Just finished watching Smallville - What did you think?

I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the show. Of course, I'm not a big Smallville fan, so I had low expectations, despite Geoff Johns' involvement. In a nutshell, things I liked:
The casting. Stargirl could have been better, but still pretty good. Hawkman and Dr Fate were awesome, as were the others who were only shown in photos and flashbacks.
The weapons case
John Jonzz. I don't know if he's ever been shown in alien form, or when he goes intangible, but both looked cool. Also, his newfound fondness for cookies.
"Nice helmet." "Thank you." I don't know why, but that line made me laugh out loud.
Amanda Waller and Checkmate. This has a lot of potential.
The fact that Wesley Dodds' costume/gas gun had a lot of Sandman Mystery Theater influence.
Flashback of Ma Hunkel, wearing her apron with the Red Tornado symbol.

I didn't care for the Icicle. I mean, it's cool that they used the son, making him another legacy character, but he was just kind of irritating.
I couldn't help but wonder if Geoff Johns was purposely making little jabs about Clark not wearing the uniform, like when Lois mentions that Dr Fate's cape actually looked good, or when Dr Fate looks into Clark's future and sees the red cape with the yellow S crest.
I was also disappointed that we only saw certain characters briefly before they were killed. I was hoping to see them in action alongside the others.

One lingering question - There's already an established Black Canary in the Smallville universe. There's one shown in the JSA painting, looking very similar. In the comics, the JSA Black Canary was the mother of the Modern Age one. Are they going to establish the same connection?

The episode rocked. Compared to previous super-fight scenes in Smallville, these were awesome. It was incredible seeing several metas fighting all in the same shot, Clark's cheesy pose notwithstanding.
Regardless, I spent the entire episode geeking out. For the past 9 years I've always wondered "why can't they bring some mainstream heroes into the show?". Tonight, they showed us that they could do it. Fate was awesome, Hawkman was hilarious (calling Ollie the "Green Punching Bag"), Stargirl was cool, and the cameos of Green Lantern, Golden Age Flash and the others was exactly what I hoped it would be. Martian Manhunter's red holster straps with the green shirt were a nice touch as well.

C'mon, writers...let's see the new guard become a family like the JSA!

I really liked it. I loved the Martian Manhunter being restored. For whatever reason i just LOVE that character and not being a comic person i'd never heard of him prior to smallville. I'd love to see him in his own show honestly. But seeing as it's CW which seems to exist only to market to teens, it's likely not happening.

I also liked the jabs about the costume and clarks powers. Seemed more veiled jabs at DC or whomever is blocking access to them. 'Whenever you escape what's holding you back' or however he phrased it, i said to myself - 'that'd be DC' I mean it seemed glaringly obvious that everyone had a nice thought out detailed costume, except clark.

Loved it - Just can't say enough as both a Smallville fan and a JSA fan.
Never thought I would see much of that content ever filmed.

There were parts I really liked and parts that were so remarkably cheesy... Hawkman's wings were so remarkably bad for example... literally like Legends of the Superheroes bad. Michael Shanks really started his scenery chewing like he was trying to do a bad impersonation of Christian Bale's Batman. The worst part of that started with the rooftop scene with Green Arrow and I thought it was nearly unwatchable during that scene.

Dr. Fate's helmet (and his character) was cool but his costume was lame in my opinion.

And I think they could have come up with something better than the Icycle for the villain too.

Beyond all of that, it had some really good points. Seeing the Martian Manhunter was awesome and I would liked to have seen more of that Star-spangled Kid character that got iced (figuratively and literally) at the beginning of the show. He seemed cool.

I wish they'd make the Manhunter a recurring character.

Did anyone else notice Hawkman's knife in the trophy case? Isn't that the same rhino headed knife used in Bram Stoker's Dracula?

garybarth said:

---

Did anyone else notice Hawkman's knife in the trophy case? Isn't that the same rhino headed knife used in Bram Stoker's Dracula?

thats what i thought....

the episode was pretty good, as mentioned above, i wasnt too much of a fan of shanks "hawkman voice" or the character of young icicle....he was knid of a lameduck villian....but otherwise it was a pretty good episode..

hopefully checkmate brings in some classic villians from the comics, could lead to clark and the crew forming the JLA

My guess is they use the team to defeat Zod and gang in the finale in may....

I forgot to DVR that and Clone Wars...GAH! Is this episode online yet?

I was never a fan of Smallville, mainly because i think Clark is getting more and more pretty in every reincarnation, too pretty. But after watching few episodes on HDnet it has grown on me (maybe it's the hotties, i don't know...) and i have been thinking of getting the DVD's . I watched this last night and think it was great. I'm with Dualedge, Shanks imitation of Bale's Batman/John Conner voice was a little annoying. He played the tough guy OK though it's hard to see him in that role. I thought the rest of the episode was fine. I especially liked all the familliar faces they hired for it from BSG to Stargate.

I enjoyed it too. This season has restored my hope in Smallville as the last few were fairly weak in my opinion. This season has had some very intense stories and the introduction of these other heroes was great.

Liked it!
Except for Hawkman's horrible, horrible acting. And not just because he had installed BaleBatVoice 2.0.

It's long overdue for our the other members of the de facto JL to make an appearance. Supposedly Oliver has been working with Aquaman, Flash, etc for a couple of years now. Where the hell are they?

Treadwell said:

---

Liked it!
Except for Hawkman's horrible, horrible acting. And not just because he had installed BaleBatVoice 2.0.

It's long overdue for our the other members of the de facto JL to make an appearance. Supposedly Oliver has been working with Aquaman, Flash, etc for a couple of years now. Where the hell are they?

Yeah, if they can't make Clark into Superman, Superboy or Superanything, it'd be nice if they could at least use the Martian Manhunter, Flash (or whatever his name is supposed to be), Aquaman and Cyborg... they really need to do something with the show to make up for what they can't do with Clark.

Finally got to watch it today. I loved it. I actually got super excited thinking that the Jack Knight Starman was the person holding the staff in the alley with Chloe. I still liked the Star Spangled Kid for the brief time he was on. And having GA and Hawkman not getting along fits perfectly with comic continuity. I wobndered about the Black Canary as well. EVen having "Ma" Hunkle in there was a nice touch.

Also, his newfound fondness for cookies.

Actually it's not new. In the comics he has loved Oreos since the late '80's with the Justice League International. And in season six he left a cookie in the loft to let Clark know he had been there.

garybarth said:

---

Did anyone else notice Hawkman's knife in the trophy case? Isn't that the same rhino headed knife used in Bram Stoker's Dracula?

It was indeed! I don't know anything about the JSA mythos though, so I was really wondering what was up with that.

-Sarge

I really enjoyed the throw-back to the JSA. The scene of Clark going through their place and discovering all the artifacts and the painting were really cool.

That's about all I liked. The writing was so incredibly cliche. My wife was watching it with me had the same observation. The Icicle was either a terribly bad actor or under very poor direction. And for Michael Shanks to be that cheesy was tough to watch. He almost reminded me of Bale's Batman - going overboard with the raspy voice thing.

While I'm a huge Superman fan, I think Smallville's about run its course. The show has gotten so far away from its roots. I think the show was so successful to begin with because it focused around a "coming of age" story, but this time from the perspective of Clark Kent. The show was never about Superman, it was about Clark - a teenager going through the pain of growing up, but also having to deal with the emotional baggage of being even more different than ever other teenager out there.

I was always enjoyed the nods to the Superman legacy, but it's gotten way out of hand. Clark is basically Superman now without the costume and the ability to fly. Instead, he's running around in a black trench coat with an "S" painted on his shirt....I mean c'mon.

I hope they either find some new writers, or come up with a good ending for the show, but that's just my humble opinion.

Sean

RemoLocke said:

---

Actually it's not new. In the comics he has loved Oreos since the late '80's with the Justice League International. And in season six he left a cookie in the loft to let Clark know he had been there.

I knew he liked them in the comics. This is actually the first time I watched an episode featuring J'onn, so I hadn't realized that they already mentioned it on the show. The way he said the line, I thought cookies were a new discovery for him.

It was such a brief moment in that earlier episode, they probably forgot they had done it. It did seem like they were making this a "new" thing about him. Maybe since they are going to try and be more of a family, they will be sharing more things like that.

Well, because of this thread I downloaded and watched this episode and you know what - I'll never trust anything said here again. From credit to credit I felt like The Tick had returned to tv. I know what you're thinking - "waitaminute, Jet - didn't you write Sky High" - Yes, but Smallville always prided itself in not going into flight and tight land - after watching this JLA episode there is no reason in the world Clark shouldn't be zipping around town and have an army of Super-robots that look just like him.

There were two things I liked and both had nothing to do with story - Fate's helmet and Starman's Star Rod - I'd love to have one of those - anybody ever done one? Green Lantern's ring were nice touches but this did come off as Lois and Clark (yep the one with Dean Cain) meets the Tick.

As a person who last watched Smallville five years ago what happened to all the wide open space the show one had. everything - EVERYTHING is backlot, and worse than that - Canadian back lot. Looking too set-y always kills Superhero stuff for me - that's why Begins and Dark Knight were so good - real world landscape.

And where is Lana - she was the hottest chick on the show??

Lana was simply written out of the show in the episode before the end of season 7, after Brainiac infected her to control Clark. She made a vid for Clark, when he was trying to visit a fully recovered Lana in the hospital and told him not to look for her. Also a cheap way to ditch Lex was the last episode, where he used the control device on Clark in the FOS, that disintergrated and he disappeared....

Jet Beetle said:

---

Well, because of this thread I downloaded and watched this episode and you know what - I'll never trust anything said here again. From credit to credit I felt like The Tick had returned to tv. I know what you're thinking - "waitaminute, Jet - didn't you write Sky High" - Yes, but Smallville always prided itself in not going into flight and tight land - after watching this JLA episode there is no reason in the world Clark shouldn't be zipping around town and have an army of Super-robots that look just like him.

There were two things I liked and both had nothing to do with story - Fate's helmet and Starman's Star Rod - I'd love to have one of those - anybody ever done one? Green Lantern's ring were nice touches but this did come off as Lois and Clark (yep the one with Dean Cain) meets the Tick.

As a person who last watched Smallville five years ago what happened to all the wide open space the show one had. everything - EVERYTHING is backlot, and worse than that - Canadian back lot. Looking too set-y always kills Superhero stuff for me - that's why Begins and Dark Knight were so good - real world landscape.

And where is Lana - she was the hottest chick on the show??

You see that a lot these days. Seems like 1/2 the stuff on these days uses blatant backlot stuff. There was a show on a couple years ago where the main characters were supposedly in a difference city ever week - but you could tell clear as day they were all backlot shots.

I'd have to guess shooting in downtown Vancouver costs a boatload more than shooting in the open fields of where smallville was. It's easier for TDK to shoot in actual cities since they can spend 200M for their 2 hours of footage. I doubt the spend 200M for the 22ish hours of smallive's season.

Gotta say, though, I agree with the point that if every other hero they've got has a tights and full powers, so should clark. Then again, it's not the writers keeping him out of the uniform and on the ground.

I thought it was great, and was probably one of the top ten episodes of the entire run of the series. For me, watching that episode really put into perspective how far the show has come since its first two or three seasons.

I can see how it's not for everyone, it's not a perfect show. But it's a lot of fun, and they are doing a really great job in the past few seasons of bringing the DC universe to life.

Martian Manhunter has been a recurring character for years now, with an entire episode of one season dedicated to an internal corruption battle he was fighting with the Met PD. Pretty good episode.

I think in general, while smallville doesn't do a LITERALLY translation from page to screen, they manage to capture the essence and flavor of the character while updating it for the show and its target audience. It isn't always a perfect fit, but it sure beats "Birds of Prey" lol

MattMunson said:

---

It isn't always a perfect fit, but it sure beats "Birds of Prey" lol

Absolutely no argument here.

So do we have to wait till the final episode to see what happened/s after Clark jumped off of the Statue of Liberty from the start of the season. Is it just a tease that the final scene will be him flying off to his destiny?

Jet Beetle said:

---

Well, because of this thread I downloaded and watched this episode and you know what - I'll never trust anything said here again. From credit to credit I felt like The Tick had returned to tv. I know what you're thinking - "waitaminute, Jet - didn't you write Sky High" - Yes, but Smallville always prided itself in not going into flight and tight land - after watching this JLA episode there is no reason in the world Clark shouldn't be zipping around town and have an army of Super-robots that look just like him.

There were two things I liked and both had nothing to do with story - Fate's helmet and Starman's Star Rod - I'd love to have one of those - anybody ever done one? Green Lantern's ring were nice touches but this did come off as Lois and Clark (yep the one with Dean Cain) meets the Tick.

As a person who last watched Smallville five years ago what happened to all the wide open space the show one had. everything - EVERYTHING is backlot, and worse than that - Canadian back lot. Looking too set-y always kills Superhero stuff for me - that's why Begins and Dark Knight were so good - real world landscape.

And where is Lana - she was the hottest chick on the show??

Jet, you're just now beginning to not trust our opinions? Serves you right for not learning that lesson a long time ago! At least I only liked parts of it and pretty much nothing featuring Hawkman...