Writer: Clint Carpenter

Artists: Tom Derenick(p) Adam DeKraker(i); Jim Fern(p), Larry Stucker(i),Guy Major(c)

Publisher: DC

The best thing about this issue of Smallville is the short interview with Michael Rosenbaum and the cover. The rest of the book is barely passable.

The new mandate for stories being more connected to the series rather than simply relating interesting tales from a stable point in the series hurts the book. These two vignettes detail in the umpteenth homage to Rashomon an event set near the season finale, which was months ago. This defeats the purpose.

The artwork from both artists hits the likeness of the cast off and on, and quite frankly neither tale is visually represented as well as some of the previous memorable shorts in Smallville. If these stories are based on the series, then they should mimic some of the astonishing effects far better.

The ridiculously slow episode guide trudges along. At this rate, it should finish season two in two-thousand-and-ten. We also get some teensy insight by the writers of the adult marketed Smallville novels. Devin Grayon’s thoughts naturally creep one out when you recall that she has implied in interviews that Batman’s and Nightwing’s relationship is more akin to a marriage than between a father and his son: the latter a conclusion which anyone having half a brain would reach. What all these little snickerers do not understand is that Robin lost his parents as a child, and Batman took Robin in when he was a child. Were he to harbor any feelings other than paternal love for that child, Batman would take a step off the nearest cave formation and willingly plunge to his death. Batman loving Robin would make him a child molester, a species of criminal that cannot be considered remotely human. Nightwing is sort of an adult, but that’s only because DC can’t tell time.

What started out as a good but not great focus magazine has turned into a dismal, slow-witted failure of a book. If DC really wants to look at how to do a Smallville magazine, they should take a look at the long-running Doctor Who Magazine. This is now off my list. It’s just a waste of tree