Justice League

Did You Know?

• DC Direct released action figures modeled after Smallville's Justice League as they appeared in the season six episode Justice, featuring detailed likenesses of Welling, Hartley, Ritchson, Gallner, and Young.
• The Justice League was featured in a promotional tie-in with Toyota through an interactive online comic book.
• Oliver Queen received his own tie-in providing Sprint users with animated episodes of his backstory on their mobile phones.

Roles in Smallville

The Justice League first appeared in season six's Justice, but each member had prior introductions. Bart Allen, introduced in the season four episode Run, was the first person Clark discovered with a superhuman ability not caused by kryptonite. Bart initially worked as a pickpocket before Clark convinced him to give up crime. Arthur Curry appeared in the season five episode Aqua, possessing superhuman swimming and water-based energy blasts. He came to Smallville to stop an underwater weapon developed by Lex Luthor, and after clashing with Clark over tactics, they destroyed the weapon. Victor Stone was introduced in season five's Cyborg, having been mortally wounded in a car accident and experimented on by LuthorCorp, which replaced his skeleton with metal. Clark helped Victor escape and convinced Lex to stop hunting him.

Portrayals

Producers wanted to use Wally West or Barry Allen as the Flash alter ego, but DC Comics only approved Bart Allen. In DC Comics, Bart typically goes by Impulse but briefly took over as Flash in 2006. Kyle Gallner learned about the role through his agent and, after two auditions, believed he had failed, but was offered the part. Alan Ritchson researched Aquaman after learning of the character's serious fan base, hoping to meet expectations. He did not expect to return after season five, but was called back for the Justice League episode. Lee Thompson Young was cast as Victor Stone, a character the producers had long wanted to bring in. Young first encountered Cyborg through the Teen Titans animated series, not the comics, and appreciated that Smallville kept Victor's robotic parts internal rather than visible.

Other media appearances

The studio discussed developing individual shows for Bart, Oliver, Arthur, and the entire Justice League. A Flash television series was considered a year before Bart's Smallville appearance, but creative differences over making him a time-traveling college student from Gotham City prevented it, leading to the character's inclusion on Smallville. The season five episode was not intended as a backdoor pilot, so Alan Ritchson was not considered. The Aquaman pilot went into production but was not picked up by The CW.