Virgil Swann: the Smallville scientist played by Christopher Reeve

Who is Virgil Swann, the astronomer who was waiting for Clark?

Virgil Swann is a character invented for the Smallville series, rather than taken from DC comics. In the fiction, he is a wealthy New York scientist, an astronomer and a pioneer of communications satellites. He sold his company, gave away a large part of his fortune and now devotes himself to a single quest: finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. He lives in seclusion, gets around in a wheelchair and breathes with the help of a device.

His role in the series comes down to one revelation: he is the one who tells Clark his birth name and the name of his planet. Christopher Reeve, the big-screen Superman from 1978 to 1987, plays him in just two episodes, “Rosetta” (2x17) and “Legacy” (3x17), which aired on The WB in the United States on February 25, 2003 and April 14, 2004. Yet the character reaches beyond those two appearances: the series keeps referring to him right up to its final episode, and then in its comic book continuation.

“Rosetta”: the barn, the signal and the message from Krypton

It all starts with a key. In “Rosetta,” Clark inserts the octagonal key tied to his ship into the wall of the Smallville caves, and the language carved into the walls is imprinted on his mind. Soon after, his heat vision goes haywire and burns a Kryptonian symbol into the Kents' barn. Clark can now read it: it means “hope.” The inscription catches the attention of Swann, who discovers that the farmers adopted a little boy and gets in touch with him.

Clark goes to meet him in New York, despite his parents' worries. Swann tells him he has spent his life watching the sky: thirteen years earlier, on the day of the meteor shower, one of his stations picked up a faint signal, and it took him years to find its mathematical key. The message introduces an infant, Kal-El of Krypton, whom his parents call their last hope and ask others to protect. Swann followed the signal out into space, but found nothing where the planet Krypton should have been.

Clark realizes that he is probably the last of his people. Even so, Swann doesn't hand him an instruction manual: the answers, he tells him, aren't to be found in the stars, and it's up to Clark to write his own destiny. Back at the farm, Clark places the key in his ship and finds another message there, this one from his biological father: he supposedly came to Earth to rule over humans by force. “Rosetta” ends on that unsettling note.

Christopher Reeve and Tom Welling, a shoot in New York

To accommodate Christopher Reeve, the production broke with its usual routine. Smallville was normally filmed in Vancouver, Canada, but the actor had been paralyzed since 1995 and needed a ventilator: this time, the crew came to him, in New York. Greg Beeman, one of the series' directors, handled these scenes, although the episode remains credited to James Marshall. Tom Welling, who played Clark, made the trip.

Reeve took part in staging the scenes himself. He asked Tom Welling to move around him during their long scene together, so that his stillness would be less noticeable, and he helped position the camera to show as little of his wheelchair as possible. The character, for his part, hides nothing: like the actor, Swann uses a wheelchair and depends on breathing support. Tom Welling has since told the American press that Reeve stayed on set far longer than the few hours planned, until his caregivers brought the day to a close.

The episode ends with a short message filmed by the two actors, who invite viewers to support Reeve's foundation for paralysis research. The same message aired again the following year, at the end of “Legacy.”

The 1978 Superman face to face with the young Clark

Reeve's presence gives the episode a special resonance: the actor who played Superman in the movies in 1978 reveals to television's young Clark where he comes from. The music underlines that link. The episode reuses themes that John Williams had composed for that film, arranged by Mark Snow, the series' composer: the Fortress of Solitude theme accompanies Clark's arrival at Swann's home, and the main theme returns in the final scene, at the farm.

Smallville also brings back several faces from Reeve's films. Terence Stamp, General Zod in 1978 and 1980, voices Jor-El from season 2 onward. Annette O'Toole, Lana Lang in Superman III in 1983, has played Martha Kent since the start of the series, without ever sharing a scene with Reeve. Margot Kidder would follow in 2004, in a role tied to Swann.

The episode was well received. It doesn't pit Clark against any villain, probably a first for the series, and in 2004 it was nominated for a Hugo Award in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category. On the Superman Homepage website, critic Neal Bailey gave it the top score of five out of five.

“Legacy”: Virgil Swann faces Lionel Luthor

Reeve returned the following year. The WB announced his comeback on January 13, 2004, and his scenes were shot in New York, at the city's public library, with Tom Welling and John Glover. The episode, “Legacy” (3x17), was written by Jeph Loeb, directed by Greg Beeman and aired on April 14, 2004 in the United States.

This time, Swann receives a different visitor. Lionel Luthor, Lex's father, is trying to crack the meaning of the cave symbols and is surprised to run into Clark there so often. Swann claims he can't read the language, senses that Lionel is dying and agrees to help him anyway, though the series never says how. When Clark finds out, he accuses Swann of betraying him. Swann replies that he kept his word: Clark's secret never left his walls.

The dialogue that follows captures the essence of the character. When Clark objects that he isn't human, Swann replies that humanity isn't just a matter of biology. At the end of the episode, after a fight between Jonathan and Lionel in the caves, Clark's key has disappeared, and it turns out to be in Swann's hands. The series never explains how he got it.

Christopher Reeve's final role

“Legacy” was Christopher Reeve's final acting role. On May 27, 1995, during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Virginia, he had been thrown from his horse. His first two cervical vertebrae had been injured, and he had been left paralyzed from the neck down. From then on he used a wheelchair, with breathing support, and devoted much of his energy to advocating for spinal cord injury research.

The series was still counting on him. Swann was supposed to return at the start of season 4, but Reeve was directing an animated film at the time, released in 2006 as Everyone's Hero, and he wasn't available for the first episode. The producers planned to bring him back later in the season, in a scene with Tom Welling and Margot Kidder. Christopher Reeve died on October 10, 2004, at the age of 52, before the film was completed.

Three days later, on October 13, 2004, The WB aired “Devoted” (4x04), an episode that opens and closes with a tribute to the actor.

Bridgette Crosby and the death of Virgil Swann

Even before Reeve's death, season 4 had given Swann a messenger. In “Crusade” (4x01), which aired on September 22, 2004 in the United States, Margot Kidder, the Lois Lane of Reeve's films, plays Bridgette Crosby, Dr. Swann's emissary. The same episode introduces Erica Durance's Lois Lane. Clark, now under the sway of his Kryptonian side, goes by Kal-El, and Bridgette brings Martha a piece of black kryptonite capable of separating Kal-El from Clark. The actress filmed two episodes, then left the series.

Swann's death happens off-screen. In “Sacred” (4x15), which aired on February 23, 2005 in the United States, Clark receives a package sent by Swann just as a TV news report announces his death. The package contains the octagonal key that had been missing since “Legacy,” along with one last message. In February 2005, Margot Kidder told the Superman Homepage website that she had refused to film the scene in which Bridgette was to announce his death, an idea she considered opportunistic; she also mentioned a contract dispute.

Veritas and Patricia Swann, the past revealed in season 7

The series kept writing Swann's story long after Reeve's death. In “Traveler” (7x14), which aired on March 20, 2008 on The CW in the United States, his daughter Patricia, played by Gina Holden, enters the story. She reveals the existence of Veritas, a secret society that brought together the Swanns, the Queens, the Teagues and Lionel Luthor. Its members were awaiting the arrival on Earth of a “Traveler” from the stars, in whom Patricia recognizes Clark.

The Queens are the parents of Oliver Queen, the show's Green Arrow. Patricia accuses Lionel of playing a part in her father's death and in the deaths of the Queens. She entrusts Clark with Virgil Swann's journal, then is killed on the orders of Lex. Veritas isn't revealed until season 7, nearly four years after “Legacy”: the series thus sheds light, after the fact, on the meeting between Swann and Lionel, who belonged to the same circle.

Virgil Swann's legacy, from S.T.A.R. Labs to Curt Swan

Christopher Reeve appeared one last time in the series in the two-part episode that closed it, on May 13, 2011 in the United States: archive footage of Swann was among the flashbacks in that finale. The character then returned as a memory in Smallville Season 11, the comic book continuation of the series, written by Bryan Q. Miller and launched in 2012. In these comics, S.T.A.R. Labs stands for “Swann Technology and Research”: in keeping with Swann's wishes, the lab was created to help the “Traveler” understand himself better.

That leaves his name. Den of Geek, French-language Wikipedia and the blog Superman: The Blog see it as a tribute to Curt Swan, the Superman artist from the 1950s to the 1980s, who died in 1996. Yet the character's name is spelled with two n's, and no known statement from the show's creators confirms the nod. To put Swann's appearances in context, the Smallville season by season guide goes through all ten seasons in order.

Conclusion

Christopher Reeve plays Virgil Swann in only two episodes, but the character gives Clark his first answers: his name, Kal-El, his planet and his parents' message. On American screens, he arrives on February 25, 2003, returns on April 14, 2004 for Reeve's final role and dies off-screen on February 23, 2005.

Smallville then extends Swann's story with Veritas, his daughter Patricia and, in the comics, S.T.A.R. Labs. To place the series among all the Superman TV shows, the complete list puts them in order.