Summary

• Annette O'Toole's portrayal of Martha Kent in Smallville redeemed her from her role as Lana Lang in Superman III.
• Fans' intense affection for Superman has been evident throughout history, impacting adaptations like Smallville.
• Martha Kent served as the emotional anchor in Smallville, guiding Clark and Jonathan while embodying strength and compassion.

The iconic Superman-inspired series Smallville is a story of redemption, at least for one of its actors. Annette O'Toole is known by fans of a certain age as Martha Kent, Clark Kent's mother. However, O'Toole is known to an older generation of fans, not as Clark's mother, but his first-ever love, Lana Lang in Superman III. While nothing that went wrong with the Superman film franchise is her fault, the time O'Toole spent as Martha Kent helped redeem the actor's place in the legend of the world's most popular superhero.

With the failure of the later installments of the feature film franchise (arguably started by Superman III) and the popularity of the 1990s primetime drama Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, fans scoffed at the idea of an origin series. With creators Al Gough and Miles Millar also promising "no flights" and "no tights," fans didn't see the point. While Annette O'Toole's Lana Lang was not the problem with Superman III, her Martha Kent is arguably the best part of those early seasons on Smallville. The series focused most heavily on Tom Welling's Clark Kent and John Schneider's Jonathan, but Martha's served as an emotional ballast that helped the Kent family make sense. However, as Lana Lang she was meant to be a replacement.

Why Annette O'Toole Played Lana Lang in Superman III

In every sense of the term, Superman III was a mess. Richard Donner wanted to continue with his Superman films, but he eventually left in the midst of Superman II over disagreements with producers. This led to a version of the third film in which, among other things, would have Supergirl be Superman's love interest. Apocryphal stories in books, documentaries and interviews suggest that Gene Hackman refused to return for the third film because of this. Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane, also reportedly criticized the move and legend suggests this is why she's basically a cameo character in the film. However, in the DVD commentary in 2006, producer Ilya Salkind denies all this.

Salkind did say that Lana Lang was meant to shake up the feature film franchise, since Superman II put Lois and Clark together and broke them up. For O'Toole playing Lana Lang was a dream come true. First, she filmed scenes with Christopher Reeve as Clark, but she won't forget the moment he became Superman. "I was a comic book nerd as a kid and I used to collect Superman comics and trade them at school but when I saw him, I’m not kidding, my heart just started going. I couldn’t speak, and it was like I was really in the presence of Superman," she said in a 2021 interview with The Daily Planet fansite.

Even though O'Toole was, technically, a replacement for Kidder, she said the late Lois Lane actor was "welcoming" and "fantastic." In a fun scene at the end of Superman III, Lana Lang has moved to Metropolis to work as Perry White's assistant. There is a brief scene where Lois seems jealous of the gigantic diamond ring that Clark Kent gave to her. Unfortunately, this dynamic was never explored since Lana didn't return for the ill-fated Superman IV.

How O'Toole Made Lana Lang and Martha Kent Lovable, Important Characters

Annette O'Toole Comic Book Adaptation Appearances

Fans, however, do get a taste of what a proper scene with the Donner-era Lois and Lana might look like through Smallville. Margot Kidder guest-starred in an episode as Bridget Crosby, a woman working for Christopher Reeve's character in the series, Dr. Emil Swann. She gives her "black Kryptonite" which helps restore Clark to his normal self in the Season 4 premiere. The dynamic at play in this scene shows why both Martha Kent and Lana Lang worked so well with Annette O'Toole playing the role. While Kidder deploys her sly, knowing style, O'Toole's Martha is rooted in compassion and a touch of uncertainty.

In the Superman films, Clark Kent was no match for Lois Lane. She challenged him in ways that were unusual for action films in the 1980s. In Superman III, Lana Lang is a divorced single mother stuck in Smallville. Essentially, she was a woman who felt trapped in her life because she didn't believe she was capable of bigger things. One of the better elements of the third movie is the synthetic Kryptonite that turns Superman "evil" for a time. It is both Lana, and her son Ricky's, belief in Superman that snaps him out of it in the classic Clark vs. Superman fight.

As Martha Kent, O'Toole used the same depth of compassion that Lana had and directed it towards the relationship between Clark and his father. While fans still debate this, Smallville's Jonathan Kent was a brusque, stubborn man. Whenever he or Clark got their pride up too high, Martha was the person who helped them see the path back to a healthy relationship. After Jonathan's death in Season 5, Martha was still the (non-Kryptonian) rock of the family. After O'Toole left as a series regular in Season 6, the mere mention of Martha's name carried enough emotional weight to anchor a narrative turn.

Why Martha Kent Is Annette O'Toole's Greatest Superman Legacy

The problems in Superman III are all down to the script, but the performance took Lana Lang and made her feel like a real person. However, Martha Kent is Annette O'Toole's most prominent place in Superman's legacy. As revolutionary as Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie was for cinema, Smallville was equally important for superhero storytelling on television. While the storytellers tried (and sometimes failed) to give its women characters agency, Martha Kent was always the emotionally strongest person in the series. Whether Jonathan was raging at Clark's latest antics or whichever Luthor most annoyed him, Martha was the calming presence.

After Jonathan's death, Martha was a steadfast and reliable parent for Clark and his friends, yet that's not all she was. She became a Senator and, for a few episodes anyway, a crusader known as "the Red Queen." Whereas Jonathan could see the Luthors, especially Lionel, as nothing but evil, Martha was (like Clark) able to see the good in them. She even moved on romantically, starting a relationship with Perry White (played by O'Toole's real-life husband Michael McKean). Smallville did the impossible over 10 seasons, reinventing itself into different shows as the cast aged and the story evolved. However, the series was never quite the same without O'Toole's Martha as a regular.

For better or worse, Smallville's Jonathan Kent wanted to shape Clark Kent into his father's image of a man. Martha, however, trusted her son to figure things out on his own. In fact, in the finale, Clark and Martha have a tense exchange about him selling the Kent farm to "move on" from the past. In the finale the sale fell apart, but when Smallville got its epilogue in the Arrowverse's Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries, Clark and Lois were raising their family there, just as Martha hoped they would. Smallville made Clark's relationship with his father deeply important, but it was really his relationship with Martha that was his most formative. And this only worked because lifelong Superman fan Annette O'Toole was so excellent in the role.

Both Superman III and the complete Smallville series are available to own on DVD, Blu-ray, digital and streams on Mas and Hulu, respectively.