"Smallville," season eight

I talked yesterday afternoon with Kelly Souders, one of four "Smallville" executive producers who are in charge of the show now that creators Al Gough and Miles Millar are gone. "Smallville" heads into its eighth season next month and some reports have said it will be the last season. Souders, though, says that's premature. "We are doing our best, everyone's working really hard, in hopes that it isn't the last season," she says.

Souders and her fellow showrunners have their work cut out for them, though, what with Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) and Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang) gone from the cast. (Though Kristin will be back for a handful of episodes at some point.) To help fill the void, Justin Hartley will be back as a regular in his role as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow.

"He's just fascinating to play against Clark," Souders says. Clark is super-powered; Oliver isn't. And they have some very different attitudes on crimefighting. Remind anyone of the Superman-Batman relationship?

I'll have more on "Smallville" in a future Comics Fan.