How Arrowverse Confirmed A Smallville Villain Was Really Vandal Savage

The connection between a Smallville season 7 character and DC Comics villain Vandal Savage was confirmed by an episode of the Arrowverse series, Legends of Tomorrow, during its first season. Vandal Savage is an immortal with a long and violent history in the comics. He was adapted to the small screen in the second Arrowverse crossover between The Flash and Arrow in order to set up Legends of Tomorrow. Played by Casper Crump, he served as the main antagonist of season 1.

Crump’s Arrowverse character was the first official live-action version of the villain, but Smallville created an eerily-similar character years earlier in season 7. The series, which was known for bringing in actors with Superman connections for key roles, cast former Man of Steel and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman star Dean Cain as Curtis Knox, a doctor who supposedly cured meteor-infected people of their powers. Clark (Tom Welling) discovered that Curtis Knox was using the Kryptonite in their bodies to keep his wife alive, and that Knox was an immortal who was at least a thousand years old. After saving Chloe (Allison Mack) from Knox’s cure, Clark defeated Knox and handed him over to Martian Manhunter (Phil Morris).

His immortality, healing factor, and murderous tendencies were shared by Vandal Savage, and the similarities between them wasn’t a coincidence. It’s been confirmed that Smallville did indeed have a plan for Dean Cain to play Vandal Savage, but DC stopped the show from using the character, and the name had to be taken out of the script. At the time, DC had other plans for Savage, so Smallville renamed the character “Curtis Knox” but kept everything else. Years later, a Legends of Tomorrow episode revealed that “Curtis Knox” is an alias used by the Arrowverse’s Vandal Savage.

This use of the name in Legends of Tomorrow makes it clear that Smallville’s Curtis Knox always was Vandal Savage. Savage using a fake name in Smallville does make sense, because the comic book Savage had a reputation for using aliases. Also, Smallville writer Bryan Q. Miller has referred to Knox as Savage on Twitter, and said that when they had to take his name out of the show, they instead “inferred that he was probably Vandal Savage” in the episode. This was accomplished by remarks that were made by Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), who explained to Clark that Knox was not a normal man. Lex’s investigation into Knox connected him with the Mayans, Napoleon, the Crusades, and the Nazis in World War II. In DC Comics, Savage too has been involved with various civilizations and historic events during his long life.

Legends of Tomorrow’s inclusion of the “Curtis Knox” name was a neat callback to Smallville, plus it was good for the connection between Savage and Knox to finally become official, especially since Smallvillehad wanted Dean Cain’s character to be Vandal Savage in the first place.

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