She has been a series regular since the pilot episode, and has been played continuously by Kristin Kreuk, with two other actresses having portrayed Lana Lang as a child and as an elderly woman.

The character of Lana Lang, first created for comic books by Bill Finger and John Sikela in the 1950s as a romantic interest for Superboy, was adapted to television in 2001 by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.

After stealing a kryptonite-powered suit from Lex, Lana absorbs an enormous amount of kryptonite radiation, which prohibits her from getting too close to Clark, and she leaves Smallville for good, but vowed to continue to use her powers to preserve life.

[2] In the pilot episode, when her parents are killed in the first meteor shower, Lana (Jade Unterman) is adopted by her aunt Nell (Sarah-Jane Redmond).

[8] At the start of season three, it is shown that Lana, alongside the Kents, has been spending her time searching for Clark; she ultimately finds him in Metropolis thanks to Chloe's help.

[13] Season three's "Forsaken" reveals that Lana, in order to move on with her life, applies and is admitted into a program to study in Paris, France.

At the beginning of season four, Lana returns to Smallville after receiving a mysterious tattoo on her lower back, which resembles a symbol on the local Kawatche cave walls, when she touched the tomb of Countess Margaret Isobel Theroux.

[20] The spaceship becomes Lana's primary focus in season five, officially teaming up with Lex Luthor to discover the mystery behind the ship in the episode "Splinter".

[23] The relationship with Lex eventually leads to marriage in the season six episode "Promise", but not before Lana discovers Clark's secret and realizes why he has been lying to her all these years.

[25] It is revealed at the start of season seven that her effort fails, but as part of the "settlement" of their divorce, Lex makes sure that Lana does not go to jail for her actions.

[30] In the season eight episode "Power", it is revealed that Lana really returned so that she could steal Lex's "Prometheus" technology for herself, which harnesses alien DNA into a nanite "super-suit" to give the wearer superhuman abilities.

[31] In the episode "Requiem", Lana discovers that her suit absorbs kryptonite, but also emits the radiation making her a potential danger to Clark.

[32] Creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar were initially trying to find someone for the role of Clark Kent, but Kristin Kreuk was the first to be cast, as Lana Lang.

[37] When asked if her being cast as a traditionally red haired character caused outcry from fans, Kreuk believes that whoever did "got over it pretty fast".

[39] Kreuk enjoyed the fourth season because it gave her the chance to stretch her acting abilities with Lana's storyline involving the spirit of Countess Margaret Isobel Thoreaux.

[40] Kreuk says her strangest moment on the show was playing a vampire in season five's "Thirst", an experience she remembers as "uncomfortable" due to the fake blood they covered her in.

Lana's perception of her mother drove the way she led her own life, which was based on the idea of everyone perceiving her in a good light.

According to Kreuk, meeting her biological father allowed the character to realize that she had to create her own life, as the one she had envisioned did not actually exist.

[1] The Talon, a local coffee shop co-owned by Lana, becomes her new grounding force as Whitney and her aunt have left Smallville.

[39] In season four, Kristin Kreuk felt like Lana is "going a little crazy and is uncertain about her direction, and feels people aren't validating her beliefs".

According to Malkowski, Lana's strong feminist stance, and her request that people should stop protecting her and start telling her the truth, are diluted by her willingness to believe whatever pieces of information she gets, even if they are lies.

Kreuk believes that Lana truly was in love with Whitney when they first started dating, but by the time the audience first sees her in the pilot she is no longer in that same state of mind.

[39] The friendship that Lana shares with Chloe was deeply damaged at the start of season three, so much so that not even Kreuk realized how badly until the episode "Truth".

[43] By contrast, writer Caroline Dries feels that Lana did love Lex, and that she did not make any hasty decisions when she agreed to marry him.

[43] In 2001, Kristin Kreuk was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actress, as well as Female Cinescape Genre Face of the Future.

[55] DVD Verdict's Brian Byun felt that the casting of the series was "pitch-perfect", noting that Kreuk is "painfully luminous" as Lana Lang, which makes it obvious why she is the object of Clark's obsession.

In Strange Visitors, Lana attempts to organize a fund raiser for the family of a school mate, Stewart, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Her effort is rendered moot when Lex Luthor and Dr. Donald Jacobi, a con artist that comes to Smallville, pick up Stewart's medical bills after a meteor rock removes all of the malignant cancer cells in his brain.

[58] Lana made a non-speaking cameo appearance in the ninth issue of the show's comic book continuation Smallville: Season Eleven, written by executive story editor Bryan Q. Miller.

[59] Lana returns in a parallel story arc Valkyrie in which she uses the superhero alias "Angel of the Plateau" and battles terrorists in Africa.