Disappointing
I am a huge fan of the Smallville television series and was very excited to read this oversized comic based on the series. The comic basically takes place near the end of the first season with two separate stories. The first, “Raptor”, has the class of Smallville High go on a field trip to a paleological site where a kid named Greg Fox ends up getting caught in an explosion, getting in contact with meteor rocks (aka kryptonite), and turning into a dinosaur like creature. The storyline is very much like a villain of the week plot which were common in the first season. Even though the villain is more interesting than most of the early episodes and the dinosaur aspect is good because it is something that couldn’t be done on a TV budget I have never been a fan of the whole “one and done” type stories and would rather have been given something more interesting. The art in the story is good although I don’t like the look of Clark and I don’t find the backgrounds to be detailed enough for my tastes. The second story titled “Exile and the Kingdom” is simply talking about why Lex Luthor stays in Smallville rather than going to Metropolis. There is absolutely no character development or anything that goes on here and even as a character study I didn’t learn anything about Lex that I couldn’t have figured out on my own to be honest. The art in this second story was also pretty bad and odd looking honestly. Other than these two stories there is a big chunk of the issue detailing what happened in the pilot episode as well as interviews with the main cast which basically makes this a magazine/comic hybrid. I really like all of the development information and the interviews but I don’t see the point of saying what happened in the pilot episode. If I wanted to know what happened I would simply watch the episode. Lastly, the stories here are inaccessible for those who haven’t watched the series and even for avid fans there is nothing interesting here which affects the story or teaches us anything about the characters. While not completely horrible it is boring and a waste of time to be honest. I would much rather recommend watching the show.
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