Smallville Outshines The MCU & DCU In One Major Way (At Least For Now)
Before the official launch of the DCEU or the MCU, there was one superhero epic that emerged as one of the biggest shows on television. "Smallville" was a series about the origins of iconic Superman characters like Clark Kent (Tom Welling), Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk), Lois Lane (Erica Durance), and Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) and distinguished itself with one of the greatest Superman twists ever: having Clark and Lex begin the series as close friends.
All of that aside, however, there's a reason why we're bringing up a show that's been off the air for over a decade in the same sentence as franchise behemoths like the MCU. That's because the combined run time of every MCU and DCEU film and television show adds up to just under the entire runtime of "Smallville."
As noted by X (formerly Twitter) user @SmallvilleTakes, "Smallville" boasts 9,275 minutes of content over the course of its 10 seasons and over 200 episodes. Meanwhile, if you combine the runtime of every DCEU and MCU effort, it comes close to catching up with an impressive 9,167 minutes of content in total. Still, with new films and television series from James Gunn's DCU and the MCU incoming, this won't be the case for long.
Smallville is about to lose its long-held crown
Unfortunately, as of this writing, "Smallville" is about to lose this lofty distinction to the combined efforts of the two universes sooner rather than later. "Loki" Season 2 is set to arrive on October 5, 2023, and between that and the upcoming "Captain Marvel" sequel, "The Marvels," the MCU should help to clear "Smallville" from the top spot very soon.
Still, considering the tidal wave of content that these shared universes have given us over the last 15 years, it is shocking that it took them so long. This is made doubly surprising when you realize that the MCU alone isn't enough, despite releasing new films and TV shows several times a year as of late.
With that said, there is a way that The CW could regain its lofty place in the superhero fandom. By adding in the hundreds of episodes from the Arrowverse of shows, the network would once again leave even the combined efforts of the MCU and the DCEU (and later, the DCU) in the dust. Of course, all of these facts are really just for people who love arguing on the internet, which is basically no one anyway, right?