Smallville: Mercy

Martha does not ask Clark how he knows that Lionel knows his secret. The answer would have been alarming. Jonathan, who is dead, told him. Martha immediately concludes that Lionel was behind the blackmail that he claimed to have sorted out.

What an episode! Lionel surely proves himself. He is willing to die for Martha and Clark and he keeps Clark's secret from Lex. But surely Lex now has sufficient evidence that Clark has super-speed and super-strength? Clark is far too hostile towards Lionel.

Working at the Planet has made Chloe even more glamorous.

Welcome

Welcome, whoever is out there! My computer tells me that there have been 57 page views in the first 50 minutes of today, Tuesday 24 Feb '15. Maybe page viewers could comment to tell us who they are?

Thank you for your attention.

Added 26 Feb: We are suddenly up to 275 page views by 17:40 today! Some page viewers are following a link from the Poul Anderson Appreciation blog.

My Name Is Modesty

An authentic Modesty Blaise film!
An extended retelling of her origin!
With Peter O'Donnell as Creative Consultant!
Incorporating an adaptation of O'Donnell's true story about the original of Modesty!
Alexandra Staden looks like someone I know!
Young Modesty slightly resembles someone else I know!
I can't think of anything else to say but I want to use both of these images!

Later: Modesty uses a modern computer but this is an update that works and fits because the war in the Balkans in the opening sequence is not identified as WWII. The villain comments that there are always wars in the Balkans so Modesty's story becomes timeless and she would certainly have become familiar with computer passwords if she had lived into the appropriate period.

Meteors

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation:

(This is another post that begins somewhere else, then returns to Poul Anderson Appreciation.)

Superman began publication as an adult character in 1938 so his spaceship must have come to Earth about 1918, although no one usually associates him with that period. However, in the Smallville TV series, his spaceship arrived in 1989 so why was it not detected as an incoming missile by US radar defense systems? Because this time the small space capsule arrived in a large Kryptonite meteor shower. Did the ship's drive field carry the meteors through hyperspace?

In Poul Anderson's The Star Fox (London, 1968), the space privateers use "...a giant meteorite or small asteroid..." (p. 148) to conceal the descent of a spaceship onto the surface of the planet New Europe. Because of the speed of descent, air impact would destroy the ship:

"Unless she followed exactly behind the meteorite, using its mass for a bumper and heat shield, its flaming tail for a cloak." (p. 149)

Gunnar Heim must steer the ship through its "...narrow slot of partial vacuum..." (ibid), watching the external incandescence and internal instruments, guided by intuition and an unreeling computation of where he ought to be at each moment. This sounds like other dangerous space passages in Anderson's works:

Dominic Flandry around a pulsar;
Nicholas van Rijn around an extinct supernova;
the Tau Zero ship around a new monobloc.

Before this some of Heim's men made an "...epic..." (p. 148) trip around New Europe's moon but it is not stated exactly why. Did they detach the mass that became the meteorite?

Smallville: Fragile

Meteor powers include telekinetic glass-shattering and are inheritable but this power appears just in this one episode, I think. Clark tells Maddie that she can trust him - but everyone can't trust Clark. A piece of artwork at the Talon becomes a plot element and Belle Reve is mentioned again.

The main on-going story line is Lex and Lana - and Chloe's misguided interference. She should have either kept out of it or spoken to Lana, not confronted Lex. Why Clark doesn't get together with Chloe is beyond me.

Lois becomes Martha's chief of staff. I still don't get it that Martha can take Jonathan's Senate seat without another election. Lionel is in London so he is not around this time.

Smallville: Void

John Schneider plays Jonathan Kent twice after Jonathan's death, in a home video and in Clark's near death experience. He foretells something of Superman's career whereas Lex's mother tells him that he will murder a lot of people.

Martha is capable of accepting Lionel's friendship and making it clear that their dealings will remain on that level. I think and hope that Lionel is genuine. He says, "Good night, Clark" and has to hold back from saying, "Good night, Kal-El."

Lana must be able to cope with anything after what she has been through - like banging your head on the wall because it is good when you stop.

Smallville: Strange Visitors

Smallville: Strange Visitors by Roger Stern, the first Smallville novel, is set between two episodes of Season One, long before Clark could fly. It does open with him flying to the Moon but that is a dream but he has somehow traveled from his bedroom to the barn in his sleep.

This is a novel based on a TV series based on comic books. Superman began publication in 1938 but the Clark Kent of Smallville came to Earth in 1989. In his Acknowledgments, Stern writes that "...the story of Clark Kent as a young man...is never-ending and forever young. (Not at all surprising, when you stop to consider that he was created by a couple of guys in their teens.)"
-Smallville Omnibus 1 (London, 2006), p. 3.

What they originally created was the adult Clark Kent with a very brief introduction about his childhood. Elements added later were:

the teenage Clark Kent as Superboy in Smallville;
a later version in which Clark grew up in Smallville but without a costumed identity there;
this TV version in which a meteor shower hid Kal-El's ship from radar and meteor radiation bestows powers on Terrestrials.

Thus, the story is "...never-ending and forever young..." because it is continually changed and adapted. It is good that it has continued but it has rarely been done justice as yet.