Smallville- Season 11 (Batman's guest appearance)

[thecolorsblend]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/16/the-dark-knight-comes-to-smallville-season-11

IGN Comics: Let's get the elephant out of the room first and put it to rest: Nightwing. Stephanie Brown. What's the real story behind the change to Barbara Gordon?

Bryan Q. Miller: The editorial staff wanted a more "iconic character" in this case. Given the nature of our female Nightwing's use in the story, of the available replacements, I leaned toward having Babs wielding the charged-escrima. That really was the beginning and the end of it.

IGN: What's the nature of Batman's introduction? Is he already operating as Batman when Clark meets him or will we see him take up the mantle after the fact?

Miller: You will most certainly meet a Batman who is knee-deep in his career within the first 10 pages of the arc. Intergang's been shipping high-tech anti-hero weaponry to any city with a "cape problem." Batman and Nightwing's run-in digs up a connection to his parents' murder, lo, those vaguely many years ago.

IGN: From the cover images that we've seen, Batman looks like he's more armor-plated than we're used to seeing him. Can you talk a little bit about the design of the Smallville version of Batman and how it relates to the character that we'll meet?

Miller: He's very much just a man, and a smart one at that. And he's also quite wealthy. Batman doesn't take his war on crime lightly, and does his best to equip himself for any situation. This isn't Year One for Batman. We're somewhere between year 5 and 10 for him. You'll see a Nightwing who's far less armored – literally armed with escrima, a few gadgets, and a ton of moxie. She's the scout. She's the dancer. Batman – he's the tank. And Gotham criminals don't play fair. So Bruce is going to carry around as much with him as possible.

The digital issue came out today. I've been digging on this series but I didn't have such a good reaction to the announcement that Batman would be guest starring in this title. The idea of that kind of a Bruce/Batman guest appearance in Smallville lost whatever appeal it had for me after season 4 (and it had whiskers even then).

But whatever, it's here. Batman and Superman don't share any scenes with each other. That's still to come, I'd imagine. But what we get here... not bad. I enjoyed it. It's a different dynamic for Batman and his partner than I've seen before. If one presupposes this is a Batman unencumbered by the baggage of having lost Jason Todd, I could see him having this kind of working relationship with his sidekick. It's something we haven't seen from Batman in a long while. He seems darker by being paired up with such an energetic, feisty partner. I think the Batman/Babs-Nightwing stuff works pretty well, actually.

[Paul (ral)]

Batman had been rumoured for years during the TV series...wasn't he? I believe Green Arrow was brought in as a compromise (I'm probably wrong on that).

I hadn't been too impressed by the first few issues of Season 11 but since Bats is in it I might splash out a buck on it.

[thecolorsblend]

Batman had been rumoured for years during the TV series...wasn't he? I believe Green Arrow was brought in as a compromise (I'm probably wrong on that).

Pretty much. My conspiracy theory is that Green Arrow basically filled the role they wanted Batman to have around season 6 or so. Bruce was obviously out of the question so Green Arrow was the best option on the table.

I hadn't been too impressed by the first few issues of Season 11 but since Bats is in it I might splash out a buck on it.

If someone didn't like the show, I can't imagine they'd love the season 11 comic. I loved the hell out of the show so this comic is right up my alley.

[Paul (ral)]

I liked the show a lot. Saw seasons 1-4 twice and watched every other episode.

It also frustrated me in equal measure.

[greggbray]

Big Smallville fan here, Warts and All.  It was certainly a problematic episode, and there are whole seasons that you could gut or skip. 

Also, several seasons began strong and looked like they were building toward a series finale.  Seasons 5 and 8 in particular.  Then they'd get renewed, and you could hear the brakes squeal. 

Seasons 3 and 9 are probably my favorite.  I've read some of Season 11 so far, and I like it.  I'm not thrilled with much of The New 52 right now, so comics that exist outside of that continuity (such as the Earth 1 collections) tend to prick up my ears a bit.

But as much as I love Smallville--there's a lot of frustrating material in there, I agree. But at the end of the day I found much more to applaud than to heave tomatoes at, so here I am.