Sayonara Smallville Special: Alumni Roll Call

Kiel and I have discussed this before, but over its decade-long existence, Smallville has been a gateway program for young Hollywood the likes of which Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Freaks & Geeks could only aspire to and which perhaps only MTV’s seminal Undressed can even hope to truly compete. In short: If you’re a decent actor or actress who has made a mark on movies or TV in the last 10 years, odds are you debuted on Smallville.

Ok, that’s a gross exaggeration, but seriously, a lot of current stars first appeared in fairly minor roles on Smallville.

I’ve been bringing this up even more lately as my wife and I have been watching the early seasons of Friday Night Lights, featuring Adrianne “Fake Supergirl from season three” Palicki in one of the featured roles. Megan suggested it might be a fun lazy Sunday afternoon exercise to compile and post a full list of Smallville supporting players who went on to do bigger things, noting their roles on the show as well as their later more significant part(s), so I said why not.

Of note: I stayed away from series regulars (i.e. Laura Vandervoort going on to V) and already established stars (Michael McKean as Perry White), though I did include some folks who did do a couple things before Smallville because I didn’t feel like looking up what Ian Somerhalder was on first.

Enjoy the pictures of the pretty people!

Lizzy Caplan (Mean Girls, Cloverfield, Party Down) as shape-shifter Tina Greer

Eric Christian Olsen (Dumb and Dumberer, The Loop, NCIS: Los Angeles) as the youthful version of meter-de-aged old man Harry Bolston

Academy Award winner Amy Adams (Junebug, Enchanted, Doubt) as fat-sucking vampire Jodi Melville

Shawn Ashmore (X-Men movies) as would be “Superboy” Eric Summers, who briefly steals Clark’s powers

Adam Brody (The O.C.) as telekinetic artist Justin Gaines

Jesse Metcalfe (Desperate Housewives) as meteor freak hunter Van McNulty

Ian Somerhalder (LOST, The Vampire Diaries) as enigmatic Lana love interest/Luthor test subject Adam Knight

Missy Peregrym (Stick It, Reaper) as super genius “Brainwave”

Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights) as the imposter Kara created by Jor-El

Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) as Lana’s love interest with a dark past, Jason Teague

Peyton List (Mad Men) as Lois’ younger sister Lucy

Alan Ritchson (Blue Mountain State) as Arthur Curry, aka Aquaman

Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica, Dollhouse) as Wes Keenan, a childhood friend of Lois and Green Beret that Lex tried to transform into a super-soldier

Hmm...not quite as impressive a list as I thought it might be, but I didn't even include the second Ashmore or two out of the three sons from Home Improvement. Go Smallville!

Paragraph Movie Reviews: Black Swan

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

Enthralling, engrossing and frankly terrifying at times with a last half hour that will blow your mind, this is maybe the most intense and well-done psychological thrillers I've ever seen and among the better flat out movies I've been to in quite some time. If ever I've seen an instance where a director can be a star, it's here, as this film has Darren Aronofsky's fingerprints on every aspect and is the better for it by far. It's got all his signature flourishes from the surreality created by the way he shoots to the excruciating focus on the physical pain a body can endure to the slow descent into paranoia that makes the last act incredible; you can see the love and care bordering on obsession this filmmaker had for his subject matter. However, as much as Aronofsky brings as a director, Natalie Portman matches him as an actor, delivering the most breathtaking performance I've ever seen her give. Her metamorphosis over 108 minutes is measured and powerful, mirroring the transition of her character from model of tortured restraint to out-of-control dynamo perfectly. Her line readings are great, but what really sells it is how much she gives of herself physically, from her face to her movement; you can feel her struggle and get swept up in her pain and (here's that word again) obsession. The rest of the cast is dynamite as well, in particular Barbara Hershey walking the line as Portman's Nina's caring but somehow unhinged mother; she does a great job keeping you guessing as to what's really in her head, has amazing chemistry with Portman, and can jump from maternal to chilling on a dime. Vincent Cassel provides solid glue as the visionary but philandering director while Winona Ryder has little to do but is well-cast as a dancer just past her prime; the worst I can say about Mila Kunis is I felt she wasn't quite on Portman's level, but that's a near-impossible thing to ask here and she did solid work. This is also that rare movie where I really noticed the sound work, from the way passing subway cars sounded like ruffled feathers to the rising and falling volume of Portman's breath. And while I'm at it, let me praise Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz and John McLaughlin for a brilliantly-written story and script as well. Just an incredible movie all around and one of those times I can't really do it justice with words, so just go see it!

Pimping My Stuff: DC Writer's Relay at CBR

I've spent the better part of this week falling behind on the blog and about a half dozen other more important things working up transcripts for something over at CBR that I thought I'd plug before getting right back to a strict regimen of typing things all day instead of showering: The DC Writer's Relay!


See, a few months back Jonah Weiland and I got an itch to try a new feature on the site that we shamelessly stole from the BBC's Chain Reaction series of interviews (though we felt less comfortable stealing the name along with the idea). The basic set-up was the idea that one creator would interview another with interviewee then becoming interviewer on down the line until the whole thing revolved back on itself. We decided to make our first test run with some up-and-coming writers at DC Comics we felt would make for some interesting and in depth discussions. Clockwise from the upper left, they were: Sweet Tooth creator and Superboy writer Jeff Lemire, American Vampire and Detective Comics writer Scott Snyder, Jimmy Olsen and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents scribe Nick Spencer and Action Comics and Knight And Squire author Paul Cornell.

And boy oh boy, did those guys impress in terms of really fascinating discussion. in terms of topics, we placed no restrictions on what they could ask each other about, so all sorts of work from Lemire's award-winning Essex County books from Top Shelf to Cornell's "Doctor Who" writing to Spencer's rad Image Comics all worked their way in. And in terms of depth, I think I learned more about how working writers approach the craft and business of mainstream comics listening to them on the phone over the past two months than I have all year.

It's really amazing content that I feel really happy to have had a small hand in bringing to the web, and sadly, I'm starting to worry that either nobody's noticed them or they're just opting not to read them because "shit's too long" or because they're "waiting for some REAL news like a teaser image" or because "nobody told anybody to fuck themselves" or something silly like that. So I'm pulling out some brief highlights below and linking to each interview. Spend some time with the pieces this weekend, huh?


First up, Snyder chatted up his good friend Lemire leading to some really funny and interesting exchanges including the following:

Lemire: I think that's because of all that formative stuff where I didn't know what I was doing. No one ever saw that stuff, and I think I waited until I'd done something good enough to publish before I even sought out a publisher.

Snyder: That's one of the weird things about the contemporary mythology of becoming a comic book writer – you write something and then burst onto the scene, so you have your formative years as a writer. But one of the things that's interesting for me is that a lot of people I talk to do what you did. That's what I did in the literary world in the same way. You discover yourself as a writer before seeking publication.

Lemire: It takes a long time to find your voice, I think, as a writer or an artist. One of the things that is so different now – and I say "now," but it was really only ten years ago when I was in that stage – but with the internet and Twitter and all that stuff, everything is so accessible. Everyone is so accessible to each other, and it's easy to put your stuff out there right away. The line between professionalism and the amateur world is so blurred, now that the formative stuff is in everybody's hands.

Snyder: I feel the same way. I feel like a cranky old man saying it, but I was watching a Rock N Roll Hall of Fame induction. Bono was giving a speech about Springsteen or somebody – my wife was watching it when I walked in – and he was saying that if the music industry was the way it is now when U2 was forming, there wouldn't have been anything past "October." Because they had a gestational period! It's like any of the bands I love – since there wasn't an internet when Nirvana was forming, you have time to play in the dark by yourself and figure out who you are. But it does, now, seem like the spotlight is so aggressive. It's so intrusive that the moment you do anything that shows any promise, somebody can pluck you up. There is a certain amount of protection you have to give yourself as a writer or an artist.

Lemire: I feel like a lot of young people trying to do whatever it is they want to do don't have the patience or the work ethic to really develop. Everybody wants to be famous right away. Hence, the fame and notoriety is more important than the work itself. No one takes the time to find their voice. They just start throwing their stuff out there, hoping it catches. I'm really glad – God, this sounds terrible – but I'm glad that I didn't really have a lot of friends in comics or a lot of friends, period, in that time of my life. Like I said, I spent the good part of ten years alone and working and trying to get better. I'm glad that I have that. It feels like if you go to school for comics and be with all these other kids with so many other influences, it'd be hard to make it. Maybe that's why my stuff is so distinct. I just did it in a bubble.

Second, Lemire picked up the ball by talking to Spencer, who he'd never met, and pulling a lot of information out of the writer on his process for both creator-owned and work-for-hire gigs:

Lemire: That leads into what I was going to ask you next. What's your process like? For me, all my stuff tends to come from a visual place where I'm sketching in a book and a story grows from that. For you, you started to touch on this, but where do things start for you? A line of dialogue? A character? A high concept?

Spencer: Almost every idea that I have tends to – a lot of times I'll get a high concept first. It's a weird thing where I'll be sitting on the subway or I'll be walking through the park, and a general pitch line will float into my head. I have no idea where it comes from, but usually from there, I start thinking about, "Okay, what does this say? What's the theme of this story? What's the moral here? What's the question?" Then I start thinking about characters or who's going to be a part of that story. I usually think of myself as a "scene first" writer, but it usually comes out of some general premise that sprung up. And that process can take months.

So with "Existence" as a really easy example, I think the initial idea was "A guys wakes up in the body of the hitman that just killed him." Then you let that roll around in your head for a bit, and you think, "This is a story about a guy who had a life previously, and then he moved into a new life." Then it becomes a story about how when we make mistakes or even when we're unhappy in our lives, the solution isn't always to just go start a new life. The people in our old lives and our feelings for them reconnect us with what we've left behind. So then you start to flesh out the character. Who is this guy? He becomes this self-absorbed physicist who's been stealing from his partners and cheating on his wife, and he's made a general mess of everything. Now he's got this new life where he's a dangerous hired killer. And it's glamourous, and he's better looking. But then his daughter gets kidnapped, and he has to go figure out what happened to her. He's got to go back into his old life, and the choices he ends up making spin out of that.

So you can see how it starts from this standard line that the Hollywood guys love, but you never leave it there. I feel like a lot of writers go, "Oh, that'll be fun!" [Lemire Laughs] But you've got to put substance in that. You've got to build out layers, and that took months of having the idea roll around in my head.

Lemire: That's interesting. How regimented are you in your writing routine? Do you do the same thing during the same hours, or are you a little more open?

Spencer: No. Right now, it feels like it's just a continuous state of writing. [Laughter] It's all just bled together where there's no more times of "break." There are more times writing than there are not writing. I tend to write a lot at the start of the day and a lot at the end of the day. I'll wake up, and I'll have a few hours. Then the head gets a little tired, and you've got to take a break. Then later at night, I tend to be able to bang out a few more hours. I used to be a strictly late night person where I didn't get much of any writing done before ten or eleven P.M., and it wouldn't at all be weird for me to write until six or seven A.M. It was working fine, but I've sort of adjusted now, and I've broken it up into a couple of big blocks. Even though the time is probably about the same, I feel like it's better because I feel like I'm getting twice as much done because I'm sitting down to write twice. It just really depends. Every book is different in terms of how quickly it comes and how much time I have to spend on it and how many times I need to stop and start on it.

The Action Comics had a team-up next as Spencer interviewed Cornell while they both happened to be in the UK, leading to some highly British discussions:

Spencer: I really wanted to ask you some questions about "Captain Britain," which was one of my favorite series of the past decade. I just reread the first arc in anticipation of talking to you, and I'm in London right now, so it was a blast to read it here. The first thing I wanted to ask about was that this was an amazing story about patriotism, but it's also a story about how people don't wear their patriotism on their sleeves. You get goosebumps from these amazing calls to affection for your country, and then the very next line will be somebody making fun of that. Or there's that great splash page of, "We don't like to make a fuss about it." I was curious as to how you handled those moments and tried to strike that emotional chord.

Cornell: That's the nature of British patriotism, I feel. We have a very complicated relationship with our flag especially. And we can never say something straightforwardly patriotic without undercutting it with a joke or irony immediately afterwards in case somebody might think we were being too above ourselves or too serious. British patriotism annoys the hell out of me. It's really complicated. I think I am a British patriot in a lot of ways, but that's a very complicated thing to be. You could ask me that question ten different ways, and I'd have ten different answers. That book is an attempt to honestly address what the Brits would like these days in this field. It doesn't always succeed, honestly. A lot of people tend to view that run as what we like over here to call "jingoistic" which you would just call "patriotic."

Spencer: And at the same time, you wrote Gordon Brown there. How was the feeling of that?

Cornell: Obviously, the only way that a real British politician is going to be in "Captain Britain" is if he's portrayed as absolutely wonderful in all respects. [Laughter] There's no real figure that's going to enter the pages of one of my comics who is still alive and has the option to legal redress by "the Lord High Chamberlain" who is not going to be portrayed in a good way. We actually did have it where the leader of the opposition was supposed to be meeting Dracula on the moon at the start of "Vampire State" rather than Dr. Doom. And we were going to have it that he would initially seem to go along with Dracula and then once he got back home, rush in to call MI-13. It would've been a bit of a fake out. But then our lawyers informed us that that might not be the best idea. I'm the only person in the world, I think, who replaced David Cameron with Dr. Doom. [Laughter] Although, now I'm wondering how Dr. Doom would react to being in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. That's a comic unto itself.

Spencer: Who would you replace Nick Clegg with?

Cornell: Nick Clegg is obviously Loki, the god of mischief.

Spencer: [Laughs] That's fantastic. But "Captain Britain" did use a lot of British iconography and Excalibur. One of my favorite lines was when she said to Dane, "You're with the N.H.S. now." I wondered how you approach that, knowing a large portion of the book's audience was going to be in the States? Did you think about that at all, or just say "I'm writing this for myself"?

Cornell: I tried really hard to make it not "that British book." I think an American audience likes a little tiny bit of Britishness...but not too much. I think we tried to strike a balance in "Captain Britain" whereas there wasn't anything that had to get explained, but contextually, you'd see the point of what we didn't explain. Maybe it was pretty obvious in context, I don't know. But I tried not to have stuff that had to be explained.

With "Knight And Squire," on the other hand, it's almost offensively British. We don't get any reviews that go, "Oh, that was all right." [Laughter] We either get great love or screaming hostility. I think it's interesting that I've managed to sell to British people both the quite serious superheroics of "Captain Britain" and the over the top Dick Van Dyke superheroics of "Knight And Squire." The Brit audience seem cool with both, which is a bit of a surprise. I thought they might dislike "Knight And Squire." In terms of the American audience, nobody much read "Captain Britain," which was always the problem, and now nobody can quite understand "Knight And Squire." Even with my translator's notes at the back!

Finally, Cornell brought it full circle by talking to Spencer about stuff like the metaphorical dimensions set to run through Detective:

Cornell: Sideline here that you may not be able to answer: Are the birds meaningful? Are they metaphorical? Are they set dressing? Are the plot?

Snyder: Well, I try to make them all of the above. [Cornell Laughs] I'll show the bones of it. They're metaphorical in the way that Gotham is transforming into a Gotham that's a manifestation of Dick's strengths and weaknesses and also sort of a nightmare funhouse mirror of his psychology as opposed to Bruce's. For me, there's an aspect to it that's about making it all feel tribal and animalistic and raw in a way that's changing itself. And the reason there are vultures in the beginning is that the first mystery deals with memorabilia. It turns really dark in the second issue, and for me it's all about the fact that Dick hasn't accepted the fact yet that he's the Batman of Gotham – even though he has Bruce's blessing. It's a light nod to this idea that Bruce's villains are on hiatus, at least for this series and run. The vultures are the whole idea of that Batman being dead and now you're Batman.

So they're metaphorical in that way, and they're plot-driven in a way that I wanted something that carries over into the backup. Thematically, we use them in issue two, and then they come back in #874, also. Hopefully it's not just window dressing for me.

Cornell: Well, it is literally. They're dressing that window. [Laughter] For me, it's a bit like Carl Jung, isn't it? You think of a beetle in a therapy session, and then that particular beetle flies in through the window. It's like Dick's attracting the pathetic fallacy in the form of birds to him.

Snyder: Exactly! I feel like the fiction that I write is pretty paranoid, too. The character is usually anxious and struggling with some diorama of the world that's projected around them with representations of those insecurities or fears so that you're facing those nightmares in a physical form. That's what I'm trying to do with "Detective," now. Hopefully it is a big story about the way that Dick is a very different character than Bruce, psychologically. I want him to be challenged by Gotham, where the mystery will have this effect to show him the ugly face of Gotham's people – its citizens. There's a possibility of them being really ugly in some ways. The second arc is about the new face of crime now that the Black Mask is gone and the Falcone's are diminished. I want this slow transformation of the city into Dick's worst nightmare that culminates in the end of the run.

Cornell: That's beautiful. I mean, how many comics these days ever have an unconscious dimension?

Snyder: I mean, reading them, I feel like your's and Grant's and all my favorite stuff! [Laughter] I do feel like the bar is so high now. I remember it feeling significantly lower when I was a kid where there were a few great comics and then a slew of comics in the middle. Now it feels so much more porous between the literary world and novels and comics and mysteries. The writing quality is so high across the board that it's inspiring to look around, but it's really intimidating too.

Trust me, there is so, so, so, SO much more in each interview than what I've got above. Please read them and share them around with your crew on the web. If this goes over well enough, I might be able to organize something like this again!

Pimping Our Stuff: Podcastin' USA

Even as Kiel and I are chatting about the latest Smallville for your reading pleasure AS I WRITE THIS, we want to make sure you're not deprived of our wit and wisdom, so here's a twofer of links to podcasts we recently appeared on.

First up, K-Pheg was the third man on the recently-revived About Comics podcast, hosted by Chris Neseman and Brion Salazar. For Vitamin K, check out the "Talking Dead" episode, which also featured Tim Seeley of Hack/Slash and Ant-Man & The Wasp fame for a post-Halloween spooktacular talking John Carpenter, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! and a potpourri of other stuff, including, of course, The Walking Dead. Mr. Phegley has already taped a second appearance that will be coming soon to AC.

Meanwhile, on the bad side of town, I joined my college buddies Jordan Geary and Taylor Cunningham for the special holiday episode of their Zombies Can Dunk podcast. It's light on comics, but there's plenty of chatter about celebrating Christmas in a mostly-Jewish suburb, Taylor's attempts to home brew egg nog in a bathtub, and an epic 15 minute quest by our heroes to remember a line from The Wizard.

Download, listen, enjoy and hopefully we'll find time in our busy celebrity schedules to post here as well!

My Five Favorite Martian Manhunter Artists

I said it a couple months back, but The Martian Manhunter may be the most underrated character in comics.

When I was a kid, I barely knew who J’onn J’onzz was. Most of my childhood comic book fandom came long after the original Big Seven era of the Justice League, just following Justice League International and prior to Grant Morrison coming in, so J’onn was more or less a non-factor; just that dude who pretended to be Bloodwynd and then led the Justice League Task Force.

However, as I grew up and became a more sophisticated comics fan, I came to appreciate The Martian Manhunter to the point where he’s become among my favorite characters. He occupies a unique place in the DC Universe a living hub for so many facets, he’s incredibly versatile as far as the potential to transcend genres, he’s got a rad power set and his whole warrior poet persona is just plain cool.

There’s a great Martian Manhunter ongoing or anthology book out there just waiting to happen, and I give Geoff Johns and Pete Tomasi credit and appreciation for getting the ball rolling with detective story/sci-fi mash-up they’ve been weaving in Brightest Day.

That said, as much potential as J’onn has, it can all be scuttled by the wrong artistic portrayal. The Martian Manhunter has a unique design to say the least, one that gives artists a lot of room to play and create either something incredible or something laughable. I mean, those criss cross suspenders alone can be a pitfall waiting to happen for even the most seasoned of pros.

So here are five guys who have made J’onn J’onzz look good—and two more for good measure and honorable mention.

BRYAN HITCH
He only spent a few issues really on JLA before making his way over to The Ultimates, but during his short tenure, I’d say Bryan Hitch perfectly captured the raw power as well as the defining tragedy of The Martian Manhunter.

TOM MANDRAKE
I’m pretty sure nobody has quite the tenure on J’onn J’onzz that Tom Mandrake does, having drawn his one and only ongoing series for nearly three years. I can’t say Mandrake’s take was necessarily my personal favorite, but he did lend the character a regal majesty and in many ways defined his modern look.

5. SAL VELLUTO
The 90’s were a crazy time where pretty much every iconic super hero got at least one iconic makeover, be it a mullet or a leather jacket; Martian Manhunter more or less kept his traditional costume, interestingly enough—I mean the guy does wear a red harness and blue pirate boots—instead hitting the gym a bit or the dealer behind the gym a lot and putting muscles on top of his muscles on top of his muscles. That said, Justice League Task Force artist Sal Velluto made the roided up Last Son of Mars look pretty damn awesome, accentuating his buff bod with a focus on facial “acting” that could range from goofy to intense.

4. HOWARD PORTER
As the initial artist on Grant Morrison’s JLA, Howard Porter was tasked with restoring the Justice League to a glory they hadn’t experienced in some time, which he did admirably by tapping into what made each character a legend in the first place, brought it to the visual forefront, and put a coat of polish on to bring them into a new era. When it came to The Martian Manhunter, Porter took the tested approach of using J’onn’s musculature to show he was a bad ass super hero, while conveying emotion through his face, be it that furrowed beetle brow or seemingly endless ruby eyes. Howard Porter proved that classic costumes and looks don’t necessarily need to be reinvented to make them great, just treated with reverence and enthusiasm.

3. DARWYN COOKE
In his classic DC: The New Frontier series, Darwyn Cooke brought The Martian Manhunter to the forefront of his tale of the DC Universe breaking into the Silver Age, paralleling his arrival and emergence on Earth with the birth of a new age of heroes. Cooke took great pains to not only give J’onn the depth needed to take the lead in such an epic, but he did so in every step of his evolution, from bizarre alien invader to frightened captive and finally to virtuous champion for justice with a stop as hardboiled detective along the way. As I’ve said, what makes J’onn such a great character is how many varied sides he has to him and how many worlds he walks in; Darwyn Cooke took incredible care and added such delicate craftsmanship to each facet of the Martian Manhunter that he demonstrated not just one phenomenal portrayal, but several. It’s not easy to make the squinting, grinning J’onn J’onzz of the Silver Age look as cool as he does in New Frontier, but Cooke more than pulled it off.

2. KEVIN MAGUIRE
People tend to forget, but The Martian Manhunter spent years as a cipher and unsung hero really until the birth of Justice League International, and while Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis deserve tremendous credit for infusing him with personality, Kevin Maguire should get perhaps just as much for helping that newfound character shine through. Like I mentioned with Howard Porter above, Maguire felt no need to make any drastic—or really any—changes to J’onn’s costume, he just accentuated the strong points that made it stand out to begin with, and then played to his own biggest strength, that being his status as perhaps the best comics artist ever when it comes to faces and expressions. Maguire had a lot of fun playing Jonn’s oversized cranium for laughs, conveying sadness in his eyes or putting a grimace on his mug that let you know this was one pissed off Martian. He may have been an eight-foot-tall green dude in a weird unitard, but Kevin Maguire’s Martian Manhunter also felt look he could be the guy next door (in some bizarre universe).

1. DOUG MAHNKE
I’m a little disappointed that the only piece by Doug Mahnke I could find on the entire freakin’ Internet has J’onn not in his classic costume or even normal form, but on the other hand, I think it backs my case that the current Green Lantern artist can at least lay solid claim to being the best Martian Manhunter artist of them all. Just look at those eyes: Mahnke packs a soul into J’onn J’onzz’ eyes, making him incredibly distant and otherworldly, eerily compassionate and unquestionably mysterious just with those two little orbs. Mahnke uses caricature just as effectively as detail to bring his characters to life, and from his JLA run on, he has adopted the Manhunter From Mars as one of his signature darlings; it makes perfect sense, as J’onn possesses that quirkiness Mahnke loves to twist around and create beautiful art from, but also a powerful and pure design he pays homage and respect to each time he draws him. Mahnke drew one of the very best Martian Manhunter stories in Joe Kelly’s underrated “Trial By Fire,” he was the perfect choice to lay him to temporary rest during Final Crisis, and any time he gets his pen on the character it’s a haunting and memorable visual treat.

Linko! LXVIII

* I hope everyone had a wonderful Krampus Day. Now that the brats have been whipped and carried off, it's presents for the rest of us. Get to know him better.

* I don't know if I've got the time to invest in these goofball Avengers movies, but they might be fun for ten minutes.

* Another CBR promo, you say? But hey...no bullshit Jason Aaron is turning in some can't miss columns.

* Dear Alex Buchet, thanks for posting the most fun thing I think I've ever seen on The Hooded Utilitarian. I'm pumped for the rest of this series, though I still wish it was laid out in a legible fashion. Beggars can't be chosers on TCJ, I guess.


* Awesome are of the month #1: Andi Watson drawing anything is great. Andi Watson drawing anything from Skeleton Key is super fucking duper great.

* Awesome art of the month #2: More bad ass Scott Pilgrim promo art.

* Everyone else is right. Chris Samnee's six-panel "Superman: The Movie" is legit.


* I've said how I'm an admitted sucker for Siegel and Shuster history, right? So crushing and awesomely inspiring all in once, the creators of Superman. Start watching the above 1981 BBC doc on the hero and go through til the end.

* Speaking of which, the latest online entry from Comic Book Comics is can't miss stuff.


* AMAZING SPANISH FUNNY ANIMAL COMICS.

* Owsley died early this year from an apparent suicide. That fucking sucks, man. R.I.P., Will.

* Kill some time this week with Time's Top 100 of everything. Hooray Wilson!

* I feel like I read too much bullshit arguing about the fate/future/finish of the novel or whatever, so I'm only bookmarking this thing by Harkuri Murakami for now.

* I know it's petty, but reading shit like this always cheers me up a little.

Sayonara, Smallville: "Luthor"

Incredible but true: This year, The CW's "Smallville" embarks on its tenth and final season, making it not just the longest-running Superman TV show ever but the longest-running comic book TV show ever produced. Bananas, right?

To celebrate its final year, we're teaming up our collective powers of dumb DCU trivia, long experience watching and writing about the show and general obsession with serial TV to bring you "Sayonara, Smallville" – a semi-regular feature where we'll review the most notable episodes of the season whenever we can. Everyone is invited to play along.


Kiel: Hey, before we get to this week's episode, I wanted to start by asking if you'd seen the Clois people freak out on Mark Millar.

Ben: No...What? I never thought I'd see/hear you use the term "Clois" let alone in the sentence you just did.

Kiel: I guess he made some comment on Twitter in the past week about how Brandon Routh was a great Superman but how Tom Welling and "Smallville" in general suck so people should stop saying he get cast in the movie.

Ben: Just to clarify, Clois=Smallville fans who like Clark and Lois?

Kiel: Oh yeah, you haven't heard of that? I've been seeing a lot of this terminology while getting screen grabs each week.

Ben: I thought I had, but I wanted to make sure I was right on...Clois sounds like a disease. Or a gross word for an organ or something.

Kiel: From the looks of it, it is a disease.

Ben: Oooh burn.

Kiel: So anyway, somehow the Tweet got out and the Clois people went apeshit and started tweeting obscenities at Millar....who in turn retweeted the best of them to his followers:

@rmmitchell: "Tom Welling and Erica Durance are the only two for these roles and I feel like saying that I hate Mark Millar too!!!!!!!!"

@dogstar85: "I personally don't care who they cast at this point but I hate Mark Millar and I feel like saying so."

@Y_istheskyblue: "@mrmarkmillar Im so angry with you it makes me want to do a super shit on your snowy door step. Without Lois&Clark there wouldnt b The Wire"

@CloisForever23: "@mrmarkmillar and I wish I can meet u one day and kick you in the balls "

Ben: What the fuck would Ollie and Chloe be? Other than a bad idea! *rimshot*

Kiel: Zing! I'd want to say "Chollie" but that's either a poorly spelled dog or some kind of racial epiphyte.

Ben: Would Clark and Chloe just be Chlark? That sounds like an alien from "Legion of Super-Heroes"...This is a fun game!

Kiel: Somewhere, there's a Chlark fansite who just got their first Google Alert and is very upset with you.

Ben: Why would they be upset? That's the closest I came to complimenting one of these names!

Kiel: Because you didn't finish the expression with "4 Evah."

Ben: I'm sorry Chlark fans...but that's not gonna happen.


Kiel: So hey...this week! I feel like I super built up your expectations for this episode with my Friday night text messages before you realized your DVR had flubbed. What'd you think once you saw it?

Ben: It's true the combination of your hype and then an extra two days of anticipation built expectations for this episode to probably impossible levels, but darn if it wasn't quite possibly the best of the season thus far.

Kiel: I know, right??

Ben: And if "Patriot" was a textbook on everything to wrong with this show, "Luthor" was Bryan Q. Miller's master class on how you can totally get it right. Seriously, there were many great things about this episode, and we'll discuss them, but it really does all come back to the writing. In "Patriot" – and generally – these characters are written more or less as metaphor-spouting parodies, but here, Miller actually treated them with enough respect to have at least half their speeches make sense and sound like normal human speak, and it made a world of difference.

Kiel: Yeah, I think the best broad statement I can make about this episode is that the Miller's script was so on that the normal things that jump out at me as plot holes or inconsistencies just didn't matter AT ALL.

Ben: Right. There was a real care taken with the script. You could feel it.

Kiel: Well, let's look at that "metaphor-spouting" thing first.

Ben: I'm jumping ahead here, but that last exchange between Clark and Lois where he makes the joke about "Nothing says sorry my evil doppelganger tried to kill you like flowers"? I feel like in any other episodes that would have been such a dud, but fuck, what a killer hilarious line!
Please expand.

Kiel: The thing that struck me about this episode is that it's a great example of a situation that is a metaphor rather than using a situation to force some metaphor into the conversation. And the funny thing is that the episode's metaphor is an old standby: "a parallel earth where the hero has instead been raised a villain"...but Miller never pushes any of the scenes into an opportunity for everyone to sit around in the barn and discuss this idea ad nauseum. Every scene had a purpose in terms of the story at hand, be it Clark trying to figure out what the hell was going on or Tess trying to keep evil Clark at bay in the "real world." Nothing every stopped being about the problem at hand, so the idea of looking at the Luthor effect on a child worked its way in much more subtly.

Ben: Very well-put, my friend. And without even explicitly stating it, this episode reinforced another element of what makes Superman Superman, and that's the Kents. I like that on the slow march to Clark actually becoming Superman they've been reviewing or laying down the building blocks of what comprises a Man of Steel, like getting him to fully accept Lois as a partner or being at peace with his Kryptonian heritage. Here, he learns the lesson that he has the capacity to be a shitty dude, but he lucked out and was raised by good people; it showed him that nobody is born good or bad, it's the influences you get and the choices you make.

But like you said, we're never beat over the head with that...even Clark's final scene with Tess where he more or less spells that out to her is eloquently handled with restraint.

Kiel: Yeah, I mean...in the end the "purpose" of this episode was to show that Clark accepted Tess even though he now knows she's a Luthor who was hiding shit from him, but it's amazing that A) that conflict is one that actually makes sense for him to be upset about rather than the more contrived meanings we normally get and B) that by the end I believed Clark would give Tess a pass on that because the flipping of the two worlds was such a harrowing experience for him on screen.

Ben: Absolutely. Both things made total sense. He wasn't acting like a crazy person in either instance...Remarkable! But there's so much else to love about this episode.


Kiel: Let's start with the alternate reality itself. What did you think of the way it was done?

Ben: The mechanism or the portrayal?

Kiel: Mechanism first.

Ben: Eh, it was a way to get it done. I'm sure if I broke down the idea that Kryptonians had a device like this I'd find a flaw to it, but at the end of the day, that's pretty much the standy plot device to set up situations like this on this show.

Kiel: Yeah, that's one of those things that would typically throw me off – "We never knew there was this magic world-hopping device until this week!" – but once the world got going and Lionel was back on screen, I honestly didn't care how we got there.

Ben: Exactly. The shift in color and the fact that they maintained it all episode was great.

Kiel: I was so shocked I liked that!

Ben: I gotta say, as much as we're praising Miller's writing, the director did a fantastic job this week as well. It was very well-shot. In fact, I have to go look up who directed this because they deserve a name drop...


Kiel: Totally. I mean, I think I've said it before, but the Souders/Peterson era for me seems to start with the "Noir" episode from a few seasons back where it was supposed to be like a '40s detective movie starring Clark's birth mother on earth or whatever, and that came off super cheesy.

Ben: I either missed that one or it didn't make an impression. I'm going to say the latter because I'm pretty sure we were watching the show for Wizard at that point.

Kiel: Ever since then, they've done stunt episodes here and again with genre clothing made up by camera effects, but this washed out feeling to the proceedings made the whole world seem legitimately different. It wasn't just "the same set with a bunch of windows broken."

Ben: Well what do you know: Kelly Souders directed this ep!

Kiel: Hot dang!!!

Ben: The effect wasn't overpowering, but it was pervasive, if that makes sense.

Kiel: Totally makes sense.

Ben: And of course since "Smallville" is all about colors (that's how you know who's who in the Justice League), muting them really made a difference.

Kiel: But the other thing I wanted to mention about the directing was that the moments that could have been played in a cliché way weren't. Do you know what my favorite scene in the whole episode was?

Ben: I think it's fairly obvious that I do.

Kiel: HA!

Ben: No, so what was it?


Kiel: The scene where evil Clark attacks Lois and Tess in the Watchtower

Ben: Oh that was dynamite
And let's give credit here: Beyond the technical stuff, part of what made that and many other scenes is that Tom Welling is at his fucking best when he's playing evil Clark, something we've known since early on in the series
He's really really good at playing a bad guy

Kiel: For sure! but for me what pushed that scene over the top was that it was played totally on the performances. No music at all in that whole bit, cheesy or otherwise...

Ben: That's a good point. It was all about the moment, not the window dressing.

Kiel: Add that to the fact that the stunts were really impactful and brutal (I mean, this is the only time I can recall on this show Lois getting thrown across the room and actually being hobbled after), and everything about it worked...then they pulled the rug out form under us and went right back to Earth-2.


Ben: The Miller/Souders combo definitely seems to be the Smallville dream team. They really gave the cast a chance to show what they are capable of at their best this week, and three in particular really seized the moment there in my mind, that being Clark, Tess and the returning Lionel.

Kiel: Tess was great! She legit held her own as both Earth-2 slut and under duress normal Tess.

Ben: Megan liked Tess in this episode!

Kiel: It was so strange that the episode was somewhat about her but focused so much on Clark...a great balance.

Ben: She mostly liked Earth-2 Tess, but it's a start.

Kiel: Heh.

Ben: Tom Welling and Cassidy Freeman really put the work in this week. They both had a lot of screen time, played two characters, and most of the episode hinged on their chemistry in three separate relationships. They did great stuff.

Kiel: I also really liked the scene where Clark talks to Earth-2 Lois about how much he loves her, and I have no idea why...usually that stuff is played so dumb, but here it really snapped.


Ben: That was certainly the least likely scene to be any good, but again, it showed how if you give these actors quality dialogue and not bullshit, they will make you care. I will say that most of the dumb moments of the episode came from Earth-1 Clark adapting to Earth-2, but they were the moments you had to have because it's still fucking "Smallville." That he pretty much has the entire situation sussed out by the time he runs into Lois and is still shocked that she's not thrilled to see him is just vintage Clark.

Kiel: Yeah. And I also found myself asking questions like "Wait...what exactly does Earth-2 Ollie do and why?" but like I said, the good stuff swooped in and carried me away from worrying about that at every turn.

Ben: Yeah definitely. But we wouldn't be us if we didn't at least make passing mention of it.

Kiel: We're keeping them honest!!!


Ben: We need to talk about Lionel.

Kiel: Oh yeah!!!

Ben: I have missed that guy. I don't even mean this is an insult to "Smallville" or anybody on it, but John Glover is so above this show and it lends such a credibility to it when he's on. That's not a knock on Tom Welling or anybody, just praise for John Glover. Great actor.

Kiel: It's crazy because I spent all week building up to the episode watching "Scrooged" on AMC and realizing how he's been playing variations on this rich ass hole theme for YEARS but Lionel seems to be the meatiest version of it, which is so strange.

Ben: I don't know what it is, whether it's being motivated by a young cast or maybe the freedom to go over-the-top to his heart's content, but he has always been gold as Lionel. I'm also glad we got away from the wishy washy semi-good Lionel he became before his death and back to the pure dickhead.

Kiel: Yeah, he did seem to be the only person in the whole Earth-2 universe who was just the same as he'd always been, which is how it should be.

Ben: Well he was more or less the catalyst for why Earth-2 was different at all, so yeah, it made sense for him to be the same guy
If anything it just pushed him back towards how he was early in the series.

Kiel: And for a minute there, I was wondering if he'd have any bigger significance than just being a dick in another world, but then at the end when Clark was twisting the gizmo in slo-mo to take him back to the real reality, I saw Lionel and knew what was coming.

Ben: Yeah, I saw it coming and then had my fingers crossed. Admittedly I knew John Glover was cast for more than one episode this season, but I still wasn't 100% sure how they were going to pull it off.

Kiel: Yeah, but even once you knew what was coming...that last scene was so AWESOME!


Ben: That last scene really did typify everything that's great about Lionel. He's this horrible, soulless jerk, but he does everything with class and poise. Somebody who reads our stuff asked me on Facebook my dream scenario for Darkseid's host (presuming he has one) and it is absolutely Lionel...who then has to face the Clark-Lex team-up pretty much pre-ordained since the first episode of "Smallville."

Kiel: Yes. After this episode, I'm finding it super hard that Rosenbaum won't be back and that Lionel won't play a huge role with Darkseid. They must have this all locked away contractually, because anything less than that cast would be a big disappointment.

Ben: Oh yeah, once kid Lex went missing, I thought game on with Rosenbaum for sure.


Ben: He's so swept up in his own idea that he adheres to a strong code of honor. It's great.

Kiel: Lionel really is the only person in this show who acts with a real plan. Everyone else is all emotion all the time, which can be frustrating

Ben: Yes. He's a predator. And unlike Slade or Zod or any of them, nothing guides him except the lust for power. He has no political motivation of any sort. No lofty agenda. It's all about him

Kiel: Look out for #1!!!

Ben: That's why I didn't really dig when they threw him into all that Kryptonian prophecy bullshit and made him Clark's surrogate dad. It rang false.

Kiel: Yeah, for a while when they were trying to play with the "Jor-El might be evil" stuff, they were spinning their wheels because they didn't want to make it a full-on Superman show, but once they turned that page, it was for the better. But yeah, my only complaint against this episode is that it came so early in the season. I'm mega worried that this is the best Smallville we'll get until the end. And that's fine, but still.

Ben: I dunno, I'm feeling good that this could be the doorway to some solid stuff. No, we won't have Miller writing every week, but we do have Lionel back, and hopefully this episode gave the cast a kickstart in terms of showing them what they're capable of.

Kiel: Fingers crossed.

Ben: And of course we got some great fanboy stuff this week too. We got Ultraman! It would have been easy to just have evil Clark be evil Clark, but making him Ultraman was a nice touch. Just like actually having Lois refer to the other Earth as Earth-2 was.

Kiel: Yeah! It's so crazy that all that was there, but it wasn't even central. I think a big difference with how Miller wrote this was that the fanboy stuff was window dressing if you caught it rather than being made to sound really important for no reason.

Ben: Right. And it wasn't Lois saying Clark's faster than a speeding locomotive and then practically winking at the camera or something, it was well-used trivia dropped subtly in where it fit well. Remarkably what I think made this episode work best was in fact its subtlety and restraint.

Kiel: I think sometimes the writers think the only way they can prove to the geek audience that they care is to wield the trivia like a sledgehammer, but Miller obviously knows the comic book crowd much better, and gets that this goes a much longer way.


Ben: Oh, I remembered something I promised I'd tell you.

Kiel: What's that?

Ben: So you know when Lionel ambushes Ollie with the pipe or whatever on Earth-2 to save Clark?

Kiel: Yes.

Ben: I totally thought it was Earth-2 Lois. Megan made so much fun of me. But it was seriously because John Glover's hair is fucking glorious!

Kiel: Hahahahaha! It's all that Vidal Sassoon.


Ben: I guess we would be remiss if we didn't note Miller's one dickhead moment of showing us the "five minutes later" of an awesome battle with Ultraman vs Kryptonite arrow-wielding Ollie, Tess and Lois, but I actually feel like he deserves a pat of the back. It was a clever kind of FU with love.

Kiel: See, I liked that!

Ben: No, I did too! That's what I was trying to say...It was a funny wink.

Kiel: Oh, I got ya! Like I said, sometimes the show get so involved with doing the fan service stuff like action for action's sake, but here they knew the story was Clark in the parallel earth.

Ben: Yeah, exactly. It was a nice dig.

Kiel: It also made me feel like they could pull off a big "Metropolis is falling" battle by season's end without stretching the budget too much

Ben: What, by sending Clark to another dimension and then he comes back and Metropolis wrecked but Ollie killed Darkseid with an arrow?

Kiel: Let's hope not!!!


[SIDE NOTE: We didn't get to it in our chat, but I'd just like to state for the record that the scene with the coffee shop dude had noting to do with the rest of the episode, and I couldn't have loved it more. Shit was funny!]