Smallville: Season Eleven #30

Haunted Part Five

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 Seigel & Joe Shuster

While Lex Luthor continues to be haunted by memories of his past, Lois Lane has doubled down on her investigations into him. She confirms that the man who got caught in the strange light show last time did decompose completely into a skeleton. Meanwhile, Clark has taken Bart to S.T.A.R. Labs, where a technician named Sivana is helping a shirtless Bart prepare for the speed assessment. Bart naturally flirts with her, which Clark chalks up to his desire to distract himself from his own haunting.

But as our heroes step on the treadmills, Bart admits that running is the last thing he wants to do right now. Clark assures him that he'll be right next to him every step of the way — literally and figuratively. These treadmills are designed to not only let Bart run as fast as he can, but to accelerate Clark to match Bart's speed. Dr. Emil Hamilton theorizes that Clark should be able to see the Black Flash if he can run as fast as Bart.

So they start running, and Bart actually destroys his treadmill, causing a bit of an explosion in the lab that knocks Clark down. When Clark gets up, he sees the Black Flash looming over him, saying that his speed isn't pure. Clark's then flung back, presumably by the Black Flash, and when Bart helps him up, Clark confirms what he saw and vows to save him some way.




So this created a rather interesting twist on the Black Flash. Usually, only speedsters can see him. But since Bart is the only speedster in this universe, they needed to find a way for someone else to confirm his visions. I liked how the Black Flash could recognize that Clark's speed had been artificially boosted. And, as weird as it sounds, I'm glad that we got to see a shirtless Bart. No offense to Kyle Gallner, but he never seemed in the proper shape to pull off a shirtless scene, as much as the CW would have loved it. The closest we got was Bart wearing a robe while coming out of the shower in "Run." Yeah, I always complain about over sexualized superheroes, but I do think they need to be at least a little bit sexy. It's a fine line, I guess.

This comic came out on January 18, 2013 (from what I've been able to tell). On January 19, a new episode of Young Justice aired, so that's what we'll cover next.