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Spoilers for Superman & Lois

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So the Diggle arc is so far a big tease.  It's nice to have John back, and its good that Ramsey is getting some work.  But most of these stories could be anyone.  Diggle showing up on Legends was an easter egg more than anything.  Him showing up on Batwoman was a cameo at best.  I think his story on Flash was good and it was nice to see him suit up again, but his guest spot on Superman and Lois was nothing.  He doesn't seem to be in any different place than he was after Flash.

Maybe the Supergirl appearance will tie everything together, but I don't know if we have any more information than we had before.  I was hoping the extra budget from Superman & Lois could allow them to do *something* but I guess not.

At this point, I assume we'll finish this year with just as much info as we had before the year started.  John found something.  He has to decide what to do.  Blah blah blah.

I'm just going to break my rule.  It's been long enough, and hopefully I can be less careless.

Howdy, howdy!

It's been a while.  I'm maintaining my promise tp myself that I wouldn't do any sort of extracurricular activities on my work computer with my new job.  The problem being that my personal laptop broke and is probably beyond fixing.  My wife and I want to get a new one to share, but we're terrible at making decisions for things we'll share.  So I have a laptop that won't close (trying to close it is ripping the screen off) and she has a super old one. With the baby and everything else, I only pull out the laptop once a week for our weekly budget.

But I think I'm going to start opening up a bit and using this site on my work computer.  Part of the problem is that I shared my screen during a meeting (a small unimportant meeting but still a meeting) and mindlessly traveled here.  Apparently no one saw my screen and only one person thought something was off but I didn't want to risk anything at my new job.  It's too good a job to risk anything like that.

The other hiccup is that we're having another baby.  Due next month.  So my life will probably end up more chaotic than it was. 

But I still love you guys and I'll keep trying to make it work.  Don't worry about me and be patient.  Quinn always shows back up

Really behind but really glad you got your shot and feel better now.  I have a friend of mine who hasn't gotten the shot.  He's not a Trump guy but his mom is.  She's a borderline QAnon type.  I know my friend didn't vote in 2020 out of deference to not making her too mad (and in Texas it wouldn't have mattered, it turns out).  It upsets me that he's not doing it.  I know if he got the virus the odds are really high that he'd survive.  And, heck, it's possible he already had it and was fine.

But I just think it's so stupid to just not get it.  Get it and don't tell his mom.  He's too rational to really believe that there's anything to fear from the vaccine, but maybe he sees the stats and thinks it's enough.  I don't know.  I want to tell him he's being an idiot, but it's so hard to maintain friendships during this pandemic.  I've been terrible at it, as you all have seen

I got a subscription to Comixology for Christmas, and I was so sad to see that the Smallville comics weren't on there for free.  That was something I was looking forward to, before I understood the limits of Comixology Unlimited.

Maybe one day.

I'm about ten volumes into Invincible.  It's all that's available to me on Comixology Unlimited with out buying more (so it's not really unlimited, Amazon).  After that, I'm going to start on the series.

I think it's a really cool universe.  I've heard it referenced a lot, and I'm glad I took the plunge.

I'm also reading the 2015 Darth Vader comics and trying to read Civil War II.  Among other things.  I'm really enjoying diving into comics.

Batwoman is a bit more interesting these days.  I think they went a little hard on the police brutality stuff when I don't think that's really been a thing prior.  But on a show like this, I think it's a good statement to make.

Superman and Lois is still good.

Really looking forward to the Diggle multi-show arc.

Side note - I got a comixology membership and I've been reading HUSH.  It's really good and I went back and read ireactions' commentary on it.  It makes zero sense that it isn't actually Jason Todd.

That's all very sad.  I liked interacting with Informant, and I wish all of this hadn't changed everything.  Even in Texas, I don't know very many conservatives and haven't lost any friends due to politics.  My friend's mom is into Q but that's probably the closest thing.

I'm glad your mom is set for the shot.  And we'd be happy to have you

I agree with that.  Although my biggest struggle, even with the Previously on Supergirl, was remembering what happened last season.  To launch into a season finale like that made me feel a bit whiplashed.  But it definitely feels better now than the Flash, which does feel muddled.

That's on me, not the show.  I get that.

Is there any explanation for why Lex doesn't hate Superman anymore?  He doesn't really mention him.  I sorta wish they'd ended Crisis with Superman on his own world.  I think it would've made sense, pandemic or not.

I don’t know if this is where we brag but I got my first shot of Pfizer!

(I put it here because the vaccine is VERY political)

The Superman stuff is what takes me out. Snyder’s Superman is such a mess and the main reason why I end up disliking his films. It’s obvious that Snyder’s only interest in Superman is making him an antagonist. The “how do we make Superman interesting” answer is “make him evil” every time. It’s what he does every time, and even Suicide Squad works on the premise that the team exists in case Superman went bad.

And I think this works if he committed to it. But he doesn’t...at all. “What if Superman was hated like Spider-Man?” might actually make an interesting movie, but Snyder wants the audience to be skeptical of Clark while also making the in-universe population love him. But they don’t ever see a loveable Superman outside of the footage Joss Whedon shot.

If Snyder got his way, Clark would be a villain in 4/5 movies he was in. And in Man of Steel, Clark is only not the villain because he’s fighting three evil Supermen. Clark redeeming himself (even sacrificing himself) to make up for what happened in Metropolis would be really cool. Superman having to earn the people’s trust is a great premise. But Snyder doesn’t care about redeeming Superman because he doesn’t like Superman. I think Snyder thinks he’s boring.  So he engineers ways for Superman to be the bad guy again and again.

If I were Snyder’s script doctor, I would do it this way

BvS - Mostly the same except a) Batman is the champion of the people (maybe even the government) instead of working for revenge. When he realizes Superman is good, he teams up with Clark b) Clark is working his butt off saving people and winning people over. He’s Chris Reeve Superman. He still dies

Justice League - The same except NO Superman. He’s dead. The League has to win without him.

Reign of the Supermen - Do a full movie of this. Four people emerge claiming to be Superman. Batman has to figure out who is who, knowing that they will need a Superman vs Darkseid. Cavill’s Superman comes back.

Justice League 2 - Darkseid shows up but Clark isn’t ready. Or sure of himself. Batman trains him. The League fails and Superman comes in to save the day (like in Justice League) but gets his butt kicked. Cliffhanger

Justice League 3 - If you want to do evil Superman, do it here. Clark is at his lowest and susceptible. But he overpowers it because he’s won everyone back. He’s the hero of Earth now. And United, they take Darkseid down.

Clark goes through a journey of redemption. He has to win over the people, he has to conquer death, he needs to prove to himself that he can, and he needs to destroy the bad guy.

Yeah I assume that’ll get mentioned as early as episode two. I think they wanted it to be Sam’s decision before giving the government’s reasoning

I saw this online but I think they had an easier explanation. Sam was legally dead so he has no money. Maybe the money he would’ve gotten vía Stark went into some sort of account that was frozen when he died. And Tony, having given up hope of fixing the snap, donated that money to help people affected. So maybe Sam just had zero dollars and would be in worse shape than his sister with no more Stark money to fund being the Falcon.

Alan Sepinwall brought up that post-Snap life probably wasn’t considered and that’s why it seems like such a mess so far. It’s easy for Feige and Co to maintain continuity at a high level, but when you dig into daily life, it’s much harder

That’s pretty cool! I’m glad this isn’t a dead-end storyline, and I’m really glad that the fans get the actress they want. And could be some really cool stories with Ryan and Kate both on the scene

I'm also having trouble connecting with the Flash.  I know they had difficulties since they had scripts written (presumably that they liked) but couldn't film.  So I'm sure they just used those scripts and continued telling the story.  I don't know if Mirror Master can be the villain for a season and a half so I'm sure they'll resolve this quickly and move on to whoever the villain is this year.

But, yeah, the team feels weird.  Barry has faced pretty much every challenge.  We've dealt with just about everyone having powers and losing powers (although Frost being a speedster was cool).  I guess the next logical step is for them to have a baby, but I don't really know what else the show can do, narratively.

Which sucks.  The show used to be a lot of fun, but it just feels like it's stuck in place.  Even doing something like killing Cisco or whatever wouldn't really shake things up anymore - they replaced Cisco with Chester for the premiere and it wasn't any better or different.

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I'm enjoying Superman & Lois quite a bit.  I was worried about the teenage stuff, but it's actually been solid so far.  The one thing is that it doesn't look or feel like the Arrowverse.  At all.  I couldn't imagine Barry running in to save the nuclear plant in Clark's absence, and I have trouble even picturing Kara in this world.  It just feels glossier and more "real"

Although Superman sure gets his butt kicked a lot...

I guess that makes sense.  So in Arrowverse continuity, he had those kids the entire life of the Arrowverse.  When Oliver returned to Starling City and started his quest, years before Barry Allen got his powers and Kara Danvers showed up on the scene, Clark and Lois were already married and had 6-year-old (ish?) twins?

In fact, Kara is only a few years (max ten?) older than his second cousins (is that what second cousins are?)

Considering the reboot, that really doesn't change much.  And I assume the pandemic will make it almost impossible for them to do any crossovers with this show so they may just never reference that.

Anyone watch Superman and Lois? I thought it was well done and didn’t really feel like anything else they’ve done in the Arrowverse.

I’d need to go back and watch Crisis, but did they age the kids up in that episode? I vaguely remember them indicating that Crisis replaced one kid with two, but fairly certain their child was originally a baby. So do Clark and Lois not remember most of their kid’s lives (when they got their memories back) or did they not get their memories back or am I forgetting something?

In my head, we are overfocused on the idea that Evan Peters is Pietro in the Fox universe. I think it’s more of an Easter egg than anything plot related. I think, if it’s Nicholas Scratch, Scratch is showing his true face. And since no one knows who he is, no one is the wiser

I think if they could make him look like MCU Pietro, they would have. So I think he’s not looking “like someone” - Nicholas Scratch (or whoever he is) looks like Evan Peters in this universe

The biggest hole in this theory is the fact that we saw that brief moment of Pietro with gunshots. It doesn’t fit in my theory, unless it was just a moment of hypnosis to sell the theory.

They dropped the Agatha Harkness twist finally.  Most people, I think, saw that coming if they knew the comics, but I thought they did a great job with it.  The "Agatha All Along" song was great, and there's still two weeks to build on that.

The engineer was either very disappointing (someone no one has heard of) or they're still stretching out the surprise.  At this point, I think it's gotta be Reed Richards.  I think it'd be pretty shocking to introduce someone like that in something like this, but the way they're talking about it in interviews and the way the show is treating it, I think it's gotta be something big.

Potential spoilers on the ending (nothing confirmed but speculation I've read)

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So everyone is thinking Mephisto because of how the story went in the comics, but that might be too much to introduce to audiences in less than two episodes.  So who's someone that fits all of the qualifications that have been both on the show and talked about in interviews and feeds into Dr Strange....?

What if Baron Mordo is behind everything?  Acclaimed actor.  Big name.  Leads directly into Multiverse of Madness.  Already established in the universe.  Magic related.  I think this could be a cool way to end it and may fit better than Mephisto/Nightmare/etc.

What I don't understand about the Snyder Cut is the fact that the movie will still have the same skeleton.  Whedon didn't have the time or ability to completely re-write what Snyder had done.  So the story going to be, at its heart, what we've already seen.  I've never seen a movie re-cut to be something completely different.  The Ultimate Edition of BvS added scenes but didn't change how I felt about the movie as I watched it.

I get that it's essentially gonna be a second movie's worth of footage, but at best, it would be a sidequel.

I think this money and energy would've been better used to do his whole triolgy in animation.  They could've rushed through the "Justice League" part (since we've seen it) and then do his finale.  Because at least that would've been new.

Leaving in his spoiler tag to talk about his spoiler talk

Is that how you read that?  I think Evan Peters is at least pretending to be Age of Ultron Pietro, but I'm still not convinced that he's anything other than some sort of trick.  A podcast I listen to speculated that it may be X-Men Peter and some combination of multiverse travel and Wanda may have messed with his memories, which is an interesting take on multiversal travel.

I think Wanda is suspicious, and I think Pietro is at least acting suspicious.  What's interesting is that Pietro briefly flashes with bulletholes - which is weird because we know that Vision's body looks the way it's supposed to (animated by Wanda), but if Pietro is truly Peter, why the bulletholes?

The bigger question for me is who is the scientist that Monica keeps referencing.  Is it the obvious choice of seeing in Reed Richards?  Would Disney introduce a character like that in a Disney+ show?  Is it Jane Foster now that Natalie Portman is back in the fray?  But, if then, why isn't Darcy the one bringing her in?  Same with Selvig.  It could be Riri Williams in a tie-in to a future Disney+ show, but the ages would be wildly off, especially if Riri wasn't snapped.  Could be a parent but that seems weak.

All signs point to Reed, but that would be quite the twist.  Maybe that's what Elizabeth Olsen was referencing when she mentioned a Luke-level cameo.

I think that's fair.  As neither a woman nor LGBT, I'm certainly discounting the effect that she has and what she means to people.  I think (?) Ryan is a lesbian, and there's certainly plenty of representation on the show, but I absolutely understand (better, now) the optics of just killing her off.  But I also understand that it's on Ruby Rose.  If Ruby wanted to come back and save Kate, even for a cameo so she can go on some mission for the rest of the show, she could.  Keeping her alive but never seen again doesn't accomplish a ton, does it?  I loved the character of Quinn, but I never got any sort of peace or relief out of the idea that Quinn didn't die on screen.

I think it would've been better for Sliders if Quinn had been killed, even unceremoniously off screen, so that the other characters could move on and the writers could be free to do their thing.  Same with Wade.  Having the "we don't have time!" line and her coming back as a computer didn't make me feel better.

I get that it's a hard call.  But they're setting up mysteries that they can't solve.  Maybe they eventually get the rights to use Batman and/or real Bruce Wayne.  Maybe they convince Ruby Rose to wrap up her character or recast.  But at this point, they're writing themselves into holes when they could be writing cool new stories with Ryan.  That's where I think their focus should be.

The other option would've been to have Batwoman Inc. as the idea and recast almost everyone.  Maybe Kate sends Luke to help the new Batwoman establish herself in a different city.  Maybe she goes to Star City and they get some of the Arrow cast.  I don't know.  But that's one way they could've kept Kate alive without her on the show, and at least they could have "hey, I just got off the phone with Kate" scenes.

It sucks because the trial is a waste of time and it will hurt Biden more than it will hurt Trump.

Especially since Trump has been very quiet since leaving office.  He can't run the party without a platform to speak from, right?

I liked the Batwoman premiere.  I thought it was well done and was handled about as well as possible.  I liked Ryan as a character, and they did enough to make Ryan fit on the show (since literally everyone on the show was related to her).  I wonder if they'll reference any of this on Supergirl or the other Arrowverse shows.

I thought it was a bit odd that they decided to go with a CW-budget Batmobile.  Is that going to be what Ryan uses as Batwoman?

I have a degree in economics (in addition to my degree in journalism) and I've always sorta come on this side of the equation.  After all, companies don't have compassion and will happily pass whatever extra costs to the consumer.

But I don't think that's true anymore.  A few years ago, one of my jobs was to monitor minimum wage hikes across the country and update our systems so that we didn't underpay anyone.  When Target announced that they were going to be increasing their minimum wage across the board to $15 voluntarily, a lot of companies moved to do the same.  Mine didn't (too expensive overall) but did make lengths to get close.  That was years ago - they could be there by now.  I modeled a situation where they probably could've gotten there by now.

I think prices could go up slightly (a Big Mac in California costs about a dollar more than a Big Mac in Alabama even though labor costs are much higher in California), but I don't think there's enough evidence that corporations are so cold that they'll pass *all* the costs onto the consumer.  I think there's too much risk from a public relations stance for all the costs to double.

Yeah and we aren't married to November either.  We could do it in October an inaugurate in November if December has to be a dead zone. I'm not saying Trump is the only reason, but he can be the reason we do it.  We could've saved tens of thousands of lives if Biden could've been in office months ago.  We're sitting around and waiting for no good reason.

And it's the same for previous presidents.  The only time a transition time is beneficial is when the transfer of power is one party to the next.  Anything Obama accomplished during his lame duck period could've been done in a month and whatever he did could be easily undone by Trump (executive orders, etc).  Congress was elected at the same time and they're already sworn in and working.  Only the presidency is delayed like this.

And I get that transitions take time.  But there could always be some sort of period where Trump and Biden's staffs are working together even if Biden is in office.  So a transition period with the new guy in power instead of the old guy.  It works everywhere else so I'm not sure why it wouldn't work here.

But Grizzlor's right - it'll never happen.  At least not in this political climate

I'm on board with that as well.  Especially if there's going to be more nonsense.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/arrow- … 234881450/

Sorry, ireactions

I'd be fascinated to see an impeachment vote in the Senate.  I think you could easily get 50 votes.  Can you get to the threshold?  I'm thinking maybe.  We just had 92 and 93 votes.  Do more than 20 or so think that removal is that much different?  Were more than 20 of them convinced that Trump is dangerous as they were ushered out of the Capitol?

Or was Trump's clearly-written-for-him speech enough to convince Republicans to vote no just because it's a waste of time?

I'd do it - just to get people on the record