Smallville: The Comic # 1 - Smallville: The Comic

Smallville: The Comic, like the Superman Adventures and Superboy: The Comic - later renamed The Adventures of Superboy - before it, is unique in that it is a companion comic book to a television series based on a comic book (characters)! The Superman Adventures, like most every incarnation of the Batman Adventures, was pretty smartly done. A credit to the source material and probably the series bible created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini. The Salkinds weren't exactly rocket scientists (these were the guys that thought it was a good idea to fire Richard Donner and hire Richard Lester to finish Superman II), and followed up the dismal Superman III, IV and Supergirl with Superboy. I'd seen a few episodes of John Haymes Newton-Gerard Christopher at Shuster college, with the very hot Stacy Haiduk, and I bailed after the second season. I never bothered with Lois & Clark. If you liked it, God bless you. I'd read where it was going to focus primarily on the romance/relationship between Clark Kent/Superman (Dean Cain)  and Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher). As hot as Teri Hatcher is, I just couldn't... 
 
I'm not sure why i gave Smallville on the WB a try. Or why I stick with it, what with all the secrets, lies and meteor freaks.  
 
Smallville: The Comic is so eager to please. Two stories, a behind the scenes look at the pilot from season one and the season two premiere, along with interviews with Tom Welling (Clark), Kristen Kreuk (Lana) and Michael Rosenbaum (Lex). All 64 pages under a John Van Fleet painted cover. I think it would have been nice if Van Fleet, or maybe Gordon Purcell, or even someone like Christopher Jones or maybe even the late, great Kurt Schaffenbereger had done the interiors. 
 
The first story, Raptor, with pencils by Ray Allan Martinez has a good, solid Phil Jimenez feel to it. Series writer Mark Verheiden captures the dark, moody X-Files influence on the series, with a story about one of Clark's classmates mutated by meteor rock mixed with dinosaur bones. Everything is here, except for the Kent Farm and the Talon. Neither one looks anything like it does on the series. Since this was released near the start of the second season; it was probably produced before the start of the first season - or very nearly rushed into production - not all the backgrounds are going to match. The Talon is almost glaringly stripped down, bare and vague. Which is disappointing considering how well the story starts out. 
 
Exile And The Kingdom, the second story written by Michael Green with art by John Paul Leon. is pretty decent. I don't particularly care for Leon's art, it just doesn't seem to fit here. Again, I'll claim a little OCD. Call me Superboy/man Prime; for a book like this I'm going to be looking for one of two things: a look that is similar to the series - like what you might find in the pages of a Star Trek book; or, a look that is consistent to other Clark Kent books. The late, great Mike Weringo or maybe Todd Nauck might have been perfect on either of these stories. Not that they are totally, completely unreadable, mind you, but when you've got a great cover, why waste it? Especially when you're considering longevity. The companion comic for the Timm-Dini Batman animated series lasted well past the show's run. It morphed on into several different titles, only slightly changing the look of the characters. 
 
Smallville: The Comic is very much like a Secret Files and Origins issue. It's a hybrid comic of comic book stories and text. It is a very rare comic book that can keep up or surpass a television series that inspires it. The hard question to answer is, why would I want to read a comic book about (or based on) a television show, when I can just watch the show?