Cowboy Pete’s Second Place Your Bets–SMALLVILLE

Okay, it’s time once again to take your best guess, this time on who’s gonna snuff it on “Smallville.”

Personally, I still think the entire concept is appalling. Jor-El decrees that for Clark to live, someone else must die? What is up with THAT? For a moment there I thought that they were saying it wasn’t Jor-El at all but, instead, General Zod, and that made tons of sense to me. But no, apparently that IS supposed to be Jor-El, and the gargantuan guilt trip they’d be laying on Clark here…I just think it’s pretty dámņëd depressing. Anyway…lessee what we’ve got:

CHLOE–1-1. Yes. She’s the most obvious, since she’s never shown up anywhere else in the Superman universe. Y’know what? Last time I dismissed something as being “too” obvious. If, as it appears in adverts, Clark is proposing to Lana in the Fortress, he’s coming clean with her. For a reporter there’s Lois, for a female who knows Clark’s ID there’s Lana. Chloe becomes superfluous. So this time I’m saying, Yeah, this is the most likely victim. But right up behind her is…

PA KENT–2-1. Second most obvious. He has a heart condition already. It would leave one parent still around. And in several versions of Superman continuity, Pa dies while Clark is still young, so it dovetails with that. For that matter…

MA KENT–5-2. It would provide a bit of a switch, thinking it’s gonna be one parent and it turns out to be another. Plus she’s been hanging out with Lionel, and that never turns out well. For that matter…

MA & PA KENT–7-2. Clark becomes an orphan. On the cusp of adulthood, that which anchors him to Smallville would evaporate, setting him up for a final season in which he readies himself to become a citizen of the world…a citizen that anyone in Smallville would still take one look at and say, “Hey, Clark, what’s with the tights?” Look for a mysterious glowing light that mindwipes everyone’s recollection of Clark’s face in the final Smallville episode, I’m thinking.

LANA LANG–10-1. Yes, she’s in current continuity, but that doesn’t mean anything. Plus if Clark proposes and she accepts, she’s toast. Which leads us to conclude that either she accepts and dies, or she says no and lives. Bottom line, I suspect the latter.

LIONEL LUTHOR–20-1. The advantage is that it spares Clark the emotional guilt trip because, really, how choked up would he be? It’d be particularly compelling if Lex is the one who kills him, and frankly, Lionel’s been boring the crap out of me for close to two seasons now (it’s not the actor’s fault; the character just seems all over the map.) On the other hand, just how “close” is Lionel to Clark?

PETE ROSS–20-1. The upside is that it doesn’t disrupt the week-to-week series, and it doesn’t put an actor out of work. The downside is that, since he’s been gone for a couple seasons, there’s zero emotional impact. Not likely.

EINSTEIN, a.k.a. Krypto–25-1. Don’t look at me like that. He’s someone close to Clark. I didn’t make up the criteria.

DOCTOR QUENTIN COSTA–40-1. Hey…it could happen.

LEX LUTHOR–Quadrillion to zero. We saw his future: He’s the President.

LOIS LANE–Quadrillion to Zero minus 5. Now for all I know the guys in the “Smallville” offices are chortling and saying, “They’ll never see THIS coming.” But I suspect we don’t see it coming because it ain’t coming. No fricking way.

Of course, let’s not forget: This is comics, or more accurately, comics-based fiction. Someone dies. Okay. But there’s nothing to say that they wouldn’t come back somehow. Here’s hoping that Clark doesn’t make the Earth turn backwards, because there’s only so many times you can pull THAT stunt.

PAD