Jessica Jones , Luke Cage , Iron Fist and The Defenders . Japanese tokusatsu series include Ultraman , Spectreman and Kamen Rider . Other series include- Buffy
14186-476: The cases of the DC and Marvel Universes ) establishing a fictional continuity of thousands of works spread over many decades. Changes to continuity are also common, ranging from small changes to established continuity, commonly called retcons , to full reboots , erasing all previous continuity. It is also common for works of superhero fiction to contain established characters and setting while occurring outside of
14359-474: The cast and crew for their work, acknowledging that they never stopped fighting for what they saw as "their vision" of the show. The reason for their departure was not provided. Gough and Millar were replaced as showrunners by Todd Slavkin , Darren Swimmer , Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson. All began writing for the series at the start of the second season, and were executive producers by the seventh season. In 2009, after one season, Swimmer and Slavkin took over
14532-559: The comic book industry adopted the stringent Comics Code . By the mid-1950s, only Superman , Batman and Wonder Woman retained a sliver of their prior popularity, although effort towards complete inoffensiveness led to stories that many consider silly, especially by modern standards. This ended what historians have called the Golden Age of comic books . In the 1950s, DC Comics , under the editorship of Julius Schwartz , recreated many popular 1940s heroes, launching an era later deemed
14705-560: The converted signal. NTSC discs may be output from a PAL DVD player in three different ways: However, most NTSC players cannot play PAL discs, and most NTSC TVs do not accept 576i video signals as used on PAL/SECAM DVDs. Those in NTSC countries, such as the United States, generally require both a region-free, multi-standard player and a multi-standard television to view PAL discs, or a converter box, whereas those in PAL countries generally require only
14878-682: The copyright in a title may be held by different entities in different territories. Region coding enables copyright holders to (attempt to) prevent a DVD from a region from which they do not derive royalties from being played on a DVD player inside their region. Region coding attempts to dissuade importing of DVDs from one region into another. DVDs are also formatted for use on two conflicting regional television systems: 480i /60 Hz and 576i /50 Hz, which in analog contexts are often referred to as 525/60 ( NTSC ) and 625/50 ( PAL / SECAM ) respectively. Strictly speaking, PAL and SECAM are analog color television signal formats which have no relevance in
15051-404: The corresponding format. NTSC is the analog TV format historically associated with the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Philippines, Taiwan, and other countries. PAL is the analog color TV format historically associated with most of Europe, most of Africa, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, North Korea, and other countries (Brazil adopted the variant PAL-M , which uses
15224-655: The country code allows much more precise control of the regional distribution of Blu-ray discs than the six (or eight) DVD regions. In Blu-ray discs, there are not any "special regions" like the regions 7 and 8 in DVDs. Ultra HD (4K) Blu-Ray discs are region-free as they're generally encoded as worldwide region. For the UMD, a disc type used for the PlayStation Portable , UMD movies have region codes similar to DVDs, although many PSP games are region-free. Region coding
15397-525: The departing Lex Luthor. Justin Hartley becomes a series regular as Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) after being a recurring guest in season six . In the ninth season Major Zod ( Callum Blue ) and other members of Zod's military group are revived (without their Kryptonian powers) by Tess Mercer, and their efforts to regain their powers are the season's central conflict. The final season revolves around Clark's attempts to lose his doubts and fears and become
15570-410: The depiction of superheroes in the 2004 film The Incredibles is used to examine societal attitudes towards those with disabilities, first by showing them through the prism of ableism in providing unwanted help to people they view as unable to help themselves and later as those forced to hide their differences that are now an object of discrimination. A supervillain or supervillainess is a variant of
15743-600: The digital domain (as evident in the conflation of PAL and SECAM, which are actually two distinct analog color systems). However, the DVD system was originally designed to encode the information necessary to reproduce signals in these formats, and the terms continue to be used (incorrectly) as a method of identifying refresh rates and vertical resolution. However, an "NTSC", "PAL" or "SECAM" DVD player that has one or more analog composite video output (baseband or modulated) will only produce NTSC, PAL or SECAM signals, respectively, from those outputs, and may only play DVDs identified with
15916-417: The dominant scheme. The same concept is used for the characters; Lex usually has a "glass, steel background", and Lionel has a white or "clinical blue" background. Lex typically wears black, grey and "cool tones" (purples and blues). Clark is represented by red, yellow and blue, similar to the traditional Superman costume, and "All-American" red, white and blue. From season two onward, Entity FX produced all of
16089-438: The drive allows DVDs from any region to play. Newer drives use RPC-2 firmware, which enforces the DVD region coding at the hardware level. These drives can often be reflashed or hacked with RPC-1 firmware, effectively making the drive region-free. This may void the drive's warranty. Some drives may come set as region-free, so the user is expected to assign their region when they buy it. In this case, some DVD programs may prompt
16262-651: The drive is locked. Most commercial players are locked to a region code, but can be easily changed with software. Other software, known as DVD region killers, transparently remove (or hide) the DVD region code from the software player. Some can also work around locked RPC-2 firmware. The region coding of a DVD can be circumvented by making a copy that adds flags for all region codes, creating an all-region DVD. DVD backup software can do this, and some can also remove Macrovision , CSS , and disabled user operations (UOps). In common region-locked DVDs (but not in RCE-DVDs),
16435-417: The end of season one. DC Comics then began publishing a bimonthly comic with stories about Smallville characters. Writer and script coordinator Clint Carpenter called the comic a companion to the series rather than a non-canonical version. According to Carpenter, the series expands on events in the series (such as season-ending cliffhangers) and gives "additional depth" to characters with limited screen time on
16608-501: The episode's featured band with its story (which revolved around REM sleep ). That season, Al Gough wanted to use Johnny Cash 's cover of the Nine Inch Nails song " Hurt " for the final scene of "Shattered" (when Lionel Luthor looks at Lex through a one-way mirror at Belle Reve sanitarium) as soon as he read the episode's script. Cash died while Wade-Reed was trying to obtain the rights for the song and his heirs, believing that
16781-491: The episode's final scene, telling Wade-Reed that he saw the song as being about mothers. In that scene Clark tells Martha that his first childhood memory was of his mother, Lara . Season three's "Velocity" provided the music editors with the opportunity to use hip-hop , rarely used in the series. The episode, similar to The Fast and the Furious , focused on Pete. Wade-Reed heard of British hip-hop artist Dizzee Rascal , and
16954-588: The episodes' production. The comic series ended in January 2005 with #11, with no comics published until the Season Eleven series debut. The reprinted material is, in whole or in part, from: Superhero fiction A superhero is most often the protagonist of superhero fiction. However, some titles, such as Marvels by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross , use superheroes as secondary characters . A superhero (sometimes rendered super-hero or super hero)
17127-471: The few to also publish superhero poetry, ceasing to do so as of 2011. Superhero poems there included Philip L. Tite's "Brittle Lives", Mark Floyd's "Nemeses", and Jay Macleod's "All Our Children". Novels with original superhuman stories include Robert Mayer's Superfolks ( St. Martin's Griffin , March 9, 2005); James Maxey's Nobody Gets the Girl ( Phobos Books , 2003); Rob Rogers's Devil's Cape ( Wizards of
17300-695: The film crew (which had to shoot when school was in session), and when a class was dismissed the crew stepped aside so the students could move the equipment to get to their lockers for the next class. The Kent farm is a working farm in Aldergrove . Owned by the Anderlinis, the crew painted their home yellow for the show. Exterior shots of Luthor Mansion were filmed at Hatley Castle in Victoria . The interiors were filmed at Shannon Mews in Vancouver, also
17473-521: The filmmakers and was in keeping with Millar's idea that Smallville should be the epitome of "Smalltown, USA". Templeton Secondary School was used for Smallville High's interior. During season one, the production team repainted most of Templeton in Smallville High's red and yellow and distributed large Smallville High Crows logos; so much of the school was painted that it adopted red and yellow as its school colors. The students became accustomed to
17646-409: The firmware count can be done with first- or third-party software tools, or by reflashing (see above) to RPC-1 firmware. Since some software does not work correctly with RPC-1 drives, there is also the option of reflashing the drive with a so-called auto-reset firmware. This firmware appears as RPC-2 firmware to software, but will reset the region changes counter whenever power is cycled, reverting to
17819-523: The game. This has changed due to popular franchises: The Silver Age -inspired Freedom Force (2002), City of Heroes (2004), Infamous series and Champions Online (2009), a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (or MMORPG), all of which allow players to create their own superheroes and/or villains. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Internet allowed a worldwide community of fans and amateur writers to bring their own superhero creations to
17992-484: The growth of superhero films for a time. Hit films such as 1998's Blade , 2000's X-Men and Unbreakable , and 2002's Spider-Man have led to sequel installments as well as encouraging the development of numerous superhero film franchises in the 21st century, both successful (such as 2005's Batman Begins , a reboot of the Batman film series ) and unsuccessful (such as 2004's Catwoman ). With that resurgence,
18165-450: The heart of the story" by showing Clark's selflessness and his struggle between his desires and his obligations. However, Heitmueller wrote that the series would have a difficult time addressing why no one in Smallville (including Lex Luthor) recognized Clark when he put on the suit. TV Guide's Michael Schneider called it one of the best examples of a superhero adaptation for television, but Christopher Hooton of Metro wrote that Smallville
18338-469: The hero he is meant to be, while confronting his biggest challenges: the coming of Darkseid and the return of Lex Luthor. Tollin/Robbins Productions originally wanted to do a series about a young Bruce Wayne, but the feature-film division of Warner Bros. decided to develop an origin movie for Batman and did not want to compete with a television series. In 2000, Tollin/Robbins approached Peter Roth, president of Warner Bros. Television , about developing
18511-410: The joint workload of Smallville and Ghost Whisperer , but would return for the latter. Reminiscing about his work on the show, Snow said that much of the music had not changed during the series and agreed with Larson that it was "more [about] maintaining the heroic concept and the mythology than progressing through specific changes". Louis Febre, who worked closely with Snow from the beginning, became
18684-693: The main canon for those characters. Crossovers often occur between characters of different works of superhero fiction. In comic books, highly publicized "events" are published featuring crossovers between many characters. In previous eras, especially in the Bronze Age of Comic Books , Marvel and DC had dedicated series in which their marquee characters such as Spider-Man and Superman would meet various characters in single stories such as Marvel Team-Up and DC Comics Presents . However, that publishing fashion has fallen away in favor of occasional limited series and guest appearances in regular series when
18857-400: The major comic-book companies. It has also appeared in poetry. Print magazines devoted to such stories include A Thousand Faces: A Quarterly Journal of Superhuman Fiction , published since 2007 in print and electronic form, and online only as of 2011 and This Mutant Life: Superhero Fiction , a bimonthly print publication from Australia , published since 2010. The latter magazine was one of
19030-692: The mechanisms in DVD players to enforce them have no legal protection. The practice was also criticized by the European Commission which as of 14 March 2001 were investigating whether the resulting price discrimination amounts to a violation of European competition law. The Washington Post highlighted how DVD region-coding was a major inconvenience for travelers who have the desire to legally purchase DVDs worldwide and return with them to their countries of origin, students of foreign languages, immigrants who want to watch films from their country of origin, and foreign film fans. Another criticism
19203-561: The murder of a boy and his sister while Lex tries to decide whether to ransom his kidnapped father or try rescuing Lionel himself. Little, Brown Young Readers published the next two books in April and June 2003. The first, Speed , was written by Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld. The second, Buried Secrets , was written by Suzan Colon. In Speed , a boy uses an hourglass his father gave him for his birthday to stop time and commit hate crimes without being caught. Clark stops him before he disrupts
19376-476: The music for the first six seasons was composed by Mark Snow , who incorporated elements of John Williams 's musical score from the Superman film series . Louis Febre (who worked with Snow from the beginning) became the series' primary composer in season seven . Smallville was generally positively received when it began. Former Superman star Christopher Reeve approved of the series, making two guest appearances before his death. The pilot episode set
19549-503: The names National and All-American at the time, received an overwhelming response to Superman and, in the years that followed, introduced Batman , Wonder Woman , The Green Lantern , The Flash , The Hawkman , Aquaman , and The Green Arrow . The first team of superheroes was DC's Justice Society of America , featuring most of the aforementioned characters. Although DC dominated the superhero market at this time, companies large and small created hundreds of superheroes. The Human Torch of
19722-556: The new CW series Melrose Place and did not return for Smallville ' s ninth season; Souders and Peterson would continue as showrunners. Tom Welling became co-executive producer of the series that July. In March 2010, Millar, Gough and co-producer Tollin/Robins Productions filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. and The CW charging that Hollywood's " vertical integration " cost Millar and Gough millions of dollars. The suit claimed that Warner Bros. failed to "maximize profits" in marketing Smallville , misrepresented production costs and sold
19895-416: The novel Gladiator , were heroes with unusual abilities who fought sometimes larger-than-life foes. The word " superhero " itself dates to at least 1917. The most direct antecedents are pulp magazine crime fighters such as the masked and caped Zorro (introduced by Johnston M. McCulley in 1919 with The Curse of Capistrano ) with his trademark "Z", the technologically advanced "Black Sapper" (1929),
20068-413: The only difference between the two is that the hero uses his extraordinary powers to help others, while the villain uses his powers for selfish, destructive or ruthless purposes. Both superheroes and supervillains often use alter egos while in action. While sometimes the character's real name is publicly known, alter egos are most often used to hide the character's secret identity from their enemies and
20241-449: The opening song " Save Me ", for their contributions to the series; the award was given to individuals who wrote the theme (or underscore) for the highest-rated television series in 2001 for their network. The American Society of Cinematographers awarded David Moxness for the sixth season's "Arrow", giving Glen Winter the same award the following year for his work on "Noir". Series regulars have also won awards; in 2001, Michael Rosenbaum won
20414-450: The other television series which aired during primetime hours. During its ten seasons, Smallville won awards ranging from Emmys to Teen Choice Awards . In 2002, the series won an Emmy for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series for its pilot episode. Four years later, it received an Emmy for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series for the fifth-season episode "Arrival". In 2008, Smallville again won an Outstanding Sound Editing for
20587-487: The pilot with a 2002 Best Visual Effects Leo, and received 2004 VES Awards for Outstanding Compositing in a Televised Program, Music Video or Commercial for the second season's "Accelerate" and Outstanding Matte Painting in a Televised Program, Music Video, or Commercial for "Insurgence". In 2002 the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honored composer Mark Snow and Remy Zero , who provided
20760-519: The player software, not by the computer system or the drive, not like DVD regions. The region code is stored in a file or the registry, and there are hacks to reset the region counter of the player software. In standalone players, the region code is part of and enforced by the firmware. For bypassing region codes, there are software and multi-regional standalone players available. On the other hand, some standalone players can be modified to be region-free. A new form of Blu-ray region coding tests not only
20933-410: The president of Warner Bros. Television, reducing the Man of Steel to the bare moral essentials and examining what led Clark Kent to become the iconic superhero. After seven seasons with the show, Gough and Millar departed with little explanation. Smallville was primarily filmed in and around Vancouver, British Columbia , with local businesses and buildings substituting for Smallville locations. Most of
21106-638: The preternaturally mesmeric The Shadow (1930), the "peak human" Doc Savage (1933), and The Spider (1933), and comic strip characters such as Hugo Hercules (1902), Popeye (1929), the Phantom (1936) and Olga Mesmer (1937). The first masked crime-fighter created for comic books was writer-artist George Brenner 's non-superpowered detective the Clock , who debuted in Centaur Publications ' Funny Pages #6 (Nov. 1936). In August 1937, in
21279-549: The price of keeping such a secret. In addition, this narrative trope can allow fantasy characters to be in occasional realistic stories without the fantasy element of the sub-genre appearing. With supervillains, by contrast, the duality of their identities is kept a secret and closely guarded to conceal their crimes from the general public, so that they may inflict greater harm on the general public, and to enable them to act freely, and hence illegally, without risk of arrest by law-enforcement authorities. Death in superhero fiction
21452-493: The protagonist undertakes a quest to achieve both material advantage and psychological and ethical maturity, and is generally considered to function as a metaphor and guide for children transitioning to adulthood or from egoism to altruism as the core concept of the self . Antecedents of the superhero archetype include such folkloric heroes as Robin Hood , who adventured in distinctive clothing, and King Arthur , who possessed
21625-426: The public. With superheroes, the duality of their identities is kept a secret and closely guarded to protect those close to them from being harmed and to prevent them from being called upon constantly, even for problems not serious enough to require their attention. This can be a source of drama with the superhero being forced to devise means of getting out of sight to change without revealing their identity, or bearing
21798-413: The purchasing of war bonds . Following superheroes's popularity during this time, those characters' appeal began to dwindle in the post-war era. Comic-book publishers, casting about for new subjects and genres, found success in, particularly, crime fiction , the most prominent comic of which was Lev Gleason Publications 's Crime Does Not Pay , and horror . The lurid nature of these genres sparked
21971-651: The refresh rate and resolution commonly associated with NTSC). SECAM, a format associated with French-speaking Europe, while using the same resolution and refresh rate as PAL, is a distinct format which uses a very different system of color encoding. Some DVD players can only play discs identified as NTSC, PAL or SECAM, while others can play multiple standards. In general, it is easier for consumers in PAL/SECAM countries to view NTSC DVDs than vice versa. Almost all DVD players sold in PAL/SECAM countries are capable of playing both kinds of discs, and most modern PAL TVs can handle
22144-408: The region 2, region 4, and region 5 codes, or are region 0. Region-code enhanced, also known as just "RCE" or "REA", was a retroactive attempt to prevent the playing of one region's discs in another region, even if the disc was played in a region-free player. The scheme was deployed on only a handful of discs. The disc contained the main program material region coded as region 1. But it also contained
22317-420: The region code is stored in the file "VIDEO_TS.IFO" (table "VMGM_MAT"), byte offsets 34 and 35. The eight regions each correspond to a value which is a power of 2: Region 1 corresponds to 1 (2 ), Region 2 to 2 (2 ), Region 3 to 4 (2 ), and so on through Region 8, which corresponds to 128 (2 ). The values of each region that the disc is not encoded for are added together to give the value in the file. For example,
22490-606: The region of the player/player software, but also its country code. This means, for example, while both the US and Japan are Region A, some American discs are not going to be played on devices/software installed in Japan or vice versa, due to the two countries having different country codes (the United States has 21843 or Hex 5553 ("US" in ASCII , according to ISO 3166-1 ), and Japan has 19024, or Hex 4a50 ("JP"); Canada has 17217 or Hex 4341 ("CA"). Although there are only three Blu-ray regions,
22663-483: The return of the superhero at DC, Marvel Comics editor/writer Stan Lee and the artists/co-writers Jack Kirby , Steve Ditko and Bill Everett launched a new line of superhero comic books, beginning with the Fantastic Four in 1961 and continuing with the Incredible Hulk , Spider-Man , Iron Man , Thor , the X-Men , and Daredevil . These comics continued DC's use of science fiction concepts ( radiation
22836-400: The rise of e-book readers like Kindle and Nook, a host of superhero stories have been self-published, including R. R. Haywood's Extracted (2017), R. T. Leone's Invinciman (2017), and Mike Vago's Selfdestructible (2018). While many popular superheroes have been featured in licensed video games, up until recently there have been few that have revolved around heroes created specifically for
23009-491: The same Blu-ray region code (region B). North Korea and South Korea have different DVD region codes (North Korea: region 5, South Korea: region 3), but use the same Blu-ray region code (region A). In China, two DVD region codes are used: Mainland China uses region 6, but Hong Kong and Macau use region 3. There are also two Blu-ray regions used: China uses region C, while Hong Kong and Macau use region A. Most DVDs in India combine
23182-611: The series aired in Canada a day earlier than it did in the United States. In May 2009, Smallville ' s ninth season moved to Friday at 8:00 pm, considered the " death slot " for television programs. By the end of its tenth season it was the longest-running science-fiction TV show in the United States, breaking the record held by Stargate SG-1 . Syndication rights became available in October 2004 when it began airing alongside Gilmore Girls on ABC Family (now Freeform ) five nights
23355-408: The series or whose storylines needed additional explanation. Carpenter was not the first person asked to oversee the comic; Mark Verheiden, who co-wrote the one-off comic, was originally intended to be in charge of the bimonthly series. Verheiden's commitment to the TV series kept him from working on the comic books, so he asked Carpenter to take them on. Although the comic book was intended to expand on
23528-561: The series with invigorating the network's Tuesday-night lineup. Smallville appeared on the cover of Entertainment Weekly as one of five new shows to watch. After its first season, the series was sixth on the Parents Television Council 's 10-best list of broadcast programs. Levin, acknowledging early concerns that Smallville had become a villain of the week series, said that season two would introduce "smaller mini-arcs over three to four episodes" and become less of
23701-532: The series. Titled Smallville: The Comic , it has two stories. The first, "Raptor" by Mark Verheiden and Roy Martinez, is about an abused boy who mutates into a velociraptor (thanks to kryptonite) and tries to get revenge on the Luthor family. Michael Green and John Paul Leon wrote "Exile and The Kingdom", with insight into why Lex remains in Smallville after his father offers him a position in Metropolis at
23874-635: The set for the Dark Angel pilot and the film Along Came a Spider . Clova Cinema, in Cloverdale was used for exteriors of the Talon, Smallville ' s coffeehouse. Reeve's guest appearances in the second and third seasons were filmed in New York City . The story is told from Clark's point of view, so color schemes and camera selection illustrate how he interprets his environment. When he
24047-489: The short-lived action comedy, Misfits of Science . In the 2010s, Warner Brothers created a successful adaptation of the Green Arrow , Arrow , that began the successful Arrowverse television franchise. Marvel meanwhile had a successful television spin-off of their Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. , while creating a number of series on the streaming service Netflix , before moving
24220-502: The show to foreign markets at "well below the value of the series", not specifying the amount of compensation sought by the plaintiffs. The lawsuit ended with an undisclosed settlement in May 2013. Tom Welling was appointed an executive producer for Smallville ' s tenth season in May 2010. The series was filmed at BB Studios in Burnaby , British Columbia. Although production was initially planned for Australia, Vancouver had more of
24393-400: The show would be action-oriented, they wanted to reach 7th Heaven ' s "middle America iconography". To create atmosphere, the team decided the meteor shower bringing Clark to Earth would be the ironic foundation of the show. The primary source of his life on Earth and the super-powered beings Clark must fight, it would take away the parents of the girl he loves and start Lex Luthor down
24566-667: The show's popularity after the September 11 attacks on the United States. Actors reported that many United States military veterans told them of watching the show as a distraction from combat while serving overseas. Smallville has generated other media and spin-offs, from young-adult novels and comic books to Internet-based mini-episodes with characters from the series. It influenced the British TV series, Merlin . Two series of novels have been published since Smallville ' s second season. A series of eight young-adult novels
24739-403: The so-called Golden Age of Comic Books to distinguish them from characters with super-powers. Normally, superheroes use their powers to counter day-to-day crime while also combating threats against humanity by their criminal counterparts, supervillains. Long-running superheroes such as DC's Batman , Superman and Wonder Woman and Marvel's Spider-Man , Captain America and Iron Man have
24912-447: The sole composer for Smallville in season seven. Febre said that since he began composing for Smallville there was a shift to "thematic development" in the score, paralleling the characters' growth: "As Clark grew emotionally and intellectually more complex, I found a need to comment musically on his growth, and as he drew closer to his Superman persona, it became obvious that a 'Superman' theme would be required". The creative team had
25085-403: The song's lyrics. Smallville premiered at 9:00 pm on Tuesday, October 16, 2001 on the WB. For five seasons, the series aired on the WB, moving from Tuesday at 9:00 pm to Wednesday at 8:00 pm and eventually to Thursday at 8:00 pm. In 2006, before the start of Smallville ' s sixth season, the WB and UPN merged into The CW and the series continued in its lineup. During its seventh season,
25258-452: The song's use in the episode would honor his memory, gave Smallville the rights. For season three's "Resurrection" and "Memoria", songs were chosen as symbolism for the characters. In "Resurrection", The Rapture 's " Infatuation " was used during a scene with Lex and Lana to symbolize the question, "Are we ever going to figure out what these two people think of each other?" For "Memoria" Gough wanted to use Evanescence 's " My Immortal " for
25431-438: The soundtrack. Their choices were discussed by the producers, who decided which songs they wanted and secured their rights. Although Snow said it initially seemed odd to combine two types of music on a "typical action-adventure" television show, "the producers seem to like the contrast of the modern songs and the traditional, orchestral approach to the score". I get a locked picture on a videotape which syncs up with all my gear in
25604-418: The state of a drive that has never had its region code changed. Most freeware and open source DVD players ignore region coding. VLC , for example, does not attempt to enforce region coding; however, it requires access to the DVD's raw data to overcome CSS encryption, and such access may not be available on some drives with RPC-2 firmware when playing a disc from a different region than the region to which
25777-410: The story of several ordinary people who each suddenly find themselves with a superpower. The British series Misfits incorporates super-human abilities to undesirables in society. In this case, young offenders put on community service all have super powers and each use them to battle villains of sorts. In the 1980s, an unsuccessful attempt was made to realize this last concept in the United States with
25950-468: The studio. I write the music, finish it up, mix it up, send it through the airwaves on the internet, and the music editor puts it in. They call up usually and say, 'Thank you, well done'. Sometimes they call and say, "Thank you, not so well done—can you change this or that?" I say "Sure", make the changes and send it back. —Mark Snow, on composing music for each episode. The main Smallville theme
26123-418: The subgenre has become a major element of mainstream film production with outstanding successes like 2008's The Dark Knight , 2012's The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises , 2013's Iron Man 3 , and 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron attracting major revenue and critical plaudits. This trend was reinforced in 2016 with the outstanding success of the critically lauded Deadpool , a film adaptation of
26296-463: The superhero archetype. Superheroes occasionally have been adapted into prose fiction , starting with Random House 's 1942 novel The Adventures of Superman by George Lowther . In the 1970s, Elliot S! Maggin wrote the Superman novels, Last Son of Krypton (1978) and Miracle Monday , coinciding with but not adapting the movie Superman . Other early adaptations include novels starring
26469-495: The supervillain often possesses a genius intellect that allows him to draft complex schemes or create fantastic devices. Another common trait is possession of considerable resources to help further his aims. Many supervillains share some typical characteristics of real-world dictators, mobsters, and terrorists and often have aspirations of world domination or universal leadership. Superheroes and supervillains often mirror each other in their powers, abilities, or origins. In some cases,
26642-539: The titular hero. Fellow DC Comics stars Batman and Robin made occasional guest appearances. Other superhero radio programs starred characters including the costumed but not superpowered Blue Beetle , and the non-costumed, superpowered Popeye . Also appearing on radio were such characters as the Green Hornet , the Green Lama , Doc Savage , and the Lone Ranger , a Western hero who relied on many conventions of
26815-502: The truth to prove Lex's innocence, stopping the creatures before they can kill again. Colon returned to write Runaway , in which Clark runs away to the city and lives with other homeless teenagers; he falls in love with one of the girls before returning home. In Smallville: Silence by Nancy Holder, the characters investigate zombies in town. Little, Brown Young Readers published its eighth book, Greed , by Bennett and Gottesfeld in which Clark and his friends take summer jobs as counselors at
26988-616: The use of modchips . Although region locked on film DVDs and film Blu-ray Discs, the PlayStation 3 , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Xbox One , and Xbox Series X are region free for video games, though add-on content on the online store is region locked and must match the region of the disc. Blu-ray discs use a much simpler region-code system than DVD with only three regions, labeled A, B and C. As with DVDs, many Blu-rays are encoded region 0 (region free), making them suitable for players worldwide. Blu-ray regions are verified only by
27161-447: The user to select a region, while others may actually assign the region automatically based on the locale set in the operating system. In most computer drives, users are allowed to change the region code up to five times. If the number of allowances reaches zero, the region last used will be permanent even if the drive is transferred to another computer. This limit is built into the drive's controller software, called firmware. Resetting
27334-418: The villain character type, commonly found in comic books, action movies, and science fiction in various media. They are sometimes used as foils to superheroes and other heroes. Whereas superheroes often wield fantastic powers, the supervillain possesses commensurate powers and abilities so that he can present a daunting challenge to the hero. Even without actual physical, mystical, superhuman or superalien powers,
27507-530: The visual effects for Smallville , including the view of the Metropolis skyline. Composer Mark Snow worked with producer Ken Horton to create Smallville ' s score. Snow composed music as he watched the picture, and tweaked his performance when he reviewed his initial recordings. He then sent the music to the producers, who sent it back for recomposition if needed. Individual episodes have their own soundtrack, comprising one (or more) songs. Jennifer Pyken and Madonna Wade-Reed of Daisy Music looked for songs for
27680-544: The writer, actually created the central and supporting characters; Shuster, as the artist, designed these characters, and gave Superman the first version of his now-iconic uniform.) The character possessed many of the traits that have come to define the superhero: a secret identity , superhuman powers and a colorful costume including a symbol and cape. His name is also the source of the term "superhero", although early comic book heroes were sometimes also called mystery men or masked heroes . DC Comics , which published under
27853-410: The writers felt the character's presence was justified. Intercompany crossovers , between characters of different continuity, are also common. Over the history of the comic book genre, writers for major characters' series were required to produce material to strict regular publishing schedules that often ran for years. As such to fulfill this strenuous creative requirement, superhero stories have used
28026-608: Was a common source of superpowers) but placed greater emphasis on personal conflict and character development. This led to many superheroes that differed from predecessors with more dramatic potential. For example, the Fantastic Four were a superhero family of sorts, who squabbled and even held some unresolved acrimony towards one another, and Spider-Man was a teenager who struggled to earn money and maintain his social life in addition to his costumed exploits. Superhero films began as Saturday movie serials aimed at children during
28199-419: Was a mainstream superhero series which had characters that were a mix of fantasy ( Raven , Wonder Girl ), science fiction ( Cyborg , Starfire , Changeling , Kid Flash ) and crime fiction ( Robin ). Furthermore, their series had such a variety of stories, such as in a year-long period of 1982-3 where in rapid succession, the team would face Brother Blood , a costumed supervillain cult leader, then promptly have
28372-432: Was a story which did not need to be told: "No-one bothered to follow Bruce Wayne's tedious years spent manufacturing microchips before he became Batman, so why must we endure a decade of flannel shirt-wearing Clark Kent bucking hay?" The following is a table for the seasonal rankings, based on average total estimated viewers per episode, of Smallville on the WB and The CW. "Rank" refers to how Smallville rated compared to
28545-583: Was criticized for facilitating unlawful market control strategies, such as price fixing . Sale of region-coded DVDs are illegal in New Zealand . The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have warned that DVD players that enforce region-coding may violate the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 . A December 2000 report from the ACCC advised consumers to "exercise caution when purchasing
28718-470: Was more "heroic" and "in-your-face". Snow was told during season two that the closing credits needed new music, since the show had evolved and the existing music was no longer suitable, and he created a new, toned-down score with a more "melodic" sound. Snow has also reworked music from the previous Superman films . John Williams 's musical score for the Krypton sequence in the opening credits of Superman
28891-414: Was not composed by Snow, although he composed opening themes for other shows (including The X-Files ). The series' opening theme is the short version of " Save Me " performed by Remy Zero . Snow composed the closing-credits music, which was intended as Smallville ' s theme. During the first two seasons, the closing-credits music was a potential theme for the series (before "Save Me" was selected); it
29064-527: Was popular in the early days of the DVD format, but studios quickly responded by adjusting discs to refuse to play in such machines by implementing a system known as "Regional Coding Enhancement" (RCE). DVDs sold in the Baltic states use both region 2 and 5 codes, having previously been in region 5 (because of their history as part of the USSR), but EU single market law concerning the free movement of goods caused
29237-434: Was published by Aspect Publishing from October 2002 to March 2004, and a second series of ten young-adult novels was published by Little, Brown Young Readers from October 2002 to April 2004. A bimonthly comic book series, which often tied into the series, was also published. Three novels were published on October 1, 2002: one by Aspect and two by Little, Brown Young Readers. The Aspect novel ( Smallville: Strange Visitors )
29410-487: Was the first person in the United States to secure the rights to Rascal's album. Greg Beeman directs episodes, and sometimes scenes, with particular songs in mind. For "Vortex" in season two, he used Coldplay 's " In My Place " for the final scene. In the season-two finale "Exodus", Beeman directed the scene where Lana shows up at the Kent barn before Lex's wedding to Matthew Good 's "Weapon". The lyrics speak of an angel and devil "by my side", and Beeman timed specific shots to
29583-399: Was threatened by the advent of digital home video was the tradition of releasing a movie to cinemas and then for general rental or sale later in some countries than in others. This practice was historically common because before the advent of digital cinema , releasing a movie at the same time worldwide used to be prohibitively expensive. Most importantly, manufacturing a release print of
29756-405: Was used in season two's "Rosetta" (which featured a guest appearance by Christopher Reeve ) and several times in the season-two finale. To save money Snow recorded his version of Williams's score, since using the original version would have required the team to pay Williams's orchestra. In an interview with Randall Larson in May 2008, Snow said that he would not be returning to Smallville , citing
29929-434: Was written by Roger Stern , with Clark and his friends trying to uncover the truth about two religious con men who set up shop in Smallville and use kryptonite in their spiritual seminars to rob the townspeople. Little, Brown Young Readers first published Arrival by Michael Teitelbaum, chronicling the series' pilot . The second novel ( See No Evil , by series writers Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld ) follows Dawn Mills,
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