Items marked with () come from reliable sources who document their facts. Items with () are rumors from outlets that don't name their sources. Items marked with () are opinions expressed by Comics2Film.

A segment of last night's E! News Daily discussed the Smallville TV show and gave fans a glimpse at the upcoming Alex Ross covers for TV Guide. The ever resourceful KryptonSite managed to capture a screenshot of all four covers and currently has them on display.

The December 2-9 edition of TV Guide will be published with four variant covers. Each cover is painted by Alex Ross. The images interlock to create one large image. Tom Welling (Clark Kent), Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang) and Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) are featured on three of the covers with Superman occupying the fourth.

The interior of the magazine will feature a Smallville "comic-book style story drawn by Terry Dodson (Harley Quinn)."

In other Smallville news, the December 18th episode will be a repeat of "X-Ray". In this episode Clark (Tom Welling) reels from his first flashes of x-ray vision and the shock is compounded when he witnesses an inexplicable bank robbery by his friend, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum). Unsure how to control this new power, Clark discovers the reason for its arrival as a Smallville teen who has developed shape-shifting abilities threatens Lana (Kristin Kreuk). James Frawley directed the episode written by Mark Verheiden.

The Comics Continuum reports that Smallville continued to do well in its ratings last week. The Nov. 20 episode ranked #2 in its time period with the 12-34 year-old demographic, scoring 3.6/10 and also with men 12-34 (4.0/12). The show was #3 in its time period for adults 18-34 (3.3/9), men 18-34 (3.5/11) and women 12-34 (3.3/9).

The show did best with the teen demographic. It was #1 for the entire night (4.6/15) and #1 in its timeslot for male teens (5.2/16) and female teens (4.1/13).

The December 11 episode of Smallville will be called "Jitters". In this episode Clark (Tom Welling) and Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) team up to rescue Clark's high school class after a janitor (guest star Tony Todd of Candyman fame) takes them hostage in LuthorCorp. He claims his deadly "jitters" were caused by a mysterious contaminant and threatens to kill everyone unless he is shown a secret sublevel - which Lionel Luthor (guest star John Glover, Batman & Robin) denies ever existed. Michael Watkins directed the episode written by Cherie Bennett & Jeff Gottesfeld.

"Jitters" airs on December 11 at 9 p.m. ET.

Thanks to author and comic book movie journalist Andy Mangels for the info.

Cartoon Network has issued a press release announcing that the weekend premiere of Justice League has scored a ratings record for the all-animation net.

The Saturday, Nov. 17 premiere of the show brought in  the largest adults 18-34 rating (1.5, up 114 percent) and delivery (701,000, up 125 percent) of any telecast in the network's history. The new DC Comics action-adventure series also charted a 2.1 household rating and delivered 1,672,000 homes, the highest household delivery ever for a Cartoon Network premiere and the second-highest household rating (behind Courage the Cowardly Dog).

Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14 turned out in droves as well, scoring a 4.6 (up 24 percent) and a 3.3 rating (up 83 percent), respectively. Delivery also increased by 42 percent and 104 percent vs. last year. A total of 4,320,000 different viewers tuned into the premiere.

The Justice League win caps off an impressive winning streak for comic book adaptations that began this summer with the TNT series Witchblade. That show scored record ratings and is the first successful series offering from the TNT cable network. Witchblade is slated to return for a second series in 2002.

July brought the critically acclaimed Ghost World based on Daniel Clowes comic. In addition to critical praise and awards, that indie film collected a respectable sum at the box office, considering it's limited release.

In October, Marvel's Mutant X debuted as the hight-rated hour-long, weekly action-drama in syndication.

Smallville also debuted early in October. That series bowed as the most-watched show ever to air on the WB Network and continues to pull strong ratings.

The third week in October brought the feature film From Hell to cinemas. That movie debuted at #1 beating out Drew Barrymore's Riding in Cars with Boys and Robert Redford's The Last Castle. It was the first ever #1 opening for star Johnny Depp.

Early this month the Fox network debuted the live-action series based on Ben Edlund's The Tick. The series garnered great reviews, pulled respectable numbers and delivered key demographics and a ratings improvement for the network.

 It's been an exciting year for comic book movie and TV fans.

Smallville is featured on the cover of this week's Entertainment Weekly topping the magazine's list of the 5 best new TV shows.

Similarly, TV Guide is set to publish four Alex Ross painted covers depicting cast-members from the show. That issue of TV Guide will also contain the first Smallville comic book story penciled by Terry (Harley Quinn) Dodson.

Now KryptonSite reports that the network is planning on starting the show later this month. This may be due to the show's strong performance on The WB network in the U.S. 

GlobalTV will be playing catch-up with other outlets, like the A-Channel and even other GlobalTV stations, who have been running the show in synch with it's U.S. broadcasts. The carrier will reportedly air a marathon of three episodes on Friday, November 23 and two more episodes on Friday the 30th. After that, the show will maintain a weekly schedule.

"A weight-obsessed teen loses more than she had hoped - Clark (Tom Welling) must save Pete (Sam Jones III) from literally being devoured by a female classmate (guest star Amy Adams) whose crash diet of kryptonite-infected vegetables causes her to shed weight faster than she can handle and must somehow satisfy her ravenous hunger. Meanwhile, Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) gets one step closer to the truth about Clark after funding a study on the green meteor fragments. Phil Sgriccia directed the episode written by Michael Green "

Thanks to author and comic book movie journalist Andy Mangels for the info.

Meanwhile, Kryptonsite.com has some exciting news for fans of Smallville and Superman comics. According to that site the show will be featured on the cover of the December 2-9 edition of TV Guide.

As has become a regular occurrence with that magazine, the issue will sport four different covers. The really cool news is that each cover will be painted by none other than fan-fave Alex Ross.

If that weren't enough the interior of the magazine will feature a Smallville "comic-book style story drawn by Terry Dodson (Harley Quinn)."

Thanks to author and comic book movie journalist Andy Mangels for the info.

An episode called "Hourglass" is slated to air November 30. The show centers on a woman named Cassandra who lost her sight during the meteor shower. She now somehow can show flashes of the future. She offers Clark an unsettling glimpse of the future, while Lex tries to exploit her gift.  Jackie Burroughs, Eric Christian Olsen and George Murdock guest star. The episode is written by Doris Egan.

Following that episode is "Craving". This segment features an overweight girl named Jodi. Also in this episode, Lex meets Chloe and learns about her ongoing investigation into the weirdness of Smallville.

Airing some time in December is "Rogue". This episode introduces Kelly Brook as Lex Luthor's former girlfriend, Victoria. This episode has Clark visiting metropolis and is said to deviate from the "freak of the week" formula that earlier shows have had.

"X-Ray" airs Tuesday, November 6 - How would a teenage boy react to X-Ray vision? - Clark (Tom Welling) reels from his first flashes of x-ray vision and the shock is compounded when he witnesses an inexplicable bank robbery by his friend, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum). Unsure how to control this new power, Clark discovers the reason for its arrival as a Smallville teen who has developed shape-shifting abilities threatens Lana (Kristin Kreuk). James Frawley directed the episode written by Mark Verheiden.

"Cool" airs Tuesday, November 13 - Clark and Lana head to Metropolis while Chloe falls prey to a chilling Casanova - Clark (Tom Welling) has a chance at an evening out on the town with Lana (Kristin Kreuk) thanks to Lex's (Michael Rosenbaum) matchmaking, but the evening is interrupted when Clark faces an icy enemy (guest star Michael Coristine): the high school lady killer who has a kryptonite-induced case of permanent hypothermia and has to feed off of body heat to survive - starting with Chloe (Allison Mack). Jim Contner directed the episode written by Michael Green.

Smallville continues to  pull good numbers for the WB network in its Tuesday evening timeslot. Variety reports that the Superman based show retained 90% of its audience with its second airing. This week's episode with the top show in its hour among men 18-34 (4.3/12) and placed second with women 18-34 (3.9/10). The premiere showing set record numbers for the frog network. Over the two-week run the show is averaging 7.8 million viewers.

This is all good news for fans. The strong numbers have prompted WB to order a complete season for the show. The order for the final nine episodes will ensure that 22 segments will be produced for this season.

"Clark (Tom Welling) takes to the gridiron in this offbeat look at sportsmanship.

"The future Man of Steel is asked to join his high-school football team after the head coach (Dan Lauria) sees Clark fire a pass to another player. Jonathan (John Schneider), however, refuses to sign the permission slip, fearing Clark might accidentally hurt another player or inadvertently show off his powers. Determined to play, the teen defies his father's wishes and gets his mother to sign the slip. What Clark doesn't know is that the coach has some powers of his own, and he's using them to cover up a cheating scandal involving his players."

The show achieved an all-time record for the WB in adults 18-34 (4.5/12) and was particularly super among men, scoring all-time record ratings in men 18-34 (5.0/14), men 18-49 (3.9/10) and the network's third best adults 18-49 (3.8/9) rating ever.

Smallville also set all-time records for a series premiere on the WB in total viewers  (8.4 MILLION), household rating (5.4/8) and adults 18-49 (3.8/9). The show finished an astounding #3 in its time period, topping Fox and ABC, in total viewers.

The show was #1 in its time period in persons 12-34 (4.4/12), men 12-34 (4.8/14), men 18-34 (5.0/14), teens (4.1/15), female teens (3.9/15) and male teens (4.3/15). The series premiere was also #2 in men 18-49 (3.9/10) and #3 in women 12-34 (4.0/11), adults 18-34 (4.5/12) and women 18-34 (4.1/10).

Smallville also did extremely well in many prominent markets in the country, including Los Angeles (#1 in its time period, 10.9/16), New York (#2, 8.1/12), San Diego (#1, 10.0/15), Orlando (#2, 11.9/16), St. Louis (#2, 11.5/17), San Francisco (#2, 8.0/13) and Kansas City (#2, 7.8/11).

Warner Bros. published the first online edition of the Smallville Ledger this week. The paper is the latest faux web site supporting a movie or TV show. In this case the show is, of course, Smallville.

So far the site features a handful of articles which neatly fill in the back story for the pilot episode of the show. The Ledger also links to other sites for make-believe destinations, like The Smallville Torch (the official Smallville High School newspaper) and Luthorcorp.net.

Smallville is set to debut on The WB network next week on October 16th.

Thanks to our friends and neighbors at the ever-vigilant KryptonSite.com for the lead.