When Smallville first debuted in 2001, its mix of pretty teens experiencing the outré seemed like an attempt to reach the same audience as Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Now that the Superman-before-he-was-Superman show has reached its end, it looks to be taking more inspiration from the Joss Whedon show that lived on as a Dark Horse comic; Smallville will soon launch its eleventh season as a comic book series from DC Comics with Smallville writer Bryan Q. Miller at the helm. Miller revealed new details about the project in an interview with IGN, stating fans can look forward to "flights and tights," something the original show didn't exactly get around to as far as Superman was concerned.

The digital-first comic will be drawn by Pere Perez, who previously collaborated with Miller on the previous volume of Batgirl, and its release schedule will echo the show's old time slog: It will be weekly, and come out on Fridays. The first digital installment will go on sale April 13, and every three chapters will be collected and published as a good old-fashioned paper comic book, starting on May 2 with the 48-page, $3.99 Smallville Season 11 #1.

Miller described his series as a "Superman: Year One with a cast of Smallville characters," noting the book will begin six months after Clark Kent first became Superman during season ten, rather than taking place after the seven-year time jump, and noted that the show's "no tights, no flights" rule will be somewhat lifted for the comic.

"Once we get out of the first episode, it's mostly tights and flights," Miller told IGN's Joey Esposito. "Which people have wanted for ten years anyway."

Miller was tight-lipped about guest-stars, villains and DCU characters like Batman or Wonder Woman making their Smallville debuts, referring only to Clark, Lois, Chloe, Oliver and Lex, but he was quite forthcoming regarding his strategy for writing the comic.

Story arcs will be twelve weeks long-which would equal four issues of the paper comic version-and that would equal about three episodes of the show. Said Miller:

It's being written just like the show. It's a challenge, having done both the TV stuff and the comic stuff, because I'm doing the show as a comic. So there're no captions or narration boxes. It's a challenge to try and convey everything without having that convention in it, because that's not how the show was told.

Miller said he wasn't thinking that far ahead when asked about the possibility of a Smallville Season 12 comic.

Don't rule it out: Dark Horse has done Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight and Nine comics so far.

[Via IGN]

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