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Tess Mercer is a recurring character in the TV series Smallville. Introduced in Season 8 following the demise of Lex Luthor, she took control of LuthorCorp and continued investigating the truth about Clark Kent. Though she was Lex's protégé, she would eventually turn away from the Luthor legacy and become a valued ally of Clark and his other heroic friends. She was portrayed by Cassidy Freeman.

Tess Mercer is a composite character, comprised of elements from other Superman characters including Lena Luthor, Eve Tetschmacher and Mercy Graves.

History[]

When Lex Luthor disappeared during a private expedition to the Arctic, Tess took control of all his projects and business. Like her predecessors Lex and Lionel, she became obsessed with finding the truth about Clark Kent. She had very little touch with everyone who knew Clark, including Chloe Sullivan, Lois Lane and her old flame Oliver Queen, who did not have any confidence in her due to being an emissary of the Luthor family.

For a long time, she was obsessed with maintaining the Luthor's legacy and being totally devoted to Lex, whom she considered a hero, but after discovering that Lex had used her to spy on people, she became angry and took her revenge on him by cutting any remaining ties with him.

After learning about Clark's secret and guided by voices coming out of the Orb that Lex had been looking for months before he disappeared, Tess took the power contained within the device and allowed the Kandorians and Major Zod to be reborn on Earth. Thinking that in this way she would be saving the world, Tess helped Zod to achieve all his goals, believing that doing so would advance her own plans.

After being summoned by one of her original organizations, her plans were affected and then Tess was pushed to go underground, to prevent an assassination attempt. Being rejected by Oliver, Zod and all those she knew, Tess realized that she had lost everything she had in her quest for power and in an attempt for redemption, faced Zod and tried to stop him, but he severely burned her with his heat vision. From her hospital bed, Tess helped Clark use the Book of Rao and apologized for everything she had done. Unable to bear the wounds she had suffered, she then died in the hospital.

However, Tess was brought back to life by Cadmus Labs, who had been running a genetic engineering program in order to clone Lex Luthor. Being the illegitimate daughter of Lionel and Lex's half-sister, the genetic material produced by Cadmus was compatible with Tess and thus her life was saved. She soon started to take care of a young clone of Lex whom she believed she could change, but feared that the clone and its original host would turn out to be one and the same.

Tess would later discover that she was abandoned at the age of 5 by her birth parents, Lionel Luthor and Pamela Jenkins, with her being raised in Granny Goodness's orphanage. What Lionel didn't realize about Granny that she was a prophet of Darkseid, who used the orphanage to train an army for service to her lord. Granny had planned to train Tess to become the leader of the Female Furies, but when the girl was five years old, Lionel arranged for Tess to be adopted by the Mercer family in Louisiana.

Death[]

In the final episode "Finale", the Earth-2 version of Lionel Luthor had kidnapped Tess in order to complete his clone of Lex. Lex still required a heart and Tess' was deemed to be compatible. Before Lionel and his henchmen could operate on her, Tess overpowered them and shot Lionel before escaping from Cadmus.

Later, as Apokolips was drawing closer to Earth, Tess returned to LuthorCorp only to find Lex sitting at her desk. The two conversed briefly before Lex drew a knife and stabbed Tess in the abdomen. As Tess began bleeding out, she reached up a hand and smeared blood across Lex's cheek. The blood had been laced with a dermal neurotoxin that would wipe away Lex's memories, causing him to forget his entire life up until that point, including everything he knew about Clark. Tess then died in Lex's arms.

Resurrection[]

In the Smallville: Season Eleven comic book, it is revealed that while Tess' body died, her consciousness survived within Lex's mind. Her mind would be retrieved by the Justice League and housed in a new cybernetic body known as Red Tornado.

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