Darkseid: What Happened?!

[Emissary of Justice]

For those of you unaware, while Lex Luthor is Superman's most iconic villain, Darkseid is his best when used right. For examples, check out Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, and Final Crisis. I've been waiting for him to be on Smallville since Season Four when it occured to me that when this show comes to an end, it just has to be Darkseid that closes it out.

However, there's three episodes left and we've only had him in about three of them? He is a God and master strategist, but has seemingly had no plan since the VRA failed. His whole goal just seems to corrupt the Earth and get Clark Kent on his side yet doesn't attempt to capture Clark Luthor?!

The ball has been dropped. It could've been so much better than this.

[Angela Of El]

I actually followed a friend's advice, and went around watching JL episodes with Darkseid, read a bit of the comics over the years dealing with Darkseid...Darkseid is an awesome villain, you are absolutely right, BUT it seems the "big bang" the showrunners had in mind for him, was "to drop the biggest ball in all ten years of Smallville!"

i am really sad about this...but i guess Darkseid is treated like he is a "flight and tights" thing..."SO" special, that he is (hopefully...? at least...?) "just" for the finale!

[RightWingConspirator]

For those of you unaware, while Lex Luthor is Superman's most iconic villain, Darkseid is his best when used right. For examples, check out Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, and Final Crisis. I've been waiting for him to be on Smallville since Season Four when it occured to me that when this show comes to an end, it just has to be Darkseid that closes it out.

However, there's three episodes left and we've only had him in about three of them? He is a God and master strategist, but has seemingly had no plan since the VRA failed. His whole goal just seems to corrupt the Earth and get Clark Kent on his side yet doesn't attempt to capture Clark Luthor?!

The ball has been dropped. It could've been so much better than this.

Darkseid was advertised as this season's Big Bad. What I ***think*** happened, was that they didn't think they could get Rosenbaum, who would have been the preferred Big Bad for this last season. So they go the Darkseid route, and all of a sudden, they get the idea they might get Rosenbaum after all.. So we have this disjointed season, with the ending undetermined until really after the last minute, which is never good.

So now no one really cares about Darkseid--all the promos are about Lex, Darkseid is ignored--and that storyline will probably be wrapped up really quick in favor of Lex's return.
We have only two eps left before the finale. There really is no time to do Darkseid justice now. And I'm not sure live action could get it right anyway (at least not on this show, and I offer our good friend Mr. Doomsday as evidence).

[Kentlucky92]

Darkseid was advertised as this season's Big Bad. What I ***think*** happened, was that they didn't think they could get Rosenbaum, who would have been the preferred Big Bad for this last season. So they go the Darkseid route, and all of a sudden, they get the idea they might get Rosenbaum after all.. So we have this disjointed season, with the ending undetermined until really after the last minute, which is never good.

So now no one really cares about Darkseid--all the promos are about Lex, Darkseid is ignored--and that storyline will probably be wrapped up really quick in favor of Lex's return.
We have only two eps left before the finale. There really is no time to do Darkseid justice now. And I'm not sure live action could get it right anyway (at least not on this show, and I offer our good friend Mr. Doomsday as evidence).

Perhaps Darkside will be the Big Baddie in near future and ending of this season will be the beginning og Darkseid and his minions vs Superman?

[RightWingConspirator]

Perhaps Darkside will be the Big Baddie in near future and ending of this season will be the beginning og Darkseid and his minions vs Superman?

That would be interesting, but unlikely. Presumably, and this is just speculation on my part, I haven't read/seen anything saying this is how it's going to be, the last segment of the finale will be Clark taking on the Superman outfit/name. Maybe not until the very last second.
If my theory is right, and there's nothing after that, then we won;t have anything like what you're suggesting. My bet is that the Darkseid arc ends when Oliver gets rid of the Omega thing on his forhead. That probably happens real soon.

[PHOENIXZERO]

The whole Darkseid arc has been a complete waste and even with my low, low expectations for it I've been disappointed. I knew right way that they wouldn't have a true physical embodiment Darkseid (I would've been fine if they just played it off as an avatar of the true Darkseid, as I had been) but season 10 has just been so lackluster that it's made things worse. There is so much they could have done with, but instead we got a half dozen other half-assed story arcs, one off episodes done just stroke egos and unneeded filler.

We already, well know that there won't be any sort of Smallville continuation beyond the finale in a live action (or animated) format, I could see DC doing a mini-series or something but that's also unlikely. There isn't even room for speculation though for a continuation on television or film.

[Tabularasa]

If the whole Darkseid mess is because the writers were unsure if they were going to get Rosenbaum, it's still not an excuse

They should've built the Darkseid arc to climax and end with episode 20. Then use the 2 hour finale to wrap up loose ends and send him off as Superman even if they didn't have Lex.

They should've been prepared for any possibility with Rosenabum but...they weren't.

[MrT]

They pump up Darkseid to be the ultimate threat to Earth.
Bigger than Doomsday.
Bigger than Super Power Zod and the Kandorians.

All we got was a big puff of smoke floating around Metropolis for most of the season.

[kryptonian95]

I hope that they don't just throw away his character because of Lex's return. Anyway Lex's return seems most likely to just show his return and not a plot created by him. In other words seeing as he has 4 scenes it will probably just show him interacting with other characters to let us know he is back. I still think (or hope) they are focusing on Darkseids plot because they have already promoted the finale with that earth going dark teaser, with the shield zooming around with the sun (which was made after Michael Rosenbaum returned). I'm hoping they are keeping it a secret!

[Emissary of Justice]

I wouldn't blame this on Rosenbaum at all. He changed his mind extremely late. This was just poorly handled because these writers are idiots. They should have paid attention to the fans of not just the show, but Superman. People are tired of Lex Luthor. We've dealt with him non-stop in every form of Superman media for decades. We get the whole man vs. Superman irony and all that crap. He still has better villains. Just use them!

[TheSecretVampire]

I'm cool with how they handled Darkseid, but I think they should've went the way of a business mogul Darkseid. He would've came to town and become a bigger force in the corporate world than Tess and Oliver and start his corruption there.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/Darkseid_7s.png

[jon-el87]

However, there's three episodes left and we've only had him in about three of them?

I quite like that he wasn't in many episodes. Counting the finale as one episode, he was in like five episodes total. That's including episodes like "Lazarus" and "Scion", where he only cameos at the end. Prior to the finale, his and Clark's only encounter had been in the episode "Supergirl", where a confrontation was prevented by Kara's bracelet. Keeping their face-off in the finale relatively fresh. Because we hadn't seen Darkseid, essentially show up every week, attempting (and failing) to destroy Clark. Eventually, one would've gotten bored, before they face off in the finale (which will only have a different development, from the previous 20 or so times, because it's the end of the season).

In general, I quite like how Smallville handled their big bads. Isobel Thoreaux was a bad one (if she'd be counted as a big bad), partially because she didn't have a final confrontation with Clark. She vanished after killing Mrs. Teague, and touching one of the stones. Touching the stone had previously undone her control over Lana's body... but this time it was a permanent exorcism... because the season was like over. Not sure I'd count anyone in seasons 1-3 as "the big bad".

Brainiac appears in eight of 22 episodes in season 5. This includes his cameo, at the end of "Arrival". He next shows up in "Aqua", "Thirst" and "Splinter", over which he befriends and tries to gain Clark's trust. Then he reveals himself to be a villain in "Solitude" (the episode after "Splinter") and is seeminly destroyed. As far as Clark believes, the danger is over. Then Lex finds Brainiac in "Hypnotic". Then Brainiac is gone until "Oracle" and "Vessel". Clark learns that Brainiac (who he thought was destroyed in the 8th episode) is still alive in "Void" (the 17th out of 22), with no idea of his current whereabouts in the world (all he knows is, that he is no longer in Honduras). So Clark believes for a good portion of the season, that the threat of Brainiac has been destroyed. Even when he learns the truth, he has no way of finding him.

In season six, they had him dealing with six escaped Zoners, who landed in different parts of the world. Outside of Bizarro, he ends up dealing with each individual Zoner only once, with each having a different power set. He doesn't spend the entire season trying to defeat a single Zoner, with a solution magically presented to him in the season finale (simply because it's the season finale, and it's time for the writers to get rid off the threat).

Season eight had Davis Bloome, who only appears in 12 (13, if you count an appearance by Doomsday in "Stiletto") out of 22 episodes. With "Bride" being the only time, pre-season finale, where "Doomsday" fights Clark (where his objective is to kidnap Chloe, not kill Clark). Which is where Clark becomes aware that Doomsday exists (having previously been led to believe that it was the kid in "Prey", or simply another meteor freak, committing those murders). Until Davis himself starts killing people, at the end of "Infamous" (the 15th episode), he is not a proactive antagonist (having previously been absent since "Legion"). With Clark, upon learning that Davis is Doomsday, thinking that Davis gets killed in "Eternal". He learns the truth in "Beast", but his attempt to get rid off Davis is prevented by Chloe (who teleports away with Davis). Then Davis is gone for an episode, with Clark and Doomsday having their confrontation in the episode after that. Throughout this, while Davis has been in 12-13 episodes, Clark had only fought Doomsday once before (interrupted by Clark being affected by Kryptonite (preventing him from fighting Doomsday), and Doomsday not being there to kill him).

Season nine had Major Zod, who appeared in 12 out of 21 episodes ("Absolute Justice" counted as one). Don't think that Clark becomes aware of him until like "Kandor" (the seventh episode). They don't meet until "Pandora" (the ninth episode), by which point Zod neither has powers or are an active antagonist for Clark to fight. Instead, Clark wants to try and save the clone, like Jor-El's clone wanted him to. Zod acquires powers at the end of "Conspiracy" (the 14th). Clark learns this only in "Upgrade" (the 17th episode), with Clark spending a good portion of it affected by red Kryptonite. The episode ends with Zod starting to give Kandorians powers. He then next appears in "Sacrifice" (the 19th episode) and goes underground with his forces. Then he's gone for one episode, and comes back with his invasion plan for the finale.

The big bads don't appear in every episode. At times, they might be given one fight against Clark, prior to the finale (with some element interrupting it). At times, they don't start out as an outright antagonist that Clark will have to fight. At times, Clark believes them to have been destroyed (during which, the antagonist goes away for a while), then starts looking for them, when he learns the truth.

Outside of the big bads, Clark also had to deal with additional recurring threats, during the seasons. Season six had Clark, outside of the six Zoners, also deal with 33,1. Season seven, which I left off the above list, had Clark having to deal with Lex, Brainiac and Bizarro as recurring threats, at different times during the season. Lex and Brainiac was also a recurring treat in season 8. Season 9 had Checkmate and Metallo. Season 10 had the Suicide Squad, Clark Luthor, E-2 Lionel Luthor. In each of the last three seasons, Toyman was an antagonist for an episode. His time wasn't devoted to a singular threat (alt. one big bad for the season + some one-shots for the odd episode), for the entire season.

[phoenixnz]

I think the idea of Darkseid being the big bad was only half the equation in the season. Darkseid feeds off dark energy or negative emotions and in Lazarus you actually see Clark struggling with those emotions himself. Part of growing up and being an adult is the realisation that you have a choice as to what you become and Clark hadn't fully realised or accepted that by the end of season nine. He let himself get a bit too cocky.

All of that could be seen as negative aspects of himself that Darkseid would have used if he'd been able to take Clark over.

What was more to the point of the whole season was Clark finally accepting each side of himself and making the decision to embrace the more positive aspects of his abilities, rather than pining for a normal life. I mean, with all that going on, did we really need a physical manifestation of Darkseid when we had the idea of him?

Let's put this another way. Hitchcock once said: "There is no terror in the bang. Only in the anticipation of it." I think in some ways this was what the writers were trying to achieve. The idea was that Darkseid has come to Earth several times throughout history, but there was never any explanation as to where the darkness came from or how it actually happened. Historians and psychologists have tried for years to find some explanation as to what causes these dark periods or why they come to an end and I think this is also a part of why the season was written the way it was. Fear comes from not knowing or understanding.