At this weekend’s Comic-Con, some of the cast and creative team of Smallville were on hand to tease the final season. As expected, a lot of familiar faces will show up before the show says goodbye next May.

Erica Durance is on board for 22 episodes as Lois Lane and Justin Hartley (Oliver “Green Arrow” Queen) will be back for 17 installments. Cassidy Freeman’s Tess will be back as well.

Alison Mack will return for an as-yet-unknown number of episodes. The producers promise that Chloe will be in as many episodes as possible and that they have a great storyline lined up for the character, including the romance with Oliver.

As previously rumored, John Schneider will be returning in his role as Jonathan Kent, Clark’s beloved and deceased dad. It’s not clear in what context Jonathan will be appearing and even the actor isn’t sure. He took part in the panel and said, “I don’t know if that means I’m a spirit. I’m not really sure exactly what I am; real, imaginary, memory? But it’s the best written scene I’ve ever done on Smallville.”

Laura Vandervoort, who’s now on ABC’s V, will return for a guest shot as Kara, Clark’s Kryptonian cousin. James Marsters (Milton “Braniac” Fine) will return for a special 200th episode. John Glover’s Lionel Luthor showed up in some preview footage of season 10 clips, as did Hawkman, Chloe with Dr. Fate’s helmet, and (possibly) Doomsday.

Executive producer Brian Peterson says that they want Kristin Kreuk to return as Lana as well. He told Zap2It, “We’d love to have Kristin back, but like a lot of actors, she’s very busy… And, so we have some thoughts. We have the door open. Right now, that hasn’t happened to work out. We want her back. We love her.”

And producers haven’t given up on Michael Rosenbaum returning as Lex either. At the convention, Tom Welling said, “I know he’s thinking about it. I know he knows that we want him and we don’t feel like we can end it without it. He threatened he’d be in audience and make himself known, but he kept quiet if he was even out there.”

The last season’s big villain will be Darkseid, a powerful and evil being that’s familiar to comic readers. As has often been the case, he’ll be presented in a different way on the show. Word is that the Suicide Squad, a group that’s had two incarnations in the comics, will also likely be featured.

The panel hinted that, by the end of the series, Clark will indeed fly, end up with Lois, and will have a suit other than the black one he’s been sporting. A red and blue suit was shown briefly in the preview footage and Welling noted, “Whatever we do, I want to make sure we earn the suit at the end.”

The 10th and final season of Smallville kicks off on Friday, September 24th. Here’s a video of the season 10 preview from Comic-Con.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to season 10? Is there anything you really want to see before Smallville’s last episode?