- "Have a nice life, Dr. Wells."
- — Justin before crippling Dr. Wells
- "Do you know what it feels like to be hit by a 2,000-pound car?"
- — Justin before murdering Principal Kwan
- "That's what I love about you, Chloe. You're a fighter."
- — Justin torturing Chloe before knocking her unconscious
Justin Gaines is a former student of Smallville High School and a metahuman.
Physical Appearance[]
Justin is a rather tall, slender boy with brown eyes and short dark-brown curly hair.
Personality[]
Justin is a talented artist who enjoyed drawing, sketching and doodling. He had a secret romantic crush on Chloe Sullivan. After his accident, Justin became driven by anger, wanting revenge against anyone he deemed to have wronged him.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Telekinesis: Justin can influence the movement of objects and people with his mind, being able to levitate them and affect the course by which they move, controlling their speed and momentum. His control is fine-tuned and exact enough to manipulate several paining tools at once, using them to draw multiple comic book pages and create a painting without the use of his hands. His ability is also strong enough to manipulate the inner workings of an elevator to cause it to fall and even move a car. [1]
Biography[]
Early life[]
Justin Gaines was an aspiring cartoonist at Smallville High who drew a popular comic for the Torch called Flaming Crows Feet.[1]
He was hit by a car driven by Danny Kwan. Because of the accident, he lost the fine motor functions of his hands, but somehow developed the power of telekinesis to compensate for the loss in his hands.[1]
Season One[]
Justin was first seen recovering from surgery and complaining about losing the use of his hands. Dr. Nathan Wells, the surgeon who treated his injuries, attempted to console him, saying he himself had originally been a failed aspiring musician but made the best of his situation when he parlayed his handiwork into a career in medicine. After the Dr. Wells leaves, the disgruntled Justin used his newly acquired abilities to cause an elevator accident which severed the doctor's forearms, out of anger for the perceived failure to cure him.
After returning to school, Justin noticed Chloe Sullivan was upset with Clark Kent for distancing her to focus on new friendships with Lana Lang and Lex Luthor, and played on this by pretending to be the caring, sensitive man she was looking for. Justin impressed Chloe with a nice drawing of herself, but she was curious how he could do so with his hand disability, and Justin claimed he could draw "if I concentrated hard enough" (which was technically true with his powers). After finding out through Chloe's enquiry that the car responsible for his injuries was registered under Principal Kwan, he murdered Kwan by ramming him into the garage with the car. However, Clark Kent later found out that Kwan's son Danny was the actual driver responsible, and Kwan bought the car off Danny and never reported it to the authorities to protect Danny's Air Force career from being ruined by the incident.[1]
Justin goes after Chloe.
After discovering a newspaper article in Justin's bag about the doctor's accident, Clark had his suspicions about Justin and tried to warn Chloe. However, even after witnessing Justin's powers — when he levitated various small objects in the Torch office as they kissed — Chloe refused to believe Justin would ever hurt anyone. She only realized the truth after examining his sketchbook and saw drawings depicting the "justice" of Dr. Wells and Principal Kwan being attacked, and called Clark for help. Meanwhile, Justin also found out about her knowing and subsequently attacked her in the Kent barn, accusing her of "betray what we had together" and beginning to torment her with his abilities. After knocking her out cold with a horseshoe, Justin then tried to dismember Chloe with a chainsaw, only to be defeated by the timely arrival of Clark, whose super-strength and speed proved more than a match for his.
Chloe later claimed that Justin's parents had said that he was admitted into a psychiatric ward. [1]
Alternate Realities[]
Clark Luthor murders Justin Gaines and Jodi Melville on their Graduation day.
Season Eleven[]
Like his Earth-1 counterpart, the Earth-2 Justin was a metahuman and a student at Smallville High, and was murdered on his graduation day by Clark Luthor along with several other meteor-infected people including Jodi Melville and Greg Arkin.
Appearances[]
- Season One: Crush
- Season Three: Extinction (Mentioned only)
- Season Five: Fade (Mentioned only)
- Smallville The Comic: Raptor (Mentioned only)
Notes[]
- There are significant similarities between Justin and later meteor freak Seth Nelson; both manifested meteor powers after an accident, subsequently pursued a relationship with at least one of the girls in Clark's life – Chloe in Justin's case and Lana in Seth's – and each told their girl about their abilities (Although it is suggested that Seth's relationship with Lana was based on him manipulating her mind where Justin and Chloe's bond had a more genuine affection behind it even if he was insane).
- Justin was the first super-powered foe Clark faced where it was never explicitly established that his powers were the result of kryptonite exposure, although the timing and circumstances of the accident create the possibility that kryptonite was responsible, and Chloe and Lana also later acknowledge him as a meteor freak in Extinction.
- Justin was mentioned in the Season Three episode Extinction.
- His profile name was shown in the Vengeance Chronicles webseries and the Season Five episode Fade.
- It is possible that Justin Gaines was later released by Checkmate (before the agency's destruction). In the episode Absolute Justice, Part 2, a conversation between Lois Lane and Clark Kent establishes that Checkmate has been secretly releasing all the bad guys (that fought the members of the Justice Society of America), and collecting them, by 2010.[2] In Charade, Checkmate is shown to have arranged for the life sentence of Ray Sacks (who had been put away by Clark and the Wonder Twins) to be overturned. One scene has Chloe Sullivan show Clark a list of other people, whose release has been arranged by Checkmate. Clark identifies the people on the list (which is not shown to the viewers) as people that he put away.[3] In Shield, Bette Sans Souci (who had been put away in 2009 by Clark Kent and Green Arrow) is shown to have been released from her incarceration, and joined the Suicide Squad.[4] In the episode Homecoming, Clark spots Greg Arkin (one of Clark's earliest foes) at their high school reunion, and identifies Greg as one of the people that he put away in high school (with Clark's panic at the sight of him indicating that Greg would have been unlikely to simply been released, having served whatever sentence he was given).[5] In Prophecy, Vordigan (who had been put in prison, through the combined effort of Clark and Green Arrow)[6] is shown to be out of prison.[7]
- Adam Brody appeared as Captain Marvel Jr. in Shazam!, making him one of numerous actors (including John Glover, Amy Adams, Alessandro Juliani, Michael Cassidy and Ted Whittall) appearing in both the universes of Smallville and the cinematic DC Extended Universe.