Smallville Season 11, it"s happening...

Yeah, I find Terri Henshaw really quite appalling. Lex Luthor was Hank's employer. Hank gets injured on his payroll. Naturally rather than blame and sue his employer she's blaming the innocent third party who came in and saved the shuttle's flight crew and everybody on the ground as well.

They was handin' out stupid pills the day Terri was born. I'm tellin' yas.

 

I really don't understand her mind frame. Superman did the best he could under dire situations and saved Hank. Lex went ahead with an experimental but dangerous procedure. Yet it's Superman that gets her blame, not Luthor who is totally responsible for her husbands current condition. I feel sorry for Hank...and appalled by his wife's mindset. Maybe that's the point though and Miller is pulling something sneaky on us??

 

I'm sure he is. Aside from his writing of Terri his writing and characterization has been top notch. Either Terri's irrationality is going to make sense down the line or it's Miller's one concession to the television series' vapidity.

 

I agree. The small amount of concessions that Miller has made to keep that "Smallville" feel to this book are what make it exceptional. I understand you gotta retain a bit of that quirky uniqueness. Hopefully the illogic of Terri's mindset is just a part of the story, otherwise it feels like a flaw to me. Confusing the villain so that he now has his motivation to hurt or go after the hero. Kind of a convoluted plot device to establish Hank as Cyborg Superman if that makes sense. I did like the last panel...but it still doesn't make sense. Superman needs to be replaced because he couldn't save everyone? He couldn't save you? Okay. LOL.

 

To be fair Hank has been through a major shock. In the original comics he got to be pretty irrational as well. Superman wasn't with a hundred miles of Hank's accident in the DCU but Hank blamed Superman for his condition and for driving him from the Earth even though Henshaw left voluntarily. Let's face it, bombing Coast City off the Earth wasn't the sign of a well adjusted mind.

 

That's true. I suppose we could argue as well that Terri is acting out of some kind of sock. She is blaming Superman because he was first on the scene...people I guess in dire or extreme circumstances act irrationally. Both Henshaws seem to be doing that right now.

 

Quite true, though Terri should be lashing out at Lex as well as Superman. If not for Lex, Hank wouldn't have been up there to get injured in the first place.

 

Lex should feel more compassion and not just see a potential experiment as well...but we know his mindframe I think Lex has done a good job of manipulating Terri. Didn't he say something a few issues back that triggered this Superman hatred anyways? I can't recall but it seems like he did.

 

Well Lex intentionally caused the accident in the first place. Compassion is the least of his problems.

He may have. He's Lex Luthor after all.

 

I know, I know, it's Batman's day today but I don't give a shit. I have Smallville #11 review and review it I will!

This issue opens with the stunning image of Superman being punched through three buildings. He and Henshaw slug it out with Superman trying to talk Hank out of fighting. Henshaw is incredibly irrational telling Superman: "If you can't save everybody then why even bother?"

Superman's reply is a nice piece of insight into his character: "You think that doesn't keep me up at night?"

Personally I've always wondered and it's nice to have that acknowledged in a Superman story.

There's another line of dialogue between Supes and Hank that really stands out but not in a good way. Why?

Because it's really out of the blue.

"Whatever they've done to you. You aren't in control of your actions."

I don't understand what Brian Q. Was trying to convey there. At first I tried to hand wave it away as Superman saying the shock of what's happened to him is making him behave irrationally. But that's not how it reads to me...

It reads to me like Superman believes that Henshaw is being controlled, forced to behave like this by an outside agency.

At least that's how it reads to me. I suppose it was just a badly written line. Hey even Brian Q. Miller has his off days.

In the end it's clear that Superman isn't the least bit threatened by Henshaw's aggression and pwns him easily. Soon Henshaw is as harmless as a kitten and back in the caring arms of Emil Hamilton and STAR Labs.

However this leads to a characterization oddity where Terri Henshaw is suddenly quite cordial with Superman. At the very least you'd think she'd be cold with him after frothing in the mouth the last couple of issues but nope. She seems cool with him now.

Again out of the blue...

Then Supes talks to Hank and Hank's like: "I'm sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing then I lost myself."

Well at least he apologized nicely...

So far I've been a big fan of the first 10 issues of Smallville but the storyline it feels like the Guardian storyline is really starting to fizzle out. The (temporary) resolution to Hank's story felt really pat and disjointed. I'm not sure if it was just bad dialogue choices on Miller's part or if we're supposed to be every bit as confused as Hank is but aside from the action the first half of Smallville #11 didn't work as well as it should have.

The second half did work as good as it should have because it involved Chloe, Oliver and our strange visitor from another Earth.

Yep. That was a clue on my part. I'm not going to recap what happened because you need to read it for yourself. Let me just say...

The plot thickens...

 

Haven't read the issue yet, but it is very possible from the dialogue you cite, that that is one of the functions of these drone robots combined with the brain implant is that someone can remotely influence someone's actions. These are LexCorp built drones after all and we know Lex loves to control and manipulate people anyway he can.

 

Quite possibly. I did think of that and that may be the case but there's no real reason story wise for Superman to assume that may be the case. At no point does Superman turn to Luthor and say: "I know you're controlling him, Luthor." or tip his hat at all to the possibility that Lex is messing with Henshaw.

Heck, even I don't get the impression that Luthor has Henshaw programmed. The story never even implies Henshaw is being manipulated in any manner but verbally.

It just appears to be some ropey dialogue. Of course appearances can be deceiving...

 

Perhaps our first example of traditional flawed "Smallville" writing...I'll wait and see it in context though when I get around to reading this later today. I'm basically speculating right now.

 

Flawed? Yeah. But the action in the first half of the issue is good. The content in the second half is worth the price of admission though. I really didn't see that coming.

 

Read it. I understand your confusion regarding those specific pieces of dialogue. I don't think it is a flaw now. I think Superman probably believes that someone or some group is trying to control or harm Henshaw. How or why he thinks this...I don't know. We did get the specific panel of inside of Hank's head...I believe this was purposeful and we'll find out why later. Hank is being manipulated by outside forces. I think there are multiple reasons in how he will develop into Cyborg Superman later. We just saw the awkward beginning in this issue. The fight was awesome...and oh man...the cliffhanger!!! I didn't see that coming in a million years! Plus J'onn!!!!

 

I will have to reread it with what you said in mind. It's entirely possible I missed something. I tend to fly through these things on my first reading anyway.

Yeah, the Supes/Cyborg fight was great. What I loved was that after the initial surprise Clark was controlling the fight. He was letting Hank get in enough blows to vent his frustration but when push came to shove he was fully able to just reach out and pull Henshaw's head right off his shoulders.

 

Superman is slowly learning and adjusting how to fight with his powers now, which is fantastic I agree. I want an Ollie and Chloe spin off series, like Dark Horse is doing with Angel and Faith. It'd be a companion series that takes place parallel with "Smallville Season Eleven" but focus on Ollie and Chloe. They're really fun together!

 

Bride of Green Arrow! I love it! Sadly it'll never happen, corporate synergy and whatnot. DC Won't want a Chloe and Arrow series clashing with the inevitable comics tie-in to...

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Doh! Yeah that's true. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that we're getting them in the first place.

 

If they start an Ollie embargo on Smallville Dan Dildo is going to hear from me!