Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Smallville: Legion (s8 ep11)

Well, that's more like it. After last week's disappointing episode, this week's - starring the three founding members of the Legion of Superheroes - was much more welcome.

There was action. There were guest appearances from other DC characters. There was not so much soppiness. And the only two problems I had were that (a) we didn't see enough of the Persuader (in fact I didn't see him at all because I missed the beginning couple of minutes) and (b) the whole "Brainiac downloading memories/information from people" thing was a bit silly. 

This episode, written by Geoff Johns (one of my favourite comic book writers at the moment), re-enforced Clark's future legacy and his standing as the foremost superhero. There were lots of little bits about Clark becoming Superman ("Where's your cape?" and "Why don't you fly?") without actually mentioning Superman or Superboy. And, perhaps surprisingly for Johns, the main theme of this episode concerned Clark's heroic stance on not killing others even if it means saving many more.

Unlike Heroes, this had a done-in-one story that also had a background pieces that linked to ongoing threads throughout this season (Brainiac coming back, Davis turning into Doomsday, etc). I much prefer Smallville's format to that of Heroes.

So, a great episode for a fan-boy like me. And great to see Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl. Grade: Fine.

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