Smallville #3 – Review

By: Bryan Q. Miller (story), Pere Perez (art), Chris Beckett (colors)

The Story: Lois’ dad grills her boyfriend—with machine gunnery.

The Review: Ever since comic book writers got the idea of bringing “relevant” topics to their work, they’ve gotten into the habit of placing their protagonists into moral quandaries no amount of superpowers can solve.  The one which continues to plague capes to this day goes something like this: if you have the power to accomplish almost anything good thing you can think of, which ones do you choose?  More importantly, what makes one choice worthier than the other?

I could be wrong, but I’d guess no superhero has had to confront these questions more often than Superman.  In fact, every year or so there’s one story arc where Superman has to deal with the guilt over not being able to save everyone.  Let me start off by promising I won’t go all dirtbag legal-eagle and say, “Well, legally, no one has an actual duty to rescue-blah-de-blah-de-blah…” While that’s a practical sentiment which I understand, I really think it’s a crummy way to see things.  It’d be almost criminal to have the power to save so many lives and not use it.

Smallville #2 – Review

By: Bryan Q. Miller (story), Pere Perez (art), Chris Beckett (colors)

The Story: In which the 1% find that you can’t occupy a building if it’s in space.

The Review: I feel very safe in saying that Smallville (the TV series) disappointed nearly every one of its devoted fans when it ended without a single, concrete image of Tom Welling in the cape and tights.  After all the time invested in the show, the only appropriate reward would’ve been seeing Clark take on the heroic guise he was destined to take.  No wonder this title sported a big, splashy cover with a photo-realistic Welling in complete blue get-up on its debut.

In the same way, while Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor had some strong storylines—and make no mistake, he was consistently one of the best things to come out of that show—he never got the chance to engage in those grandiose plots his incarnation in the comics became famous for.  Here, Miller cleverly uses the show’s continuity to bring Luthor to that next level of ambition, where he becomes, in his father’s words, “extraordinary.”