I didn't really mind that he died, its how he died, with Clark watching and doing absolutely nothing. Powers or not, I couldn't just stand there.
For me, I would have preferred that Clark was on one side saving people, while Jonathan would be all the way over on the other side. Maybe several hundred yards separate the two.
Jonathan tells Clark you get those people and I'll get these.
Jonathan is pulling people from cars and pointing to the bridge For safety.
He goes for the dog like we saw and breaks his leg in the process.
Clark is busy doing the same, pulling people from cars, pointing to the bridge, etc.
He smiles to himself. It feels good to actually make a difference.
The tornado closes in on Jonathan as the dog flees to safety.. Good boy Jonathan says and smiles. Jonathan tries to hop away, but can't. He falls against a car.
A whisper is on the wind.
Clark can't really hear anything over the roar of the tornado, but he thinks he hears a very faint "Son".
Jonathan looks up, the tornado is on him. The car he's leaning against starts to rock, then hover from the wind.
Clark looks up, cocks his head, and pauses.
Dad?
He focuses hard like his mom showed him when he was little.
He hears it again. "Clark".
He tunes everything else out until he hears......"Son".
"I'm proud of you Clark". "I know you can hear me." "Your going to do great things clark". "My son". "I wish I could be here to see it"
Clark looks in the direction of the whispered voice, and sees Jonathan and a car being taken up by the huge tornado.
The last thing he sees is Jonathan looking at him and smiling as he disappears.
Clark rushes toward Jonathan as he disappears in the cloud of swirling debris and dirt.
Clark focuses even harder until he hears Jonathan's heartbeat.
He hears nothing else but that. All else is tuned out.
Also, Everything around Clark now slows down as he moves at "controlled" super speed for the very first time. ( it's not flash fast, but still very fast )
Clark still hears a heartbeat, but it's fading.
( we hear the heartbeat also in the background the whole time as Clark rushes headlong into the tornado )
Clark is dodging all manner of debris in a desperate attempt to reach Jonathan, ie, trees, cars, street signs, bits of barns, etc, thats coming towards him, but its moving slowly as he's moving much faster.
He jumps from a car to a tree to a truck, using them like a stair case.
He's now several hundred feet up.
He sees Jonathan for a brief second, but he loses him again as he disappears behind a flying broken wall from a barn.
The heartbeat slows, it's now barely beating.
Finally, Clark ( and we ) no longer hear a heartbeat. It has stopped.
Jonathan is gone.
Clark slows down to real-time and falls to the ground feet first.
Debris falls to the ground All around him. The dust starts to settle.
We see clark standing in the middle of it, from the back.
A car falls on him from above, but bounces off and crashes into a heap off to the side.
But In his grief, He doesn't even notice.
His T-shirt is torn to tatters, his jeans ripped, a shoe is missing, and he's covered in dirt.
Off in the distance, we see the tornado disappear.
Clark drops his head and puts a hand to his face. "Dad" he whispers.
A long Silence follows.
The sun slowly comes out from behind the clouds, and a single ray of light shines down where Clark is standing.
Clark slowly makes his way back to the crowd of people. They saw nothing, as they were sheltering under the bridge.
Martha smiles at first when she sees clark, but when she sees his grim face, and that Jonathan is not with him, she collapses to her knees and cries.