Smallville wrapup and other bits

Wrapping up last week's episode of "Smallville" (I was out of town on business and dind't have time to work on this), there was mostly praise for the story. Here are the other reviews and articles, in no particular order:

• Television Without Pity
  
• Billie Doux
  
• The Blogged Toilette
  
• SF Universe
  
• Winged Lion's Quiver
  
• Legion Abstract
  
• Operation Save Clark Kent
  
• CliqueClack
  
• Sean McDevitt
  
• SyFy Portal
  
• PopSyndicate
  
• The A-Train
  

And more random bits of Legionnaire business:

• Here's the iTunes link if you want to download the Smallville episode legally.
  
  
• Artist Ovi Nedelcu reposted his Legionnaire character studies originally done for the Legion TV show, but of course they went with James Tucker's designs. (see the original report from 2006 here.)
  
  
• Vinnie Bartilucci talks about Superboy and the Legend of Super-Heroes.
  
  
• Amber's Fashion Tips looks at the Legionnaires' costumes on Smallville.
  
  
• Geekshow Entertainment looks back at the Legion animated series.
  
  
• Legion Abstract has a hero history of Saturn Girl.
  
  
• Finally, White Party Palm Springs is having their 20th Anniversary Celebration: Legion of Superheroes Easter Weekend – April 10-13, 2009. It's certainly not the kind of party I had expected to read about.
  

Newsarama has an interview with Francis Manapul.

NRAMA: How did you end up on Superman/Batman?

FM: I've been talking to Dan Didio throughout the summer cons on what I could work on after Legion. I expressed to him my desire to draw anyof my 3 favourite characters at DC. I was lucky enough to get two of them! Well technically 3 of them. [laughs]

...NRAMA: Probably your most high profile work to date has been on DC's Legion of Super-Heroes with Jim Shooter. Although DC ultimately ended the series, it got your name out to more people than ever before. What did you think of the experience?

FM:This was my first work for DC. In fact it was my first work ever for either of the big two so it was a very big deal to me. I'm sad to see the series go but we did our best to try and revitalize the property. The people I worked with was fantastic I had the full support of my editor Mike Marts, and great collaborators with Livesay and J.D Smith, and of course it was a real honour to have worked with a legend like Jim Shooter. I learned a LOT from this experience and was glad to had been a part of it. Jim was very tough on me but in that hard ass coach kinda of way. He really pushed to try and make me better and pulled no punches. I learned quite a bit from him but I think in the end we had different styles in our approach to telling a story. But I wouldn't have traded the experience for any other.