Smallville is Actually the Same Show As Buffy the Vampire Slayer

There are worse ideas, I suppose.

Buffy Summers has supernatural powers. She uses those powers to fight evil in the form of vampires and demons in the otherwise quiet town of Sunnydale, while at the same time just trying to get through high school. Very few people are allowed to know about her powers, but among the chosen few are her two best friends and sidekicks: Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris. Willow is in love with Xander but won’t say anything about it, because she knows that Xander is in love with Buffy. Buffy, meanwhile, is in love with Angel, who incidentally happens to love her back. Angel isn’t quite part of the little group. Xander and Angel are always kind of jealous of each other, even when they are getting along. There are all kinds of reasons why Buffy and Angel can’t/shouldn’t be together, but they just won’t give it up. They finally get together and have a somewhat rocky relationship until Angel is removed from the scene to make room for new plot lines. The show’s action is accompanied by a combination of orchestral-style music and more modern songs.


Clark Kent has supernatural powers. He uses those powers to fight evil in the form of kryptonite mutants in the otherwise quiet town of Smallville, while at the same time just trying to get through high school. Very few people are allowed to know about his powers, but among the chosen few are his two best friends and sidekicks: Pete Ross and Chloe Sullivan. Pete is in love with Chloe, but won’t say anything about it because he knows that Chloe is in love with Clark. Clark, meanwhile, is in love with Lana Lang, who incidentally happens to love him back. Lana isn’t quite part of the little group. Chloe and Lana are always kind of jealous of each other, even when they are getting along. There are all kinds of reasons why Clark and Lana can’t/shouldn’t be together, but they just won’t give it up. They finally get together and have a somewhat rocky relationship until Lana is removed from the scene to make room for new plot lines. The show’s action is accompanied by a combination of orchestral-style music and more modern songs.

So it's probably just a coincidence...

...but in going over my notes for a presentation I'm giving next week (on the gothic novels referenced in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey), I noticed something oddly familiar. The description of one of the novels (The Necromancer: or The Tale of the Black Forest by Ludwig Flammenberg, published 1794) involves the the adventures of Hermann and Helfried. Their foe is the titular Necromancer, named Volkert, who seems to have mysteriously risen from the dead in a deep, dark, European forest.

Hello, Harry and Voldemort.

I know J.K. Rowling is definitely up on her literary references, but even so this seems like a stretch. The book has only come back into print in the past thirty years and before that it was thought to be a made-up title.

But still.