With the last season of Smallville off to a rollicking good start, we snatched up the chance to sit down with Smallville long-time executive producers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson. While they were a touch shy about spilling the Kryptonite on this season’s surprises, we never-the-less used our super strength to investigate the return of former cast members and historic episode 200 (set to air October 15th).

It seems this season will be strewn with super heroes and villains from across the galaxy.  Giving Kal-El a run for his money, Laura Vandervoort returns in brilliant blue and red style as Supergirl in episode 3, airing October 8th.

The Flickcast: Can you tell us about any plans to bring back favorite cast members from past seasons?

Brian Peterson: Having Annette O’Toole back as Martha Kent and Michael McKean as Perry White- we worked all season to get that to happen. It was fantastic, they were so great, it was such a great episode.

We’d like to, it’s hard because all of these actors, it’s not always up to us, like they have TV shows and careers and theater. You know Glover, we would love to have John Glover back and that man is on Broadway from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.

So, that’s our goal, absolutely, to try to get people like Perry, and Martha Kent, and Lionel Luther back, or at least maybe an appearance.

FC: Last season, Smallville‘s epic episode entitled, “Absolute Justice”, featured the monumental members of the Justice Society. Any talk of a Justice Society spin-off series? Will any members of the Justice Society be making future appearances this season?

BP: I know people are so excited about that and right now, to my knowledge, there are not (spin-off series). I think there’s always opportunities.

But as far as episodes, we’re definitely going to have some of the Justice Leaguers and Justice Society people back in the show for sure (check out episode 2). But as far as a spin-off, I wish that was something I could see into the future and know, but I don’t know.

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With the new season of Smallville fast approaching this Friday on the CW, The Flickcast took the opportunity to sit down with Justin Hartley, aka the Green Arrow. He was laid-back, insightful, and of course easy on the eyes.

DC Comic’s Green Arrow has made headlines recently for taking care of bad guys anti-hero style. Smallville‘s Oliver Queen is no different, albeit he had a certain explosive panache when he nixed Lex Luthor. The perceptive and pensive Justin Hartley had much to say about his character’s path towards enlightenment this season.

The Flickcast: What excites you the most about getting the green light another, final season?

Justin Hartley: The final season, we’re excited. I think I speak for everyone when I say that. The cool thing about this year, and I’m sure you’ve heard this before, is that there’s all these…little tidbits that haven’t quite been sewn up yet.

It’s interesting because usually they go, “Well we’re going to tie it up next year or at the end of it,” and they plan on tying it up whenever. But it’s like go-time so they kind of have to tie it up now. So hopefully we’ll get, maybe even one of those (questions answered) every episode. They’re doing it the right way.

It’s really cool, especially for all those people who have been watching the show for a long time, that we did find out that we had a final season and then we’re going to shoot it. Instead of at the end of nine finding out that there is no final season. So we have the opportunity to do that- which is pretty awesome.

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Even though Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment didn’t make the big announcement about Batman: Arkham City until after Comic Con, they did make sure to let us get our hands on a more kid friendly Batman title. Based off the animated series of the same name, Batman: The Brave and The Bold, which is coming to both the Wii and Nintendo DS, takes classic 2D side scrolling gameplay mixed with hand drawn animations to present a mix of modern and retro to the screen.

Each level is built as a cooperative experience pairing up Batman with either Robin, Aquaman, Black Canary, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Plastic Man or the Red Tornado facing off against the schemes of any of the game’s various villains. These villains include Catman, Catwoman, Gorilla Grodd, Mongul, Starro and Two-Face. Like the comic book and the show, Batman: The Brave and The Bold focuses on the idea of Batman teaming up with another hero to take on some villainous force he would not have been able to take on solo. Each level features a different hero and drop-in, drop-out gameplay allowing for players to hop in even mid-level.

The game contains a full five minutes of original animation created by WB Animation, the same team that works on the Batman: The Brave and The Bold series. These are seen throughout any of the game’s 2D cutscenes. Everything in the game is hand drawn before being digitally scanned and then animated. Because of this production style, the game contains around 15,000 individual animations. The game definitely stands out amongst all of the other 3D computer animated titles currently being shown.

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Fans of Dr. Horrible rejoice! If you have been laying in bed at night, unable to sleep at the prospect of one day hoping to hear Neil Patrick Harris belt out some more power chords as a devious super villain, then look no further than last week’s episode of Batman Brave and the Bold.

For those who don’t watch the show regularly, Brave and the Bold is a different, younger take on the DC animated universe. The show’s creators have managed to take elements from the Silver Age of comics, such as a young Green Arrow, and the Modern Age, such as the new Blue Beetle. The animation also borrows and references styles from the Bruce Timm animation to the undertone of the Adam West Batman series.

In the episode, Mayhem of the Music Meister, NPH guest stars as the villain Music Meister, who has the power of hypnosis through the sound of his voice. Much like in the musical episode of Buffy, the characters all succumb to song and dance due to the villain, which makes for an easy one-shot story.

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