SPOILER WARNING

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Watching the Absolute Justice episode now.  About 15 minutes left.

Quick thoughts:

1.  Some bad acting, particularly by Hawkman, Icicle and Amanda Waller.  Reminds me of the Batman and Robin debacle from years ago.  The regulars, by and large, do their typical good job.
2.  How is Icicle taking on the entire JSA and the Smallville crew?  Way unbelievable.
3.  My favorite part of the episode was the flashback of Ma Hunkel.
4.  Martian Manhunter’s costume is ridiculous though his reference to cookies at the end was great. 
5.  Tess as Checkmate’s White Queen is an excellent idea.

Despite the poor acting and ham-handed writing, it’s still major cool to see all of these characters on television.

Oh no!

I’m starting to watch right now. I will lower my expectations, then maybe it won’t be so bad.

I liked it! I agree about Hawkman, though. He was a problem. But the rest was a lot of fun and appropriately inspirational.

I enjoyed it. Although it does show the limitations of utilizing a bunch of costumed characters in one series.

Hawkman did seem to be channeling a Bale impression when he was “On” but in the quieter scenes I liked him better. Martian Manhunter’s “costume” was meant to be human clothing (since he was trapped in his human form) so it worked for me in the same way as Clark’s proto-costume does.

Wasn’t so fond of Icicle II but I though Pam Grier’s Waller was true to the comics. Cool ending with her and Icicle- showed some real Wall attitude.

Icicle is a pretty powerful character, someone able to make ice bullets is new to the Smallville crew (and an ambush is always an effective tool).

I liked the way Geoff Johns integrated the JSA into the Smallville universe.  Especially the way he contrasted the felling of family the Society has always versus the League. I loved the old newsreels Clark and Lois watched, I mean “Lois and Clark”

The Tess reveal was nice, adds more reason for forming her team of meta-humans she had last year. As much as she’s continued Lex’s investigating of Clark, I wonder how much Checkmate knows? Although Tess seems to work for herself as much as anyone else.

If anyone is interested, Rodolofo Migliari posted a link to a larger image of his JSA paining:
http://rodolfomigliari.blogspot.com/2010/02/smallville-absolute-justice.html

To follow up:

I think Amanda Waller was well written and followed her characterization in comics very well.  Pam Grier’s performance just didn’t do it for me.  I would have also liked to see a larger actress play her.    Likewise, I thought the tension between Hawkman and Green Arrow was also very “in character” even if they couldn’t fit all the comic history between the two characters in this already busy episode.  I agree that the actor playing Hawkman was okay in the quieter moments but he was so over the top for me in the action moments that I dreaded any scene he was in.  Also, Hawkman isn’t one of my favorite characters in comics anyway so my bias probably played into my opinion of his major role in this mini-movie.    I can’t think of anything I really liked about the performance of the actor who played Icicle.  Just cheesy and over the top.  No subtlety.  I like subtlety. 

As for Icicle taking out three JSA’ers all by himself, I can see him taking out the Wesley Dodds Sandman without much problem.  Depending on the circumstances, I can see him taking out the Jack Knight Starman.  I think my problem comes from the actual fight between Starman and Icicle being so short.  It was like Starman didn’t even give him a good fight.  I guess I’d say that the Starman take down was more unsatisfying than unbelievable.  My biggest problem is with the Dr. Fate take down.  Along with the Legion of Super-Heroes in an issue of Adventure Comics Digest, Dr. Fate was one of the first comic book characters I ever read and has been one of my favorites (depending on the incarnation) ever since.  He’s a powerful character and, again, there was hardly any battle.  Green Arrow was able to “save” Stargirl with his arrows, but Dr. Fate goes without a fight?  Unsatisfying at best and I’m sticking with unbelievable on this one.  I think Chance’s point (in his review on the front page) about the low budget and Pretender’s comments about the limits of so many characters in a two hour mini-movie “event” had a lot to do with this. 

Did they ever reveal who was filming all of the JSA’ers in the flashback?  If they did, I never caught it.  I understand it’s a plot device, but I just kept thinking that they didn’t have handheld cameras “back in the day” and the footage looked as if that’s how it was recorded.    Having said that, it was fun to see all the characters referenced and I look forward to seeing some of the ones that haven’t yet made an appearance.

I don’t love Clark’s “costume” but it doesn’t turn me off.  Martian Manhunter’s, whether he’s trapped in his human form or not, turns me off.  Different strokes…

Looking forward to more of Checkmate. 

Really liked the point Stargirl made about the JSA being a family and seeing Green Arrow show up at the end and wanting to hang out.  This season has been a lot about the tension between the Smallville “team” and it was nice to see some warmth between them again. 

Of this seasons guest appearances (Legion, Wonder Twins, JSA), this was the least satisfying for me probably due to their being so many characters and such little time.  I look forward to seeing more of the JSA in the future, but hopefully with fewer characters at a time. 

Psst!  It was the Star-Spangled Kid, not Starman.  Starman wasn’t depicted in the group portrait, so presumably there is no Starman in the Smallville-verse.

Overall, I felt it just moved VERY SLOWLY.  I didn’t dislike it, but I was over-hyped for it, I guess and it just didn’t kick ass like I was expecting.

Black Canary was sorely missed, since the original BC was depicted in the group painting.  I only started watching avidly this season, but did BC ever make a reference to her mom in the previous episodes?

I had no problems with the licenses taken with the characters and their power levels.  Dr. Fate worked fine for me, even his death.  He was very much like the Thom Kallor Starman, though, but I don’t know how many viewers of the show are enough of fans of the comics to make the comparison.  I guess Johns feels that the JSA needs a resident nutso, regardless of the medium.

The last five minutes blew my mind though!  Waller’s reference to amassing an army of super heroes to face the coming “Apocalypse” or is it… “Apokolips!?”  Could it be. Darkseid is on his way?!  And when this army is amassed, with Clark finally don the familiar red and blues?!

wonderboyjtm - 09 February 2010 06:23 PM

Psst!  It was the Star-Spangled Kid, not Starman.  Starman wasn’t depicted in the group portrait, so presumably there is no Starman in the Smallville-verse.

Oops.  You’re right.    He was dressed a lot like like the Jack Knight Starman, though.

I didn’t make the connection to Darkseid.  If done right, that would be amazing.

I adore Pam Grier, but I was a little iffy on her at first. But then her scene with Lois won me over. I thought she was much more threatening there than in her final scene with Icicle.

So, has anybody been keeping up? Seems that Checkmate is a big part of the rest of the season so far.

We have The White Queen in Amanda Waller and Maxwell Lord as our Black King. Also a mysterious Red Queen has inserted herself into the mix.

Some pretty interesting developments with Tess, the Kandorians and Zod in partcular.

i think martha kent is the red queen since she is apart of the gov n there bringin her back just wen we learned of the red queen

Wow, it’s been a bit since I posted here. Just caught up on Smallville anyway.

So…. Martha Kent has been acting as the Red Queen with Maxwell Lord as part of her group!
And Lois is working on a big story with Perry White regarding aliens on Earth.
Chloe wants to step back from Watchtower and have more of a life.

And in the finale:

We start with a super glimpse of the future that Dr Fate saw. The year is 2013, Lois at working at the Planet yelling for Olsen to keep up and Lex Luthor is going to announce he will be running for President.

Back in the present all are battling to find the “Book of Rao” that Clark learns is not a bible but a tool that can transport ALL Kryptonians to their new home.

Tess follows Zod to the Fortress where Zod badly burns her and leaves her for Clark to find. Tess then dies in the hospital as some old lady sat outside knitting(?) Weird.

And in a final fight between Clark and Zod, Zod stabs Clark with a blue kryptonite dagger as Zod gets transported away with the rest of the Kandorians (who all have super-hearing and heard Zod admit to killing Fayora).

In the Smallville-universe Blue K on (or in Clark’s case- in) a Kryptonian leaves them like a human.

And so the finale ends with Clark stabbed and falling of the side of a building…

Rumor-mill seems to indicate that next season’s premiere will be titled “Lazarus”.

I found a handheld camera taping of the Smallville presentation at Comic Con featuring a summary of seasons 1-9 and previews for Season 10

Note: only the first 20 seconds are sideways.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XBzx3jchZ8

It’s a little hard to hear parts over the excitement- guess it adds to the feeling of being there :p