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An Untold Tale: Steven DeKnight Discusses Smallville’s Justice League Spinoff

In previously-unpublished interview material, Steven DeKnight discusses a Smallville Justice League spinoff that never happened.

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Recently on Twitter, writer-producer Steven DeKnight (Marvel’s Daredevil, Spartacus) made a reference to a Justice League spinoff from Smallville that almost happened a decade ago. The series would have been led by Justin Hartley as Green Arrow/Oliver Queen — five years before Stephen Amell took on the hood — and characters including Bart Allen, Cyborg, and Aquaman, all from the Smallville episode “Justice” which DeKnight wrote and directed, were to be a part of it.

Smallville Justice“Justice” was one of the highest-rated episodes of Smallville and was also one of the highest-rated TV episodes in The CW’s ten-year history.

Nine years ago, in doing interviews for the Smallville: The Official Companion book for Season 6, this writer spoke with DeKnight about the “Justice” episode, and while the book itself has a lot of quotes related to what we saw on the screen, a lot of the talk about the Justice League spinoff was excised. As those quotes were not published, we are sharing them here for the first time.

“There were a couple of different plans that never quite came to fruition,” DeKnight revealed during the interview for the book. “At one point we were planning a spin-off; we were starting to put it together.”

“It was going to be basically Green Arrow, Cyborg, Flash, a couple of other DC characters living in Metropolis,” DeKnight recalled. “The idea was that Oliver Queen was basically giving refuge to young people with superpowers, kind of in a Professor X kind of way, putting together this team and also trying to help out these people, like he says in ‘Justice’ about how he helped out Victor Stone and Bart and Arthur Curry.”

manyfacesjla2The Justice League spinoff would have been teed up in Smallville’s Season 6 finale. “The idea with that was that Green Arrow was going to appear towards the end and help Clark with his final battle, provide him with an important piece of information. As it was in the season, we actually find out that Green Arrow and his crew of superheroes have been attacking the 33.1 installations. In ‘Prototype’ they provide the information on how to penetrate the prototype’s forcefield. But originally he was going to come back and help out, and that was going to springboard the spin-off that, ultimately, just never happened,” he said.

Sadly, it was not meant to be. “I was supposed to co-create it and run it, so I’m doubly sad. We were all really excited about it, you know, me and the other actors. We all got along great. We really wanted to make this show, and we thought it would be really, really cool,” DeKnight lamented.

sv6companionWhat might we have seen in a Justice League spinoff? We don’t know, but one plan might have included Brainiac — even possibly in a different form, played by a different actor if James Marsters had been busy. “We had talked about bringing Brainiac back, quite possibly in a different form, played by a different actor. We’d kicked around some ideas for bringing him back as somebody else from the Buffyverse, which would’ve been a fun nod. We talked about bringing him back as a woman. And I wouldn’t be surprised at some point between now and the time the show wraps up that Brainiac pops back up,” he said, predicting something that ultimately did not happen. DeKnight revealed that he did have a master plan for Brainiac in the spinoff. “I had a master plan for Brainiac showing up in the spin-off that I won’t tell you what it is, because you never know, a spin-off may happen in the future, and I will use this. But it was awesome,” he said.

Smallville: The Official Companion Season 6 is still available on Amazon.com – order a copy and show the publisher there’s still demand, because this writer would still enjoy finishing the series someday, and there are more stories like this one within! And if you’d like more Smallville Untold Tales, please let us know!

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3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Lu Reindeer

    September 1, 2016 at 6:30 am

    Hell yes I like Smallville I always did, I’ve seen the entire show twice and all do it again and again I never get tired of watching it. I guess is because I grew up with the show best show ever.

  2. Forry

    September 7, 2016 at 1:42 pm

    I hadn’t really watched Smallville until this past month. As a fan of Amell’s Arrow I actually started watching Smallville from Green Arrow’s first appearance to see if I dug it. I was almost instantly reminded of why Superman was my favorite hero. I loved the characters, it would have been great to see a Justice League show, but I don’t if it was exactly the right time. I do wish though that the current DCETVU hadn’t forsaken those 10 years of world building to basically use the same formulas and heroes without any of the familiar faces. I understand Hartley & Amell would have created continuity issues, but I would have gotten over it to finally see my era’s Clark Kent in full Superman regalia even once.

    • Forry

      September 7, 2016 at 1:43 pm

      Oh yeah, BTW, now I’m starting smallville from the beginning so it’s like I’m getting a backstory to the backstory. cool way to enjoy the show.

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Smallville

Smallville Creators To Attend 25th Anniversary Convention

Smallville creators Alfred Gough & Miles Millar will be attending Creation’s 25th anniversary convention.

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Every story has a beginning… and these two were there at the very beginning.

As if there weren’t enough reasons already to attend Creation Entertainment’s 25th Anniversary Salute to Smallville convention which is happening November 7-8, 2026 in Nashville… two new additions have been added to the already-packed lineup… two folks who were there at the very start.

Smallville creators Alfred Gough & Miles Millar will be attending the 25th anniversary show, which will run a few weeks after the 25th anniversary of the October 16, 2001 premiere of Smallville on The WB. They’ll be joining a lineup already populated by some huge names including Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, Kristin Kreuk, Erica Durance and more, and this year, there are even some new guests that are attending their first Creation Smallville show, including the legendary Helen Slater (Lara-El) and Phil Morris (John Jones!)

Beyond Smallville, Al & Miles have kept themselves very busy on several projects, most recently Netflix’s Wednesday and the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice film. Other credits of theirs include The Shannara Chronicles, Into the Badlands, and Spider-Man 2, the last of which is known by many as “the best live-action Spider-Man movie.” As far as we know, this is their first convention discussing Smallville since their time on the show way back when it was Season 7 being promoted at San Diego Comic-Con. If you’ve had questions about the show that you’ve been sitting on for over two decades, the two best people to answer them – Al Gough & Miles Millar – will now be there!

The anniversary convention will be co-emceed by KryptonSite’s Craig Byrne (that’s me!) and The House of El’s Derek Russell for the third year in a row, and we’d love to see you.

Get your admission passes, photo ops, autographs and more by visiting Creation’s website!

If you are still on the fence about going, Creation is offering 10% off all admission passes, photo op, autograph, and special event tickets for a limited time! Use the coupon code SMV10 and click “Apply” to get the discount (service fees and sales tax will still apply). The sale ends Saturday, July 18 at 5:00 PM PST.

A full guest list of the actors can be found below.

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Comics

Black Star: Pre-Order The Comic From Kristin Kreuk Today!

Kristin Kreuk’s comic book Black Star is available to pre-order from your local comic shop.

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July 29, 2026 will mark the release of the first issue of the new Titan Comics series Black Star which is written by Smallville alum and current Murder In A Small Town star Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang) alongside collaborators Peter Mooney and Eric Putzer with art by Joe Bacardo. The five-issue series is described as “a Northern Gothic Noir tinged with horror and dark humor.”

In Black Star, amidst skirmishings between two warring factions in the early nineteenth-century fur trade, Dashiell Carlyle discovers he has magical abilities… and that he’s not alone. Thrust into a secret order with designs to use their magic to build a new and better world, Dashiell discovers that their utopia may come at a horrific cost.

Here at KryptonSite, we of course are very supportive of Kristin’s new endeavor and hope others will by pre-ordering the first issue of the series. While there may be copies on the shelf on the day of release, pre-ordering means that you shouldn’t miss out… and the key pre-order period is what really helps for sales, as retailers have until Monday, July 6 to get their orders in. To find your nearest comic shop, visit the Comic Shop Locator website, and to ask then to pre-order a physical copy for you, call your local comic shop or, if in the UK or Europe, you can contact Forbidden Planet. Black Star will also have a presence (and an exclusive cover) at the Comic-Con International in San Diego later this month… just head to Booth #5337 (the Titan Publishing booth) to get yours! [Maybe while there, tell Titan you want more Smallville companion guide books from Craig Byrne! – shameless Craig]

The other thing you can do to ensure you get all five issues of Black Star is to  set up a “pull-list” subscription with your local comic store, which tells the retailer to put aside a copy for you each time a new issue is released, on a rolling basis. Some retailers will also offer you the option of pulling just the first issue of any new related series, so you can try it before you commit. Either way, you won’t have to worry about it selling out before you get your chance!

Finally, you can pre-order a digital copy online… and maybe get a few cents to KryptonSite from an affiliate link as well. You can do that here.

Now for the really fun stuff… want to see some interior pages as well as several variant covers they are releasing. Artists for the covers include Martin Simmonds (The Department of Truth), Joe Bacardo (Black Star), Robert Hack (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), and Alison Sampson (Sleeping Beauties)! Enjoy:

COVER-A-COVER-E-FOIL-COVER-G-VIRGIN-Black_Star_1_Martin-Simmonds

COVER-A-COVER-E-FOIL-COVER-G-VIRGIN-Black_Star_1_Martin-Simmonds
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Smallville

Smallville Ended 15 Years Ago Today

The final episode of Smallville aired May 13, 2011 on The CW.

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Do you know where you were on May 13, 2011?

If you were a regular visitor to KryptonSite back in the day, you know very well where you were – anxiously anticipating that Friday night’s airing of the final two episodes of Smallville on The CW. Would Clark finally put on the suit? How will Lex come back? Will Clark and Lois get married? Will Chloe change her name to become L– oh, never mind that one. 

Regardless of your thoughts on that finale, May 13, 2011 was a moment, and for a lot of us who stuck with the show for ten years, we really thought it was the end. We didn’t know the talented Bryan Q. Miller would be writing his own “Season 11” continuation comic soon after. We certainly had no idea we’d see Tom Welling as Clark and Erica Durance as Lois, in character again in the 2019 “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover on The CW. The KryptonSite Forums were certainly hopping, if you have any curiosity to see what people were posting that night.

And of course, now fans have the opportunity to see their favorite actors at conventions, including Salute to Smallville which has a big 25th anniversary panel planned for Gold Admission pass holders. (Though if you’re not Gold, trust me… there’s greatness for everyone else too!) KryptonSite webmaster and Editor-in-Chief Craig Byrne (that’s me!) has been lucky enough to have been a host of the event these past two years, and now is part of the team at Creation, making sure this event would be awesome. Creation has just listed a sale through Friday 5/15 where you can type in SMALL15 at checkout to get 15% off… one percent for every year we have sadly not had Smallville. So, definitely check it out! Many members of the show’s cast will be in attendance!

We’ve still got a lot coming up on the site to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the show’s premiere… but as for today, the 15th anniversary of the show’s ending… have a good time… and keep holding on to Smallville.

And 15 years? WE’RE OLD.

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