– The way that Green Arrow somehow shoots an entire flight of dagger-icicles with a single arrow
– When Hawkman is in his armor he totally has an armor potbelly
– The way that Stargirl was the most annoying character ever
– The fact that Geoff Johns’ dialogue is, what, maybe two steps above George Lucas’ dialogue when the former tries to get all Meaningful and Important and the orchestra rises up in the background
– The way Dr. Fate sounds kind of like a Muppet
– How the members of the JSA constantly refer to those not there by their full names, which makes one wonder if, when they have a barbecue, they say things like “Sorry I’m late – Al Pratt forgot to pick me up. Did we get the hamburger buns?” “No, Alan Scott is getting the buns, and Wesley Dodds is getting the beer”
– Actual line spoken by Hawkman: “Why what, Green Punching Bag?” No really somebody paid Geoff Johns to write that
– Being reminded of the fact that the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern would look incredibly dorky in real life
– How everybody’s attitude towards Clark is about one degree shy of actual outright cocksucking
– The constant carping by Hawkman (played by an actor who is 38) about how he and the Justice Society were fighting crime when Clark (played by an actor who is 31) and Oliver (played by an actor who is 33) were little kids, like having three days’ worth of stubble suddenly makes you super-old
– HEY EVERYBODY J’ONN SAID HOW HE LIKES COOKIES AND THEY NAMECHECKED MICHAEL HOLT SO THIS IS THE BEST SUPERHERO TV MOVIE THING EVER
– Hinting of “the coming apocalypse” by Amanda Waller to give hope to Smallville fans that maybe the Fourth World will be the one major story arc Smallville does not completely fuck up
– That I knew it was going to be this shitty in advance and I still watched it
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Well, at least you got some enjoyment out of it…
Haven’t watched it yet. But I’m still delusionally hopeful.
It chills me to the bone that Smallville might actually consider using Darkseid on television.
Not that I have a problem with Darkseid. I have a problem with Smallville using him.
Smallville? What is this “Smallville” you mention?
I’ve never heard of any tv show called Smallville.
LISTEN I DONT KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT OKAY.
Why… why in the world is Smallville doing a Fourth World storyline? Who in the Hell conceived of this? Who was sitting around one day, trying to brainstorm up the next season, and said to themselves, “Do you know what our WB teen drama needs? Jack Kirby characters.”
“Do you know what our WB teen drama needs? Jack Kirby characters.”
It could be worse – they could be trying to cash in on Twilight and throw in vampires like every other drama.
Jack Kirby characters would be welcome, if not for the obvious fact that Smallville adaptions are…lacking.
@Michael Paciocco: You missed that vampire episode in, um, Season 3 or 4. Or maybe 5.
I’m still hoping for a Swamp Thing cameo, but I fear they’ll muck it up.
(ducks incoming debris)
I don’t know what is worse, the fact that I agree with you, or the fact that I still enjoyed the episode. Though of course I would watch anything with the JSA.
Did anyone notice how they tried to add a hint of Neil Gaiman when they were dealing with the Sandman?
I would so watch a Dr. Fate series.
And I have a feeling they couldn’t use certain hero identities, like Green Lantern or The Flash, because of some other production company holding the rights to use them.
Nothing about Hawkman’s terrible movie-Batman voice?
You know what Smallville needs more of? Howard the Duck- no, wait, he’s Marvel, isn’t he….. fuck, I say Howard the Duck would raise Smallville from “Shit” to “Entertaining outright crap”. I fin but necessary distinction only usually used to categorize various Roger Corman flicks.
Well, at least I called the Hawkman symbol correctly on halloween! What the HELL was up with that breastplate? And those wings? I mean it’s a show… they don’t HAVE to build stupid looking wings, they don’t have to work in real life.
The can’t do a Swamp Thing appearance. Dick Durock died last year.
(What do you mean, they could have some other actor do it? Blasphemy!)
*Spoiler*
I love that the episode basically ends with Pam Grier straight up shooting a dude in the face. Now the “absolute justice” thing makes sense.
It wasn’t that bad. I’m amazed you didn’t mention Lois, though. That’s like going over the Titanic disaster and not mentioning the iceberg. I kept thinking Geoff Johns had delivered unto us a Geek Christmas, and then? Bitch shows up and ruins things.
As for the full names? Dude, that happens in the show All the time. I don’t drink, but I figure that’s a staple in any SV-based drinking game.
Why’d he have to throw in the reincarnation babble?
Other than that, as long as your expectations are low (and why wouldn’t they be) I don’t think it was that terrible. Poor Wesley Dodds will forever be The Guy That Dies in the First Act.
Other suggestions for the AbJust Drinking Game:
* Drink every time somebody opens a door you’d think would be locked
* Drink every time a scene starts with some sweeping camera trick (seriously, by the end of the first hour you’d be sauced)
* Drink every time Lois is dumb (she figured out the JSA was framed but not who sent her the files?)
At this point, I’d seriously rather watch a John Jones spin-off. He talks like Spock but shoots like Hawk!
“That I knew it was going to be this shitty in advance and I still watched it”
Man, knowing it’s going to be shitty is the REASON I want to watch it. I gave up on Krypto-mutants of the week, bad homages to the Chris Reeve films and Kryptonite in more colors than the Silver Age ever thought of years ago, but I desperately want to see this wet mess of a “special episode” for myself. I taped it because I had stuff planned for the weekend, but I plan to watch it tonight while ignoring the Super Bowl. (By which I mean taping the game so I can fast-forward through the game and watch the ads later.)
I watched it simply because I KNEW it would be bad.
I was not disappointed. But for me the thing that scarred me the most was the music. Seriously, is it like this all the time on this show? It just kept blaring HERO in my ears all the time, it was even more horrendous than Icicle’s acting.
I have to say that as corny as the show was (especially how they electronically drop everyone’s voice an octave when they’re in ‘Hero Mode’), it was still more watchable than ‘Heroes’ on NBC currently is.
Stargirl wasn’t completely annoying, though that whiny tween act could only fly for this one episode if she’s going to be a recurring character. No, what was more irksome was how she lost her staff every fight and her retrieval of it was always a point where the action stopped as she was about to be killed yet again.
Seriously, use the kid as a sniper or something. She’s not a tank.
Wait…you actually watched it?
have to say that as corny as the show was (especially how they electronically drop everyone’s voice an octave when they’re in ‘Hero Mode’), it was still more watchable than ‘Heroes’ on NBC currently is.
Very true. Smallville doesn’t take itself very serious, and I suspect the final episode will finally break out the tights and cape. Canon went out the window pretty much in the first ten minutes of the first episode. Not a problem since they can’t keep it straight in the books anyway…
I loved it. Of course, I also loved the ’90s Flash series, so take it for what it’s worth.
What’s weird is that Hawkman was Carter Hall, and Dr. Fate was Hector Hall. I mean, how does that even make sense in this timeline?
All the talk of continuity in the comics vs. the TV series makes me think that were I to get placed in charge of this kind of show (I’m available, DC. I’ll work for half of whatever you’re paying the current people and show a little leg at the office!), I’d treat it like an “Elseworlds” setting. I’d take whatever starting points the suits wanted and just go from there. Clark becomes “the blur” on his way to being Superman? No problem. It’s not the “canon” timeline. Thus freed up, I could tweak the regular universe and characters to fit the storyline and hopefully come up with something viewers enjoyed so much that the comic editors had to retconn whole years of comics to incorporate my ideas. 🙂
The fact that Smallville is still on after removing one of only two good actors on the show in a way that basically made any attempt to stay with canon a lost cause: because really who needs Lex Luthor.
Y’know, out of all your complaints…They could’ve had Hawkman played by someone in his teenagers. The whole reincarnation thing….
And people with powers on Smallville are almost always white males. Even the token black guy was really green.
Lex was the only thing mildly entertaining about Smallville. 🙁
Oort said:
“What’s weird is that Hawkman was Carter Hall, and Dr. Fate was Hector Hall. I mean, how does that even make sense in this timeline?”
(Finally watched it) Where did you hear, “Hector Hall”? I clearly heard Dr. Fate identified as Kent Nelson (and Kent mentioning his wife, Inza).
One thing THE FLASH series had over SMALLVILLE: when THEY brought in a “real” comic-book writer, it was Howard Chaykin- and the episodes he wrote were consistently good.
Dick Durock is DEAD?!
Seriously comics, where are we going to get around the flushing this fucking nerd, once and for all?
Oh boy. The irony is that I hate anyone who is hating on this nice little gift in all our lives. Yeh, it was imperfect. Nothing ever can make everyone happy. But didn’t you all just find yourself smiling at so many points throughout it that anything ‘bad’ about it could be forgiven for once? Come on guys. If we stop all the bitchin’ we may just get more and more of these cool attempts and there will be one that will knock it out of the park for all of us. Do any of you remember when NOTHING like this existed anywhere other than the paper comic source material? There are so many things out there for a superhero fan from animated features, television cartoons (WOW to Black Panther, anyone??) and collected paperbacks? GAH! Stop it for once will ya?
That should have been, “When are we going to get around to flushing this fucking nerd Johns, once and for all?”
Damn Dan, why you gotta hate your own kind?
Smallville cracks me up, and I totally watch it for that. I am terrified of the idea, though, that there are people out there watching it who are belaboring under any preconception that it is good in any way.
Cracked me up almost as much as mgks post…
igns review http://uk.tv.ign.com/articles/106/1067310p1.html
Kal: The Black Panther cartoon is based off the Reginald Hudlin comics, being produced by Hudlin and shown on BET, the tv station Hudlin owns.
Basically Hudlin is going to ejaculate on paper and call it a Black Panther series.
i.e. It’s going to suck on toast.
Actually, the funniest thing is that 4 million people watch Smallville and 50,000 read the JSA comic book.
Just think how in the future we will fondly reminisce how Geoff Johns invented The Fourth World mythos for Smallville.
How happy we will be!
Lister:
The Black Panther toon has aired in Australia. It’s not that bad…it’s um…well…Juggernaut makes up for everything else in it. The X-Men are whiny (except for Storm who actually DOES something). The theme song is the best thing of the entire series. The animation is in between being a motion comic and regular animation.
As for Absolute Justice. I actually loved it. Pam Grier was perfect as Amanda Waller. My main complaint was Michael Shanks’ lame copy of Christian Bale’s Batman voice. oi! But hey we finally got Martian Manhunter in his TRUE form. If only for a brief moment.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y72/Dierna/Screen%20Shots%20and%20Promo%20images/MartianManhunter.jpg
WEll, after the Watchmen 2 news of last week, people wondered what Geoff John’s Watchmen would be like.
Now we know.
You know, I hesitate to say this, but maybe Johns should be writing for TV instead of comics? Think about this: four million more people know who the JSA are now. Four million more people are aware of Hawkman, Dr. Fate, and Stargirl thanks to this episode. You can say what you will about the way those characters and brands were handled (…not great), and how cheesy Smallville is (definite truth), but hey, the show worked to make the JSA seem important.
What I’m saying is, Johns’ lame reverence actually works much better for TV when you’re trying to get a new concept across to people. As bad as Smallville is, that episode got across the major points about the JSA in a digestible fashion and made the group and characters appear significant. So that’s kind of a win, right?
Also, Pam Grier is such a great Amanda Waller. She needs more roles period.
However, what Johns needs is someone else to write his dialogue. Holy God some of those lines were awful. Purple, expository comic book dialogue only works on a page, and even then it takes a bombastic, winking personality of the Stan Lee variety to sell it.
I did catch a line I liked, though: Hawkman telling Green Arrow, “You don’t want anyone to know they’re important to you, so you act like a jackass.” Could’ve been tightened, but a nice, incisive remark that immediately reflects back on Hawkman. Wish the rest of the script had been that terse and relatively natural, especially the rest of the Arrow/Hawk bickering (ugh, Green Punching Bag).
Darkseid will be a hobo whose “Omega Effect” is strangling people with his bare hands.
You know the Hobo Darkseid twitter? It will be exactly like that.
I was impressed with Brent Stait’s performance out of costume, but the whole time he was Dr Fate was very underwhelming. Shanks and Irving, though, really nailed their characters (even if the Hawkman voice was annoying). I’m shocked to see people praising Pam Grier…I thought she was absolutely the worst part of this episode, ever more so than Icicle.
Also, mgk, I’m disappointed you didn’t notice the reference to Radu’s in the very beginning.
Pam Grier’s performance reminded me of Rose coming back in Dr. Who. I knew they were capable of a better performance, and am willing to assume they had dental work before their shoot.
Either case, it was not a good example of either actor’s work.