Why didn't Lionel take Clark back when he was young?

[herolee10]

okay, it's apparent from Eternal, and especially from Lionel's diary that he had a solid idea that Clark was the person he was looking for. My question is though..on if he thought that Clark was the traveler then, hence dumping Davis out on the street..why didn't he just take away Clark from the Kents, and allow them to peacefully take care of them. Hell he didn't even try to come back for Clark when he came back in SV back in season 1.

My only conclusion are these...

1. He wanted to see Clark grow up with the Kents in order for Clark to develop a human like personality since he was still very young when found.

2. Perhaps, some of higher influence was perhaps protecting Clark from Lionel..but the only people that could have done that are..

Martian Manhunter or Virgil Swan.

["Lois I Never Lie"]

okay, it's apparent from Eternal, and especially from Lionel's diary that he had a solid idea that Clark was the person he was looking for. My question is though..on if he thought that Clark was the traveler then, hence dumping Davis out on the street..why didn't he just take away Clark from the Kents, and allow them to peacefully take care of them. Hell he didn't even try to come back for Clark when he came back in SV back in season 1.

My only conclusion are these...

1. He wanted to see Clark grow up with the Kents in order for Clark to develop a human like personality since he was still very young when found.

2. Perhaps, some of higher influence was perhaps protecting Clark from Lionel..but the only people that could have done that are..

Martian Manhunter or Virgil Swan.

Its difficult to tell with this one, it could be a massive plot hole or it could be that the Veritas group did not allow it, or and I like this one best, he may have left Kal-El with the Kent's as the perfect hiding place. He would always know where he was and I would say that after the tests showed that Davis was human he was probably worried that if he did take Clark the tests would show the same. If I was Lionel I would have taken a back seat and waited to see what transpired and then choose my time wisely to reveal myself.

[Jaderoyale]

Because there was a plothole.
What i got from the episode was that Lionel thought Davis was the Traveler.
When Tess said he was wrong, that two boys fell to earth, at the time of kidnapping Davis, Lionel didn't know Clark was there. UNTIL he went to the Kents house. And i figure he just decided to let Clark stay with them because ultimately he knew the Kents would bring him up well (like you said) - and he could keep an eye on him from afar.

[Supsfan]

This show makes alot more sense if you act like Veritas never happened

[devilneedsaride]

Because then this episode wouldn't be able to single-handedly fulfill the season's quota of nonsensical retcons.

Seriously though, I can't think of a good reason. We were given to believe that, until his possession by Jor-El, Lionel had no idea about Clark, or he had vague suspicions that something was up, but nothing like the whole story. If he did know, then the first four seasons of the show make absolutely no sense.

[costas22]

The only thing that i can think of is that after Davis wasn't the one,Lionel decided to be a lot more cautious about the other boy.So he might have suspected that Clark was the one but he was never sure.Either way,it was lame that they had to retcon that story to begin with.