When Smallville's seventh season rolled around, most fans figured the show was drawing to a close. Series co-star Michael Rosenbaum was through with playing Lex Luthor and original show runners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar had also decided they were moving on. However, the CW was not ready for it to end - and new show runners Darren Swimmer and Kelly Souders stepped up. Suddenly, Smallville wasn't just revived; it was refreshed.

The proof is in the Smallvile Season 8 DVD released yesterday. This is the season where Smallville remembered that it has its roots in comic book lore, and tried to move things in that direction without blowing up the seven years before it. Perhaps that's a tricky proposition, but for the most part, it works.

In addition to finally making Clark Kent (Tom Welling) step up into the idea of fighting evil in a dual identity, this season finally (please?) dispatches Lana Lang (Kristen Kreuk) and moves Lois Lane (Erica Durance) front and center as a romantic interest. Okay, so all of those things still have their downsides: Clark becomes "the Red-Blue Blur" and Lana gets super powers, but the new runners still have a duty to develop from what they inherited.

Swimmer acknowledges as much in his commentary on the episode "Legion." Maybe it's sitting in the studio with episode writer and DC Comics giant Geoff Johns that elicits that oblique confession. Along with supervising producer Tim Scanlan, they use this episode to talk about the difficulty of pleasing comics fans and Smallville fans alike - not always the same thing.

A personal favorite moment there, highlighting how Smallville employs both fan and non-fan, is what to do about the Legion flight rings until Johns pointed out in a production meeting that he actually owned one. For fans, it is an extremely cool moment when the camera first catches the Legion wearing their accurate rings.

Played by the sensitive Sam Witwer, Doomsday suckered unsuspecting viewers in as a romantic rival for Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack). For weeks, comics fans grumbled that this couldn't be the killer monster from Krypton, and then, suddenly, brilliantly, he was.

They also retold the origin of Green Arrow (Justin Hartley) fairly close to the comics, and their vision of Maxima (Charlotte Sullivan) didn't veer too far -- though if they'd gone too close it might not have been appropriate for prime time television. Zatanna (Serinda Swan) got some slightly different powers, but ultimately spoke backwards and looked dead on. You might think that would be hard to mess up, but I still held my breath.

Among the extras, a featurette covers the creation both in thought and make-up of this version of Doomsday. The other major extra focuses on Mack stepping into the director's chair for the first time, an interesting behind the scenes look at both Mack's place on the show and the new show runners' mindsets and enthusiasm for this revivified Smallville.

The other major players on the show are absent from the extras, though Cassidy Freeman, who plays the shady Tess Mercer, enthusiastically pops up through featurettes and commentary. Perhaps after seven seasons of DVD sets, Welling has run out of new things to say. It still feels a little empty without him.

Beyond two episode commentaries, most of the episodes have deleted scenes included, and on the Blu-ray, they're all in high definition. I'm still not completely sold on Blu-ray for live-action series, but it is somewhat sharper and the deleted scenes are of much better audio and video quality than usual. Where the high definition is most noticeable is in the featurettes.

Still, if you had given up on Smallville, you might want to dip back in with this season as the show integrates more true superhero action. At the very least, "Legion" will please the fanboys, and with Johns returning this season to write an episode with the Justice Society, you'll want to see how well the guy does.