Twelve years ago, a meteor shower burst from the heavens, raining destruction on the unsuspecting citizens of Smallville, Kansas. The intervening years have left the town's inhabitants with scars and secrets. From the ashes of tragedy, Clark Kent grows into an awkward teen. While adolescence always brings its challenges, Clark's transition from boyhood to adulthood is particularly difficult. He must struggle to come to grips with his emerging superpowers - and the effects of kryptonite - while battling the strange things that have plagued this idyllic Midwest hamlet since the meteor shower.

The guardians of Clark's secret identity are his adoptive parents, Jonathan (John Schneider, The Dukes of Hazzard, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) and Martha Kent (Annette O'Toole, Superman III, 48 Hrs.). In the aftermath of the meteor shower, they discovered his crashed spacecraft in a cornfield and took him in as their own. As a result, he often feels truly alone in the world, like an outsider looking in. Even his best friends, Pete Ross (Sam Jones III, Zigzag) and Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack, Opposite Sex), are in the dark.

Lana Lang (newcomer Kristin Kreuk) is the untouchable girl next door, the girl Clark worships from afar. Although she feels a strange kinship to Clark, Lana doesn't know much about him, especially that he blames himself for her parents' tragic death in the meteor shower so many years ago. A true beauty and one of the most popular girls in school, Lana dates Smallville's resident heartthrob and high school quarterback, all-around golden boy Whitney Fordman (Eric Johnson, Legends of the Fall). Clark's yearning to talk to Lana is complicated by the kryptonite that she wears around her neck. Whenever he gets near her, the green stone causes him to become literally weak in the knees.

Clark forges a remarkable new friendship with Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum, Sweet November, Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane), though neither has an inkling of how their destinies will ultimately collide. Inexplicably bald from exposure to the meteor shower when he was a child, Lex returns to Smallville after college to help turn around the family company's struggling fertilizer plant. After Clark saves Lex's life in a death-defying rescue, the two become friends. Clark looks up to Lex as the big brother he never had, and Lex is surprised that this small-town boy is someone he can actually trust. The ill-fated friendship causes tension in the close-knit Kent family, as Jonathan fears Lex may take after his ruthless tycoon father.