Supergirl is Better Than Ever

In the newest season of the CW's hit television series, Smallville, Laura Vanderwoot has joined the cast as Supergirl, or more accurately Kara Zor-El, cousin of actor Tom Welling's character of Clark Kent, future Superman and star of a great ensamble cast that includes Michael Rosenbaum, Allison Mack, Kristin Kreuk, Erica Durance, and Julian Glover. Former big parts of the cast included former Bo Duke of Dukes of Hazard fame, John Schneider, who played Clark's father Jonathan, and former Lana Lang opposite Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent/Superman in one of the final installments of the movie franchise before it was given a new birth with Brandon Routh in Superman Returns, a decent entry in its own right, and, although Michael Rosenbaum by far plays the role of villain Lex Luthor best of any actor in history, definitely Kevin Spacey's portrayal of Luthor outshines talented actor Gene Hackman's run with the character in the 1970s and 1980s. But back to the basis, the new Supergirl, Laura Vanderwoot, the beautiful, blonde from Toronto, Ontario and is, at only 23 years old a veteran actress of small parts in CSI, The Dresden Files, Falcon Beach, Doc (with Billy Ray Cyrus, in 2004), Mutant X, and other one or several episode shots since 1997. She also really knows her stuff in fight scenes, because she has a black belt degree in karate.

The character of Supergirl was introduced several times during the early 1940s and 1950s and in 1959 Kara Zor-El appeared in the May issue of Action Comics, the original home of Superman (his other digs include Superman, Superman and Batman, maybe even The Brave and The Bold, which has just made a come back at the comic shops). Otto Binder, a famous man [or at least he should be], wrote that first story when Superman introduces his cousin to the world. The character was given the secret identity of Linda Danvers, and finally killed off in the 1980s, I was a young comic geek reading them at the little shop in Breese, Illinois when DC comics killed Supergirl off. When they killed off Superman or broke Batman's back or even killed Captain America recently, yes people boo-hooed, however no one rose any cries when Kara Zor-El died saving the universe. In 200t they brought her back. Except this time, the storyline more and more resembles Smallville. Teenager when Jor-El sent his son to Earth, a place he himself had visited as a younger man (and had an affair with Lana Lang's aunt), she was a killer sent my Jor-El's murderous brother to kill Kal-El (for the unknowing that's Clark Kent).

From what I hear, in an episode coming soon Helen Slater, who played Kara in the Supergirl movie in 1984 will play Clark's mother, Lara, in the sixth episode of the season. Zor-El, Clark's uncle, will appear alongside Clark's mother and explain that Kara was sent to kill him because Zor-El believed Clark was infected with a virus that would turn him into a killer, but since Jor-El was such a hard-head, much like Tom Welling's Clark Kent/Kal-El, the two brothers never talked about their discoveries or theories, and both were brilliant scientists. The CW's Smallville has never shied away from great guest stars; Christopher Reeve played Dr. Swan, who introduced Clark to the concept of Krypton, and cracking the Kryptonian language that fascinated Clark in the ancient Native American caves in Smallville, Kansas, then Margot Kidder played Dr. Swan's former lover and assistant who makes a deal to free Lionel Luther (always played well by Julian Glover of Scrooged and other movies and television programs) from prison for the contract murder of his parents to collect the insurance money plot line (which we've all seen before, boy), but anyway after Margot there was Linda Carter last year (who hasn't shied herself from roles like in the Disney film Sky High and Broken Lizard's SuperTroopers) played Chloe Sullivan (played by Allison Mack, who I believe her character is bound for the grave and I've been saying that for seven years now since her character was the only one who never existed in the comic world)'s mother.

For now, Laura Vanderwoot is the new Smallville actor and she has small red boots to fill and a tight blue top with a big red S to put on it. As long as they don't bring back Streaky, the Super-Cat, I'll keep watching on Thursdays on the CW.