Smallville fans have a lot to be happy about these days. The CW has officially renewed the show for its tenth season after strong performances on Friday nights and a creative resurgence due in no small part to the airing of “Absolute Justice,”  the two part Justice Society episode by Geoff Johns. Here’s one more reason to jump on your couch and get excited. The JSA will return to Smallville before the season 9 finale.

MTV’s Splash Page reports from last weekend’s Emerald City Comic-Con at Comics Alliance, Johns said that “[The JSA] do appear again at the end of season on Smallville.” Additionally, Johns stated, “The hope is for every DC character to appear outside the comic books. Correctly.”

This isn’t the only hint that the JSA would bbe back soon. In November, Michael Shanks (Hawkman) hinted to fans he might be returning in future episodes to mentor Clark Kent.

“Clark and his friends are figuring out what their destinies will be, so there is a ripe opportunity for the Justice Society who had been there done that to offer some tough love teaching,” said Shanks.“The way things land at the end of it all, there’s an open door for Carter Hall to be revisited and possibly be part of further mentoring Clark down the road.”

Additionally, Johns has also hinted that Darkseid and the dark gods of Apokolips may appear in season ten of Smallville.

When I first heard Hawaii Five-O was getting the remake treatment I wasn’t that interested. I only vaguely remembered the original series and it was one step closer to rebooting Magnum P.I. (how sacrilegious would will that be?) in my opinion. However, I’ve begun to shift in the other direction regarding this series as more casting news comes out.

The most recent addition is James Marsters. Probably best known as Spike from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Marsters also played Brianic on Smallville and Barnabas on Caprica.  As exciting as it may be to have him on the new Hawaii Five-O it doesn’t sound like he’ll have a continuing role, at least not yet. Marsters will be in the pilot and appear, “as the nemesis of lead character Jack McGarrett.”

At this point it seems producers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek, Transformers, Fringe) are trying to capture the geek community for the new show.  Marsters joins a cast that encapsulates geek programming; Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica), Daniel Dae Kim (Lost), Jean Smart (24), and Alex O’Loughlin (Moonlight) are already on deck.  With Scott Caan on board as well suddenly Hawaii Five-O is a show I can start to get behind.

As we previously reported, NBC has given new season order for 30 Rock, The Office and Community while, according to a recent interview with NBC network president Angela Bromstad, a fifth season of the beleaguered Heroes is still undetermined. In addition, the CW has ordered a 10th season for Smallville.

Now, Fox has officially renewed the J.J. Abrams sci-fi procedural Fringe for a third season. The show had perfoemed reasonably well but was not a ratings powerhouse. Still, it’s hard to believe it wouldn’t get renewed, especially given its J.J. Abrams connection and the fact that Lost is ending this season.

Two big reasons for Fox to keep it around for another year. Plus, any show with the great John Noble, the hot Anna Torv and the cool Leonard Nimoy should be on the air as long as it wants to be.

The fate of Jack Bauer and the CTU team of 24 is still up in the air due to falling ratings and the show’s considerable expense to produce. Fox president Kevin Reilly recently told The Live Feed:

“It’s a very tough call. It’s a huge part of our legacy, and there’s not a lot of shows that could do a 9 share against the Olympics. Tremendous sales asset for us still; a show we’re so very proud of creatively. So it’s not an easy call.”

Well, if our own Shannon Hood has anything to say about it, that call should be an easy one.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff on the radar this week. An Avatar alumni could face off against Conan, Modern Warfare developers bring a fight to Activision, and director Guy Ritchie may be breathing new life into the heroes of Camelot.

Fox finds its shadow for $1 million and David Slade may be the man

Fans of the comic book series The Shadow rejoice as it seems the reboot continues to move forward.  While it was thought Sony and director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Army of Darkness) would bring a new version of the character to the big screen things have changed somewhat.

After Raimi began shopping the property around Fox decided to purchase the rights. Sadly, it sounds like Raimi may no longer direct, possibly replaced by David Slade.  Slade directed the vampire film Thirty Days of Night which, unfortunately, felt just that long in the theater. Here’s hoping he can put a little more adrenaline into The Shadow.

How I Met your…Smurf?

Neil Patrick Harris will be venturing to the land of blue, three apples tall creatures in Smurfs: The Movie.  The How I Met Your Mother star won’t be playing a Smurf though.  As this film will be a mix of live action and animation, Harris will be playing the lead live action character.  Too bad, I would have liked to know just which Smurf he’d play.  ”Awesome” Smurf maybe?  Let us know your picks in the comments.

‘Wolverine 2′ starts shooting next January

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was pretty good, but it was missing one thing: ninjas!  Hopefully that will be rectified in the sequel which is set to begin shooting next January.  Delving into Wolvie’s Japanese mythos the script follows stories penned by two pretty big names:

“Based on a story cycle by Frank Miller and Chris Claremont, Wolverine’s adventures in martial arts will be a love story featuring a Japanese actress, I am told. ‘It’s a beautiful story,’ says a source, ‘and will be very different than the first film.’”

Okay, I’m not really sold on the “love story” angle but considering the number of women that went to see Wolverine (pretty much for mutant hunk, Hugh Jackman) at least this will be one you can take your girlfriends to.

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Even though filming is still some time away, recently director Joe Johnston told MTV Splashpage a casting decision on who would portray Captain America in The First Avenger “was weeks away.” Well, weeks have gone by and according to Deadline Hollywood, the list of actors for the titular role has been narrowed down to five finalists.

The five front-runners for the role of Captain America are, according to the site, Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl), John Krasinski (The Office), Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights), Mike Vogel (Cloverfield) and Michael Cassidy (Smallville). All five actors have reportedly agreed to test deals with Johnston and Marvel Studios to try out for the role.

Not only must these actor agree to test for the role, if eventually cast, they must also sign for nine other options, including potential sequels to The First Avenger. This makes sense considering the upcoming Marvel movies and their desire to team them all for a potential Avengers movie in the future. Still, that’s a lot to negotiate.

Of course, fans everywhere have their personal favorites and I we have ours. Picking from this list as if these were the only choices, our first choice would be Smallville’s Michael Cassidy. He’s able to do the action as well as being a pretty good actor as well, so he’d be good for the part.

Sadly, our favorite choice of all and not on this list, Joel Gretsch (The 4400, V), is probably too old now, even though he would be great in the part. No matter who they choose, let’s hope they take this movie as seriously and do as great a job on it as Marvel did with Iron Man. Cap deserves no less.

Who do you think should play Captain America in The First Avenger?

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are joined by our resident comic book expert Sal Loria to discuss a bunch of topics. Some of these include comics (of course), the upcoming Green Lantern movie and the recently released concept art, the Deadpool movie, Smallville, the Superman franchise, Zac Ephron as Spider-Man, Batman, the comic book business, the nature of heroism and a whole lot more.

The guys also make some picks this week including Sal’s pick of Marvel’s mini-series Deadpool: Suicide Kings, Matt’s choice of the Cohen Brothers A Serious Man and Chris’ pick of David Lynch’s modern classic Mulholland Drive.

As usual, if you have any comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitterand at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

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This week marks a pretty big event for the gang over at Smallville as they encounter the Justice Society of America for the first time. Granted, this isn’t the first time other DC superheroes have made it onto the show, with characters like Green Arrow, Aquaman, Black Canary, and others joining in the fray from time to time. With all those characters making appearances in the past, there’s still something even more special about this week’s two-hour episode.

While this season has brought up some interesting plots including Braniac, the Legion, Metallo, and others, this coming event, written by Geoff Johns, seems to take the cake. From Kryptonsite:

A man named Sylvester Pemberton tracks down Chloe (Allison Mack) and tells her he knows about her team of superheroes and needs their help. However, before he can explain who he is, he is attacked and killed by Icicle (guest star Wesley Macinnes). Clark (Tom Welling) and Chloe’s (Allison Mack) investigation leads Clark to the former headquarters of the Justice Society of America where he meets up with Nelson AKA Dr. Fate (guest star Brent Stait), Carter Hall AKA Hawkman (guest star Michael Shanks) and Courtney AKA Star Girl (guest star Britt Irvin).

Courtney pleads with Hawkman and Dr. Fate to help her catch the killer that is targeting their group but they are reluctant to resume their duties as superheroes. Clark, John Jones (guest star Phil Morris), Green Arrow (Justin Hartley) and Chloe team up to help the JSA stop Icicle before he murders another member of the group. Meanwhile, Lois (Erica Durance) receives a package from a mysterious agency called Checkmate, run by Amanda Waller (guest star Pam Grier).

Check out two exclusive clips from Smallville: Absolute Justice and be sure to watch the entire two-hour event this Friday at 8/7 Central on the CW.

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Smallville is a show that hasn’t really generated that much intense interest with with true fanboys in it’s 9 seasons, yet we are all pretty excited about the upcoming “Ultimate Justice” event, in which the Justice Society of America make an appearance on the show. We already got a brief look at Michael Shanks as Hawkman earlier last week, and now we get much more to salivate over.

The episode was originally called “Society,” but due to the magnitude of the story, has been stretched to a two-part event entitled “Ultimate Justice.” As well as Shanks, the rest of the guest cast is filled out by Brent Stait (Andromeda) as Kent Nelson/Doctor Fate, Britt Irvin (Courtney Whitmore/Stargirl), Phil Morris  as John Jones/Martian Manhunter, and Erica Carroll (Reunion) as Dr. Fate’s wife, Inza.

Check out the brand new preview clip of the episodes after the jump, in which we get a glimpse of the Green Lantern ring, the Sandman mask, Dr. Fate, and a really cool Justice Society “Last Supper” painting. The episode is set to air January 29th of 2010.

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As we reported a few weeks back, the gang on Smallville will be getting another big surprise from the DC Universe, after Metallo and General Zod already made appearances this season. It was announced that members of the Justice Society, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, and Stargirl would be making appearances, with DC superstar Geoff Johns writing the episode.

Later, it was announced that Hawkman will be played by Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson of TV’s Stargate franchise), Brent Stait (Stargate Atlantis) will play Doctor Fate, and Britt Irvin (ABC’s V) will play Stargirl. We’re now getting our first glimpse at the costume for Michael Shanks’ Hawkman, and it’s quite impressive.

From Impulse’s red hoodie to Green Arrow’s green hoodie, Smallville has been quite infamous for taking beloved costumes and “updating” them for their universe. That theory has been put to shame this season with Brian Austin Green’s Metallo make-up and Clark becoming even closer to wearing his blue and red spandex.

Check out the full Hawkman screen cap after the break and catch Smallville on The CW every Friday at 8/7C.

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If you love Smallville and can’t bear the thought of the show ending after this current season, you may not have to face the loss of the show just yet. According to EW, even though the show isn’t even at the mid point of its current season, number nine for those keeping score at home, there’s already talk of a season ten — and not just from fans.

“We are really, really pushing for season 10,” executive producer Kelly Souders told EW. “We really hope it happens.” Even with the show moving to the dreaded Friday Night timeslot, ratings haven’t dropped off as much as some had predicted, which is a good indicator of the show’s enduring popularity.

“I think the word still isn’t out there that we’re on Friday nights. So if people keep tuning in and telling their friends about it, I think [a 10th season] is quite likely.” Sounders added. So, knowing this and with a season ten still not a certainty, are the producers currently planning a season, or a series, finale for the end of season nine?

“It’s something that we faced last year, too,” said Sounders in the article. “To try and break two different endings for a season kind of puts you at cross-purposes a little bit. For one, you’ll rev things up, and for another, you’re trying to bring everything to the finish line. But we’re really planning on breaking a season finale and not a series finale.”