2. The Lack Of Familiar Characters By The End Of The Season
When we began our journey this season, we were reintroduced to the still familiar Clark Kent, Lois Lane, The Green Arrow and Chloe Sullivan, with the return of Lex Luthor (as was established in the finale) as well as returning Tess Mercer (who was killed in the finale), in the form of a vision (well, slightly more than that). Even Emil Hamilton and Frank The Newspaper Vendor made appearances! This trend continued throughout the second and third main stories, the latter of which contained, impressively, a Lana Lang cameo, although this was very much blink-and-you'll-miss-it. Tess Mercer also took on more of a prominent role as Watchtower. In the fourth main story, we were given some cameos including the introduction of Alfred and Commissioner Gordon, as well as the return of Bats and Nightwing. However, this is where everything started to fall apart character wise, too. Clark was the only main character, with only Lois and Tess making nothing more than cameos (to be fair, Lois was busy in the second side story with Lana), although we did see the return of Kara Kent and Brainiac 5 and Doomsday. Olympus (the fifth and final main story) advertised a similarly minimal cast, with only Lana and a very limited appearance by Tess (this time it was her turn to star in the side story). Martha Keny and Speedy The Dog did return, however. Somewhere along the way, we had lost most of our main characters, with the only other main characters left appearing in a very limited role. The side stories were understandable as they were smaller and took ace at the same tie as the main story, but some of the time they featured more - and better- characters than the main story. Take for example the final side story, Hollow. We had a cameo from Superman, and the story itself starred Tess, Lex, Otis and Emil, and developed the relationship that we briefly saw in the episode that ripped of The Hangover, wherein Tess and Emil slept together in an enchanted drunken stupor. Automatically in the twelfth season, we have so far been greeted with the appropriate returns of Lois, Lex, Tess and Chloe, with recurring characters such as Kara and Otis also appearing. And guess who they finally decided to bring back? Jonathan Kent. And Martha again, but mainly Jonathan. You know what? This was a very touching scene, to boot.