The Incredible Hulk
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Happy 14th Anniversary Smallville: How It Paved the Way for DC TV Shows
http://www.tvovermind.com/smallville/happy-14th-anniversary-smallville-paved-way-dc-tv-shows-267486
http://www.tvovermind.com/smallville/happy-14th-anniversary-smallville-paved-way-dc-tv-shows-267486
However, in many ways, there is one show that truly paved the way for all comic book series that we have today, and that show is Smallville. It was the 10-year long story about how Clark Kent (Tom Welling) became the world’s greatest superhero known as Superman. On this exact day, 14 years ago, the series premiere of Smallville aired, and it instantly became one of the biggest hits for The WB (which would later merge with UPN to become The CW). Let’s go back 10 years ago, when Smallville was the only true comic book show on air at that time. Yes, we had TV shows like Birds of Prey and No Ordinary Family, but as you may remember, those shows got cancelled after just one season. While Heroes was there for four years as a superhero-esque series, it never was able to achieve the success of Smallville.
Without going down the rabbit hole too much, there were a lot of times throughout Smallville‘s 10-year run when the series went into some weak directions, and just like any TV show in any genre, it had flaws. However, it also had a lot of strengths too, especially in the later years as Smallville started to turn more towards the direction of adding more DC Comics elements, bringing in a lot of cool DC heroes and villains. Season 8 is where Smallville really began to show Clark adopting his heroic persona while also staying under the radar. Even prior to that phase of the show, Smallville had also incorporated the element of not just telling the story of Clark Kent, but so many important people in his life and their stories. Characters like Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Martha and Jonathan Kent, ad Lex Luthor were major figures in the series, and the show also brought new faces into the mythology, like Chloe Sullivan and Tess Mercer, who were just as important characters as Clark was.
Smallville was a true testament that there was an audience for stories like this, viewers that wanted to watch DC characters come to life and spend time with them every week. Let’s remember that before the massive comic book explosion in the media happened back during 2008, the superhero genre hadn’t expanded that much beyond the pages of the comics. Thanks to Smallville, networks and executives saw that the comic book genre is worth investing in.
It's weird cause when watching reruns everything seems just as modern as today now, other than the changing of smartphones 
