Faded Boxers

Another “Freak of The Week” episode so there’s really not much to say in terms of recap. But what’s different this week than with any other previous episodes was this time the freak is no Kryptonite-powered teenager. Instead, we get Phantom Zone escapee who Clark unwittingly broke free when he himself escaped from the Zone.

It’s safe to say that we can expect more Phantom Zone alumni in the future.

Pretty much the only thing worth talking about here is Green Arrow. I know he’s not one of the heavyweights in the DC universe and is not really that interesting for many people, but he is the closest thing that Smallville has gotten to Batman. And a show with an image as squeaky clean as this sorely needs to up the badass factor; and only the inclusion of characters like Batman, or in this case Green Arrow can do that.

Stating the obvious, Oliver Queen, like Bruce Wayne is also a Billionaire who does not possess super powers. However, more parallelisms between Green Arrow and Batman are detailed by Wikipedia:

Green Arrow was also created as an archery-themed version of the earlier character Batman, as several similarities between the two characters can be spotted, especially in Green Arrow’s earlier incarnation: Green Arrow had a teenaged sidekick named Speedy just as Batman has Robin; Green Arrow and Batman were/are both millionaire playboys in their secret identities; Green Arrow had an Arrowcar and an Arrowplane similar to Batman’s Batmobile and Batplane; Green Arrow had the arrowcave while Batman had the batcave; Green Arrow was summoned by the Arrow-signal, just as Batman is summoned to police headquarters by the Bat-signal; in the Golden Age stories, Green Arrow had a clown-like archfoe named Bull’s-Eye who was a thinly-disguised version of Batman’s archfoe, the Joker. Some of these similarities have been explained in-continuity as inspired by a meeting between Green Arrow and Batman in their early careers, as Green Arrow looked toward Batman as an inspiration.

Also, if the actor who plays Green Arrow looks familiar to fans of Smallville, that’s because he’s Justin Hartley, the lead to the Smallville spinoff Aquaman.

If the rumors of Green Arrow forming a mini-JLA during his stay in the show, we can expect him to share some screen time with the original actor who played Aquaman in Smallville, Alan Ritchson.

More goodies below:

Official Episode Summary

Screen Caps:

Oh, and this might be an important plot point that may be be used to set up more conflicts in future episodes–or it may be just the writers having fun at Clark’s expense. Now that Lana is with Lex, and Chloe is dating Jimmy Olsen, and Lois and Oliver are starting to become an item, Clark is once again left in his fortress of solitude.