Chloe Sullivan

Chloe Sullivan
Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan
First appearance	"Pilot"
Created by	Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
Portrayed by	Allison Mack
In-universe information
Alias	Lois Lane Nellie Bly Watchtower
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Occupation	Reporter at the Daily Planet
Relatives	Lois Lane (cousin)

Chloe Sullivan is a fictional character from the television series Smallville, played by Allison Mack. Introduced by Smallville creators to be a "Lois Lane archetype" (but not Lois herself). She was created independently of the canonical DC Comics Universe, although DC Comics since acquired the character and have plans to introduce her to mainstream continuity in 2008.

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. Chloe is similar to Veronica Mars.

Currently, Chloe is enrolled at Metropolis University, majoring in journalism and working at the Daily Planet. She is close to her cousin Lois Lane.

Casting

Allison Mack toyed with the idea of auditioning for the role of Lana Lang, but chose instead to audition for the role of Chloe Sullivan. The character was created just for the series, and was intended to add ethnic diversity to the cast. Part of the reason she was cast was because Gough and Millar felt she had a "rare ability to deliver large chunks of expositionary [sic] dialogue conversationally." Kristen Bell also auditioned for the role.

Awards

Allison Mack has been nominated for a number of awards for her role as Chloe Sulliivan. She was nominated for a Saturn Award as best supporting acress in a television program in 2006 and 2007. She was also nominated for a Teen Choice Award as Choice Teen Sidekick in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, winning in 2006.

Character history

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 in season six episode "Progeny", it is revealed that the real reason Moira left was because she was infected by the meteor rocks and has the power to control Chloe and every other infectee and was scared for the safety of her daughter and husband.

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.

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" she gets freaked out about the vampires in the episode Thirst and transfers to a different university, so Chloe and Lana become roommates once again.

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 possesses unknown meteor powers, which are later used for the first time in season six finale "Phantom".

The Luthor arc

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Chloe enters into an ill-advised deal with Lionel Luthor.

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 offer to publish future articles under a pseudonym, Lois Lane, but such never came to pass as her editor was killed, the disk with her articles stolen by Lex Luthor and the sticky note where she had written the name Lois Lane was never seen again.

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 her cousin, 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".

Clark's secret

Chloe began researching Clark's background 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 learns of Clark's powers from a "demonstration" staged by Alicia Baker in "Pariah". Alicia forces Chloe into her car and, while driving at a reckless speed, calls Clark on her cell phone and claims that her car is out of control. Alicia then uses her power to teleport her and Chloe to a safe distance. As Alicia had planned, a shocked Chloe witnesses Clark arrive at super-speed and catch the speeding car. Clark then leaves, unaware that he had been observed.

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.

In Season 4 Episode 18, Chloe witnesses the effect of kryptonite on Clark when Jonathan Kent uses it to subdue Clark after he was possessed by the spirit of a vengeful prom queen. Chloe pretends to be knocked out and acts as if she knew nothing at all.

When Clark is struck with amnesia in "Blank", Chloe re-mentors him on his powers and walks 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 graduates from high school (although her name was not called due to a military interruption announcing a meteor shower on its way). She later discovers a kryptonite-weakened Clark in Lex Luthor's walk-in safe and pulls him to safety. When Lex finds her in his office, he begins acting neurotic, and forcibly drags her to the Kawatche Caves. There, Chloe knocks 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 wakes up in front of the Fortress of Solitude, and is nearly killed from the extreme cold. Clark begs Jor-El to let him leave so he can save Chloe's life, and Jor-El reluctantly agrees. Clark takes her to the nearest hospital in the Yukon, where Chloe tells Clark that she knows his secret. She promised to never be the "iceberg to [his] Titanic." With no reason to hide anymore, Clark confides that he is an alien, not a meteor freak.

File:Chloe fortress.jpeg

Chloe follows Clark to the Fortress of Solitude.

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, kisses Clark passionately. She promises to leave Metropolis, but the city erupts into mass riots. Chloe frantically bangs on the window of a passing limousine belonging to Lionel Luthor outside the Daily Planet. He lets her inside, but the rioters overrun the car. Chloe is pulled out through a smashed window by the mob while Lionel is attacked on the opposite side. Lionel is able to fend off the rioters with the help of his bodyguard and they escape into LuthorCorp Plaza. The two regroup 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. With her leg injured in the riots, Chloe returns to the Daily Planet to try and decipher the Kryptonian symbols they believe will give them clues to stop Zod. Before wishing her good luck, Lionel gives Chloe a handgun, just in case.

While 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. Chloe and Jimmy rekindled a whirlwind relationship they started when she was an intern in high school. However, Clark's reaction to the kiss they shared is unclear. Continuing to be Clark's sidekick, she helps a fledgling version of the Justice League on their first mission, but she stays in Smallville (like Clark) when they leave. She soon discovers herself to be meteor-infected after being kidnapped by Lex's men although she has forgotten everything about her abduction. She subsequently reunites with her mother, Moira, who is revealed to have the ability to control meteor-infected people. Lex Luthor attempts to exploit Moira to control other meteor freaks and kidnaps Chloe to use as leverage against her. Chloe and Clark are able to relocate her mother to safety. Chloe serves as Lana Lang's Maid of Honor when she marries Lex. Lana uses Chloe by locking her in a wine cellar so that she could witness Clark's powers and confirm what she has already suspected for some time. Chloe's power is finally revealed to be healing tears when she revives a dying Lois. However, the powers appear to drain Chloe's own life-force at the same time.

Family

Lynda Carter plays Chloe's mother Moira in the season six episode "Progeny". She has the ability to control meteor-freaks in what the Fort Worth Star-Telegram described as a "memorable guest appearance." The Olympia thought the former Wonder Woman actress was "fabulous even without the skintight uniform and the magic bracelets."

Journalism and the Daily Planet

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Chloe applying to be a Junior Reporter at the 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,and then became editor as a freshman (possibly because no one else wanted the job). Chloe's curiosity and overzealous nature means she often oversteps journalistic boundaries, but she shows promise as a reporter. An example of this is in "Leech", where 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. It's detailed that, 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 admits to her that Lionel Luthor has reduced him to tabloid TV journalism. Chloe mirrors his experience after Lionel blacklists her, but by using her cousin Lois Lane's name as a pseudonym she is able to continue. This last only shortly as when Max runs her piece on the Summerholt Institute, despite her warnings, he is murdered; bringing about the end of her first job as a reporter at the Daily Planet.

Later, Chloe returns to the Daily Planet as a freshman in college. She attempts 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, and her love of the bizarre. But Chloe is given the fabled "Perry Chance", and proves 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 starts at the bottom in the Planet basement working the tipline. Chafing at her new job, Chloe gets a break when she and Lois witness a gruesome hit-and-run slaying of an informant they were meeting in "Exposed". Together, they track down the girl's identity to an underground strip club located in a remote part of Metropolis. There, as a favor to Chloe, Lois goes undercover as a stripper. After learning that the son of a Russian diplomat was selling girls into international slavery, Chloe writes up the story that gets her a byline… on page 73, at the bottom.

Chloe currently has worked her way up past the Daily Planet tipline, to making copy on obituaries and wedding announcements. She also works on small articles like jaywalking, although there have been noteworthy exceptions, such as the time she got her first byline on the cover of the Daily Planet, by exposing her cousin's date as one of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, in "Fade".

Powers and abilities

Throughout the majority of the series, Chloe was thought to be totally powerless. In many ways, her computer hacking skills and determined journalistic nature were her primary skills in aiding Clark against various threats, both human and metahuman. When using the technology at Oliver Queen's disposal, Chloe acted as "Watchtower" for Oliver's proto-Justice League, a role very similar to that of computer-savvy Oracle in traditional comics.

Ironically, Chloe had been obsessed with finding and exposing meteor freaks for much of her time in high school, only to one day find out she is one. In the Season Six episode, "Freak", a metahuman with the power to sense the Kryptonite-infected detects Chloe as a meteor freak — Chloe initially hypothesises that this is due to the abundance of Kryptonite she'd come into contact with since going to Smallville High, although it is later learnt that this is an ability which she developed at a young age, as did her mother, possibly hereditary. In the Season Six finale, "Phantom", Chloe first unwittingly uses her superpower: the ability to restore the dead back to life, possibly at the cost of her own or being left greatly weakened. When her tear falls on a dead Lois Lane, Lois is instantly revived without a scratch, while Chloe's unconscious body is leaning against a pillar.

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 Season 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 to 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 doesn'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. Especially since Jimmy believed Clark was interested in Chloe, early on in the season Clark would regularly interrupt the two in romantic moments, although this eventually stopped. Interestingly in "Crimson" while under the influence of red kryptonite Clark states that he had thought about Chloe and himself once Lana was married to Lex. Clark later denied this, and also ran off with Lana, although this deeply affected Jimmy. Later, Chloe became very upset when Jimmy broke up with her. Clark reunited them in the following episode "Trespass".