Kryptonite, and its role as Superman’s weakness, is one of the oldest and most abided by tenants of the hero’s mythology. The element, which originates from Superman’s home planet Krypton, is typically a green rock that interferes with how the sun powers his abilities on Earth and severely weakens him. When the young Superman show Smallville premiered in 2001, creators Al Gough and Miles Millar made a crucial amendment to Clark Kent’s arrival to Earth: his ship was accompanied by a large meteor shower that nearly razed the small Kansas town, and had a slew of strange side of side effects on its unsuspecting population.
Clark (Tom Welling) spent most of his high school years taking down Kryptonite-infected teens wreaking havoc in Smallville, and as the show went on over its ten-year run, the series even introduced us to a few brand new versions of the meteor rock. While Smallville had its fair share of brilliant and clever uses for Kryptonite and the people affected by it, there were some uses of it, and the rock’s seemingly limitless capabilities, that were just plain wacky. We tallied up the ten craziest uses of Kryptonite over the ten seasons of Smallville below.
10) The Kryptonite Flower That Made Lana a “Rebel”
“Nicodemus” was the beginning of a rather disappointing trend that plagued Smallville for nearly it’s entire run, turning its wholesome leading ladies into wild women for duration of the episode. When Lana breathes in the pollen of a Kryptonite-infected flower, she goes from clean-cut girl-next-door to femme fatale, stripping for Clark and trying to get him to go swimming with her in the Smallville High pool.
Unlike most of the episodes that followed, “Nicodemus” at least attempted parity amongst the sexes here, as Jonathan Kent also was infected by the plant. Also, pollen from regular plants does have significant effects on our bodies, so the jump that a plant infected by Kryptonite altering people’s attitudes didn’t feel quite as large as jump.
9) The Superpower-Giving Snow Globe
In the Season Three episode “Magnetic”, guest star Seth Nelson (Kevin Zegers) gets the ability to manipulate electro-magnetic fields, including those in other people’s brains. Unlike Clark, Seth uses his abilities for his own personal gain, and to manipulate Lana into being with him. He gained superpower, which is suspiciously close to Magneto’s in X-Men, when he was hit over the head with a snow globe that had flecks of Kryptonite in it. On top of finding it hard to believe that a few flecks on Kryptonite in someone’s bloodstream could have such a major affect, Seth’s teenage snootiness paled in comparison to the grandeur we know Magneto for, and made him a forgettable “freak of the week” on Smallville.
8) Lois’s Red Kryptonite Lipstick
One of Smallville‘s most meaningful contributions to the Superman canon was codifying how the red variation of Kryptonite affects Clark. On Smallville, red Kryptonite acts much like a drug for Clark, lowering his inhibitions and making him a selfish and impulsive version of himself. In the Season 6 episode “Crimson”, Lois Lane (Erica Durance) purchases a lipstick that’s made with the red meteor rock. It makes her fall in love with the first man she lays eyes on, who happens to be an unsuspecting Clark. A kiss between them results in Clark falling under the influence of the “Red K,” and the couple crashes Lana Lang (Kristin Kruek) and Lex Luthor’s (Michael Rosenbaum) engagement party.
This isn’t the only time Smallville used Kryptonite as a love potion — it’s not even the only instance on this list — but up until “Crimson,” the show had exercised restraint on how and how much they used the “Clark gone wild” plot device. Instead of being used to meaningful move the season’s plot along or reveal something about Clark, red Kryptonite was used here for a cheap bout of Clark and Lois making out before the show was ready to officially pair them as a couple.
7) The Kryptonite-Charged Cars
Smallville had a few episodes that ripped off plots of popular movies at the time, “Velocity” being one of them. In it, Pete falls into an underground drag racing ring. He’s taken under the wing of Jason Dante (Ryan Merriman) who is turbo-charging his vehicles with fuel made from Kryptonite. The episode played like a less entertaining, rural version of The Fast and the Furious, and while we largely bought Kryptonite being used as a steroid or a drug in Smallville, the writers of “Velocity” failed to make the magic Krypto-gasoline come across as compelling.
6) Jodi Melville’s Dangerous Diet Shakes
Not even Amy Adams could save the Smallville Season 1 episode “Hunger.” In it, Adams plays Jodi Melville, a plus-size teen who miraculously slims down due to diet shakes made with Kryptonite-infected from her family’s greenhouse. The shakes also turn the shy and sweet Jodi into a fat-sucking vampire. While we understand that the show was trying to make a statement to its teen audience about diet culture and eating disorders, but “Hunger” was an early misstep on the show’s part. Miraculous weight loss is one thing, but Krypto-veggies making a teen girl a literal “man-eater” was incongruous with the show, even in the early days.
5) The Smallville High Cheerleader’s Love Potion
We appreciate the attempt to buck the dumb cheerleader stereotype here, but having the head of the Smallville High cheer squad being able to create a Kryptonite-powered love potion was overcompensating. In Season Four’s “Devoted,” cheerleader Mandy (Amanda Walsh) concocts a sports drink that turns their jock boyfriends into loyal lapdogs. Though Clark and Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) discover that Mandy is chem wiz who engineered the formula, a drink that could rewire people’s brains, with or without Kryptonite, seems to be at least graduate level. Furthermore, it seemed to be a thin excuse to get the usually shrewd Chloe in a cheerleader’s uniform and for her to make a fool of herself in front of Clark.
4) Pete’s Limb-Stretching Chewing Gum
Smallville did Pete Ross dirty with this one. After being written off the show at the end of Season 3, Pete, Clark’s closest guy friend returned to Smallville four years later in Season 7. In it, he acquires his own superpower: the ability to stretch his limbs. The cause? Kryptonite-laced chewing gum. Though Marvel’s Mr. Fantastic has proved there’s plenty of fun to be had with that particular superpower, the fact it was worked in via some shameless product promotion from the chewing brand Stride cheapened it. Pete had gotten his powers through the chewing the Krypto-gum for over a year, and while that’s certainly a considerable amount of time to ingest a radioactive element, giving a an adult man superpowers? That’s a stretch (sorry, we couldn’t resist).
3) The Kryptonite Bats that Gave Lana Vampiric Abilities
“Thirst” is widely regarded as Smallville‘s worst episode. In it, Lana’s forced to join a sorority in order to secure housing her freshman year at Metropolis University. There’s just one small catch, all the sisters are vampires, and when they intitiate Lana into the sorority, she becomes one too. Eventually, Clark saves the day by figuring out Lana’s sorority sister Buffy (Brooke Nevin) was bitten Kryptonite-infected bats, whose saliva endowed the co-ed with enhanced abilities as well as the stereotypical qualities of a vampire. Reluctantly working with Lex, Clark is able to cure Lana and sorority sisters of their vampiric affliction a with an antidote from LuthorCorp.
Kryptonite-infected bats might have flown on another episode of Smallville, but this episode was so wildly out-of-character both for Lana and the show itself, that it came across as weird and a bit too convenient. Especially when Lex was able to whip up a cure in what seemed to be a matter of minutes.
2) The Mind-Altering Pixie Dust
Gemstone Kryptonite was a version of the meteor rock created by the show’s writers. We’ve yet to see it used in another Superman media outside of Smallville since it appeared in Season 9, which is probably for the best. A chocolatier used ground gemstone Kryptonite as pixie dust for an extra romantic touch when she sold Lois and Clark her wares on Valentine’s Day. When Clark inhaled the dust he gained the ability to make anyone, including himself, do his bidding. First of all, the mechanics of how this ability works are not explained at all. Clark breathes in the dust, his eyes turn purple, and then once he says “I want” everyone from Lois to Zod make his request their sole mission.
We’ll give credit where it’s due, Clark accidentally using the power on himself to drive him into a vengeful rage was a nice touch, but gemstone Kryptonite ranks so high on our list because of how the writers had Clark’s vague, temporary power affected Lois. Clark expressing his desire for a more “traditional” relationship with the high-powered reporter turned Lois into a histrionic housewife, or as she so aptly put it herself “Donna Reed on crack.” Part of what has made Lois such an enduring and beloved character is her ability to balance her ambition outside of a romantic relationship with being a loving, present partner to Clark. Reducing her to a marriage-obsessed emotional mess, even if only for an episode, wasn’t just regressive and cringey, it provided a lift so heavy even the fantastic Durance could barely manage it.
1) The Suit that Doomed Any Relationship Between Clark and Lana
In Smallville‘s pilot, we learn that Clark can’t get close to Lana. But it’s not because of his giant crush of her, it’s due to the fact she wears a necklace with a piece of Kryptonite from the meteor that killed her parents in 1989 when Clark came to Earth. The conceit was a brilliant bit of irony from show creators Gough and Millar. However, eight years later when the show gave a now-superpowered Lana her series sendoff, the writers were more heavy handed. Lana has newfound super speed and strength via nanites grafted onto her skin, finally making her Clark’s “equal” and allowing them to be together.
However, one unforeseen power Lana found herself in possession was the ability to absorb Kryptonite from inanimate objects. During the episode’s climax, Lana absorbs the radiation from a bomb made entirely of Kryptonite to save the city of Metropolis. But in doing so, she effectively prevents herself from ever being able to near Clark again. Lana leaves Smallville and Metropolis for good, the fact of being toxic to Clark unbearable, and empowered to begin her own quest as a hero.
The irony of Lana becoming basically walking Kryptonite feels less elegant than her dainty meteor rock necklace in Season 1. Though it was crazy, it certainly effective, but Lana leaving the show in such a manner was a letdown. For the majority of Lana’s time on Smallville, the character was fetishized and objectified. Making her a human embodiment of Kryptonite undercut all the growth and development Lana had undergone becoming a hero in her right, Smallville made her the ultimate unattainable object to Clark.
Smallville is currently streaming on Hulu.
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