The Injustice League’s appearance on Smallville featured, as expected, a group of rag tag miscreants who ended up dead. This is not surprising. Most villains on Smallville who learn about Clark’s powers end up dead.
The “See Clark’s secret identity and die” rule is getting pretty old. The shock value died back in the days of meteor freak plagued episodes. Now, we expect villains to find out Clark is from Krypton then die. Sure, Tess knows his identity, but she is only a stone’s throw away from being killed off herself. Even the way villains die is getting cheesy. In “Injustice,” Tess simply killed off her meteor freaks by setting off a temporal-lobe-bomb implant. And, don’t get me started on being robbed of an official Lex Luthor death.
The end result of “Injustice” was that fans caught an episode that would have been much better had the build up been there – kind of like the epic Justice League team up. I was, however, pleasantly surprised that the Parasite made his way into the Injustice League. At least this is a villain that loyal comic fans can take pride in seeing.
Ironically, although every meteor freak Clark comes into contact with mysteriously ends up dead, he still does not want to kill Doomsday. At least, he won’t do it on purpose. Tess and Green Arrow both have their ways of trying to manipulate Clark into doing what they think is right. Tess destroyed the crystal, Clark’s one chance of banishing Doomsday to the phantom zone. This is actually a good thing. We won’t be seeing a recycled black kryptonite episode featuring Doomsday split from Bloome, instead of Lex vs. Evil Lex.
I’ve got to laugh that Chloe has picked up the Lois Lane mantle. Even though Chloe was really a shape shifter in disguise this episode, Clark’s super hearing was still in tune with the frequency of her screams. After hearing Chloe yell Clark a world away, he dashes off to her rescue.
We’ve been discussing over the past season how Green Arrow has begun to mix in the Batman persona with his own cocky arrogance. Episode 21 was no different. Clark solicits Oliver’s help in recovering the black kryptonite from Tess. In order to do this, Oliver goes to Tess’ office at the Daily Planet with a bottle in one hand trying to seduce her. After grabbing the bottle to check out the vintage, Tess quickly shuts Oliver down. Did Oliver’s gambit fail? Of course not. Because on Smallville, Oliver Queen is the Batman. His goal was to grab Tess’ fingerprint off of the bottle, using a nifty scanning device in his iPhone – there’s really an app for just about anything on it. Sleeping with Tess would have just been a bonus.
That wasn’t the only Batman reference in “Injustice.” When the Parasite steals Clark’s powers to use against him, Green Arrow breaks out the notorious Krptonite ring to take the Parasite down. This page from the Batman Bible has been used several times both in comics and on TV. Batman used it “The Batman” animated series when Poison Ivy took control of Superman. In the Cadmus story arc of Justice League Unlimited, Superman makes a joke to a humorless Batman. When Batman warns Superman of the danger of his powers falling into the wrong hands, Superman jokes, “There’s always that Kryptonite you carry around.” Batman also used it in Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” as well as in numerous other comic story arcs.
While on the subject of comic references, we’ll quote two over the top throwaways to comic fans.
After Clark loses his powers to the Parasite, Dr. Emil Hamilton recommends a sports car as an alternative to super speed. “It’s not faster than a speeding, bullet but it will get you there pretty quick”
Plastique later makes a weak attempt of villainous boasting to Tess instead of killing her, “Then we’re gonna reach out to everyone that suffered your injustice and form our own league.” If only they had the brains to do that, it would have actually been cool.
The biggest comic reference seems to be a possible ongoing future plot point that the Smallville creative staff is trying to work in. At the end of “Injustice,” a glowing purple orb tells Tess that she will meet the savior of Kandor. Most comic fans, or even followers of the Super Friends, will remember that Kandor was the only surviving city on Krypton. How did they survive, Brainiac shrunk the city and stole them for his collection. Is Brainiac the savior of Kandor, meaning he will return? Possibly. There is however one other possibility, Zod. We’ve talked about how poorly Zod was used on Smallville before, but it looks like he may be making a return to Smallville.
The history of Kandor is splotchy at best (comic arcs tend to be relaunched and revamped, while Smallville uses it’s own variation), but Zod and Brainiac have always been two constants in Kandor’s history. Several of Zod’s people lived in Kandor. And, also Zod was the one who, in one story, gave Brainiac “permission” to take Kandor. We all know Brainiac is never really dead. But, Zod would just be a gift for season 9 in the absence of the Luthors.
Whether or not this will play out during the Smallville Season 8 Finale: Doomsday remains to be seen.
*Update: Kandor
It seems that close captioned reports say that the glowing purple orb said to Tess, “Then you shall be the savior of Kandor.” This makes a slight change in possible “desirable” outcomes, but still stays in line with our theory for possible return villains. Brainiac still weighs in as a possible return villain since the Silver Age, “Superman: Birthright” and the recent “Superman: New Krypton” story arcs all reference Brainiac as the entity who shrunk Kandor down and bottled the city. Making Brainiac both the captor of Kandor, and the entity that “saved Kandor” from Krypton’s destruction.
Would we still like to see Zod return? Yes. And, “the savior of Kandor” still can allude to Zod’s return. In “The Last Days of Krypton” Zod gave Brainiac permission to “save” the “capital city” of Kandor by removing it from Krypton before its imminent destruction. This story arc also ties Zod to the final fate of Kandor. By saving Kandor from destruction, Zod saved Kandor. So, in theory, the Smallville creative staff could use this as a springboard to bring Zod back into the fold. Zod has taken over bodies before. Now, Zod, Kandor’s savior, can make his entry into the world through Tess.
As an addition to the possibility of a Kandor storyline, lets not forget that when Kara re-appeared in season 8 episode Bloodline, she tells Clark she heard rumours in the phantom zone of survivors of Krypton and subsequently flies off to try and find them. Maybe this points to the return of Kara as well as Brainiac in season 9?
It seems that close captioned reports say that the glowing purple orb said to Tess, “Then you shall be the savior of Kandor.” This makes a slight change in possible “desirable” outcomes, but still stays in line with our theory for possible return villains. Brainiac still weighs in as a possible return villain since the Silver Age, “Superman: Birthright” and the recent “Superman: New Krypton” story arcs all reference Brainiac as the entity who shrunk Kandor down and bottled the city. Making Brainiac both the captor of Kandor, and the entity that “saved Kandor” from Krypton’s destruction.
Would we still like to see Zod return? Yes. And, “the savior of Kandor” still can allude to Zod’s return. In “The Last Days of Krypton” Zod gave Brainiac permission to “save” the “capital city” of Kandor by removing it from Krypton before its imminent destruction. This story arc also ties Zod to the final fate of Kandor. By saving Kandor from destruction, Zod saved Kandor. So, in theory, the Smallville creative staff could use this as a springboard to bring Zod back into the fold. Zod has taken over bodies before. Now, Zod, Kandor’s savior, can make his entry into the world through Tess.
I watched this with the closed captioning on and according to what it told me the orb said, “Then you shall be the saviour of Kandor.” Not that she’ll meet him/her. This small change in text makes a big difference to the plot.