Finished Smallville season 10

Another thing to cross off my entertainment to do list.  I do like Smallville.  I don't think Tom Welling makes a very good Superman, but tbh he doesn't become Supes until the final moments of the last episode, so I'm not sure it matters.  Erica Durance makes a fabulous Lois Lane.

Highlights of season 10 are the hen/stag do night and the Booster episodes.  Recommended watching!

I'm not sure if I'm going to re-read Season 11.  We'll see how much spare time I have.

Looking at my entertainment to do list, I think I'm going to be able to do the new readers... reviews but they will have to be shorter reviews than I would normally do.  But, yeah, I can do them!  Bring this on!

Casual Silver Banshee cosplay

I've got several days of leave to take before the end of March so I've now got 3 or 4 day weeks for a while, which is great, and most importantly, allows me to nap on the sofa on Friday afternoons while I re-watch Smallville, which I'm sure most of you know I love.  Smallville is my go to telly series for when I'm ill or don't want to think, or have a lazy day planned, so I'm currently on season 10.  Today I watched:
Warrior (which had Lois in an Amazon Princess outfit which is glorious)
Persuasion, which had Lois gaining the values of a traditional 50s housewife, while still being quintessentially Lois
Conspiracy, which is really, really quite dark
and Escape, which has Lois and Clark on a romantic getaway, to the same place that Oliver and Chloe go to, not for romance, but for a dirty weekend.  It's also got the Silver Banshee, whom I love. Particularly, I love her costume, so I got to thinking what could a casual Banshee cosplay look like.

This is the traditional Silver Banshee costume:

Now because I like the aesthetic so much I would love to do a true to the comic version of this costume, but I'm not sure I'd ever have the confidence to wear something so form fitting.  I also have a thing for Marvel's Black Cat's costume (it must be the monochrome), and a while ago I saw a great casual cosplay on tumblr.

Long story short, I was inspired by Smallville's episode and the Black Cat costume to come up with a casual outfit for the Silver Banshee.
These are the rules I'm playing to:

• It's con casual, not everyday casual.  So it's something that needs to be recogniseable to other comic fans.
• The outfit must ape the banshee's costume enough to be recogniseable but must consist of ordinary clothes I would myself wear everyday.

I found these items online which I thought would work:

 

Hair extensions from La Demoiselle on Amazon

Bangle by Liquorish from ASOS - to be worn one on each wrist
Black scoop neck top from Dorothy Perkins
Monochrome Top from Asos collection
Skinny black lisbon jeans from Asos
Boots from this ebay seller - they are called Oxford Roma and come from China.  I'd rather people bought goods from a UK shop though.

At a con you'd want to do Silver Banshee makeup, then I think you'd be recogniseable. What do you all reckon?

Alternatives:
Instead of the jeans you could do black tights and a black lycra mini skirt.  Instead of the tops I've chosen you could do a tight black vest, but then you'd need to sew on white panels to approximate the Banshee's vest.  This version would probably only work for summer.

Things I have learnt:
I hate clothes shopping, even virtually, and even when it's costume related.
I don't know the terms for enough types of garments to search effectively.
I'm probably not cut out for these sort of posts.

Smallville reading order and pull list

Do you remember last week-ish I was asking about the reading order of the Smallville comics?
I tweeted Bryan Q Miller about it and he confirmed this is the reading order:
Guardian Detective Effigy Haunted Argo Valkyrie Olympus Hollow Titans Alien Harbinger Lantern Chaos Continuity

So now you know. Looks like I got Titans and Alien mixed up, and Effigy and Haunted mixed up.

In terms of my pull list I've put all the Convergence titles on there...because I miss the pre 52 books, so fuck it, why not..

There are 40 tie ins and 9 issues of the Convergence series. A twitter friend said he thought the tie ins were all double shots which makes this 89 issues,.... 'eck!

I'll just sell on the ones I don't like ;)

Smallville comics reading order - help a lady out

I am finally catching up on the Smallville comics Chaos and Continuity - these are the final story arcs and I have failed to read them until now.

Halfway through Chaos I got distracted and wanted to understand the reading order of the different issues.  I get my copies from Comixology and they arrange the issues alphabetically then numerically, which is annoying as I'd rather they were listed by date of publication.

Here is a page giving the reading order of the Smallville comics.  I'm still a bit confused, some are listed as parallel stories, some are main, and I can't recall exactly when each arc came out.
Note - the chapters in the first table on that page refer to the digital issue numbers.  There are 63 of these which are then collected into 19 print issues.

That web page summarised the story arcs as follows.  I'm pretty much copying it because it helps me understand if I write things out:

Main arcs with focus characters:
Guardian (Hank Henshaw)
Detective (Batman and Nightwing)
Haunted (Impulse)
Argo (Supergirl, Booster Gold and the Legion of Superheroes)
Olympus (Wonder Woman) - All these are released on comixology under the Season 11 title.
Alien (Rocket Red Brigade and the Monitor)
Lantern (John Stewart, Parallax and the Green Lantern Corps)
Chaos (Eclipso, Darkseid, Booster, the multiverse and the bleed)
Continuity (Justice League, everyone else)

Parallel stories:
Effigy (Martian Manhunter and Batman)
Valkyrie (Lois Lane and Lana Lang)
Hollow (Tess Mercer and Lex Luthor) - These top 3 are released on Comixology under the Season 11 title.
Titans (Jay Garrick and the Teen Titans)
Harbinger (Zatanna and John Constantine)

Now, as to how to read them, if you wanted to read the whole lot in one go, I think you would follow the publishing order and do so as follows:
Guardian
Detective
Haunted, Effigy (parallel)
Argo, Valkyrie (parallel)
Olympus, Hollow (parallel)
Alien, Titans (parallel)
Lantern, Harbinger (parallel)
Chaos
Continuity

What do other fans think?  I can't recall if the parallel stories take place alongside the main story arcs, or if they take place alongside some of the TV episodes.  I want to establish where the arcs sit within the timeline of the Smallville universe.

Comic reviews - Smallville 42 to 61

EDIT - Just found this (and others) in my draft posts folder.  Will be posting them over the next week or so.  They look to be about a year old.

I love this series.  I've been reading it digitally, which is why it's numbered to 61 in the title.  It's also released in print and I believe is now up to number 16, Olympus.

The way Smallville mines DC's rich history and folds it into the Smallville style is just perfect.  These issues cover the Valkyrie, Argo, Hollow and Olympus storylines.

Valkyrie I don't much care for, because it focuses on Lana and I never warmed to her.  Argo on the other hand, was a great version of the World of New Krypton (WONK) story from main DCU continuity.  Smallville really does excel at this sort of thing.

Then there's Argo.  Supergirl, the Legion and Booster were all involved in this story.  Booster was desperately trying to prove his worth as a hero.  The Legion's Smallville style costumes were gorgeous.  There is a page where the Legion are recalled from all space and time, and when they gather ready for battle, well, I got chills.

Darn it I'm a Legion fan.

Supergirl's costume is beautiful:

It's sleek, it's practical and it feels like a uniform.  I love Smallville's costumes.  LOVE them.

Talking of the art, Cat Stagg's covers are gorgeous and she draws the actors so well, this one is so obviously Laura van der Voort:

Kara had some great moments.  In Smallville she's always felt like her own person - not a junior rip off of Superman.  She's older than him, more mature and knows more about herself.  Or at least in the TV show she did.  Now Clark has matured they are more like equals.

Hollow focuses on Tess and her relationship with Lex.  It's a good traditional Smallville story of revenge and obsession.  We see how Tess views the world, from her new digital existence, we understand more of Lex, and Black Canary and Mia make a guest appearance. Beni Lobel does the art in this issue:

Then we get Olympus with the arrival of Wonder Woman!  Jorge Jiminez does art. It's beautiful.  We start with a flashback to 20 years ago where Steve Trevor (as a kid) has been washed up on Paradise Island.

How cute it that??!!  Steve and Diana have childhood crushes on each other, and when they meet again in adulthood, once Diana has got to America, they still like each other.  Diana as adult is what I want and understand from a Wonder Woman.  Her language and phrasing marks her out as someone who grew up somewhere else.  The Amazon cultural mores are shown through the way she speaks.  She's bold and heroic. She's noble and intelligent.  She's a warrior.  She comes across Steve in the shower and she's a bit embarrassed at her reaction to him.  It's just perfect you know?  I can now ship Steve and Diana.

Also, Bones makes his Smallville debut and we get reminded that Ma Kent was once the Red Queen.

Here are two of the series covers, again by the very talented Cat Staggs:

Most of this art in this post has been nicked from Supergirl Comic Box Commentary.

Smallville season 2

I just finished re-watching this season.  It's a lot better than I remembered.  The cast have far more nuanced acting than I thought and the plot has moved on quite far.  It's no longer a monster of the week scenario and the caves got introduced!  Martha starts working for Lionel Luthor and gets pregnant (not by Lionel Luthor).

Jonathan Kent is still a patriarch but I have more sympathy for him this time.  He's not deliberately disrespecting Martha, he's just doing what he knows, which is trying to support, feed and clothe his family.  His only priority is his family, and he thinks it's his responsibility to look after them.  So he gets a bit annoyed when he sees Martha putting other people first, except Martha isn't.  She goes to work for Lionel because the family need the money.  That's her main motivation  Sure she wants to work too, and use her brain and academic training, but her first priority is her family, that's what drives her to accept Lionel's offer of a job.  And she's good at it.  She's shown to shine in her role.  She's shown as vitally important to Lionel.  She gets far more agency than I saw on the first watch through.

I had the impression that Lionel was a bastard investigating Clark at this time.  Not true.  You don't see that he's got any malice towards Clark at all here.  He is malicious towards Lex, sure, they've got a really twisted fucked up relationship.  Poor Lex is trying his best to outsmart his Dad and prove his worth, but Lionel is just better at it than he is.  Lex is still young and impetuous.  Then he meets Helen Bryce, the doctor, and tries to improve himself.  And gets dumped.  Then Helen comes back.  My gods Helen is beautiful.  Truly truly beautiful.

Lana isn't anywhere near as annoying as I remember either.  She has more depth and range too.  She's not all wet.  And she dresses like a teenager.  She's got a really stupid jacket that is very teenage.  I think Clark et-al are meant to be 16, and when you remember that their actions and their relationship with the adults makes a lot more sense.  When I watched it before I had severe difficulty reconciling Clark looking about 25, with him getting told off by his parents and acting like an emotional idiot.  But if he really is meant to be 16, then it makes more sense.

I'm also loving the Christopher Reeves Superman theme they keep playing.  Then I laugh quietly to myself as I remember it took them 10 seasons to put Clark in the suit...

I really enjoy this show.  I'm just gutted that I don't have seasons 3 and 4 on DVD. :(  I think I might go back to my X-Men comics to get my fill of superhero soap opera, then buy seasons 3 and 4 when i've got more cash.

Comic reviews from lord knows when

So I have a long list of comics, that I bought months ago, to review and I just don't think I can do it.  So to clear my conscience here is a list of what I have bought with just a few notes:

Smallville 32 to 43.  Ehh, I've really enjoyed all this but I can't recall details.  M'Gann M'orzz being introduced was fun.  I think there is a lot of Crisis stuff going on with alternate Earth Chloe.  Tbh I'm not entirely sure I've read issues 39 onwards.  I should remedy that.

Ame Comi Girls 22/23/24.  This is still brilliant.  This arc introduced Big Barda the space pirate.  Yes it is as fun as it sounds.

Civil War 1-7.  It was on sale at comixology so I bought it, and surprisingly, I quite enjoyed it. I'd heard mixed reviews, but thought it was pretty darn enjoyable

Black Panther Civil War 18-25.  Yeah so T'Challa is still the bees knees. Storm is in this one, she is equally good.  This story made me fall in love with Wakanda and the Wakandians a little bit more, and I hadn't thought that was possible.

Aquaman 17 and 18 and Justice League 17 and 18.  You know what, I have no idea what really happened in these.  I think it was the end of the Throne of Atlantis story and it was dull.  Vulko was the villain, which I think is a shame.  The Captain Marvel backups are still good.

I have a note that I bought Green Arrow 18, but i cannot remember anything about this, so maybe I haven't read it.  Perhaps I shall remedy that, not that I am in anyway excited by this series..

Comic review - Smallville and Ame-Comi Girls (and a bit of coming out in comics)

Spoilers ahead for Smallville 26 & 27

Comic thoughts

Really short reviews this week, because I'm ill  Should be writing far more, but I'm ill and very very tired.

Aquaman 13 and 14 - I far far prefer my Aqua books when they are exploring Atlantis and not the surface world.  The cultural differences are far more interesting than the surface fights, and the art is always more interesting.  I do kind of wish that the first big crossover wasn't a war with the surface world though.  I think that's where this is going, and I am not impressed.

Ame-Comi girls 11 to 15 - Gretat.  Avril Palmer is Atom and is fully covered up.  The distinction of her being a scientist not an action hero is something I miss from other comics (where anyone with skills or strength atumatically becomes an superhero, regardless of their suitability).  It's brilliant to have a narrative where Shayara is the Point of View character, not Katar, and where Katar is the romantic interest and only serves to drive Shayara's plot forward.  Even her silly skimpy police outfit didn't look stupid, at least not on the last page where she's drawn with respect and strength.

I also got Fanboys vs Zombies as part of Comixiology's current promotion. It's awful.  No one speaks like that, surely.

Demon Knights 14 -  It's full of sarcasm and pretty art.  I approve.

Green Lantern nu52 #1 is a corker.  Nearly makes me want to get the back issues.
Is the War of Light story collected into 1 trade?   Or did ity spread over several series? What issues did it cover?

Smallville 23, 34, 25 - I adore this comic.  It's perfect.  But good grief, what is Bart wearing?

Arrow 1 - better than I expected.  Will read more.  Need more money first though.  Mike Grell's art give sit a very different feel to Smallville.  I was under the impression Arrow was a spin off from Smallville.   It appears not.

Green Arrow 14 and 15 - It feels good to enjoy a Green Arrow book again.   #14 made me almost tempted to go back and read the savage hawkman..
And I like the art.  I know it's not popular, but the cartoonish, scratchiness of it appeals to me.

Detective Comics nu52 1 - i wish this was a comic I could give give to kids.

Comics review

I only got 1 real paper comci this week, but I did get a lot of digital ones.  Spoilers ahead for Ultimate Spider-Man 16.1, Ame-Comic Girls 1 to 8, Smallville 16-21 and Batman: L'il Gotham.

The best part of Smallville Season 10

Me and a friend resumed our Smallville Season 10 marathon yesterday.  This was by far the best part:

Lols...

Doesn't Ollie look like this gender bent Power Girl?  Or I am just focusing on the blonde buffness?

Damn it's nice to see some male totty!

Wonder Woman Wednesday

Erica Durance as Lois as Wonder Woman on Smallville.

I have all sorts of love for this.

I have no more WWW posts lined up!  Gonna have to find some more...

Smallville season 11 in comics format!

and bryan miller is writing it!  an actual good, qualified, experienced writer doing a tv spin off in comic form!  acebeans!

From the DC news article:

Smallville Fans Rejoice! New Comic Book Series, SMALLVILLE SEASON 11, to Pick Up Where Show Left Off

Fans of the smash-hit TV series Smallville haven’t had much to cheer about since the show ended its critically acclaimed 10-year run on The CW last May.  That’s all going to change with the upcoming new comic book series from DC Entertainment: SMALLVILLE SEASON 11.  Written by former Smallville show scribe Bryan Q. Miller, the new digital first series will be published digitally on April 13, 2012, with new digital chapters released weekly thereafter.  Additionally, the online chapters will be offered in a print periodical, along with an episode guide to the hit television series, with the first print issue released on May 16.
The new comic book series picks-up where the show left off (with Clark officially now as Superman!) and features other fan-favorite characters including Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, Chloe Sullivan-Queen, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and General Lane.  The book features an all-star creative team – in addition to Miller, SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 creators include print cover artist Gary Frank (SUPERMAN SECRET ORIGIN), digital cover artist Cat Staggs and interiors by Pere Perez (BATGIRL).
“Six months after Clark Kent donned the cape and took to the skies to save Earth from Apokolips… enter Season 11!” enthuses Miller.  “New allies abound!  New enemies afoot!  And old friends return where they’re least expected!  Pere and colorist Chris Beckett have done a fantastic job of capturing the look of the show and the players, and Gary and Cat are knocking it out of the park on covers. I couldn’t be more excited to help give seasoned viewers and new readers an all-access pass to Clark’s first year in the cape.”

Celtic myths and Silver Banshee hits Smallville!

So, the book reading first.  I got a lil carried away buying candles for Ostara a couple of weeks back and came out with a book entitled 'Women in Celtic Myth', by Moyra Caldecott.  My mother is Irish and I grew up reading lots of Irish myths, folk tales and stories as they have always really intrigued me.  Glamorous and battle filled, with tragedy, passion and magic animals, 6 year old me was most definitely bowled over by them.

Anyway, this book turns out to be rather good.  Caldecott has rewritten several stories, of Irish and Welsh origin, and then provides commentary on each tale, and provides references for where she got the stories from!  In my limited experience, this is quite rare in books of this type.

This is the book cover:

and you can buy it from Amazon here.

If Irish myth tickles your fancy, I can also highly recommend Pat O'Shea's The Hounds of the Morrigan.  It's a YA book, and long at 480 pages but oh my is it worth it.  It's a quest story of 2 young kids tasked with locating a pebble with an imprint of the Morrigan's eye on (from when Cuchulain wounded her) and along the way they encounter many of the key players in Irish mythology.  This book is wonderful and I have lost count of how many times I have read it.

And in kind of linking with this, Silver Banshee is coming to Smallville!  Check out these pictures:

I'm not too sure what I think of her costume..the make up is good, but the hair?  I'll have to wait and see what she's like on screen.

And just because I'm still enamoured with him, here's a lovely picture of the lovely Justin Hartley:

*letch letch*

Telly update, spendings and Taken

I watched the last 2 episodes of Smallville season 8, and holy macaroni!  if you don't like spoilers look way now..
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They killed Jimmy?  Jimmy Olsen?  Central figure to the Superman mythos?   He didn't even have a signal watch!  Did they take the Countdown ad campaign seriously?  I liked this Jimmy.  Sure, him and Chloe has fuck all chemistry, but Mr Olsen himself was quite charming.  I guess it made sense with the storyline, and it certainly was very tragic.  I was convinced Chloe was gonna bring him back with her magic tears.

Apart from that, the rest of the final 2 episodes were good.  I can cope with Ollie being all dark and vengeful.  It doesn't suit him, but it doesn't suit him in the comics either.  I am not convinced about Smallville's Bart being in agreement, it seems somewhat out of character.  Or maybe I just want him to be the regular DCU's Bart.  I don't know enough about this universe's Dinah to comment on her.

While we're talking about Bart , head on over to Crimson Lightning and check out this adorable kid dressed up as Bart.  He's perfect!

Back on Smallville, the Doomsday defeat was quite good, even if we didn't see much of it.

It looks like Lois has been transported to the Legion in the 31st century.  This should make for all sorts of interesting shenanigans.  Even with the use of magic time travelling Legion rings.  Which is ridiculous.  

I am very excited about season 9.   I haven't had a chance to watch any yet and probably won't for the foreseeable future.  Meanwhile, I will just go giddy over the inclusion of the JSA (with a winged, maced and hairy chested [i hope] Hawkman!) .

I also saw another episode of BSG, from season 2.  Starbuck is shot on Caprica, taken to the hospital, tended by Cylons and discovers the farms.  A well done episode.

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So, way back when, I decided to try and make an effort and seriously cut down on the amoount of stuff I bought.  If you click on the consumerism tag you'll see my other posts on this matter.

Well, I think I lasted til August and then somehow it all went to pot.  The net result is, I haven't stuck to my resolution, but I'm not buying random crap either.  I have bought new clothes - dresses (some new, some second hand), socks, pants, etc, I have bought quite a few books, I have continued buying gifts for people and I have bought some utterly useless crap.  Well, it's useless only if you consider memorabilia from the first Christoper Reeve Superman movie to be crap.  I say if it makes your heart sing then it's not crap.  But more on that later, because there's a post in there somewhere.  I still consider my main spendings to be on lunches, dinners out, and beer.

What have I learnt from all this?
1) If you want to monitor your spending and keep track of it, you have to write down absolutely everything you buy.  Including newspapers and 10pence fortune cookies.
2) I have a pretty low attention span and not much resolve.

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Consider the movie 'Taken'.  It's got Liam Neeson in it, fucking shit up.  By action movie standards it's a pretty good watch, and like most action movies, the actual plot is somewhat incidental.  But nonetheless go and read a synopsis here.  Unless you've already seen it.

Ready? OK.

First of all, the one line plot summary on the IMDB says Neeson's daughter has been sold into the slave trade.  Actually, she's been kidnapped and sold to a prostitution ring.  She is shipped around various places while Neeson is trying to catch up with her.  She doesn't get raped but that's because she's a virgin.  Her sexually active friend dies of a drug overdose - the drugs are forcibly given to her in order to break her in.

The movie makes a fairly good attempt at not glamourising or sexualising Neeson's daughter's plight, but it's not so good at race stuff.
As she's getting shipped around we see lots of asian women being pimped out.  The movie does nothing for these women, Neeson completley ignores them and we see nothing put in place to save them.  The end message seems to be that if you're a young, pretty and white virgin you deserve to be saved.  If you're anyone else you can rot in your hell.  The movie does portray the other victims situation as vile and desperate.  It demonstrates how horrific it is.

Towards the end of the movie Neeson's daughter is finally sold to her new owner. Guess who he is?  A rich. fat, oil dealing Arab man.  Not that they're trading in stereotypes at all here.  No siree.

The point at which this surprised me was that they'd tried to deal with the women's issues, the horribleness of the forced sex trade etc, which is impressive for Hollywood, but they'd failed so hard at the race stuff.  Especially as it wouldn't have needed much to rectify this.

Clouds Moving In also has a review of the film.  She focuses on the sexism but doesn't touch the race issues,

Sick as a dog

I've had flu since Monday.  Bleurgh.  So for the last two days I've been re watching Smallville Season 6 - inbetween naps, shivering, aching and being unable to eat, that is.  God I hate being ill.

Anyway.  Now I'm able to sort of function and type things again, here's a few thoughts for you:
Anyone else think it's bizzare that Lex and Lana don't share a bed the whole time she's living in his mansion, even when they are engaged?  Maybe it's meant to highlight the cold and sad relationship they have.  As opposed to each time she gets powers and her and Clark are seen sharing a bed.

OK no more thoughts, brain has ceased to function now.

I didn't even make it to the comic shop today.  I forgot it was new comic day until looking at my blogroll feed, and haven't even checked the solicits for this week.

God I hate being ill. 

That's not how Legion rings work! (Smallville Se08 overview)

They're called FLIGHT rings for a reason, dammit.

Yep, I'm watching season 8 of Smallville.  Well, I'm watching from episode 12: Bulletproof on anyway.  I got sick of watching it on the computer and succumbed to the box set.  £40!! But worth it.

More notable is the fact that it took me EIGHT seasons, and the episode Infamous, to get me to shout at the telly in anger at the show's interpretation of events.

For those of you that don't watch it, (so, pretty much all of you then), Clark puts on a flight ring and it magically transports him back in time.  Presumably by willpower as there sure as hell wasn't anything else that could have affected it.  Gah.

Anyway, I started by watching Power, because I'd forgotten I'd watched them before.  It was neither here nor there.

Next up is Requim.  This includes a battle damaged topless Green Arrow, the Toymaker (surprisingly good), and Clarj and Lana being split up.  You want to know how they got split up you say?  You're sure?  Ok.  Umm, well she's got her power suit on, from the previous episode, (it's an invisibile power suit, naturally) and there was a bomb constructed of Kryptonite, made by the Toymaker, placed at the top pf the Daily Planet.
Clark can defuse it, for obvious reasons, so Lana does the job.  Instead of actually defusing it, or using her new found super strength to hurl it into space or something sensible, she sucks the Kryptonite out of it and asorbs it into her body.  Now she's poisonous to Clark and oh so conveniently disposed of.

Ridiculous.

Then there's Infamous, menioned above.  Then Turbulence, notable only for Clark having to save Tess Mercer from an impending plane explosion.  He does this by knocking her unconscious by depriving her of oxygen in the plane, then jumping out with her in his arms.  The jumping out the plane bit was heroic, and made me go a little gooey inside.

Next is Hex.  With Zatanna!  I had been looking forward to this.  Zatanna wasn't particularly likeable but I'll forgive her as she's consumed with grief over the death of her dad.  She has the power to grant one wish to every person she meets, so she grants Chloe's and Clark's.  Chloe wakes up in Lois' body (as she's jealous of Lois' journalistic achievements).  This works out well for the viewer as we get to see how everyone else sees Lois - we see evidence of her charm, her achivements, and how damn hard she's worked.  It's nice to see her get some credit.
Clark wishes that he doens't have to lead a double life anymore, so his wish manifests as him forgotting all his powers whilst ChloeinLois tries to get him to remember.  It's played for laughs and it is very funny.  Even
 the boyfriend who hates Smallville found it entertaining.

They got the casting exactly right for Zatanna, check her out:

How perfect is she?

And and and and!  At the end Chloe has a career change and ends up taking an Oracle type role at  the JLA Watchtower!  Awesome beans.  I squee'd so hard.

Eternal will really upset the purists.  It is revealed that when Clark landed in Kansas he was not alone.  The boy that would grow up to become Doomsday also landed with him.  Because Doomsday is Kryptonian.  naturally.  If I cared about the continuity of the show I would wonder if this retcon was done successfully, but I don't.

Stiletto is Lois faking being a superhero to get a story.  She makes a costume out of PVC and realises that squeaky rubber isn't too stealthy when you're trying to fight crime at night.  And the point is made that stiletto's aren't practical fight wear.  The episodes ends with her getting her first interview with the RedBlueBlur.  Over the telephone with Clark using a voice changer thing.  Of course.

Beast has Chloe harbouring Doomsday (in his human form)  in the Talon's basement.  There's some soul searching and arguments and Clark wants to chuck Davis (Doomsday) in the Phantom Zone, and Chloe won't let him, and Jimmy is still massively pissed off that Chloe didn't support him, and Green Arrow wants Clark to murder Davis.

I've got two more to go and I'll watch them tonight.  Then I'll probably go back and rewatch season 6.  then buy and rewatch seasons 5 and 7.  I am mostly looking forward to Clark's costume being revealed at the this season.

Watching season 8 it's struck me how, well, silver agey it is.  Ludicrous plots, 2d characters, convenient forgetting of powers and rules, (or temporary creation of new ones) and some very stupid and unobservant people around.  Particularly Clark.  Not only is he rather dumb he doesn't actually have much of a moral compass.  He's petty, can be immature, occasionly stalkerish and ready to knock people out on a whim.  Without Chloe around he'd be in the shit by now. 

I know it's veered way way off from canon, but that's not really the point of the show.  Honestly, they should have called it Smallville: Elseworlds.  Then canon purists wouldn't be so hacked off with it.  Although the use of the Legion ring will be just plain wrong.

Smallville Se08 Ep 13: Power

All about Lana and Lex. We find out where Lana was when she last disappeared and how she became an elite ninja. Lots of Tess Mercer too, which is nice, but then she bludgeons a guy to death, admittedly he was gonna hurt her and at least she is distressed by it, so she's not a complete moral vacuum.
There is also talk of a power suit for Lex! Lana is taking it over though and wants the suit for herself. Oh please let it be green and purple...
Oh..its not green and purple. Or armour shaped. That's sucky. And now Lana has super powers. Well at least she's not so bloody wet anymore.
Oh look, Clark and Lana are snogging. on the top of the Daily Planet building. For fuck sake.

Now having a few days off watching Smallville as I have a job application to write. There may be a few days off blogging too.

Smallville Se08 Ep12: Bulletproof

John Jones gets shot. Clark goes undercover as a cop to find out who did it. He actually inspires the new cop to do the right thing. Green Arrow is all angry.

This is another episode helping Clark to grow, become more mature and be a hero. Lets face it, he's one of the stupider people in this series and his moral compass isn't quite perfect yet. He's not yet a leader and he sure as hell hasn't learnt about teamwork. Season 8 is the first season that has started rectifying these issues and as a consequence it's getting better and moving him to become Superman. You guys out back can quit sniggering! Season 8 is good!

Smallville Se08 Ep 11: Legion

Ooh my. We're at the opening section and we've already got cool costumes, flight rings and mention of a cape. The delegates from the Legion are Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Imra, who I don't believe was given a code name. The villain was a dude with a big firey axe, who was called The Persuader. I should probably know more about who this is, and what Imra's code name is, but i've never been good at taking in Legion info.

The episode was written by Geoff Johns, and it turns out he's a pretty nifty screenwriter. The previous episode's dialogue was atrocious - Jimmy's lines seemed to mostly centre around bad metaphors for marriage and the sea.

Lightning Lad was the most fun of the Legion folks I reckon, good actor and he got to be rather fannish towards Clark. There were some nice nods to the canon issues of Smallville, when Garth (LL) commented on Clark's lack of flying, tights or glasses. All 3 questioned who Chloe was as they knew nothing about her from the histories. Isn't Geoff Johns rather a big Legion fan? That's certainly the impression I got from the episode. He even slipped in various mentions of 'Grife' and there was a comment regarding the next Brainiac, to be number 5, and how they hoped he'd be friendly. Am I right in thinking that Brainiac 5 is a member of the Legion?

Chloe-possessed-by Brainiac was really good. It's worth noting that when she went evil she didn't have her dress slashed thigh high, the neck line cut to her waist or loads of make up piled on.

Garth asked Clark to sign his baseball, which he proceeded to do, with laser vision. that made me squeal. There were also flight rings, and a big deal was made out of the flight rings. I want one. Hell who wouldn't want one?!

All in all a pretty good episode. Now on to episode 12, Bulletproof.