"Aqua" - Smallville

 

Hey, all!  I’m taking a hiatus from the hiatus to fulfill a request from a friend, who wanted to see a review about her favorite hero, Aquaman.  So today we’re returning to Smallville to take a look at the fifth-season episode “Aqua.”

"The Man from the Edge of Tomorrow", Parts One and Two - Legion of Superheroes

Speaking of short-lived superhero cartoons, let’s turn our attention to Legion of Superheroes for a moment, shall we?

As a team, the Legion of Superheroes—a group of crime-fighters from 31^st century (New) Metropolis—doesn’t exactly have the greatest reputation.  Usually when I hear about them, it’s because someone is making fun of the perceived lameness of their membership, and with members like Matter-Eater Lad, I can’t really blame them.  (At least they had the sense to reject Arm-Fall-Off Boy.)  But someone somewhere must have thought them capable of turning a profit, because in 2006, a cartoon based on these half-baked heroes debuted on the CW (then called the WB).

Season One started with a young Superman traveling to the future and chillin’ with the Legion, consisting of, among others, Brainiac 5, Bouncing Boy, Triplicate Girl, Timber Wolf, and Lightning Lad, most of whom have pretty self-explanatory powers.  It ended with Superman going back to his own time, and then came Season Two. 

"Thirst" - Smallville

For many shows, airing at least one holiday-themed episode is sort of a tradition.  Christmas seems to be the most popular subject, but appearances by Hanukkah, New Years’ Eve/Day, Thanksgiving, and others are certainly not unheard of.  Having lasted an impressive ten seasons, Smallville had plenty of time to air plenty of episodes about plenty of holidays, and in Season Five, they decided to go the spooky route with a tangentially Halloween-themed episode, complete with costume parties and hot lady vampires.  Boy, was that ever dumb.

The ONLY bright spot here is that this was made before Twilight, so they couldn’t rip it off or make “fun” references.  And that is the only Twilight reference I will make in this review.  I knew you’d be expecting it, so I got it out of the way early so that, like the later Hitchcock cameos, it won’t distract you from enjoying the rest of the show.  You’re welcome.

"Lucy and Superman" - I Love Lucy

June 16, 1959.  For many, this is just another date on the calendar, but for those of us who know a little bit about superhero pop culture, this is also the day that George Reeves, most famous as TV’s Superman and that guy who had two lines at the beginning of Gone with the Wind, was found dead of a single gunshot wound.  The death was ruled a suicide—the result of depression coupled with a night of heavy drinking—but nevertheless remains a source of debate and intrigue even today, and as the owner of a superhero blog, it wouldn’t be right for me to let the anniversary of this tragic event go by unobserved.

"The Day They Unmasked Mr. Action" - Jimmy Olsen #159

I pretty much established from day one that Silver Age comics can be extremely silly.  As far as I’ve been able to tell, no hero was immune from the ridiculousness—they adopted improbable animal sidekicks, got turned into improbable animal sidekicks, turned evil, turned their improbable animal sidekicks evil, got turned evil by their improbable animal sidekicks… everybody was having their share of crazy, cracky goodness, but out of all the characters to have stupid adventures in the 1960s, the Idiot Supreme Award probably has to go to Jimmy Olsen.  Dude got into so much trouble I’m surprised he didn’t get a restraining order against Superman just so he could stop turning into a werewolf every other week. (No, seriously, he got turned into a werewolf.  Twice.  That I know of.)

The (Comic) Book Was Better - Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

We’ve all heard it.  Heck, we’ve all said it—“That movie was good/bad/okay/fantastic/the worst piece of dreck ever put on film… but the book was better.”  In this new review series, I am going to be looking at movies (or TV episodes, though the emphasis will be on DC’s series of animated films) and the comic books/graphic novels that inspired them to determine which one told the story better.  I won’t really be comparing them per se, because otherwise you could probably narrow it all down to “the cartoon cut too much stuff out”—I’ll just be judging each version on its own merits as if I have never seen/read the other version, and we’ll see how this works. Today’s subject: Superman/Batman: Public Enemies!