MY REVIEW: Review of tonight's Smallville Episode "Booster"

In season 8 of Smallville, Geoff Johns penned his first episode for the series entitled "Legion", which brought the three core members of the Legion of Superheroes from the 31st Century and onto our screens in Smallville. The next year, we were given the first ever 2-hour movie event of the series in "Absolute Justice", starring the first superhero team ever assembled in comics, the Justice Society of America. Now, in Smallville's tenth and final season, we were given a showboating, glory grabbing hero in "Booster", starring the greatest hero we've never heard of.... until now-- BOOSTER GOLD!! These three AMAZING episodes in the last three years were all brought to life from the DC Comics legendary comic book writer Geoff Johns.

Since 2008, Smallville fans have always looked forward to seeing what famous DC Comics characters Geoff would bring to Smallville next. No one thought Geoff could top what he did with the Legion, but then he surpassed any and all expectactions with the 2-hour movie event bringing us the Justice Society of America, namly Hawkman, Doctor Fate, and Stargirl. And in Geoff's last Smallville episode, he doesn't disappoint. In DC Comics, Geoff Johns made a lot of contributions and new interpretations of the character of Booster Gold that many fans consider to be the greatest incarnations of the character. In the episode, Geoff wrote Booster true to his comic book origins: He's a former failed athlete from the 25th century who failed at being a hero in his own time period, so he time travels to the 21st century to grab as much glory and fame as he can. Using his data-tech android Skeets, Booster utilizes knowledge of the future to gain the glory and fame that he so desperately desires.

Eric Martsolf did an absolutely AMAZING job of portraying the Golden Guardian, Booster Gold. Not only does he look the part of the character, but he also captures both personalities of Booster. For the glory grabbing showboat, Martsolf uses a bit of Tony Stark meets Ron Burgundy. He even goes so far to use the Anchor Man quote, "I'm kind of a big deal." While Martsolf was able to perfectly create the annoyingly arrogent facade that Booster Gold puts on for the cameras, he was also able to capture the insecure and ashamed personality of Booster. When Booster Gold realizes the consequences of his actions and how his seek for fame nearly caused the deaths of several people, Booster faces the truth about his past and why he's really trying to become Metropolis's favorite hero.

Another character that is introduced in this episode is Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle. Jaime Reyes was a character created by Geoff Johns during the cataclysmic comic book event called Infinite Crisis. True to the comic book origin, Jaime comes into contact with the Blue Beetle Scarab. Once it attaches to him, Jaime begins to experience the first painful transformation into Blue Beetle. Jaren Brandt Bartlett does a great job portraying the dorky, insecure character of Jaime Reyes. When he's first seen, Jaime has no strength or self esteem, and when first met with the daunting power of the Beetle Scarab, he fears its power and his ability to control it. Both Jaren and Eric did fantastic jobs portraying these two popular characters from the DC Universe. I would also just like to point out that Geoff Johns even goes so far as to give homage to all incarnations of The Blue Beetle: He makes mention of the first Blue Beetle in DC Comics, Dan Garret, as a man working in the lab of the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord. Dan Garrett is the first person the Beetle Scarab latches onto and results in Garrett's death. After the Beetle Scarab is lost, Ted Kord plays a role to retrieve the Scarab through the assistance of Booster Gold.

Since season 5, Tom Welling has had quite a few goes BEHIND the camera as a director. Last season, Tom had the great oppertunity to direct the second hour of Geoff's "Absolute Justice" episode. This year, Tom was again given the privledge to bring Geoff's script to life with "Booster". Tom did a fantastic job not only with the lighting and camera work for the episode itself, but did truly great work with the Booster Gold television commercial that we see in the episode. Tom used a lot of great long-shots for us to see all the action and fantastic costumes that we really wanted to get good views of, but he also has great use of close-ups for the highly emotional scenes. His choice of camera work for Booster's "epiphany/coming to his senses" scene was beautiful. I also really enjoyed his use of camera angles and slide of hand for the "Phone Booth Changing" sequence. Tom Welling has really grown as a director over the past 5 years and is arguably one of the best directors the series has ever had, in my opinion.

While on the topic of Tom Welling, his performance in this episode deserves merit. While we have all known for a while that Tom does a great job portraying the bold and heroic version of Clark Kent, we have really had yet to see him perform the bumbling, awkward Clark Kent disguise that will protect his identity in the near future. Many fans of the show have been a bit skeptical if Tom Welling could actually pull of the clumsy and nerdy Clark Kent, but I think he passed with flying colors. Part of that can be attributed to Geoff Johns' writing of the character, but Tom's performance was priceless. His bouts of stuttering and knocking things over seemed natural and didn't seem forced. I really look forward to seeing him further this performance in the last 3 episodes of this series. It really is too bad that they didn't do this sooner.

Overall, I really liked this episode. While I may be a bit biased because I love DC Comics and I've been reading everything DC since I was six, I genuinely liked this episode. The writing was fantastic and the acting was top notch from the main cast and especially the special guest appearances. "Booster" not only gave us a great episode featuring new DC Comics characters to the show, but it also really helped in ushering all of us into the final 3 episodes of the series. If you're a new or old Smallville fan, you should definately catch "Booster" as soon as you can. Or if you or friends you know who don't know much about comics, but are interested in getting to know some of the well written, but lesser known characters of the DCU, then I definately suggest watching this episode AND Geoff Johns' other Smallville episodes, "Legion" and "Absolute Justice". I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.