Every The CW Superhero Show Ranked Worst To Best
2. Smallville
The unsung hero of the superhero revival, Smallville was the glimmer of hope that remained when superheroes' days of dominating television was little more than a memory of years-gone-by.
An evolution of the genre that successfully adopted many of the teenage conventions of YA TV at the time, the show focused on a young Clark Kent as he attempted to reconcile his struggles over the fact that he was alien from Krypton with the everyday pressures of high school. And this subversion of the norm proved to be a highly popular one, as the show ran for an incredible 10 seasons.
Had all of Smallville's seasons run on The CW, we may be handing it the victory on this list because it did wave the flag for the genre when there weren't any others to. However, as it was a pre-CW show, it arrived on the new network long after its glory days, resulting in it debuting with some of its more problematic seasons.
That said, once the sixth and seventh seasons were out of the way, it improved a great deal, dropping the angst and going full-superhero show in the process - resulting in one heck of a comeback.
Many superhero shows will come, and many superhero shows will go... but we'll always hold onto Smallville.