Smallville season 7 found an interesting way to connect the backstories of Superman and Green Arrow. In DC Comics, both superheroes have iconic origins, but they’re typically kept in separate corners of the DC Universe, with Clark Kent being a Kryptonian refugee growing up in Smallville and Oliver Queen being the rich son of a billionaire businessman in Star City who later found himself trapped on a deserted island.
Early in season 6, Smallville brought Oliver (Justin Hartley) into Clark’s life. After arriving in Metropolis, Oliver quickly clashed with Clark (Tom Welling) when he started stealing from the rich as the Green Arrow. After finding about each other’s secrets, the two became allies. Toward the middle of the season, Green Arrow formed the Justice League and worked alongside Clark to oppose the illegal scientific experiments of Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum). Then in season 8, Justin Hartley was promoted to series regular, allowing Green Arrow to develop an even stronger presence on the Superman prequel series for the remaining three seasons.
One thing new that Smallville brought to the table with its take on Green Arrow was a major reveal about his backstory in a season 7 episode. As most fans know, a key event in Oliver’s early life was the death of his parents. In Smallville’s version of the story, what happened to them occurred as a direct result of Clark’s arrival on Earth in the meteor shower of 1989. Just before the meteor shower in the Smallville pilot episode, Lionel was seen reading a newspaper that included the headline, “Queen Industries CEO Missing, Presumed Dead”. This meant the timing of these events lined up, but years later, Smallville confirmed that this was no coincidence.
It was said in season 7 that the Queens were members of a secret group called Veritas, which consisted of the Queens, Dr. Virgil Swann (Christopher Reeve), Lionel Luthor (John Glover), and the parents of season 4’s Jason Teague (Jensen Ackles). Apparently, the organization had a great interest in space, and what lay beyond. Somehow, they discovered that Clark – known to them as “The Traveler” – would soon come to Earth, and made preparations for his arrival. Lionel, who was at the height of his villainy during these years, schemed to control Clark. When the Queens took issue with this, Lionel arranged to have both of them killed.
Oliver didn’t uncover this unsettling truth until season 8 when Tess (Cassidy Freeman) told him everything. It was finding out about Lionel’s role in his parents’ death that sent him down a dark path. It also formed a rift between him and Clark, who knew about what Lionel did but said nothing. However, their relationship eventually recovered. Ultimately, the decision to make Clark’s origin the reason for this tragedy from Oliver’s past proved to be a neat twist that helped represent how important Green Arrow was to Clark’s Smallville story.