It doesn't look as if things are going to get any easier this year for young Clark Kent.

During the fifth season of TV's "Smallville," Clark's adoptive dad, Jonathan, died. Clark also lost the love of his life, Lana Lang (Kristen Kreuk), pushing her away after deciding he could never tell her the truth about his alien origins and amazing powers. And his friendship with Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) fractured completely,
with Lex and Lana becoming a couple.

Season six, beginning Sept. 28 on The CW, will follow "the lonely road of a hero, basically," says Alfred Gough, an executive producer who along with Miles Millar created the show about the Superman-to-be. "It's all going to come to bear on him this year."

First, though, Clark (Tom Welling) needs to bust out of the Phantom Zone, where he was imprisoned in the final moments of last season. The season opener will show what it's like inside the Phantom Zone, an other-dimensional prison for Kryptonian criminals created by Clark's biological father, Jor-El.

Clark will escape, of course, but he won't be the only one, Gough says. "Over the course of the season, they discover there are others who have gotten out that obviously have a bone to pick with Clark, since his father's the one who put them there."