Who Should Appear in Smallville Season 10?

I suppose I could write a review of the Season 10 opener for Smallville just like everyone else but, face it, I don't want to be like everyone else. I suppose that's why I don't give a rats about Chlois, Clana, ClChloe, ClLex, Cl_whatever. For those of you who need to be emotionally enthralled with who Clark's in bed with, good on you, but it's not why I watch Smallville.

Rather than a review, I'll write about the other topic that Smallville fans are all over (no, not Michael Rosenbaum returning as Lex). I'm talking about what characters I'd like to see appear or return to Smallville.

I watch Smallville because I like the Superman legend and I like what the Smallville writers, producers, and actors have done to tweak the canon. I've been a long time Superman fan (you have no idea how long), so I love seeing references in Smallville that appeared in Superman related comics years or even decades ago. I'm kind of a trivia junkie, so that sort of stuff appeals to me.

So who do I want to appear in Smallville? Keep in mind that my wish list is completely unrealistic and has virtually no hope of being fulfilled for legal, contractual, and a jillion other reasons. I'm just doing this for the fun of it.

Lex Luthor

I figured I'd go with the obvious one first. Yes, I do want Michael Rosenbaum to return to Smallville as Lex. He did a fantastic job over eight years of slowly moving Lex into the dark side of himself. There were times I wanted to kill Lex and other times I was hoping he'd come out on top. He's an interesting and complex "bad guy" and Rosenbaum did a fabulous job in the role. I know he doesn't want to go through the rest of his life shaving his head, but if he comes back for the final season, it would be the icing on the cake.

Lana Lang

Actually, I find Lana kind of whiny and annoying, but I'd love to see "Kryptonite Girl" make a reappearance. I'd also love to know what she's been up to with her super powers lately. Although she's now deadly to Clark, she would come in handy if he were threatened by other Kryptonian baddies. Probably not much help against Darkseid, though.

Hal Jordan

Here's where the lack of realism starts. There's no way WB will bring a young, pre-Green Lantern Hal Jordan into Smallville, but a Hal Jordan/Oliver Queen team-up would so rock!

Bruce Wayne

Again, WB isn't going to bring a pre-Batman Wayne into Smallville. I'm not sure how the timeline would even work since "now", Batman should exist in Gotham City. Totally off the radar, but seeing Clark and Bruce in a "World's Finest" meet would be terrific.

The Justice Society

We know that Carter and Shayera Hall (Hol?) will be showing up with Lois in Egypt in the next Smallville episode, Shield, but what about other Society members? The original Green Lantern was a guy named Alan Scott. If Hal Jordan can't make an appearance, how about Scott's Green Lantern?

Wonder Woman

Actress Lynda Carter (TV's Wonder Woman from the 1970s) appeared on Smallville in 2007 as Moira Sullivan, Chloe's mother, but how about a new, young, smoking hot Wonder Woman or even a Diana, Princess of Paradise Island, fresh in this country and before the (skin tight) costume and invisible plane (she could have the golden lasso)? It would make my night!

The Martian Manhunter

I'd like to see John Jones again. He's a good "wingman" for Clark and well as a wise and pragmatic mentor. If at all possible, I'd love for his powers to return. Something tells me that when Darkseid cuts loose, Clark's going to need all the help he can get.

I've already heard that John Glover will be reprising his role as Lionel Luthor for the very last two episodes of the series. I take it as a foregone conclusion that the Justice League members will be coming back sometime during this season, if for no other reason than to get revenge for Oliver's torture and to rescue Chloe. It looks like Annette O'Toole will be returning as Martha Kent and her real life husband Michael McKean will be returning as Perry White (Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Planet?). Everyone knows that Laura Vandervoort is returning for the 200th episode of Smallville, Supergirl as both Kara (Supergirl) and Linda Lee Danvers.

I think James Masters is returning to Smallville from the 31st century as Brainiac 5, perhaps along with the Legion of Superheroes, and that will be interesting. Can we trust version 5 when versions 1 and 2 were such a tremendous pain?

That was my A list. If a B list shows up in my imagination, I'll let you know. How about you? Is there anyone you want to see come to or come back to Smallville that I missed?

Superhero Role Models, Part 2

Today's media superheroes -- including Batman in The Dark Knight and the Hulk in Planet Hulk -- as well as the ''slacker'' characters often portrayed in TV shows and movies offer boys poor role models, says a University of Massachusetts professor who polled hundreds of boys up to age 18 to find out their favorites.

The poll results suggest boys hear two ways to be masculine, says researcher Sharon Lamb, EdD, distinguished professor of mental health at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, who presented the findings Sunday at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting in San Diego.

"One was the superhero image, created as someone who shows their masculinity through power over other people, through exploiting women, showing their wealth, and through sarcasm and superiority," she says.

Superheroes: Bad Role Models for Boys?

It's been over a month since I posted part I of Superhero Role Models. I meant to get back to it sooner, but you wouldn't believe how busy I get with the jobs that actually pay me. Nevermind that, though. Right to work.

Batman

Bruce Wayne is the living embodiment of the phrase, "Don't get mad, get even." When Bruce was about 10 years old or so, his parents were gunned down right before his eyes during a robbery in an alley. The Waynes were rich, but apparently they didn't want to blow any of their dough on bodyguards and didn't believe in leaving the theatre by the front door. Bam! Bam! Mom and Dad are just dead.

There are variations on a theme, but generally, Bruce spends the rest of his childhood being raised by the family's kindly butler Alfred. All the while, something is slowly smoldering in the maturing Bruce and a plan takes form. Eventually, he sets himself on a path of education not typically offered by most Ivy League schools and acquires the skill sets and material to let him become the Batman!

This is more than a simple case of revenge. If revenge against one murderer were the answer, all Bruce would have to do is offer a few million to the person who could find and whack the guy who killed his parents and it would be over. No. For Bruce, it will never be over.

So what kind of role model does that make him?

Pretty awful, actually. He's obsessed and keeps on letting himself be obsessed. In a material sense, he's got everything a person could ever want: looks, money, power, and popularity. Other people manage to get past family tragedies. Another person would have channelled all his hurt and anger into developing programs for crime victims and their families, paying for therapy (which Bruce desperately needed as a child and no one seemed to recognize), and lobbying for harsher penalties for repeat offenders. What twists inside a person so badly, that he has to put on a black costume at night and beat the bad guys to a pulp with his fists?

Do you want your little boy to grow up like that? Most parents want their kids to be happy. Bruce is never happy.

What's worse, he spreads his obsession to a succession of young, impressionable teen boys. It would be one thing if Bruce were to contain his pain within himself, put on the costume alone, and take the risks as an individual, but he keeps bringing these kids into it. Depending on which version of the legend you look at, at least one Robin was killed by the Joker and, in a Batman Beyond episode, another Robin was captured, tortured, and brainwashed by the Joker. The poor kid ended up just barely avoiding capping Batman and finally finishing off the Joker. He needed and got years of therapy, but he never put on a cape and mask again. Lucky him.

Batman as a role model for young boys? Forget it. You might as well assign Dracula to run Boys Town (but only at night) or let the Joker himself adopt a few kiddies for fun and games in the chem lab. A freaking F- for Bruce.

Thor

He's big. He's strong. He talks like the King James version of the Bible. In the 1960s, the Haight-Ashbury hippies probably loved his hair. Everyone who even dreams of Gold's Gym probably loves his muscles. In next year's movie, Natalie Portman gets to be his girlfriend (Yowza!). But how is he as a role model for kids?

First, some background.

According to the original Marvel Comics canon, Dr Don Blake (with a limp and cane, decades before House) is vacationing in Norway when he falls down a big hole and ends up in a cave. I think this has something to do with him witnessing an alien invasion a few minutes before this incident and feeling kind of freaked out. He loses his cane but finds an old beat up stick to use. Banging it on the ground, it turns into this really big hammer and he turns into Thor.

Apparently, Thor had been a bad boy. Arrogant and snobby and all that (probably what Bruce Wayne would have turned into as a rich family's only child if his parents hadn't been gunned down). His father Odin decides to teach him humility by cursing Thor (minus a few memories) and placing him into the body of whatever hapless sap happened to come upon that stick in a cave. The sap would be Blake.

From this point on, Blake and Thor share a dual identity, with the nice, quiet Blake running his private practice in Manhattan, and Thor showing up whenever some big time menace made the scene.

Thor's history gets really long and complicated from here, but sticking to the basics, both Blake and Thor are really conservative good guys. Thor, with all his thees and thous, comes off like a cosmic cornball, but he's loyal to Daddy Odin, loyal to the Avengers, and believes in honor and justice. Blake, though not nearly as dynamic as his hammer-wielding alter ego, is also essentially a good guy. He's always tried to do the right thing by his girlfriend Jane Foster, even to the point of making her an immortal, but Odin didn't like the idea and stripped her of her immortality and memories of Asgard. Hardly Thor's fault.

You really can't blame the guy for anything. There are probably times when he lost his temper and flew off the handle, but if you ever wanted someone to have your back, it would be Thor.

Honor, justice, and fighting evil as Thor and helping the sick and injured and pulling down a six figure income as an M.D. in Manhattan as Don Blake. For role model material, he gets an A+.

Hulk

Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. I'm sure you recognized this tagline from the Incredible Hulk TV series. Starting with original canon, shy, withdrawn super-brainy Government scientist Dr. Robert Bruce Banner invents the Gamma Bomb and, back in the day when above-ground nuclear tests were legal, he arranges to have it test detonated out in the middle of some forsaken desert.

The problem is thick-headed Rick Jones, some footloose teenager with more time than sense, happened to drive out onto the test range on a bet and was just seconds away from being blasted into radioactive atoms. Bruce sees Rick outside and orders the countdown be stopped, but he didn't count on a lousy Commie spy being in the bunker, too. The spy, seeing an opportunity to get rid of Banner (moron..kidnap him for his secrets, don't kill him) and somehow access his research, makes sure the countdown doesn't stop.

Why Banner didn't think he had all the time in the world is beyond me, but he runs out onto the testing range, screaming like a madman, and manages to get Rick to safety just in time. The bomb does off and instead of killing Banner instantly or killing him by radiation poisoning or by inducing cancer, the gamma blast gives Banner the ability to turn into a raging green (gray on the cover of issue 1) behemoth called "the Hulk".

Again, lots and lots of history, but underneath it all, I say Banner has an authority problem. Think about it. Brainy, nerdy guy in the early 1960s when it certainly wasn't popular to be nerdy. Having tough Army officers with the collective IQ of a barrel cactus telling him what to do. I bet he couldn't wait to figure out a way to trash the nearest Army base and get his revenge. The Hulk was just a means to an end. Victim of radiation poisoning, my butt!

Whenever Banner gets in a jam he can't think his way out of, he turns into the Hulk and overcomes the problem by brute force. Want to teach that lesson to your 14 year old? Didn't think so.

To be fair, Banner didn't ask for what happened to him but, most scientists would have turned themselves over to the medical profession and had geniuses like Reed Richards, Henry Pym, and Tony Stark figure out a cure rather than going on the run (OK, he was probably afraid of a Government conspiracy...who wouldn't be?).

Role model material? I'll be generous and give him a D. You don't want kids yelling "Hulk Smash!" and then trying to break out of the house through a wall when they get mad because they don't want to do their homework.

The Flash

I know what you're thinking, but we're not talking about guys in cheap raincoats who don't wear pants. I'm talking about a police scientist (today, we'd call him a Crime Scene Investigator) who gets a ton of chemicals spilled all over him thanks to a freak lightning strike, resulting in Barry Allen gaining the ability to access something called the speed force, which enables him to, among other things, run faster than the speed of light.

Pretty cool.

1960s canon dictates that Barry Allen be squeaky clean, have a cool girlfriend named Iris (another reporter), a job, and be a nice guy. Heck, when Allen was first introduced, he even had a crewcut.

Barry started out as the classic nerd, always slow, methodical, and occasionally forgetful, but heck, he's a cop. When he discovers he has super powers, he does what anyone in his position would do (especially in the comic book world). He makes a costume with a mask and becomes a superhero.

In Barry's case, he had a little help. He was reading a comic book about the Golden Age Flash (Jay Garrick) right before the accident, so it's not like the idea to become a costumed hero was particularly inventive.

Flash remains a hero in the classic sense throughout his career and even gets to marry his girlfriend. All is well, until one of his arch villains, the Reverse Flash, kills Iris. Eventually the Flash (but not Barry) goes on trial for the murder of his wife's killer, but the whole thing is a setup by another villain named Abra Kadabra (some of these names are over the edge). Barry solves the mystery, clears his name, and even reunited with dead Iris, since her spirit ended up in the 30th century and was given a new body (Don't ask..it takes too long to explain).

The next problem was that the Flash ends up dead, but he dies heroically. It goes on and on, but the complicated history isn't the point of this analysis. What we see is a guy who never stops being a hero, even in the face of death. He never stops loving his wife, he takes her lonely nephew under his wing (a guy named Wally West), and..need I go on?

I can't find a problem with this guy. He's gone through hell and back and still comes out smelling like a rose. The Flash also gets an A+ as a role model.

That's it for this round. It seems, based on this group, that you're either a really good superhero role model or a really bad one.

If you have any suggestions or comments about future superhero role models or you think I've been unfair to the ones I've reviewed so far, let me know.

September 11, 2001: Never Forget!

Lana and Clark as you've never seen them before!

What if Lana were a manga character and Clark were a vampire? Wonder how they'd look? Wish granted!

Kristin Kreuk as a Manga character.



The original source is worth1000.com.

If Tom Welling were a vampire...lot's of Tom fans everywhere will start saying, "bite me".



The original source is worth1000.com.

If I run into a Chloe zombie, I'll let you know. ;-)

Superhero Role Models, Part I

Today's media superheroes -- including Batman in The Dark Knight and the Hulk in Planet Hulk -- as well as the ''slacker'' characters often portrayed in TV shows and movies offer boys poor role models, says a University of Massachusetts professor who polled hundreds of boys up to age 18 to find out their favorites.

The poll results suggest boys hear two ways to be masculine, says researcher Sharon Lamb, EdD, distinguished professor of mental health at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, who presented the findings Sunday at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting in San Diego.

"One was the superhero image, created as someone who shows their masculinity through power over other people, through exploiting women, showing their wealth, and through sarcasm and superiority," she says.

Superheroes: Bad Role Models for Boys?

Superheroes, in the modern sense, have been around for over 70 years (Superman made his debut in Action Comics in June 1938). Every once in awhile, some expert or authority decides to criticize comic book and movie heroes as bad "role models" for the youth of our country/the world. On the other hand, if they were always good role models, they'd probably be pretty boring and nobody would read their comics or want to make movies about them (the Amazing, Spectacular Dali Lama!).

I thought I'd perform my own analysis because I grew up on comic books and have a love for their classic incarnations. It would be too difficult and time consuming (and my time is precious) to go through all the different permutations the various heroes have endured over the decades, so I'll try to stick as close to their original personas as I can. Remember, nothing's perfect, including heroes and this review.

Superman. I figured I'd start with the superhero. As far as role models go, you'd think he'd be the best. He's basically a boy scout in a cape, paying equal attention to saving the President's plane from crashing and saving a cat stuck up in a tree (citing the 1978 Superman film). He was originally an American role model (..."truth, justice, and the American way"), at least in the 1950s, but political correctness has resulted in expanding his role to be more "universal".

The dark side of this role model is that he isn't that universal. He was created in 1938 to appeal to the likely readership of the day, which were 12 year old white boys. Forget it if you were a girl or a person of color. Even his Jewish origins (Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster were both Jewish and modeled Superman on the concept of the Golem, a large, anthropomorphic being who overwhelmed problems with shear might and had the word "truth", in Hebrew, on his forehead) were obliterated to make him attractive to the majority of American kids in the depression era.

Superman does teach that you can have great power and manage it responsibly, never using it for your own gratification (like most of us would do in real life) by peaking through Lana Lang's bra when she's 15 year old (and what high school guy hasn't thought of the advantages of X-ray vision?) or conquering the world just for giggles.

He loves his mother, married his girlfriend, holds down a steady job and regardless of whether he's Superman or Clark, is always someone you can depend upon. On the role model scale, Superman gets an A+.

Iron Man. Originally, in the early 1960s, Tony Stark was a rich, handsome, millionaire playboy who just happened to make weapons for the military. One day, while strolling through Vietnam, he's injured mortally, captured by the bad guys, and in order to escape, has to invent Iron Man, to free himself and save his life...literally. The film version starring Robert Downey Jr, is pretty close to the original as far as origin stories go, except they make Tony much less clean cut, and more of a spoiled brat. The process of becoming Iron Man tempers him and redeems him from his "lost" image, though he doesn't exactly get a personality transplant.

Tony does learn that, dying with the most toys doesn't mean you win and what life really means is saving those people who you hurt, even if you didn't mean to. He's beat (or is in the continual process of beating) alcoholism and repeatedly puts his life on the line, risking a fatal heart attack every time he puts on the Iron Man armor, in order to help others. Joining the Avengers means he's learned to be a team player. Yeah, he's a thrill seeker and it's an emotional power surge just to be Iron Man, but he's a better person than he was before. No, not perfect by a long shot, but with just enough flaws to keep him interesting.

Iron Man comes in on the role model scale as a C+.

Spider-Man. Originally a shy and very smart teenager who could never make it with the cool kids and was always picked on. He got to live out every kid nerd dream by becoming physically powerful enough to pound the bullies, which is more or less what Peter Parker did back in the early 1960s. No, he didn't beat Flash Thompson to a pulp, but he did tell everyone to go take a flying leap into the toilet and, instead of immediately using his powers to become a hero, became a TV star. He probably would have gone on in that direction, having loyalty only to his aunt and uncle, except that his arrogance cost his uncle his life. That's what turned Peter around, but his life is hardly enviable.

Spider-Man is sort of the comic book world's version of a dog's chew toy. He always has one problem or another to overcome, but his shining virtue is, no matter how much he wants to give up on everyone and everything, he hangs in there, probably more for guilt's sake than anything else, but out of great suffering comes great perseverance, to twist a classic phrase.

As a role model, he gets his revenge on being bullied by beating up the bad guys and sending them to jail. OK, ok, he really does love his aunt, has girlfriends, but they either die or divorce him, gets mad at the world half the time, but manages to recover to do the right thing in the end. In some ways, he's the most "human" guy in this review so far. Stan Lee created a number of superheroes back in the day to break the mold of the "perfect person" hero, and it worked. Spider-Man was the poster child of this new hero...the guy the rest of us could relate to. Role model? Maybe not a perfect one, but Peter is a role model we can understand.

Spider-Man gets a B+ on the role model scale.

Last but not least (for this entry) Green Lantern. Hal Jordan was originally one of the most perfect of the perfect heroes. In fact, to get the power ring, you had to be. The qualifications were to be completely honest and completely fearless. That lets him out of being a politician right from the start. If Superman was the boy scout of heroes, Green Lantern was the police officer, but in the best possible sense. As he develops into the 1970s, we discover that Hal's "cop on the beat" take on life also makes him perfectly inflexible and his sense of "right and wrong" is absolute. Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) buddies up with him for awhile to teach him that life has infinite shades of gray.

Actually, you can't blame Hal too much. His bosses, the Guardians of the Galaxy (Universe...whatever) are just as inflexible and Hal has to teach them a few lessons, too.

Reinvented, Hal was a cocky, self-assured test pilot with a chip on his shoulder, put there by his old man who was even more "perfect". In the reinvented version, Hal gets the power ring but also a DUI and has to work off both, one in jail and the other taking humility lessons from master Green Lantern Sinestro, ultimately having to overcome his obsession over himself in order to take on the corrupt "perfect" Sinestro and take his place (eventually) as the galaxy's greatest ring bearer (OK, this side of Frodo).

As far as "super cop" goes, he makes a great role model, but like Superman, his clean cut white guy image made him pretty dated and unrelatable beyond a certain demographic.

These days, he isn't infinitely honest or fearless, but to use the ring, he does have to become the type of hero the ring demands. He's had his dark moments...like becoming Parallax and destroying everything to try and recreate the perfect world (that seems to be a reoccurring theme in his life), but goes through a series of salvational experiences and eventually is the Green Lantern again.

Green Lantern gets a B- on the role model scale, and given the fact that he's killed a lot of people (like the universe), that's generous.

I could go on and on, but this is an analysis that could be taken through a series of blog posts. My ratings are pretty arbitrary, but are superheroes really meant to be role models or are they strictly entertainment? Do kids really try to become like the people they read about in comic books or maybe the comic book heroes are becoming more like us?

Where Have All the Heroes Gone?

This isn't a review of The Expendables. Frankly, I haven't even seen it yet. I did hear that it has completely blown away the Julia Roberts film Eat Pray Love. It's not that I don't love Julia Roberts and it's not like I don't like a good "self-discovery" film, but my heart will always belong to the action, explosion-packed, car chase, gun shooting film genre. Heck, I watched Live Free or Die Hard (2007) and Blue Thunder (1983) over the weekend just to get my fix.

But let's face it, Bruce Willis is 57 and Roy Scheider died in 2002 at the age of 75. Our classic film heroes from the 1970s and 80s aren't getting any younger. For that matter, Sly Stallone is 64 (and up until the Expendables, his more recent films haven't been doing so well) and Arnold Schwarzennegger, who along with Bruce Willis, had a cameo in The Expendables, just turned 63 a few weeks ago. Why are old guys still making action films. Is it because there are no young guys to step up to the plate?

The younger action heroes that immediately come to mind are Christian Bale from the Batman films and Terminator Salvation (2009), Johnny Depp from the various Pirates of the Caribbean films (On Stranger Tides comes out next year), and Leonardo DiCaprio from the recent hit film Inception. Also, with the power surge of super hero films that have been recently released and those coming at us in the next few years, we can hardly say that we have no young, kick ass actors out there to play these parts, so why haven't people like Stallone and Willis either retired or gone on to play older guys in character roles (imagine Stallone as Don Vito Corleone in a remake of The Godfather (1972))?

We have young guys playing action roles but frankly, they're not legends. Maybe the concept of the legendary action hero has disappeared. We used to consider action heroes with a sense of awe. Not in the way that people might drool over Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio, but these heroes were "men". I know that sounds sexist, but they were a sort of role model for the inner hero in the average, ordinary guy. Sure, we weren't about to grab a gun and go blow away an army single handedly, but these were the "ideal" men. Men of courage against overwhelming odds and often, saving the world, even while half bleeding to death, with a sense of humor and some "killer" one-liners. These guys used to be everywhere. Who didn't admire John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas (yes, Michael's Dad), Michael Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, and on and on and... Where did they go?

The actors are there but perhaps the allure has disappeared. Today's action hero is less a hero and more a guy in a suit doing heroic stuff. We are entertained but we're not awed.

However, we're still awed by our aging classic heroes.

Today is the 33rd anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll and even people who weren't even born 33 years ago are commemorating his death and celebrating his life. Did we run out of musicians in the 21st century? No, but we may have run out of legends.

I don't think you have to die to be a legend and I don't think you have to get old before you become a legend, but you have to possess something that younger actors and other celebrities just don't seem to have today. Yet, is it a lack in them or in us? Maybe as a society, we've lost the ability to generate those feelings any more and we only feel them for older stars by way of nostalgia (and a weird sort of nostalgia if you are in awe of someone you never experienced while they were alive). I can't really decide which way it runs, but there must be a reason that a film like The Expendables not only gets made in the first place (and studios don't make films unless they expect to make a lot of money on them) but does amazingly well at the box office.

Has Elvis left the building?