Smallville: Continuity #8 Review

Written by: Bryan Q. Miller
Art by: Ig Guara
Cover Price: $0.99
Release Date: October 18, 2014

I don't know what happened to my favorite book.  For so long, Smallville has been the highlight of my Friday (I know how bad
that sounds), but what I've been reading the past few weeks just seems off.  I don't know if it has anything to do with the book ending after this arc or something more dark and nefarious, but Bryan Q. Miller hasn't been on his game. Suddenly, a book built on great characters has a bunch of out of character moments and a writer who has given us so many great stories seems to be mailing it in.  I still have faith in Miller to return to form and give fans an awesome conclusion to this book, but unfortunately, that comeback doesn't start this week.





This week begins with Lex Luthor begging for his life.  Again, it seems out of left field and a bit out of character, but it only lasts a little bit.  That's because the awesome Otis comes to the rescue.  If I was to make a top ten list of characters from this book, Otis would certainly be near the top.  This issue is just another reason why and a huge reason why a "reboot" wouldn't be such a bad thing.  After some destruction that reminded me of "Office Space", we get to our heroes battling the Big Bad that ended last week's issue.

This battle is everything I was talking about in the introduction.  There is little tension as each character takes turns trying to defeat the villain because it ends in a way that makes everything that happened before irrelevant.  During the battle, there are even more out of character moments with Batman being the main culprit. Superman does cut loose and it's awesome, but he was even involved in a panel that had some confusing dialogue.  The book ends in a way that really makes me wonder how the last four issues will end the series.  Even though I didn't like this issue at all, I am still fully invested in the series and hope it ends in the great way I know Bryan Q. Miller is capable of.

I liked Ig Guara's art this week except for one thing...Lex.  I'm assuming that Guara was trying to show the intense emotions that Lex was going through, but one panel in particular was just laughable. Everything else was fine and the "take off the gloves" Superman part was more than fine, it was awesome.  I still can't get over Lex, though.

Bits and Pieces:

Please don't look at the score for this week's issue and think I hate this book.  Smallville is one of my favorite books, but unfortunately it hasn't been very good the last few weeks.  This issue continues a bad trend of out of character moments and weak storytelling.  The series is coming to an end and I can only hope that Bryan Q. Miller can turn things around and give it the sendoff it deserves.

                                           4.0/10