It's the costumes, y'see. The costumes freak people out, including the producers.
Never was that more true than in the early February episode called "Absolute Justice" (the name itself a pun on a super-deluxe edition of some recent DC Justice League reprints), in which a Smallvill version of the Justice Society of America -- the masked mystery men of the Golden Age, their offsprint and protoges -- show up in Metropolis when their members start getting picked off one after another by a secret kil -- hey, WAIT a minute! We already SAW Watchmen!.
In fact, the script for this two-hour superextravaganza, penned by comics superstart Geoff Johns, isn't bad at all. Lots of lively dialogue, a plot with a few cool twists in it. And the casting for most of heroes of old and new -- Stargirl, Hawkman, Dr. Fate -- isn't bad at all, though some of them get very little to do.
The real problem -- the big problem -- is with the suits.They're ... well, they're goofy. Michael Stargate Shanks's Hawkman suit because, quite likely, Mike hasn't got the abs for it. They put Stargirl in a uniform that is, unfortunately, way too true to her "masked cheerleader" look in the comics, and add a mask that's so bulky it looks inflated and hair that look like a bad wig. Even Dr. Fate in the cape looks -- well, dumb (though the helmet's cool, we admit that.) In fact, the costume design is such a complete failure that it overshadows all the much better production values of set design, acting, writing and special effects. It basically ruins the show.
When Smallville premiered early in the century, when all Clark and Lana and Lex had to worry about was the "space rock" mutant of the week, there was a hard and fast rule. The producers said Clark would never fly and never put on the stretch-suit and cape. This was all about his life before that, they said. And it turned out to be a very smart move: you could take the characters a little more seriously, even when they were shooting fire out of their eyes or freezing off a victim's fingers, if you didn't have to get past the aesthetic of the stretchy-suit -- a 'look' that works perfectly well in the comics but is terribly, terribly risky in 'real life.' (Ask the costumer designers who have struggled for decades on the Superman and Batman and Spider-Man franchises. It is hard to make a supersuit that doesn't look silly, even on a great body.)
And this just proves they were right -- at least as far as the reach of Smallville can extend. Oddly, the producers' good-hearted desire to remain true to the show's comic book roots is a big part of the problem (as opposed to, say, The Human Target, which bears no resemblance to its DC Comics version, and even hides its funnybook origins). Michael Shanks just doesn't have the big-ass, almost brutish body that could maybe handle the 'real' Hawkman suit, and even that's no guarantee. Stargirl's athletic-shorts-and-halter-top duds look kind of goofy in the comics on purpose -- that Coutney! -- but on film it's just plain embarrassing. And people, please: taking the same design as the stretch-suit and simply doing it up in colored leather is not an answer. It didn't work for one of the many version of the Batsuit and and it didn't work for Dr. Fate here. They would have been far better off doing what they did a couple years back when they introduced Smallvillian versions of the Flash (that is, Impulse), Aquaman (Aquateen? Why does that make us hungry?), and Cyborg, among others: stick with the street clothes and add a little flair, or glow-y eyes. Also: avoid big, thick gloves. And boots of any kind. And please, no sleevless outfits unless you have the guns to justify it (yeah, we're talking to YOU, Shanks .. and in a much nicer way, to YOU, Green Arrow. Rowr!)
Many decades ago, in a different time and for a different company, there was a serious attempt to relaunch then then-moribund X-Men by having the lose their costumes, hit the mean streets, and cruise around in a convertible. No. Seriously. A wonderful artist named Gil Kane, who epitomized the 'look' of Green Lantern for years, gave it his very best effort. But after a very short time, the Powers That Were at Marvel realized that superheroes in street clothes just don't cut the mustard -- not in the comics.
Maybe it's time we admit the opposite: that superheroes in capes and tights have a real tough time being taken seriously on TV. Maybe someday somebody will pull it off ... but not this time. And not on Smallville.
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