As much as "Buffyesque" hero walk sounds cool, surely Minear was just riffing on Reservoir Dogs in "Fool for Love" and "Darla".

Of course, Steve DeKnight is The Man. So, whatever :-)

crossoverman | January 22, 04:48 CET

that was one of smallville's best episodes so not surprised deknight wrote it.

eddy | January 22, 04:53 CET

Steve DeKnight is the best thing Smallville has going for it. I can't find the exact announcement, but I get from the conversations on his MySpace blog that he's leaving the show.

"Justice" was the best episode of Smallville I've seen in ages. It might even be THE best episode.

Nebula1400 | January 22, 05:06 CET

That was quite a good episode as Smallville episodes go. It had just the right amount of camp & cheese factor, too. How could it not, with those skin-tight outfits?

chickenbird | January 22, 07:25 CET

That was my favorite episode of Smallville. I'm glad that they have Bart Allen, he's my favorite Flash.

Odysseus | January 22, 12:10 CET

It was personally funny to me that the author raised the Lana issue. I had been particularly disappointed by last week's episode, (which was Lana centric) especially as it was the returning epsode after a long break.
After watching Justice, as my husband and I were whooping it up (we had also recognised the "Buffy Walk"), I turned to my husband and said "Hmmmm, best episode in months, and Lana wasn't in it. Coincidence much?".

Tess | January 22, 13:54 CET

Yep, it was a pretty good one, lots of nice touches and nods - the 'Boy Scout' codename, 'Watchtower' etc. (gotta say though, I really, really dislike 'hero' walks, they're just too over-the-top for me so that they go beyond fun cheese and end up being the bad kind. Like cottage cheese or that stuff I had with nuts in it that time). Maybe finally after only 6½ seasons Clark's realised that he should be using his amazing abilities to actively help people (and all it took was a leather clad Batman substitute Green Arrow to clue him in) ?

I even didn't mind Lana in this one ;-). Reckon the score let the side down a bit though. It should have felt bigger to me, more epic, mythic even, I mean in the DCU the formation of the Justice League is a pretty big deal, maybe we should have had John Williams' horns - though I think they may have stopped using them as a mark of respect to Christopher Reeve ? - or the cue from S5's "Hidden" (where he stops the nuke) ?

Seems worth mentioning though that, talented as he is, Steve DeKnight wrote supposed Buffy homage "Thirst" and also "Spell", easily two of the worst 'Smallville' episodes produced (in fact they're up there with some of the worst TV of the last 10 years IMO) so I don't think he's such a clear cut asset to the show as others suggest (though in fairness it's hard to know how much his scripts were changed between submission and shooting).

Saje | January 22, 14:16 CET

This was easily the best Smallville episode in a very very long time. I enjoyed the interraction between the super friends and think Chloe would be great in a spinoff of Justice League. She could run the watchtower better than anyone.

Obsidian Mon | January 22, 16:58 CET

After watching Justice, as my husband and I were whooping it up (we had also recognised the "Buffy Walk"), I turned to my husband and said "Hmmmm, best episode in months, and Lana wasn't in it. Coincidence much?".

Amen! The key to making a Smallville episode great is to have as little Lana as possible. No Lana = possibly the best episode ever. Can she stay in Paris for a long time?

And I really agree with Saje about Thirst, which I believe may be the worst ever Smallville episode. It actually upset me to see James Marsters involved with such a travesty aganst Buffy.

... Okay, I may be being a little melodramatic, but as tributes go, it was pretty insulting.

spidermansays | January 22, 18:42 CET

OK....this gives me an opportunity to raise a question my wife and I have been asking for a few years about Smallville.

Why is it, other than the occasional off-hand remark about Gotham, there are no references to Batman?

Granted,at this time in an already screwed up timeline, Batman probably doesn't exist yet, but you'd think with all the money involved between Luthorcorp and Queen Enterprises there would have been at least a mention of Wayne Enterprises somewhere????

The_Joker | January 22, 19:05 CET

I think it has to do with trademark issues. They have permission to make use of Superman-related stuff, but not Batman.

Quit | January 22, 19:32 CET

It's quite simple, it's a property rights matter. The Batman characters, superman characters, wonder Woman, and so on are treated as separate properties.

Smallville people don't have rights to use or mention Batman in any prominent way.

Numfar PTB | January 22, 19:36 CET

If I remember rightly Millar and Gough asked (pre-'Batman Begins') if they could have a young Bruce Wayne appear but DC and Chris Nolan etc. said no because it might muddy the waters regarding their take on the Dark Knight.

Green Arrow seems (as I facetiously implied above) to be acting more or less as a Batman stand-in anyway with his admonishments to Clark to start fighting the good fight, his dark edge (by Smallville's standards anyway), the way _nothing_ (even Lois) comes before the mission etc.

Cool as it might have been to see ol' long, tall and eary i'm sort of glad that we don't run the risk of Batman (my favourite mainstream comics character) being all 'Dawson Creek-ified'. Frankly, even a young Bruce Wayne would scare the shit out of Clark, super-powers or not. Guy puts the 'S' (for psycho ;) in obsession.

Saje | January 22, 20:09 CET

So will Joss allow a Wonder Woman appearance? Just let him write it. I'm sure he can find a way for the invisible jet to crash into a cornfield or something. Two words.... Braniac SLASH Diana. Braniana?

Awkward Saw | January 22, 20:29 CET

Funnily enough we had a thread about this a while back.

http://whedonesque.com/comments/11403

And wasn't the Flash renamed Impulse for this episode?

Simon | January 22, 20:47 CET

I think Impulse was Bart Allen's original codename, but I'm not an expert on the DC universe.

ETA: That's all really interesting about the trademark stuff and Batman. It seems as though every year (until this year), the Smallville creators say they're going to have Bruce Wayne show up and they never do. Now I know why!

[ edited by spidermansays on 2007-01-22 19:06 ]

spidermansays | January 22, 21:04 CET

Batman is off limits due to Warner Bros. movie division not letting them use the character.They don't want conflict with the Batman movie franchise.Originally before Smallville was created,they were planning a young Bruce Wayne series.The Pilot script is online.The movie division nixed it though due to plans for Batman Begins.So they did a young Superman series instead.

The producers planned to do a Bruce Wayne episode of Smallville in season 2 or 3 but were again blocked by the movie division.

Wonder Woman is off limits as well due to Joss's movie.


Basically,any DC character that has a movie in active development won't be allowed to be used on Smallville,it seems.


I heard rumblings that back in 2002/2003 when the J.J. Abrams script was in development for the new Superman movie,The Warner Bros. movie division was putting pressure on the T.V. division to cancel Smallville so there would be no continuity conflict with Superman's origin.The Superman film at the time was going to be a new origin film.


I think the only reason The Flash was allowed to appear on Smallville in season 4 was because The Flash movie wasn't in development yet and it wasn't the then current Flash,Wally West.I bet this is why in the episode,Justice,Bart's code name was Impulse instead of The Flash.

ETA

Yes,Impulse was Bart Allen's superhero name originally when he first appeared in the comics.He then became Kid Flash and now is the current Flash in the comics following Infinite Crisis.

[ edited by Buffyfantic on 2007-01-22 19:15 ]

Buffyfantic | January 22, 21:06 CET

Just my 2c - nobody will ever top the puppet power walk from Angel's "Smile Time".

RavenU | January 22, 22:55 CET

Somebody save me, Smallville's on...

Smallville remains the biggest disappointment to me of any show, ever. The massive, exciting potential for major stories, moral questions, and epic American mythology was pissed away to do a super-powered Dawson's Creek. And Firefly was cancelled. Sigh...

C. A. Bridges | January 23, 00:03 CET

C.A. that's a great example of a smallville episode. Very funny too. It has gotten better now that Cloe is no longer in the dark, and Lex is more clearly a bad guy.
Still, I can't agree with you more. Smallville is such a disappointment, and I watch it mostly because the story does have great potential.

Jusrice was the best smallville ep yet (or close). I can't understand how Steven S. DeKnight can write some great episodes and some really bad ones. Not just on Smallville, even on Buffy he wrote some of the great and still wrote "All the way".

urkonn | January 24, 04:19 CET