Smallville Absolute Justice Review

[SPOILERS]

Wow, Geoff Johns strikes again.  That was a very entertaining episode that went a long way towards proving that you can get away with having costumed heroes on television, capes and all, without it looking cheesy or childish.

But even with that, I don’t think the episode was perfect.  Now, I think we all know what the episode’s good points were, so I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment and go over all the stuff I didn’t like first, before moving on to the stuff I did.

They say that this was originally going to be one episode, and if you ask me, it should have been.  It was 1 hour of plot spread out to 2.  There’s no reason that this couldn’t have been one really tight episode, as the extra fights and such didn’t add a whole lot.  And the first hour was nothing but set-up that did more to confuse than actually explain anything.

This episode was obviously going to draw comparison to the Legion one from last year.  And I think the key difference lies in the fact that last year’s episode was easier to understand at first glance.  Yes, there are three new characters in each story.  But for all intents and purposes, all three Legionnaires had the same origin.  They were all from the future, and they worshipped Superman.  That’s all you really needed to know.  The only differences between them were powers, appearance and personality.

But here you had three new characters, each with their own powers, history, sidekicks, supporting characters, wives, children etc that you had to remember.  Not only that, but they kept naming off the other members, including two more you see and half a dozen you don’t.  Dr. Fate wasn’t the only one with a case of information overload.  I think it would have been better to leave the other members as Easter Eggs for the hardcore comic fans, and just let them be generic heroes to people who don’t know them.

Plus, it might have been better to have had hints about the JSA all season, maybe introduce Sylvester and Stargirl in an earlier episode with a story all their own, and then when you introduce the JSA later, you’ve already got them as your touchstones.  “Oh, that’s Starman’s old group?  Cool.”

Also, while Hawkman looked a lot cooler in motion than he did in those photos from a few months back, I still would have taken him a lot more seriously if he hadn’t been imitating Christian Bale’s “Batman growl” the whole time.

But I will say that the characters bounced off each other very well, and the JSA members folded very nicely into the show’s cast.  Stargirl’s whole speech to Chloe about needing a family and a “dinner table” was worth the price of admission alone, since it made so much sense, and fully addressed what was wrong with Smallville’s League in a realistic, relatable way.

Hawkman’s interactions with both Clark and Oliver gave each character something to think about.  Hawkman’s speech about his dead partner/wife echoed Oliver’s relationship with Black Canary, which was hinted at earlier.  And the talk with Clark about leadership was handled in such a way that Clark didn’t look stupid/lazy OR judgmental/arrogant.  His two biggest problems.

At first, I was kind of disappointed that Icicle was the villain of the story, because that just seemed so lame.  “Some Iceman rip-off is going to take down the JSA?”  But then Waller explains at the end that he was never supposed to succeed, just rattle their cages enough to get them back in costume.  Brilliant.

In fact, the whole introduction of Checkmate and the Suicide Squad in the Smallville mythos was flawless.  And making Tess an agent added new credibility to both the character and the organization.  It makes Tess something more than just Lex’s lackey and Clark’s newest fanatic.  Plus, it keeps Checkmate from being just another shady government group, which we’ve seen a lot of over the years.

I guess part of my problem with this type of “over-hyped” episode is that we already saw all the best parts in the commercials.  Nothing really surprised me, except Martian Manhunter’s spectacular return.  “I am the last survivor of Mars, and there is a reason for that!”  Best line of the episode.

Also, I wish that Fate’s vision of Clark’s destiny was a little more concrete than just a cape in space.  They’ve already done that on this show.  The least they could have done was shown Clark wearing the cape from behind, maybe standing atop the Daily Planet or something.

Overall, this episode was not nearly as tight as the Legion one.  There was a little too much fan-service for the average TV viewer, and I’m afraid the information overload might have shorted out a few circuits.  I’m a comic book and Smallville nut and even I was getting pretty tired around the last 30 minutes.  But it’s entirely possible that I expected too much, since this was advertised as “the greatest thing that would ever be seen anywhere, even in your dreams!!!”

They probably could have either made this one great episode, or used the JSA all season, and spread it out to give the characters more weight.

But honestly, the fanboy inside me will be watching this episode again and again, trying to find all the little comic references that I missed.  This was definitely the most ambitious episode of Smallville ever, and probably the most ambitious DC project ever to appear on TV.  And they certainly got the “write” man for the job.  Two thumbs up!