Chloe Sullivan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Chloe Sullivan | |
|---|---|
 Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan |
|
| First appearance | Pilot |
| Information | |
| Aliases | Lois Lane Nellie Bly Watchtower |
| Species | Human |
| Gender | Female |
| Age | 20 |
| Year of birth | 1987 |
| Occupation | Reporter at the Daily Planet |
| Family | Gabe Sullivan (father) Moira Sullivan (mother) |
| Relationships | Jimmy Olsen (boyfriend) |
| Relatives | Sam Lane (uncle) Lois Lane (cousin) Lucy Lane (cousin) |
| Portrayed by | Allison Mack |
| Created by | Alfred Gough and Miles Millar |
Chloe Sullivan is a fictional character from the television series Smallville, played by Allison Mack. She was created independently of the canonical DC Universe, introduced by Smallville creators to be a "Lois archetype" but not Lois herself.
Chloe was reporter and editor at Smallville High's The Torch newspaper (named after Jerry Siegel's school paper). She is in the same grade as Pete Ross, Lana Lang, and Clark Kent. At one time she maintained the "Wall of Weird" — a collection of articles concerning the often bizarre and eerie events that take place in Smallville, many of which are related to the mutagenic effects of kryptonite left over from the meteor shower of 1989. It has been recently revealed that she is kryptonite infected herself, but it is still unknown what effect it may have had on her.
Currently, Chloe is enrolled at Metropolis University, majoring in journalism and working at the Daily Planet. She is close to her cousin Lois Lane.
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[edit] Character history
[edit] General history
Chloe was born in Metropolis in 1987 and moved to Smallville in eighth grade when her father, Gabe, was transferred to LuthorCorp's Plant #3. When she was five, Chloe thought her mother, Moira, abandoned her, but it's later revealed that her mother suffered from a mental illness and was institutionalized when Chloe was twelve. However this is later proven to be a cover up for the real reason that Moira was affected by the meteor rocks and decided to separate herself from her daughter.
According to Clark, when he first met Chloe, the first thing she wanted to know was where she could get a copy of the Daily Planet so she could "keep in touch with civilization." She then insisted on seeing his parents' farm, since she had figured only the Amish were farmers. When Clark showed her his loft, she kissed him on the lips just to "get that out of the way"; it was Clark's first kiss. Chloe remained Clark's platonic friend, though she concealed a deep-seated crush on Clark that sometimes caused her to resent Lana Lang and Clark's seemingly endless infatuation with her.
At the end of the first season, Clark admitted to having some feelings for Chloe, but he was unable to let go of hopes that he might one day be with Lana. Encouraged by parents and friends to go to the dance even if he could not go with Lana, Clark asked Chloe instead. Chloe was delighted, but when a cluster of tornadoes hit Smallville, Clark ran off to find Lana (who was stranded on the edge of town), leaving a crushed Chloe alone on the dance floor. It fostered a deep resentment in Chloe toward Clark and Lana.
During the summer between her freshman and sophomore years, Chloe interned at the Daily Planet. She earned this internship without interview after writing about her experiences after being kidnapped and buried alive by a local police officer. The following summer she was given her own column in the Daily Planet after making a deal with Lionel Luthor to dig up information on Clark.
Throughout the series, Chloe has cultivated a close, almost sister-like friendship with Lana Lang (her only female companion besides Lois Lane). She even convinced her father to let Lana stay with them when Lana's aunt moved to Metropolis during their sophomore year. Lana eventually moved into the apartment over the Talon before leaving for college. The fifth season opens with Chloe and Lana as freshmen at Metropolis University. After Chloe's initial roommate throws a tantrum over her "Wall of Weird" and moves out of the dorm, Chloe and Lana become roommates.
During season five Chloe suffers a nervous breakdown and starts having delusions caused by a vengeful ghost. When examined by a psychiatrist, he determines she is exhibiting signs of hereditary schizophrenia from her mother. When it becomes clear at the end of the episode that the delusions were not caused by Chloe's state of mind, Chloe is so disturbed by the experience that she finally seeks out her mother for the first time in years.
In the season six episode "Freak", it is revealed that Chloe has meteor powers. Though the nature of her power is unknown, it also may not have fully developed yet. Chloe is relying on Clark to be her "bomb squad" in case her unknown ability goes rampant. As it said on KryptonSite, Steve Deknight, a Smallville writer, has said that Chloe definitely has an ability and it will be revealed in the season 6 finale.[citation needed]
[edit] The Luthor arc
In "Witness", Lionel Luthor offered Chloe her own column in the Daily Planet in exchange for information on Clark. Chloe initially found the offer despicable and refused, but when she saw Clark and Lana share a kiss in his loft in "Calling", in her anger she betrays Clark by approaching Lionel and concedes to work for him. By the third season however, Chloe is already struggling with her decision, as it puts her as well as Clark into a series of dangerous situations. Her father Gabe Sullivan ends up getting fired from his job from Luthor Corp as a result of this. Later, she amends herself by vowing to testify against Lionel Luthor in the court.
When Clark dosed himself with red kryptonite and ran away, Chloe serendipitously found him at a Metropolis nightclub. When she followed him to his apartment, Clark threatened to run even farther away if she tells anyone. When Chloe showed up at his doorstep a second time, Clark exploded and threw her out of his apartment. Their friendship remained fragile after Clark returned to Smallville.
Meanwhile, the relationship between Chloe and Lionel developed into a dangerous power game throughout the third season. Lionel threatens to fire Chloe's father when she refuses to renew her investigation of Clark. After Clark stumbles upon the arrangement, their friendship is momentarily ruined, though Clark eventually forgives her for her mistake.
In "Delete", Chloe stops investigating Clark, stating that she realizes he'll tell her his secrets when he's ready. It's a promise she keeps, but Chloe's trouble with Lionel continues. Using his influence to strip her of her Daily Planet column, Lionel effectively killed her future journalism career. This led Chloe to publish under a pseudonym, Lois Lane, instead.
When Chloe is exposed to an experimental truth agent at LuthorCorp in "Truth", she briefly gained the power to force people to tell her the truth when talking face-to-face with them. She interrogated Pete Ross and Martha Kent in an attempt to reveal Clark's secret. Before learning anything, Chloe collapsed due to the toxicity of the truth agent and was taken to the medical center. Lionel Luthor paid her a visit, and Chloe forced Lionel to make a voicemail confession to the murder of his parents. The attempt to gain leverage over Lionel fails, and he threatens Chloe. He arranged for the voicemail to be deleted, but the data is later recovered in the episode "Forsaken". Lex used the confession to charge Lionel with murder.
In the season three finale, "Covenant", Chloe entered the witness protection program. Their safe house exploded shortly after Chloe entered the building, and she was declared dead.
In the beginning of Season four, she is presumed dead until Lois Lane comes to find out the truth about her death. Lois and Clark investigate her death and find out that she is alive. Later, Clark saves her and she finally testifies against Lionel. Chloe's testimony led to Lionel's conviction of murder and imprisonment in "Gone".
[edit] Clark's secret
Chloe began researching Clark's secret in the first season episode "Zero" as part of a school assignment. She became increasingly curious and soon began digging into Clark's adoption files. Though she promised to drop her investigation after a falling out with Clark, she saved the files she retrieved, which she later passes to Lionel. In the second season episode "Lineage", Chloe revealed that she had covertly researched Clark's biological lineage, which shocked Clark and nearly ended their friendship. Clark asked Chloe to stop digging, and rather than risk further damage to their friendship, she complied.
A few months after Lionel's conviction, Chloe learned of Clark's powers from a "demonstration" staged by Alicia Baker in "Pariah". Clark revealed both his super-strength and speed to a shocked Chloe when he catches Alicia's out of control car. Though unsettled, Chloe decides not to reveal Clark's secret to anyone. Throughout the fourth season, Chloe drops hints to Clark that she knew of his powers, initially believing Clark to be a meteor freak, rather than an extraterrestrial.
When Clark suffered from amnesia in "Blank", Chloe re-mentored him on his powers and walked him through a tenuous exchange with Lex. After Clark regained his memories, he could no longer remember that Chloe knew his secret. When pressed, Chloe simply remarks that Clark had "trusted" her and seemed satisifed that she was there when he finally needed her support.
In the season four finale, "Commencement", Chloe graduated from high school (although her name was not called due to a military interruption announcing a meteor shower on its way). She later discovered a kryptonite-weakened Clark in Lex Luthor's walk-in safe and pulled him to safety. When Lex walked in to find her in his office, he began acting neurotic, and forcibly dragged her to the Kawatche Caves. There, Chloe knocked Lex down to prevent him from seeing Clark enter a hidden chamber in the caves.
Chloe is transported with Clark to the Arctic in "Arrival". She woke up in front of the Fortress of Solitude, and was nearly killed by an ice blast from Jor-El inside. Clark begged Jor-El to let him leave so he could save Chloe's life, and Jor-El reluctantly agreed. Clark then took her to the nearest hospital in the Yukon, where Chloe told Clark that she knew his secret. She promised to never be the "iceberg to [his] Titanic." With no reason to hide anymore, Clark confided that he is an alien, not a meteor freak.
Since then the pair have worked as partners to help conceal Clark's powers and face his most lethal enemies yet, namely Brainiac. At the end of season five, "Vessel", the entire Daily Planet building goes haywire when Brainiac unleashes a computer virus that infects every computer system on Earth. Chloe, afraid she will never see Clark again, kissed Clark passionately. She promised to leave Metropolis, but the city erupts into mass riots. Chloe frantically banged on the window of a passing limousine belonging to Lionel Luthor outside the Daily Planet. He let her inside, but the rioters overran the car. Chloe was pulled out through a smashed window by the mob while Lionel was attacked on the opposite side. Lionel was able to fend off the rioters with the help of his body guard and he escaped into Luthercorp tower with Chloe. The two regrouped in Lionel's office, and after agreeing that something had to be done about General Zod, Lionel elects to return to the Kent Farm and find the dagger Clark received from Jor-El. Chloe's leg having been injured in the riots, she returns to the Daily Planet to try and kill Brainiac's computer virus. Before wishing her good luck, Lionel gives Chloe a handgun, just in case.
While she was working in the Daily Planet basement, she runs into an old friend - she almost shoots him. It's Jimmy Olsen, who was working his first day at the Daily Planet as a photographer when "the world decided to end". It is now clear that Chloe is going to rekindle whatever relationship she had with Jimmy - what's not clear is how Clark feels about Chloe following the kiss they shared.
[edit] Journalism and the Daily Planet
By the time Chloe arrives in Smallville, she is already an avid Daily Planet reader. In "X-Ray", Chloe explained that she joined the staff of The Torch when she was in junior high, becoming editor as a freshman (possibly because no one wanted the job). Chloe's curiosity and overzealous nature means she often oversteps journalistic boundaries, but she shows promise as a reporter. In "Leech", Chloe received her first byline in the Smallville Ledger for writing an article on Eric "Superboy" Summers, a name she coined herself.
During her internship at the Daily Planet, Chloe worked as a runner and receptionist (detailed in the Smallville comic, My Summer Vacation). During this time, she helped an investigative reporter nail a known mob boss named Hitch. With the aid of blueprints from Lex Luthor, she sneaked into Hitch's lair and took photographic evidence to corroborate the story, which she delivered anonymously.
Chloe's Daily Planet column lasts from "Exodus" to "Whisper". Sullivan's Travels provided advice for teens, but Chloe squeezed in real breaking stories where she could. Several of these articles are documented in the Smallville comics, including her exposure of the nefarious Summerholt Institute, the attempted buyout of the Daily Planet by MetCorp, and Ace Chemical's illegal dumping. She also co-wrote a supposed urban legend piece with her editor, George "Max" Taylor, which followed the criminal activities of Clark Kent's alter ego "Kal."
When Chloe meets Perry White, an inspiration and idol, in "Perry", he admitted to her that Lionel reduced him to tabloid TV journalism. Chloe mirrors his experience after Lionel blacklisted her, she uses her cousin Lois Lane's name as a pseudonym. Even though she warned Max that her article could put him in danger, he is murdered over her piece on the Summerholt Institute, effectively ending her first job as a reporter with the Daily Planet.
Chloe returned to the Daily Planet as a freshman in college. She attempted to get her job back in "Thirst". The current editor-in-chief, Pauline Kahn initially refused to hire her back because of her past relationship with Lionel Luthor. But Chloe was given the fabled "Perry Chance," and proved herself with an independent story about a kryptonite-strain of rabies that turned a sorority of Metropolis University students into parasitic "vampires." Once again at the Daily Planet, Chloe started at the bottom in the Planet basement working the tipline.
Chafing at her new job, Chloe got a break when she and Lois witnessed the gruesome hit-and-run slaying of an informant they were meeting in "Exposed". They tracked the girl's identity to an underground strip club located in a remote part of Metropolis, where Lois went undercover as a clumsy stripper. Chloe interrogated the dead girl's co-workers and learned that the son of a Russian diplomat was selling girls into international slavery. When he captured Lois, Clark secretly saved the day, and Chloe got her first byline for the piece… on page 73, at the bottom.
Chloe worked her way up from the Daily Planet tipline, to making copy on obituaries and wedding announcements. She also worked on small articles like jaywalking before she uncovered the truth about her cousin's date (secretly an international hitman) in "Fade". When she exposed him as one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted, she got a byline on the cover of the Daily Planet for the first time.
[edit] Relationships
Chloe and Clark Kent are close platonic friends, but she has had a crush on Clark seemingly since they met. Clark was oblivious to this fact until psychic child Ryan James read Chloe's mind and informed him during their freshman year of high school. When Chloe was kidnapped, Clark realized how much she meant to him and took her to a school dance. When it seemed like they might develop a relationship, Chloe, knowing that Clark was in love with Lana, lied and told Clark that they were better off as friends. Clark and Chloe have kissed on at least one episode in each year of the series. In Seasons One, Chloe was hypnotized to do something she's always wanted to do, and in Season Two she was infected with a parasite that caused her to do wild and impulsive things. In Season Three she and Clark were caught snooping though medical files and she began kissing him, making it seem like they were simply in the file room for privacy. In Season Four she was affected by a love potion and became singularly devoted to Clark. She cornered him in his loft wearing only his football jersey and Clark had ward off her advances until he found a cure. In Season Five, when Clark prepared to face the recently released General Zod, Chloe was afraid they might never see each other again and gave him a romantic goodbye kiss, which Clark appeared to reciprocate. When Clark returned safe and sound, he attempted to bring up the kiss and was seemingly disappointed when Chloe declared it didn't mean anything, since it was "the end of the world." Although it remains platonic, Chloe's relationship with Clark is one of the most complex in the series.
Although her crush on an unwitting Clark and her budding journalism career don't leave her much time for a social life, she mentions to Lana in "Unsafe" that she lost her virginity the previous summer to a fellow intern at the Daily Planet, Jimmy, whom she describes as "very cute, in a bow-tie kind of way." This is a reference to Jimmy Olsen, the ambitious kid journalist often dubbed "Superman's pal" and usually depicted in the comics as wearing a bowtie.
Jimmy Olsen joined the Smallville cast during its sixth season. Alfred Gough, executive producer of the show, revealed that Jimmy Olsen is the Jimmy referred to by Chloe in "Unsafe", and the two will share a romantic relationship. At that point, it wasn't clear how Clark would feel about them.
Later, in the episode "Crimson" Chloe became very upset when Jimmy broke up with her. Clark reunited them in the following episode "Trespass".[1]
[edit] Family & Relationships
[edit] Parents
- Gabe Sullivan - (father)
- Moira Sullivan - (mother)
[edit] Uncle & Aunt
- Sam Lane - (uncle)
- Ella Lane - (aunt)
[edit] Cousins
| Episodes: Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4 • Season 5 • Season 6 |
| Characters |
| Clark Kent • Lana Lang • Lex Luthor • Chloe Sullivan |
| Lionel Luthor • Lois Lane • Jimmy Olsen • Martha Kent • Oliver Queen • Jonathan Kent |
| Pete Ross • Jason Teague • Whitney Fordman |
| Guest characters |
| Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4 • Season 5 • Season 6 |
| Related information |
| Smallville DVD releases • Media information • Kryptonite • Kryptonian Crystals |
