A major
Smallville announcement is expected to come down at
Comic-Con International this weekend in San Diego. Until then, here’s some scoop on the veteran series, which begins its ninth season on a new night—Fridays at 8pm—on September 25. Following the death of Jimmy Olsen at the hands of Doomsday in May’s
season finale, Clark Kent (Tom Welling) is getting a little obsessed as the Red Blue Blur, his budding crime-fighting alias. “He is trying a little too hard to be a hero, and is leaving the rest of his life behind,” says executive producer Brian Peterson.
That might be just as well given the big comic-book-inspired villains the soon-to-be Superman will face this year. New
Daily Planet reporter John Corben is transformed into the sociopath with a kryptonite-heart known as Metallo in a two-episode arc for
Sarah Connor Chronicles refugee Brian Austin Green. “We know that there’s multiple versions of Metallo,” executive producer Kelly Souders says. “We picked one of the different versions and I think people will realize which one after the first episode.”
This season’s main villain is Zod, the Kryptonian nemesis of Clark’s biological father, who has made previous appearance on the series. “We had a little peek at who Zod was a couple of seasons ago, which fans will remember. But this a different incarnation of Zod,” Peterson says of the new series regular, played by British actor Callum Blue (
The Tudors). “We’re introducing him as Major Zod—this is before he became General Zod.” Adds Souders: “Over the course of the season, the venomous side of Zod rises because he experiences a few key betrayals with our beloved characters.”