The enduring popularity of the Superman mythos is one of the more curious aspects of American culture. For a society that still largely scoffs at comic books and superheroes with outdated and close-minded stereotypes, Superman and his supporting cast inhabit a world that is never too far removed from the popular media. From live action television shows to serials to novels to blockbuster films to cartoons on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons to t-shirts to video games to action figures. Superman's "death" was prime time news. When his powers changed briefly a couple years ago, that was news, too. Superman is, and will always be, an icon.

Now, Superman's early years are getting an intelligent, revisionist exploration in the WB's new prime-time series, "Smallville". Set in the present day and striking an uneasy, but compelling, balance between superheroic exploits and adolescent angst, the goal of "Smallville" seems to be to add some depth and complexity to Clark Kent's formative years. Surprisingly, the show succeeds. Not only because of its amiable cast, but also its refusal to talk down to or emotionally manipulate its audience.

The pilot begins in October, 1998. It's Homecoming Day in Smallville and the whole town is out celebrating. Meanwhile, a young Lex Luthor has come with his father (John Glover) from Metropolis to watch him conduct business with one of Smallville's farmers. He wanders out to a cornfield where he comes across the surreal scene of a young man half-naked and strapped to a scarecrow's cross with an "S" on his chest.

Suddenly, in a spectacular sequence, meteors start raining down causing widespread destruction and killing Lana Lang's parents before her very eyes. A huge explosion in the cornfield where Lex is wandering knocks him out and makes him bald in the process. The same explosion forces Johnathan and Martha Kent (John Schneider and Cynthia Ettinger, respectively. Ettinger was replaced with Annette O'Toole after the pilot I watched was filmed.) to flip their pick-up truck. Upside-down in the burning field, out his now broken window, Johnathan Kent sees a naked boy walking towards them.

The story jumps to the present and the now teenage Clark Kent (Tom Welling) wants to join the football team, much to his father's chagrin, who thinks the choice raises too many ethical dangers. Clark wants to join the team ostensibly to impress the beautiful Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk), whom he becomes a hopeless, sickly klutz around because of the necklace she wears around her neck. It's a necklace made out of the meteor that killed her parents- a kryptonite necklace.

To say much more would ruin most of the show's nifty and unpredictable surprises. Over the course of the pilot: we meet Clark's outcast pals Pete Ross (Sam Jones III) and Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack), who've been looking into the weird events that've surrounded Smallville since the deadly meteor shower, fate forces Clark's life to become interwoven with the mysterious and charismatic Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), Nietzsche is referenced, nothing good is said about football jocks and Clark faces his first "supervillain".

Suffice it to say, it's a busy, but absorbing and skillfully woven first episode. Also a tad ironic, considering the show's creators have added depth and revised Clark Kent's character by basically turning him into a more complex Peter Parker. Clark's a doofus, a nerd and an outsider. Add the fact that one of Clark's potential friends might become his worst enemy and that Clark has a painful crush on a jock-dating, high-school cheerleader he can't reveal his secret to and that he battles an Electro-esque supervillain and you can draw your own conclusions on the show's influences.

Either way, this is only the first show and if the "Smallville" pilot is derivative of anything, unsurprisingly it's "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer". I'm sure thanks to the suits and accountants at the WB who thought that the show needed more "Scooby-Doo" elements for the advertisers, "Smallville's" sub-plot involving Clark and his friends investigating the puzzling deaths of a couple old football players is not nearly as involving and doesn't ring as emotionally true as the main premise. But it doesn't ruin the episode and hopefully the show's creators and producers can smooth out the balance.

Smart, well-acted, well-written and well-made, "Smallville" is a promising and enjoyable beginning to the next chapter in America's obsession with all things Superman.