Thursday's episode of
Smallville, "Siren," introduced the Black Canary (played by
Painkiller Jane's
Alaina Huffman), and also marked the return of Oliver Queen, aka the Green Arrow. Actor
Justin Hartley enjoyed coming back (for one episode only, due to the WGA Strike-induced shorter season), which, he told Buddy TV's JOHN KUBICEK, wasn't difficult at all.
"The only thing I had to make sure I was doing was keeping myself in semi good shape, you know what I mean?" he asked rhetorically. "You don't want to show up and bust through that costume."
Before stepping back onto the Vancouver set, however, he made sure to bone up on Black Canary's history with Green Arrow, because he wanted to be faithful to that back story. "That's pretty much how I do all of my research. I think that's important. You're not creating a brand new character, you have to kind of serve...the whole mythology of the character kind of as you do it. I was familiar with the Black Canary, the relationship and all that kind of stuff from reading the comics. I was never really like a huge comic book fan until I started doing all this kind of stuff, and you get sucked into it really quickly."
Hartley definitely did more research than did Executive Producer/Showrunner
Al Gough before he and partner
Miles Millar brought Dinah Lance into the
Smallville Universe.
"I'll be honest with you, I'm not that familiar with her in the comics other than her basic information," admitted Gough. "She's got the 'canary cry,' she's got the fishnets, she kicks ass, and I think has a lot of attitude. I think she incorporates the basic tenets of the character from the comic..."
Gough said to be on the lookout for appearances by Black Canary and Green Arrow in the hoped-for eighth season, which will pick up from the cliffhanger in the upcoming Episode 15.
In the meantime, there's the latest devious plan of the newly-returned Braniac (
James Marsters) to contend with--a plan that involves Clark's cousin, Kara (
Laura Vandervoort). Plus, in Episode 12, "Fracture," we learn just what did happen to the Girl of Steel after she landed in Detroit with no memory or powers.
[FOR MORE DETAILS, LEAP OVER TO OUR SISTER SITE, EARTH'S MIGHTIEST !]