Man, I watched the CW Flash/Arrow stuff until the big Crisis event finished with the death of Oliver. It wasn't perfect, but it was entertaining. I found the adaptation of a lot of characters to be hit or miss, but it never got too shitty. I saw some of Supergirl but I only watched it for J'onn. Legends of Tomorrow was kind of a guilty pleasure, but that's also because I just liked the CW Captain Cold.
Legends of Tomorrow had the rare quality of being fairly decent up until the end. Bonkers and going ever increasingly off the rails, but
fun. Given the character they set up in the final episode (
Booster Gold), I'd have been pretty curious to see where it went.
Also, Damien Dark sending John Constantine flying across the room and saying "Brexit!" was hysterical. Absolutely guilty. Absolutely a pleasure. And as a general rule I don't like overly silly shows so something has to be good to make that work for me. I think the key with LoT was that it just embraced the craziness so sincerely. Like, John Constantine and his squeeze doing a romantic cover of the Clash's '
Ever Fallen in Love (With Somebody You shouldn't have Fallen in Love With)' in order to fend off an alien conquest of Earth should be one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. And yet...
I think that, funnily enough, we could just cast Grant Gustin as a DCEU movie Flash and Amell as a DCEU Green Arrow and they'd be perfectly fine. Benoist is a fine enough Supergirl.
Melissa Benoist was very good casting and wouldn't be bad again but she's around 36 now. So she could play the role but I'm not sure she could play the young and slightly naive version of Supergirl which imo is the best draw. I'm not dismissing the version from the Flash movie as that was closer to Superwoman and really not Supergirl as a character. Which I was very fine with, it's just not the same character.
I found the CW Crisis event to just be fun fanservice. Maybe a little too much fanservice, but it was nice of them to even get the Smallville Clark actor to cameo for a scene. Hell, the '90s Flash was the one who pulled a big sacrifice and they had him cornily thinking of Tina, his love interest from that show.
Same. It was a nice send-off and ending for Oliver Queen. And you know, both characters wear green.
And having Oliver become The Spectre, only to sacrifice himself all over again. Fun stuff. I know The Arrow kinda just ticked the boxes for a Batman show but with Green Arrow and seemed to have moments where we'd have actors play a relevant character only to just walk off (lmao we had a Wildcat, until the actor just up and left the series abruptly).
The Wildcat character also enabled them to work in Ollie's boxing glove arrow in an absolutely inspired callback.
I don't mind that in many ways they were trying to do a Batman show where they couldn't use Batman. I think what we actually got ended up better. Different hide-outs, differences in character. Like Arrow has killed, Bruce never does. A different though overlapping cast of characters. Like I'm sure we would have still gotten Talia al-ghul, Slade Wilson and others. But the show would have been crowded with the Joker, Scarecrow and all the usuals. Green Arrow felt fresher than I think Batman would have done.
I hear there's a Stargirl show. Wonder if it's watchable or if it's Batwoman-tier trash.
Stargirl is one of the finest TV comicbook shows I have ever seen. I did a thread on it here:
https://kiwifarms.st/threads/stargirl.72828/
At the time, I was rating it neck and neck with Doom Patrol Season 1. But ultimately Stargirl won out because firstly I really like shows that make me feel good and uplifted and Stargirl does that. Doom Patrol Season 1 cracked me up but Stargirl made me feel... happy? Secondly, Stargirl remained good through all three seasons. Whilst the third season was a bit more compressed than it should have been due I think to lack of renewal for a fourth season, it also had some absolutely killer scenes and villain that was utterly chilling.
@Morethanabitfoolish says it's geared towards younger viewers and that's undeniably true and yet not in a pandering way. Of course the characters are school age and there's a merciful lack of gratuitous sex and violence. And yet at the same time, the themes are perfectly mature, it's played straight and the violence is at once comicbook but also surprisingly consequential. Case in point, I presume you saw at least some of Netflix's Titans tv show. Adult-rated, torture, heavy violence, etc. And yet if you notice, 15 mins after every fight the heroes look fine. Meanwhile in Stargirl, Hourman still looks like this two episodes after a big battle:
So whilst I fully agree that it is more focused on a younger audience, in many ways it's more realistic in the consequences of violence, people's reactions to death, etc. It is also
very smartly written.
Seriously - avoid spoilers, don't even watch clips, it's one of the rare shows where twists might actually surprise you.
It's also a complete love-letter to classic era comic books. Simultaneously over the top and completely sincere. I was a real fan of it.
