Shootin' at the walls of heartache, bang bang! I am the warrior! Well I am the warrior, and heart to heart you'll win..if you survive. - Scandal
“Warrior” ended up turning into a fun little one-off of Smallville as we enter the DC Comics version of the San Diego Comic-Con: Met-Con. Of course, that name sounds a lot like “ret-con” and when you have a character whose powers can make the universe bend to her will, I start to worry.
Luckily I had nothing to worry about. The only thing that seemed a little off was the fact that Lois Lane has Xbox technology that has yet to be released! Man, it looks like fun though! When Chloe’s new friend, Stephen, starts to float in the middle of her living room, I started to think, “Xbox gives you wings!” But enough about how the product placement totally won me over…
Clark Kent doesn’t like you, geeks. At least it didn’t seem like it when he scoffed at all the faux heroes at the Met-Con, one even dressed up exactly like he was before Red-Blue went all dark. His pragmatic look at the fandom on display was met with Lois’s love of playing dress-up. Lois tried to get Clark to loosen up a bit, but of course, Clark usually freezes up after looking through her wardrobe.
Was it a wardrobe though? It seemed like her closet did not have real clothes but was just stocked with costumes she had worn in the past. These little Easter eggs made me laugh as Clark pulled out the red leather outfit she wrestled in, in season 6’s “Combat”, the bathing suit that barely covered her in season 5’s “Exposed” and finally the French maid outfit she met Tess in, in season 8’s “Odyssey”. Great callbacks, Smallville. To top it off, Lois modeled a Stormtrooper costume as well as an Amazonian princess garb, that looked strangely like Wonder Woman. Lois has a thing for whimsy.
As does Zatanna, the morally-challenged burlesque act that shows up to find a cursed comic book. It was strange to see her all fish-netted-up in the real world of Metropolis, in last season’s “Hex”. Tonight, she looked right at home among the costumes. As she investigated with Clark, she decided he needed a bit more spark and tried to seduce him with her magic. This was a bit awkward, but seeing Clark trying as earnestly as he could to explain the situation in detail to Lois made it worth it.
Sidebar on Zatanna. Was it me, or did she call Clark “Blur” when she first approached him in front of Lois? I checked the closed captioning and it said “Clark”, but it sure sounded more like “Blur”! There was no reaction from Lois though, except for the obvious jealousy.
Meanwhile Chloe was getting all gooey-eyed over an eleven-year-old kid named Alec. OK, that’s not fair. He actually read a cursed comic book and then….what’s the appropriate word….oh yeah, Shazam! He turns into a fully grown adult superhero named Warrior Angel with a built-in secret identity Stephen Swift. This brought the theme of fantasy and whimsy as Josh Baskin-I mean, Alec Abrams got to escape from his depressing life, taking Chloe on the ride with him. He even flies her around Metropolis, in the same awkward-looking flying stunt as we saw last week with Hawkman.
Speaking of flight, what side do you fall on? When Zatanna’s spell to bring back Alec blasts Chloe off the roof, Clark caught her in mid-air. He was travelling upward, though, landing on the roof. Do we call that a super-jump or flight? This writer is inclined to say jump, but man, was that quite the defiance of gravity! I think the last time we saw something like that was actually in “Hex”!
We ended with a little bit more Oliver/Chloe flirtation that seems to be coming out of nowhere. But I need to acknowledge one more fanboy moment before I go. At Kent Farm (we miss you, Kent Farm), Alec gave Clark a drawing. Besides the shield having an RBB for Red-Blue Blur, it looked exactly like Superman’s costume! It was great to see it, and they both said they liked the S shield better. So is Clark going to base his future costume on this? Or is it going to be filed away in his subconscious, inspiring his superhero look in the years to come. Great galloping gumdrops indeed.
