DC Superheroes on TV & Streaming (1966 - 2024) (Page 25 of 28)

Hunnh. BATWOMAN's seventh episode is its mid-season finale. Season 3 won't resume until January 12 and there are only six more episodes left in Season 3; BATWOMAN will only have 13 episodes this year. I guess that was to make the economics work considering its ratings and sales.

I've been meaning to write on BATWOMAN for weeks, but I've been so busy with upscaling Season 1 of SLIDERS and the other thing, what is it, that thing I do during the day, that job, the day job, but really upscaling Season 1 of SLIDERS.

Slider_Quinn21 is quite correct to point out the absurdities of Ryan Wilder somehow running Wayne Enterprises on Kate's say-so; it's also ridiculous that Kate was running what was described as a multibillion dollar corporation. Wayne Enterprises would not be a family business for Bruce's cousin to take and then hand over to her stepsister's roommate; there would be a shareholders' board and a hiring process.

There's also the fact that across the first two seasons of BATWOMAN, Wayne Enterprises *never* seemed like an actual business and Wayne Tower *never* came off as a workplace of any kind. I was shocked to see Tom Lenk guest-starring as the Wayne Enterprises crisis communications worker. I had been under the impression that Wayne Enterprises was just a holding company for various patents and businesses at this point that had outsourced all its work to smaller firms since Bruce had left Gotham in a fit of something or other. I didn't think anyone did any actual work there and figured that while Kate had access to the executive floors of Wayne Tower, the rest of it had probably been rented out as office space to other businesses.

Also, if we accept -- and you may not -- that superheroes are written and watched or read by predominantly left-of-center creators and viewers, then there has never been a more unfashionable time for a superhero to own or run a multinational corporation. In my head canon (and no one else's), Bruce Wayne would not run a multinational corporation. Bruce Wayne would run a not-for-profit foundation; Bruce's wealth would have come from his father having invented various small medical patents in surgical technologies and real estate investments.

The writers of BATWOMAN are obviously left-of-center creators, and they have deliberately left Wayne Enterprises vague and undefined. It's partially because Wayne Enterprises doesn't really matter except as a thin justification for how Batwoman can afford all her hardware; it's primarily because the writers don't really want to show their heroic lead character running a corporation of any kind but felt compelled to maintain that part of the mythos.

What exactly does Wayne Enterprises buy or sell or offer?

Also, what business was Queen Consolidated in, exactly? And what does STAR Labs do any more after the particle accelerator explosion? Of all the fictional 'businesses' in the Arrowverse, the only recurring ones that have ever really made sense are the dating app Upswipz, the CC Jitters coffee shop, the Big Belly Burger fast food chain and Palmertech (which at least had a self-explanatory name).

**

I find it interesting that BATWOMAN has accepted that it can't do what it set out to do in telling Kate Kane's story; BATWOMAN has become BATS OF GOTHAM: THE NEXT GENERATION, creating a second generation Batwoman, a second generation Joker, a second generation Poison Ivy and I assume that any day now, we'll get a second generation King Tut and a second generation Marsha Queen of Diamonds. It's all about the fragments and pieces left after Batman departed and... it's not the original plan and I'd have been baffled to watch the Season 1 premiere of BATWOMAN followed by the Season 3 premiere of BATWOMAN. BATWOMAN has become as alien to its starting point as SLIDERS. However, its heart is in the right place and the writers are making the best of a very strange turn on an unmapped road.

**

Caroline Dries, showrunner, worked on SMALLVILLE for many years. One of the more baffling things about SMALLVILLE: the way the manipulative, evil Lionel Luthor had a sudden redemption arc in Season 4/5 that made little sense where Clark briefly inhabited his body and suddenly, he was a good guy, trusted by Clark and treated like a father figure, welcomed at the Kents Thanksgiving dinner, etc..

Something similar but better has happened with Alice joining the team; BATWOMAN has a crazy but oddly sensible contrivance with Renee Montoya forcing the Bat-team to help her track down the villains' artifacts and making Alice help. But Dries also does a great job of showing how Alice is not accepted as a member of the team and will turn on them if it suits her; she's a ticking time bomb that still blows up when the gang least expects it.

**

I love Ryan Wilder, but with the mid-season finale of BATWOMAN, I have to ask if she is quite possibly the *worst* superhero to ever feature in the Arrowverse. She was handed the mantle of Batwoman by the original; she was given full control of Wayne Enterprises; she was given a personal physician; she was given a tech genius as her IT support; she was given a home; she was given billions in financial resources; she was given the Batcave; she was given the Batmobile. Seven episodes in, she has somehow managed to alienate her doctor and sign the rest away.

I find this highly relatable; if I were a superhero, I'd probably screw up in much the same way. I'm not knocking Ryan, but I do cringe for her self-esteem this year.

The Flash: Armageddon is... I guess it's alright.

I thought it was clever and weird for Joe to be absent in the premiere and declared dead in the next episode with Barry having no memory of Joe's death, much like the viewer. It's an interesting piece of writing that puts the viewer directly in Barry's perspective of confusion and disorientation. The cliffhanger of some version of Eobard Thawne or Harrison Wells marrying Iris is another moment of baffling bizarreness.

It reminded me of last season where Barry was calling out to Iris and Iris wasn't responding or seen on camera and the actress was obviously not on set, and then a later episode revealed that Iris had been in the Speed Force and in hiding and had genuinely been as absent in-story as the actress in the real world situation.

That said, I can't really say I'm that gripped by these first three episodes. The first episode was a bunch of nice scenes with Brandon Routh in the mix for no real reason. The second episode was some scenes of Barry abruptly behaving strangely for reasons unknown and the special guest star this time was Chyler Leigh on a screen and not really that necessary to the story either. The third episode is mostly Grant Gustin and Cress Williams in a mostly isolated and empty set talking which is fine and with Williams used better than Routh or Leigh in their episodes.

It's fine and given that pandemic protocols are still in effect for the leads and featured guest-stars, I can see why they're doing a series of special guest star episodes with all the featured guest-stars being actors who aren't currently working on any other ARROWVERSE show. And I can see why they're not calling these episodes with special guest stars a 'crossover' but still declaring it an 'event.' It's what they can do.

It's fine.

As I understand it, scenes like the wedding are possible, but they require a lot of money and scheduling to make them possible.

It seems to me that despite vaccination, any regular cast and guest-stars who would be in the same space would need to be kept within a pod for the minimum two weeks and tested daily. Daily life for them would have to stay within their pods during filming and production would have to cover the costs and handle the scheduling for that.

Yes, vaccination makes COVID survivable and less transmissible, but Grant Gustin getting infected with no symptoms would still take him out of filming for two weeks and throw off THE FLASH's schedule and airdates. Even within his vaccine-reduced window of being infectious, he could get Javicia Leslie infected and her self-isolation would delay BATWOMAN.

Outside the ARROWVERSE, Michael Rosenbaum was double-vaccinated and caught COVID at a convention. While his life was never in jeopardy, he was very sick for two weeks and needed another two weeks to regain his full health; that happening to Gustin and Leslie could destroy the shooting schedule for THE FLASH and BATWOMAN.

To prevent this, there is a lot of expense, time-tabling and staffing needed for each actor whether a guest-star or a regular. And production can only do it for so many actors before it becomes logistically impossible and unaffordable. Scheduling Javicia Leslie for ARMAGEDDON was apparently a minor miracle as her BATWOMAN pod and protocols and ARMAGEDDON's schedule could be synced. Tyler Hoechlin and Caity Lotz couldn't be scheduled for ARMAGEDDON because their protocol schedules conflicted.

And even once they get all the actors together safely, so much of the schedule has been taken up by the COVID prevention that they may only have a day or two to actually film the scenes, and they may not be able to do any complex fight choreography in keeping the onset headcount limited to what they can afford in the production crew pods.

If I get sick, it would be unpleasant and inconvenient for me, but I could do my job from home and/or my organization could manage in my temporary absence. If Grant Gustin gets sick, then the entire mini-corporation that's THE FLASH TV production comes to a stop.

Admittedly, this is the same production company that had RIVERDALE's series-lead KJ Apa driving 45 minutes to get home after a 14 hour shoot during which he fell asleep behind the wheel and drove into a streetlight.

**

THE FLASH and BATWOMAN have had some crowd scenes. It is likely that there's a specific pod of extras in a modest number who pose and move for specific shots that are then duplicated and altered through computer modelling to fill a space. Or they're wearing blue or green masks removed in post. However, in some cases, the crowd is achieved practically by booking a troupe of extras, hiring them duration of production instead of as day players, and keeping them isolated within that pod until the season finale is filmed. This expense could be why BATWOMAN is only getting 13 episodes this year.

I thought it was really cool to see Barry in the Reverse Flash suit.  I thought the Flash suit looked really weird on Tom Cavanaugh, but not as weird as it looked on Stephen Amell.

******

Yeah, I don't like the Titans Batman.  I also thought it was weird that Dick didn't consider being Batman.  It was also weird that he abandoned the Batcave and Wayne Manor so easily.

Did you understand how the police department started working for Scarecrow?  I know Gordon got arrested, but then all of the sudden, the cops were all evil.  I don't remember how that was part of the plan.  I read recaps and still couldn't figure out what I missed.

Oh geez, I'm so sorry.  I thought you'd finished the season and dropped two spoilers on you

In other news, Berlanti Productions continues its quest to do Batman shows despite not having any access to the Batman license, now launching a SON OF BATMAN series called GOTHAM KNIGHTS.

https://www.cbr.com/gotham-knights-tv-s … er-the-cw/

I assume that we'll soon get AUNT HARRIET: A LIFE IN CRIME ALLEY. And then ACE, a series focused on the Bat-Hound. Then HAROLD: BAT MECHANIC. Then DORMBAT, a series about Bruce Wayne's college roommate. Followed by GLASSWINGS, about the window washers who clean all of Wayne's skyscrapers.

Personally, I think the entire TITANS concept is unworkable - at least for me. The entire cast was assembled by grabbing a bunch of available copyrights, not by identifying characters who fit together well.

Teen Heroes: The TEEN TITANS comic book made sense: it was about the adventures of teen sidekicks. It's about what Robin, Kid-Flash and Aqualad got up to when Batman, The Flash and Aquaman weren't around. It made sense to, over time, add newer or more recent incarnations of sidekick characters: Wonder Girl (whose continuity is odd), Speedy (Roy Harper, Green Arrow's sidekick), Beast Boy (from Doom Patrol) -- and to add a few teen characters who didn't have a parent book of their own (Starfire and Cyborg) so that the TEEN TITANS book would have control of a few cast members.

Adult Titans? However, by the late 90s, the characters outside the control of the TEEN TITANS banner were no longer teens. The BATMAN office had changed Dick into an adult. The FLASH office had changed Kid Flash into the Flash. The WONDER WOMAN office had made Wonder Girl into an adult Donna Tory. The GREEN ARROW office had changed Speedy into the adult Arsenal. The AQUAMAN office had changed Aqualad into the adult Tempest. There were five different editorial teams handing the Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow and Aquaman characters and fairly or unfairly, these teams weren't concerned with the TEEN TITANS brand.

Indistinct Titans: The TEEN TITANS office tried to deal with this by changing the title to TITANS which became a title about former teen superheroes who were still superheroes but no longer teens and and were now a team defined by how they all used to be teenagers and were now adults -- which is not a particularly unique trait. The concept was confused and confusing. There was nothing that made the TITANS distinct from any other assembly of adult superheroes. TITANS became the title aimed at people who used to buy TEEN TITANS.

Young Justice: DC later introduced the YOUNG JUSTICE concept which was a support group of sidekick characters Robin (Tim Drake), Impulse (Bart Allen), Superboy (Connor Kent), Wonder Girl (Cassandra Sandsmark) and some original characters who weren't controlled by a parent book (Arrowette, L'il Lobo, Empress) etc.. YOUNG JUSTICE was more TEEN TITANS than TITANS had been for years.

Teen Titans and Titans: Eventually, DC had a TEEN TITANS book with most of the YOUNG JUSTICE lineup and retired the YOUNG JUSTICE brand, and had a separate TITANS book for the former-teen-now-adult team and presented the adult TITANS as a sort of eternal college reunion. In recent years, the YOUNG JUSTICE branding has made a comeback with Tim, Bart, Connor, Cassie and others while TEEN TITANS has Robin (Damian Wayne), Kid-Flash (Wallace West, the cousin of Wally), Aqualad (Jackson Hyde), Beast Boy, Starfire and Raven.

It can be mentally draining to keep all of this comic book stuff straight.

A Suggestion: In my view, if DC must publish a TITANS book staring the adult Titans, their best best is to make it a second NIGHTWING title, NIGHTWING AND THE TITANS, where Dick has lots of adventures with superpowered characters and as a counterpoint to the primary NIGHTWING title where he's a street level superhero. The series would be about how Nightwing knows everyone in the DC Universe. TITANS would become NIGHTWING TEAM-UP.

Getting back to TV:

Unheroic Superheroes: TITANS is a deeply confused show. It is a show about a team of former teen superheroes who are deeply traumatized by their past and moving on from their careers as superheroes by... forming a superhero team. (!?!?) It's about a superhero team who repeatedly encounter troubled young women being hunted by dark forces and heroically... plan to abandon them and only fail to do so due to unexpected circumstances. (?!?!) The show is largely focused these so-called superheroes fighting grudge matches in fight scenes during which they wear superhero costumes. (Season 3 seems to recognize this and have more heroics.)

A Mismatched Cast: The characters include a clone of Superman, an alien princess with superpowers escaping her people, a child of some primordial force of evil from the dawn of time, a troubled police detective who used to be a superhero, and a superhero couple who are looking to stop superheroing. Three seasons in and I'm not sure why these characters are in the same show or on the same team; why is Detective Dick Grayson the right character to help Raven and her dark magic powers? Why is a metahuman changeling in the same show as an alien princess? Why are characters who aren't enriched by their proximity put into the same series?

The explanation is that TITANS is a dumping ground for copyrights that the studio doesn't believe can sustain a show independently.

Separate Shows in One: Starfire should be in her own STARFIRE show, but I guess Berlanti and Warner Bros. and HBO Max don't think that show would have an audience. Superboy should be a guest-star in SUPERMAN AND LOIS, but he's not needed because Clark has two actual children for Superboy stories. Dick Grayson should should be in his own NIGHTWING show, but the studio and streamer would prefer to bundle all these copyrights under the TITANS banner.

Crippled: UNDER THE RED HOOD is a Batman story, not a TITANS story, and trying to tell it on TITANS is like trying to sail across the Atlantic with a Jeep. TITANS simply doesn't have the right tools to tell that story. TITANS clearly does not have the Batman license, only Bruce Wayne. It's absurd for TITANS to claim that Iain Glen and Curran Walters were running around Gotham City fighting crime during the first two seasons of TITANS when TITANS can never, ever, ever show Batman and Robin together.

Nightwing's Show: For the most part, TITANS has tried to be a NIGHTWING show and then added all these subplots that feel like discards from the hypothetical SUPERBOY and STARFIRE TV shows and the actual SUPERMAN AND LOIS TV show. There is absolutely no sense of what the Titans represent as a team. The Justice League is an assembly of analogues to mythological figures. The Avengers are deeply dysfunctional human beings who are also demi-gods. The Fantastic Four are a science fiction family. The Sliders are misfits lost in the multiverse.

No Team: The Titans are... a gang of miserable, unhappy, self-destructive, unheroic people who don't get along and constantly betray each other and inexplicably insist on living together while loathing their superhero careers while nonsensically insisting on wearing superhero costumes to fight people they don't like (while rarely fighting crime).

Dick Grayson: I think they should have just done a NIGHTWING show, had Dick fighting crime alone in the first season and possibly without the fantasy elements. I don't know if Dick is a character who really benefits from fighting eldritch gods or dating alien princesses (although he has). I know for sure that he doesn't benefit from being put into stories that were ultimately meant for Bruce Wayne.

Indistinct: I don't know what TITANS is. I don't think TITANS knows what it is. I would have preferred either having a NIGHTWING show or a TEEN TITANS show that actually featured teen characters.

I will catch up with Armageddon tomorrow.

**

With TITANS -- I just don't think the concept works unless they are actually the TEEN Titans. Maybe you could have Nightwing be an adult and everyone else is a teen.

And with trying to adapt BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD but find some reason for Batman to not be in BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD and slot Dick Grayson into Batman's role -- I just can't wrap my head around why someone would do something so counterintuitive and convoluted and pointless. Dick Grayson needs to be featured in stories designed to explore Dick Grayson, not stories that were written for Bruce Wayne. The Scarecrow is Bruce's villain. Jason Todd is Bruce's former sidekick. The Red Hood is Bruce's anti-hero antagonist. Dick Grayson has his own villains and his own stories and any story where Dick has to deal with baggage left behind by Bruce is a story that actually requires the ability to show the Batsuit and Bruce Wayne wearing it, something TITANS cannot seem to do.

**

There is this one Dick Grayson versus Jason Todd story that I really, really like, but nobody else does. It's called BATMAN: BATTLE FOR THE COWL #1-3, written and illustrated by Tony Daniel. After the events of FINAL CRISIS, Batman is believed dead. Gotham City goes insane as Black Mask, the Penguin and every supervillain with a gimmick starts gunning to be the biggest crime boss in town. Nightwing is reeling from Bruce's death and when asked if he'll assume the mantle, he refuses. No one could ever replace Bruce.

Tim Drake (Robin) and Nightwing start investigating who the worst threat is in Gotham's criminals gone mad -- only to find that a new player is simply shooting them to death. A savage thug wearing Batman's costume and wielding two automatic pistols bursts onto the scene. "I am Batman," says the newcomer and Robin and Nightwing immediately recognize him. It's Jason Todd. Dick refuses to put on the Batsuit and Tim, outraged, puts it on and confronts Jason.

Jason is deranged, savage, almost feral -- shattered with grief at Bruce's death and enraged that Bruce's non-lethal tactics left the city in this state should Batman ever die. Jason almost kills Tim and starts gunning for Dick. Dick pursues Jason and manages to box him in; Jason says that Dick knows Dick is no match for Jason; that's why Dick never even tried to be Batman. Everyone knows that Dick doesn't have what it takes to succeed Bruce or clean up his mess. Only Jason Todd does. It's what Bruce would want.

Dick plays Jason a video recording. It's a message that Bruce recorded to be played for Jason in the event of Bruce's death. Bruce, in the video, apologizes to Jason. He says he never realized or understood how broken Jason was until after Jason's 'death,' that Jason never the gifts needed for a superhero, only the rage needed for a fighter. Bruce says it is his fault that Jason is the way he is; Bruce says that this message being played means that he died. His dying wish would be for Jason to go to Dick, Alfred, Tim and let them help him; get him into psychiatric care, heal his fractured mind --

Jason flies into a rage that his mentor didn't see him as a contender to the mantle but a charity case. His fight with Dick sees him plunge off a train, refusing Dick's outstretched hand. Jason falls into the Gotham Bay, supposedly dead (haha, yeah right) and Nightwing watches Jason disappear, thinking of all the turning points in Jason's life and Dick's, how Jason could have reached out to any one of them and changed his path. But maybe, Dick thinks, there are times when he's seen his path in front of him and realized it has always been where he's going -- like now, where every battle and test has made Dick realize the truth of he who is and who he must become. He is Batman.

Absolutely nobody who has ever written or commented on BATTLE FOR THE COWL seems to like it, calling it total filler between FINAL CRISIS and the relaunched BATMAN AND ROBIN where Dick Grayson is Batman and Damian Wayne is Robin. Every reviewer has remarked that the comics could have simply gone straight from FINAL CRISIS to Dick Grayson's BATMAN AND ROBIN without any explanation; that it was perfectly self-evident that Dick would be the new Batman. Reviewers also remarked that BATTLE FOR THE COWL has Dick repeatedly refuse to be Batman only to fail to save Jason and then inexplicably put on the Batman costume in issue 3 for no stated reason.

I love it.

BATMAN #687 is "Battle for the Cowl: A Battle Within" by Judd Winick. In this issue, set after BATTLE FOR THE COWL #3, the criminals of Gotham keep getting defeated by non-lethal weaponry fired from the Batmobile, but the driver never shows himself. It's revealed that Dick is driving the Batmobile but still in his Nightwing costume. We flash to Bruce's private funeral with the Justice League present and Dick giving a eulogy, declaring that Batman lives. Batman's legend doesn't end. Batman will continue.

We see Dick Grayson in the Batcave, unable to adapt to the workspace, to Bruce's tools, Bruce's space, Bruce's world. And unwilling to wear the costume. Alfred asks Dick why he won't put on the uniform. Dick says he doesn't think he can be Bruce. "Then what the hell are you doing here?" Alfred asks.

Dick and Alfred decide to set up a new Batcave under the offices of the Wayne Foundation in the heart of Gotham City. "This will be me," says Dick. Dick says that he won't try to be Bruce; he will be his own version of Batman, he will make the mask his own in his way and with his own methods. Alfred promises that he won't do it alone and that nothing would make Damian happier. The issue ends with the Scarecrow mounting a gas attack on Gotham City only for Dick to show up to stop him, finally in the Batman costume. I loved this issue too. Reviewers found it repetitive with BATTLE FOR THE COWL having covered the same ground.

Winick wrote another four issues of BATMAN after this: "Long Shadows" in which Two Face notices that 'Batman' has been caught on camera. Bounding through the air acrobatically instead of carrying heavy loads of muscle on his frame. And smiling. Two Face hires a teleporting wizard (ah, comics) to track the location that the original Batman considers home -- to the Batcave under Wayne Manor (without knowing where he actually is). Dick (as Batman) goes to investigate and is savagely beaten by Two Face, with Two Face screaming that Dick is an impostor.

Batman doesn't smile. Batman doesn't do circus style flips. "Batman's gone!" Two Face shrieks. "So who the hell are you!?" Two Face demands to know where the real Batman is -- dead? Insane? Injured? But Dick manages to outmaneuver Two Face, get the drop on him, incapacitate him and Dick declares, "I'm not like you, Harvey. I'm not split down the middle like your coin. I can *change*." Two Face, beaten and about to fall unconscious, mutters, "It is you" before passing out.

Reviewers also really hated this storyline for being trite and simplistic. I adore it.

Of course, none of these are TITANS stories and all of them actually need to actually show Batman.

PEACEMAKER wasn't really on my radar! I am also not up to speed with STARGIRL, SUPERMAN AND LOIS and I only got to episode 7 of this year's LEGENDS. Will catch up next weekend!

I have been watching BATWOMAN and very pleased... although I will, of course, perpetually feel a longing for these stories to feature Kate Kane (whether Ruby Rose or Wallis Day) instead of Ryan Wilder. But the writers have made the best of what they have and Javicia Leslie is terrific.

The only thing that doesn't quiet work for me -- while Ryan and Sophie have great chemistry, it's unsettling to me that Ryan has been given Kate's suit, Kate's team, Kate's apartment, Kate's company and now Kate's girlfriend which brings me back to thinking this would all make more sense if it were Kate in these stories; if they had simply recast Kate with Wallis Day in the Season 2 premiere and played out the original script but kept Kate in-costume, shown her unmasked briefly with a shot of Ruby Rose from Season 1 (they still had the use of her image despite Rose's departure) -- and then had her severely burned to explain why the tattoos are gone when Wallis Day takes over and why her face is a little different after reconstruction.

I last heard that Wallis Day was filming a movie in Tunisia and hasn't been anywhere near Vancouver in months. Narratively -- I think it makes sense to let Javicia truly be the lead of BATWOMAN for Season 3.

But looking back now -- I think that the writers probably could have transitioned from Rub Rose to Wallis Day in a Season 2 premiere.

They kept using Ruby Rose's photograph throughout Season 2. Since they had the rights to her image even if they didn't have Rose herself, they did have a way of transitioning from Rose to Wallis Day, but it would have been *extremely* difficult.

They could have rewritten the original Season 1 finale into a Season 2 premiere.

2.1- "The Death of Kate Kane"
Opening scene: 'Bruce Wayne'/Hush gets the Kryptonite bullet for Alice. He doesn't encounter Kate because Kate hasn't taken off the Batsuit or gone to Wayne Tower in weeks: she is relentlessly hunting the Arkham escapees.

When we see Batwoman, she's in full costume, masked, played by Kelli Victoria Scarangello (Ruby Rose's stunt double).

Kate doesn't speak without using the Batwoman voice changer and she refuses to take off the mask: she has buried herself in the Batwoman persona due to her grief over her father's betrayal of Batwoman.

When Jacob Kane calls Kate, she picks up but won't speak. Jacob says he knows she's angry at his public decision to hunt Batwoman down but says he's doing his job. Batwoman doesn't answer.

Batwoman is tracking down another Arkham escapee, but when the Crow agents try to arrest her, the escapee gets away. Batwoman is furious . Luke, Mary and Julia urge her to come back to the batcave, take off the costume and address the situation with her father, reveal her identity -- and Batwoman refuses, growling in her vocoder-deepened voice that the problem isn't Kate Kane and Jacob Kane. The problem is the Crows and the Crows are going down tonight.

At this point, Alice delivers the Kryptonite bullet to Jacob in her personal revolver of choice, remarking that Batwoman is their shared enemy.

Batwoman sets a trap for all the Arkham escapees, luring them with false messages saying that there is a stockpile of weapons in an old warehouse that they could use to rule the city. She leaks the messages to the Crows, lets the Crows and the escapees fight it out and batlines Jacob out of the fight.

She snarls at Jacob: who the hell does he think he is to come after her? She notes that below them, the Crows are losing against the escapees. Jacob spits that Batwoman lured his men into a trap; she's responsible for every Crow who dies below. We see Sophie in mortal peril below.

Batwoman triggers a flood of thickening foam that encases and immobilizes everyone on the ground floor, Crow and criminal alike.

She tells Jacob that the Crows are useless, the police are inadequate, Batman is gone: there's only Batwoman and the incompetent Jacob Kane. Jacob strikes Batwoman. Batwoman tries to defend herself but pulls her punches.

Jacob remarks that she seems to be a little soft today and Batwoman breaks his nose. She recoils, horrified and what she's done to her father.  She tries to batline away, Jacob tackles her and her grappling hook punctures a gas line. She throws Jacob off, Jacob draws his standard sidearm, Batwoman throws off his aim and the shot triggers an gas fire.

Jacob descends to ground level to try to dig his people out of the hardened foam before the fire hits them. Batwoman sets off another chemical charge to desolidify the foam so that everyone can escape. But Jacob doesn't leave, pursuing Batwoman deeper into the burning building. They fight in the flames, Batwoman beats him down. From the floor, Jacob pulls out the revolver with the Kryptonite bullet and shoots to kill. Batwoman collapses. Jacob peels off her mask.

CUT TO: A shot of Ruby Rose unmasked, lying on the ground of the warehouse. This is unused footage from some previous episode I don't remember when Kate was unmasked and unconscious and in the suit. But surely it exists.

Jacob is horrified. Backs away several steps in shock and denial. It can't be Kate. It has to be a trick. "It can't be -- " he says. But then we stay on Jacob's face and hear Kate say, "Dad," in a reused audio clip from... again, I don't remember. But surely it exists.

Jacob turns to the warehouse exit, runs away from Kate and screaming that he needs help. Moving farther away from her, hoping his cries will be heard. Then he turns back towards Kate, starts to close the distance from them as she bleeds out. Jacob babbles that he's sorry  --

But then a portion of the ceiling collapses between him and Kate. Jacob rushes forward anyway, but then arms grab him behind -- it's Sophie. He tries to fight her off but she drags him out of the burning warehouse and Kate just before the building is consumed in flame with Kate Kane inside.

2.2 - "Burial"
Kate's body is missing, never recovered from the wreckage. The city erupts into chaos without Batwoman and Jacob is forced to join the bat-team of Luke, Mary, Julia and Parker to contain the situation. They gather at Kate's funeral and Jacob begs God to forgive him.

However, at the end, we find out that a False Face Society member was trapped in the warehouse too; he dug Kate out; the Kryptonite bullet was partially deflected by Kate's lead-lined wrist-gauntlet, going through her body and missing any vital organs. She survived and was brought to Black Mask and is unrecongizably scarred and now played by Wallis Day.

2.3 - "Batwoman Reborn"
The city is attacked and Batwoman reappears to save the day -- but it's a Batwoman with a damaged costume and barely any of the red wig. Batwoman returns to the Batcave, surprising Julia, Mary and Luke. Julia says the real Batwomanis dead and fights this supposed-impostor, but recognizes that this Batwoman has the same fighting style as Kate Kane.

She unmasks and it's Wallis Day, whom the characters recognize as Kate. She looks a little different and all the tattoos are gone. All her skin has regrown new and shifted a little. They question her and she has all of Kate's memories up to the fire. Kate says she doesn't remember how she was healed from her injuries or why her face isn't quite the same.

We later learn that Black Mask healed her body and has programmed a sleeper personality into Kate's mind to be triggered at the right point in his plan for revenge against Batwoman and Gotham City.

2.4 - "Unworthy"
'Bruce Wayne' returns and accuses Kate of being an impostor with poor plastic surgery trying to steal the Wayne fortune. He has her ousted from Wayne Enterprises. He then tells Kate he knows she's the real Kate, but that she was a failure as a superhero in every way and that she is unworthy to be Batwoman.

He shuts her out of the cave; he files for damages against Kate for mishandling his company and triggers a clause in her contract which will drive her to bankruptcy in having to repay all of Wayne Enterprise's costs. Kate is shattered. All she has left is her damaged, burnt, ragged Batwoman suit.

2.5 - "Deficient"
A destitute and homeless Kate tries to keep fighting crime on a budget of $15 a week, wearing an increasingly worn Batwoman costume without any of her gadgets. Due to her injuries and missing memories, Kate is unable to summon her former drive for combat or aptitude for danger. She realizes she no longer has the skill to be Batwoman. Kate is nearly killed and then Jacob Kane saves her.

2.6 - "Prodigal"
Kate confronts her father, blaming him for destroying Batwoman. She has lost everything: she has even lost her face and her voice. Jacob says that he was wrong to hunt down Batwoman. Jacob says that he hated Batwoman because he didn't have the full story; he does now and he's proud of his daughter. Any father would be. Anyone would be proud for Kate to carry their mantle and name.

Kate regroups and realizes that the Wayne who disowned her and threw her out cannot be the real Bruce Wayne.

2.7 - "Unmasked"
Kate realizes that Hush is impersonating Wayne as part of a twisted mindgame from Alice. She defeats him and reclaims the right to wear the suit (and for Wallis Day to wear it after Ruby Rose). For the first time, Wallis Day suits up in full as Batwoman.

This way, we don't just slot Wallis into Ruby Rose's costume and pretend there's no difference. Instead, the Wallis-version of Kate has to go through six episodes of hell before she gets to wear it.

Episodes 8 - 16 have Kate continuing to crime crime and investigate her mysterious recovery. At times, she is haunted by images of a duplicate Kate (with her new face) mocking her, telling her she's not good enough. She also reveals to the public that due to a motorcycle accident, she's had to have reconstructive surgery and was misreported as deceased.

We resume the stories that we would have with the Rose-version of Kate. And in episode 17, Black Mask triggers the sleeper programming and 'replaces' Kate with the Cersei Sionis personality, the mocking shadow in her psyche who now becomes the dominant personality.

And in episode 18, Mary and Luke find a way to restore the full Kate personality and we go from there into Season 3.

**

That said, I really like Season 2 of BATWOMAN as it aired and Ryan Wilder is wonderful. And I don't find fault with the show for refusing to recast Ruby Rose in this manner and only being able to ease into it later and ultimately deciding to have Ryan be the star going forward.

It was an impossible situation and they handled it really well. The fact that they didn't handle it as I would have is not a valid criticism.

BATWOMAN had a good third season... so good that I wish they had stuck with the original character somehow. I wish they hadn't hired a notoriously flaky, unreliable, argumentative, volatile performer who had never done a long-term TV job to be the star of BATWOMAN. I love Javicia Leslie, but it's irksome that Leslie's Ryan Wilder has Kate's company, Kate's team, Kate's superhero codename, and now Kate's primary love interest, Sophie. If Ryan is so functionally similar to Kate Kane, why not just do it with Kate Kane? But I concede that the show would probably be just as awkward if all of Kate's supporting cast and surroundings were removed as well.

BATWOMAN has not been renewed for a fourth season yet.

LEGENDS had a good seventh season of comedy hijinks and a bizarre yet compelling choice in having Matt Ryan play a character who isn't Constantine. The gang's adventures through history were great fun and the show also ended its seventh season on a cliffhanger with no renewal announced as of yet.

I sure hope this doesn't blow up in their faces.

I am not caught up on STARGIRL or SUPERMAN AND LOIS or THE FLASH.

I stayed home with a migraine today, but in the afternoon, I read the DARK NIGHT: METAL Batman crossover. Maybe it's this severe-then-mild headache, but I couldn't understand what was going on. I moved onto reading the FOREVER EVIL JUSTICE LEAGUE crossover and that I understood just fine, but I confess that a storyline of evil versions of the JLA attacking Earth is not exactly the most intellectually challenging even if the characterization is strong and there's a neat arc of Lex Luthor renouncing Evil to fight the eviler JLA.

I also note: DC Infinite's reading lists are good. Marvel Unlimited's app is kind of a mess in arranging all the separate issues of a crossover into the correct reading order. The SECRET EMPIRE / Captain America's history is rewritten to make him a Nazi storyline, for example, was missing entire sequences of comics in the supposed reading list and I had to turn to Wikipedia, Amazon and various fan sites to figure out what to read and in what order. In contrast, DC Infinite had all the issues of DARK NIGHT: METAL and FOREVER EVIL in the queue, listed in order -- so I can't say that DARK NIGHT: METAL was confusing because I missed some tie-in or ancillary issue.

I have to say, reading Lex Luthor inspired to join the JLA is kind of an emotional boost and makes me really keen to go to bed early and get back to work tomorrow. This is why I like superheroes.

LEGENDS cancelled on a cliffhanger with all the characters imprisoned. BATWOMAN cancelled with all the characters happy but a new threat rising from the ashes of the Season 3 villains.

*sigh* I'll have to get more into this tomorrow, I am too tired today.

BATWOMAN. *sigh* While I enjoyed the show and objectively, the writing, performances and production were strong, I became deeply uncomfortable with the show after Season 1. The show didn't do anything wrong, I just couldn't adjust my expectations accordingly to what the show had to do to fill more episodes. I liked the Ryan Wilder episodes. Seasons 2 - 3 were very good. But no matter how much I enjoyed Seasons 2 - 3, I was always wondering when Kate would come back. Those who sat through Seasons 3 - 5 of SLIDERS waiting for Arturo / Wade / Quinn will understand.

I wish that Season 2 had kept Kate Kane (Wallis Day) after her return. I would have loved to see Season 3 try to jump the narrative hurdle of having two Batwomans. But, not unfairly, the writers decided that it didn't make sense to have two versions of the same character.

There's also the fact that the writers were hesitant to keep Kate Kane on the show because they were grimly waiting for Ruby Rose to accuse their production team of abusive working conditions. They knew she was angry. They knew she'd be coming after them eventually.

I can see why production elected to give Kate Kane a good sendoff and write Day out; they were urgently trying to clear away Kate's onscreen legacy and wish her well and get her offscreen before Ruby Rose struck at which point Kate Kane's continued presence would make it impossible to get past Ruby Rose declaring that she hated the BATWOMAN TV show and everyone on it. That effectively, Kate Kane hated BATWOMAN and everyone involved in it.

Whether or not Rose's accusations are true (and I believe them up to a point and am unsure after that point), Ruby Rose turning against the show would have forced Wallis Day to either defend the show or validate the claims; to either turn against her own show or call a fellow performer a liar. This would have been untenable and production elected to avoid it by writing Day out fast.

Day was displeased; she thought Kate Kane would be present in Season 3 as a regular. She was apparently informed that it was a possibility; she was irritated that she wasn't told upfront that she was only going to be a Season 2 guest star.

In the end -- I always felt this uncomfortable distance from Seasons 2 - 3 of BATWOMAN no matter how much I adored it. Each week, I'd love the story but keep wondering how this week's episode would have played out with Kate instead of Ryan. I never regained my full comfort level with the show.

And I think it's simply because short-haired, angry lesbians with a chip on their shoulder and a resting scowl - -that's a sort of character I personally relate to a lot. Another Kate Kane-esque character I like is Elodie on the Netflix show TRINKETS, a troubled, grimfaced lady (played by Briana Hildebrand of Negasonic Teenage Warhead fame from DEADPOOL).

Season 2 did a good job of mining the discomfort of Kate's exit for drama. Season 3 did a good job of declaring that Ryan was the star of the show now and that Kate was not forgotten but was doing something else now. I don't criticize the show for making difficult choices in an impossible situation.

And also: I would have also been uncomfortable with Wallis Day taking over as Kate Kane, about as much as Ryan Wilder taking over Kate's role. Wallis Day, while bearing a superficial likeness to Ruby Rose, is not at all similar in style. Wallis Day accepts and employs the male gaze for her benefit, dressing like a pinup girl and posing if she has to. Wallis Day doesn't create a distant isolation from others like Ruby Rose.

Day's version of Kate Kane (or any character played by Day, really) is a tactile, humourous, winking, friendly presence. Wallis Day's Kate Kane was never going to have the original Kate Kane's disgruntled demeanor or her seething rage or her withdrawn bearing. Wallis Day's Kate was going to be 'nice' like Supergirl, and lacking in most of Rose's angst and torment. I would not have recognized this version of Kate Kane as the original character.

The truth is, the only thing that would have made me fully comfortable with Seasons 2 - 3 of BATWOMAN would be Ruby Rose playing Kate Kane and that was unfortunately not on the table after Season 1.

I think it is very possible that THE FLASH's ninth and final season will be an anthology across the Arrowverse. Is it probable? I can't say that. But here's why it's possible: Grant Gustin is tired.  All the actors are rotating in and out of the show so that they don't have to work as much for Season 8. Seven seasons of a TV show has left them weary. Filming under pandemic protocols with isolation and segmenting has been soul crushing.

Grant Gustin is going to work even less for Season 9 because he's so worn out. Jesse L. Martin will also be reducing his commitment from rotating series regular to recurring guest-star for Season 9. Candice Patton and Danielle Panabaker will probably stay in the rotation. Everyone is exhausted, pandemic protocols are tiring, and Grant Gustin is noticeably low energy onscreen in Season 8.

I wouldn't say his acting has become the equivalent of Jerry O'Connell in Season 4, but I'd say it's closer to Jerry O'Connell in "Eggheads" where Jerry is working hard but clearly spent, possibly due to "Eggheads" having taken up all of his strength with the sports matches.

With the actors tired and working less, it would make sense to bring in the BATWOMAN and LEGENDS and ARROW cast members to fill in the gaps that result when FLASH actors are absent.

With this approach, Diggle's arc could be completed with Barry helping Diggle settle... whatever was going on with him.

The future Canaries could be wrapped up with Chester visting the future to help Mia Smoak save William and cement Mia, Dinah and Black Siren as a team.

Caitlin and a guest-starring Cisco could visit Gotham to help dispatch whatever monster emerged at the end of Season 4 and help Kate Kane and Ryan Wilder agree to both be Batwoman.

The original Harrison Wells could help the Legends escape from the time prison.

It would be great.

Step one.

Steps two to 13,405 are unfortunately not mine to take.

NAOMI has been cancelled on the CW, that's another DC property ending on a cliffhanger like LEGENDS (a hard cliffhanger) and BATWOMAN (a soft cliffhanger). NAOMI wasn't in the Arrowverse, though, so I'd been waiting for it to finish so I could watch it all in a few days.

ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO was also cancelled despite having yet to finish airing its fourth season (already filmed). CHARMED has been cancelled with four episodes still left to air. Both shows were from CBS (although WB had a partial production role for ROSWELL). I think, very simply, the CW wasn't earning enough money from these shows as their audiences were primarily streamers which makes money for WB and CBS but not for the CW itself -- which is an issue when WB and CBS are seeking to sell the CW, likely to Nexstar. CW can't keep airing shows that earn money for former owners but not itself and its future owners.

Some accounts claim that the studios (WB, CBS and Berlanti) wouldn't renew but that CW wanted to; it's likely that CW would have sought reduced broadcast licensing fees for final seasons of NAOMI, BATWOMAN, ROSWELL and CHARMED to keep the live broadcast viewers they had (even though it's likely a small number). The CW doesn't really have fans; it's the Arrowverse and CHARMED and ROSWELL that have fans. They wouldn't have wanted to alienate whatever audience they had. But the licensing fees for these shows were probably already low.

It's hard to make the economics work when the CW was a perpetual loss leader for the WB-CBS parent company that's now selling it off.

Creatively and financially, I think the best bet is for THE FLASH Season 9 to offer one extra episode to each of the cancelled ARROWVERSE shows and NAOMI that guest-stars a FLASH character.

And from the world of comics, a late report: Tim Drake (the third Robin) came out as bisexual last year. Homophobic fans (like Kyle) hit the ceiling, shrieking that a straight character had been bent into homosexuality due to pandering. Tim Drake's creator, veteran superhero writer Chuck Dixon, is an low-key homophobe who has never said anything overtly homophobic but made coded declarations, saying that comic books should never teach children about "alternative" lifestyles. He expressed his contempt for Tim Drake being bisexual. I have noted it; now I'm going to ignore that and observe that the stories Chuck Dixon wrote for Tim Drake are actually a pretty consistent portrayal of Tim's closeted bisexuality (albeit unintentionally).

Dixon wrote the ROBIN title for 100 issues. Tim is written as a 15 year old whose genius-level technical and deductive skills have convinced Batman to make Tim his intern, to let him be Robin. Dixon did a great job on this book, balancing Robin's globe-trotting high adventure against mundane teen drama. Robin at night had to deal with death cults and genetic bombs and supervillains holding the city ransom; Tim Drake at school faced school shootings, teen pregnancies, and had to pretend he didn't know anything about hand to hand combat.

Dixon also dealt with sexuality in an extremely appropriate way for a comic book series about a teenager that I read as a teenager. Tim's first girlfriend, Ariana, invited Tim over to her house while her guardians were out; Ariana then stripped and kissed Tim. Tim stopped her and told her that he wasn't ready for this; that they weren't ready for this -- at which point the adults in Ariana's life suddenly came home early and were furious -- with Tim.

Tim was oblivious to female interest, sexually cautious and Tim Drake was an excellent role model for young boys experiencing sexual desire and in need of practicing sexual safety. Later, one of Tim's next girlfriends got pregnant from a previous boyfriend (not Tim), a very appropriate story for young boys who needed to know that careless sex could have consequences. This was what young, male readers needed to read.

However, re-reading Dixon's run now -- I don't find Tim's complete lack of sexual desire to be plausible when scripting a heterosexual 15 year old boy, even a bright and sweet young man like Tim Drake. I find that Tim's resistance to having sex with women is not believable; he doesn't struggle with it, he doesn't want to but refuse -- he simply says no as though he is internally opposed to sex with his wonderful girlfriend.

On this re-read, Tim comes off as sexually undecided; he isn't sure what he wants out of a romantic relationship and sex with beautiful, age appropriate women is something from which he reflexively, instinctively and immediately retreats. Like he has more to think about first.

It comes off as Tim being closeted, Tim not ready to confront that he is attracted to women AND men, Tim not willing to commit to the identity of being a heterosexual boy because he is on some level aware that he is isn't a heterosexual boy.

Was that Dixon's intention? Absolutely not. But authorial intent falls away in favour of the story on its own and lots of heterosexual parents are surprised when their kids are gay or bisexual. Dixon's writing was didactic; he wrote Tim reacting to the prospect of teen sex the way Dixon would want his own children to react. And the way DC would want Tim to react.

DC in the 90s was never going to let their teenaged Robin have sex before graduating from college, possibly not even before finishing grad school, and Tim was unlikely to ever finish high school for the duration of his floating timeline. Dixon never really had much choice in writing Tim's sex life; Tim in the 90s wasn't going to have one.

I imagine a more 'realistic' version of a heterosexual Tim telling Ariana that he doesn't want to just hook up while she's got an empty house; he'd like to plan a nicer date, maybe rent a room in a bed and breakfast; he'd like to get more romance into it than just the two being willing and having a home to themselves for a few hours. I imagine this 'realistically' heterosexual version of Tim telling Ariana that he wants to hold off just a little because he has a few books on female anatomy he'd like to finish reading so that he can perform as well as he can for what is likely to be an awkward first time.

It is absurd to think that Tim is heterosexual, 15 years old, and flat out unwilling to have sex with his very enthusiastic girlfriend because... his writer takes the view is sex is wrong and doesn't become right until some unspecified, undefined point. Dixon didn't do anything wrong in writing Tim this way; Tim is a superhero character, a fantasy vision of teenaged hypercomptence and morality. Tim is a well-written character and the fact that he's a little unbelievable isn't a problem in the unbelievable world of DC Comics.

But Dixon's version of Tim comes off as a closeted teenaged boy who avoids sex because he isn't ready to examine the fact that he desires sex with more than one gender. And this is quite an impressive unintentional achievement from an unrepentant homophobe.

SUPERMAN AND LOIS is confirmed to not be set in the Arrowverse but a parallel Earth.
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/superman-l … -revealed/

Haven’t watched the Flash finale, but I read there was a hint of the villain Cobalt Blue.  That was an awful storyline featuring Barry’s long lost twin brother he never knew existed

I am as caught up with THE FLASH as I can be. The Season 8 finale isn't on Netflix until tomorrow for me.

I guess... the episodes are okay. They're trying to give Grant Gustin less to do, so the supporting cast is coming to the forefront. It's weird that Season 7 was all about Barry and Iris nonsensically addressing the grown adults who were the "Forces" as their children and accepting them and loving them; now the Forces are villains and none of them have costumes.

When Thawne returned at the end of Episode 19, Barry had a bleak, resigned look on his face like he was once again facing down that annoying uncle who keeps showing up at family dinners and it'll be up to Barry to steal his car keys so he can't drive drunk and to lock him in a bedroom to sleep it off before he starts a fight. Thawne is just that obnoxious relative with whom Barry has developed a grim acceptance in knowing he'll never truly be rid of him while noting that this relative is too inept and clumsy to ever do any more damage at this point.

I finished the finale. It was okay. We've seen it all before: a faceoff with Thawne, increased powers, another victory, Barry's present and future family gathering. At this point, they could just mix and match Season 7 footage with Season 8 and the drama would be about as impactful.

I looked up Cobalt Blue. The character was apparently created during the Wally West era by FLASH visionary writer Mark Waid and debuted during the Wally era in a storyline called "Chain Lightning". I somehow missed this block of issues back in the 90s. I should read it on the DC Infinite app and see if TF is right that it's awful. Mark Waid is a genius, but Waid left the title a year after "Chain Lightning" due to what he described as burnout, so it wouldn't surprise me if "Chain Lightning" is where it started to go downhill.

It's interesting. Waid loved writing THE FLASH because he was a very impatient person and identified with the character. But eight years after he started, Waid said that he had become a more patient person and could no longer write the Flash.

So, the CW was just sold to Nexstar for zero dollars:

https://insidethemagic.net/2022/06/cw-d … llars-al1/

In the deal, Nexstar instead assumed $100 million in debt.  The channel apparently hasn’t been doing as well as it appeared.

I rewatched and I don't see the logo.  Either way, if the intention was that it was ring and Diggle just rejected it, that's an okay explanation.  I figured they were making the box something else (whatever Bleed Mandrakk is that Thawne references) as some sort of Season 9 tease.

Ha, I looked pretty hard.  I think you're right that they have a bar and a circle, but maybe it was a rights thing.  I wish they were able to be a bit more direct about it, but I can accept the subtext of it definitely being a Green Lantern ring that he was able to turn down.

I haven’t really bern watching any of these since Crisis, but The Bleed is the area between parallel realities (kind of like the area outside of a sliding tunnel on Sliders).  In DC Comics, the Bleed is primarily red, and that’s what created the red skies during Crisis (as reality was collapsing)

Mandrakk would then likely refer to this:

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Mandrakk_(Dax_Novu)

The Monitors being primarily connected to the multiverse and all areas in between (such as The Bleed).

Given Mandrakk’s connection to the Dark Multiverse, the mention could also relate to the appearance of Red Death that’s been teased on CW’s Flash.

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Bruce_Wayne_(Earth_-52)

I knew you guys wouldn't let me down

Season 9 of THE FLASH will be 13 episodes and be the final year for the show and the Arrowverse as a whole: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv … 235190162/

And it sounds like HBO Max is getting dismantled.  I wonder what that means for Peacemaker (although Gunn says it's fine), Titans, Doom Patrol, Harley Quinn, and other DC shows on the site.