Smallville: Season Eleven #25

Haunted Part One

Writer Bryan Q. Miller
Art Jorge Jimenez
Colors Carrie Strachan
Lettering Saida Temofonte
Cover Art Cat Staggs
Assistant Editor Sarah Gaydos
Editor Jim Chadwick
Superman created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster

Smallville finished after 10 seasons, finally putting Clark in the iconic Superman outfit in the last scene of the show. DC then decided to explore this next chapter through a "Season 11" weekly digital comic. So it's the same continuity, same cast of characters and everything from the show that I could not stand. Maybe a different format will help the story out. If anything, it should eliminate the constraints the show had with special effects.

Our cover shows Lex Luthor covered in blood and being haunted by ghosts of the past ... or something? I don't know ... he apparently had his memory erased recently, and it's a whole thing. I will give Cat Staggs credit for making Luthor look just like the actor who played him on the show, Michael Rosenbaum.

Let's pick up toward the end of this issue, where's Luthor's amnesia has gotten him in trouble with Smallville's version of Psimon. He honestly doesn't remember funding Project Ares, which apparently turned this Dr. Jones into Psimon, but he does offer to help Psimon get the best psychiatric care money can buy. That's not good enough for Psimon, who tries to kill Luthor with a blast of purple psychic energy.

Superman saves Luthor, then begins to fight Psimon, but has a hard time. Psimon makes a common comic book boast of how Superman can't keep up with "the synaptic firing of the human mind." Suddenly, Impulse comes out of nowhere, suggests it's time for a team-up, and begins beating up Psimon. Impulse moves so fast, Psimon can't see him, and asks Superman how he got so fast. Superman calmly says there's always been someone faster than him. Once Psimon is down for the count, Impulse grabs ice cream for all the nearby bystanders and even puts a cone in Superman's hand. Clark thinks it's a little early for ice cream, but Bart tells his "amigo" he needs his calories, since this "speed" thing is a killer.

I find it odd that Luthor looks like Michael Rosenbaum but Impulse doesn't look like Kyle Gallner. Maybe DC couldn't get his permission to use his likeness? And if that was the case, then why would he refuse? Whatever the reason, this redesign of Impulse is pretty crappy. The short, blond hair does not look good, nor does his subdued outfit. The jacket's fine, but why is he wearing normal jeans? The goggles/sunglasses make sense. But the whole effect is quite disappointing, especially when you put him right next to Superman wearing the full-on blue tights and red cape. But I will say that, so far, this Impulse does feel like the Impulse we saw on the show.

And, yes, this is the same Jorge Jiménez, whose work on that Kid Flash/dinosaur story made me an instant fan. Sadly, his art does not inspire the same joy for me here. Perhaps that's because he's trying a more realistic style, forgoing the cartoony look that I was so fond of. This isn't bad art — it just makes me sad, since I know what Jiménez is capable of.

We have a house ad for all the weekly digital-first comics DC had at the time: Ame-Comi Girls, Batman: Arkham Unhinged, Arrow, Legends of the Dark Knight, Smallville: Season Eleven, Justice League Beyond, Superman Beyond and Batman Beyond.

Next time, issue #26.