DC Superheroes on TV & Streaming (1966 - 2024) (Page 26 of 28)

The Warner Discovery actions are getting sleazier.  HBOmax has been removing content lately as a “cost cutting measure”, but how would that action save significant money?  The reason is residuals.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/08/19/her … tform.html

By not having the content available to view, Warner Discovery does not have to pay anything to the creators.  On just the things they’ve already removed, it is saving the studio millions while creators are left out in the cold.

https://mobile.twitter.com/juliapott/st … 4594082816

Such as Julia Pott who is a creator from the cartoon Summer Camp Island.  Cartoon Network has at least pledged to continue airing the series so that the creators will get residual through that means.

This is already affecting DC content as well.  The recent Aquaman: King of Atlantis was pulled.  How long before the DCAU or Arrowverse is taken off?

These are some really poor business practices all around for Warner Discovery.  I remember Zaslov before the merger stating he was creator focused and wanted to give them a compelling environment to come work for Warner Discovery.  What he’s done since has been very much the opposite

More perspective from the creator of Infinity Train:

https://owendennis.substack.com/p/so-uh … h-infinity

TITANS... has its merits. I just don't care for them. But we all know that there is an audience for miserable, grimdark, self-loathing, hateful superhero shows. Someone out there likes it.

I've heard that the STARGIRL team is planning to do a season finale that can work as a series finale if there isn't a renewal and that the SUPERMAN AND LOIS team is also thinking about how they can do the same.

I guess Zaslav's plan is to slash, burn and sell.

All DC Warner had to do was follow the DCAU example into live action.  Those creators even created one of their most popular characters now - Harley Quinn.

Word was that the 2007 George Miller Justice League read like a DCAU story, so they were flirting in that direction.  Even if it wasn’t a bullseye, it would have beat Marvel to the punch.

https://collider.com/george-miller-just … explained/

Elsass' replacement is an actor named Michael Bishop who looks a lot like Elsass. I think this will be just fine.

I'm only on Season 2, Episode 10 of SUPERMAN AND LOIS, but I have to say, S+L is shaping up again to be a bit like a Zack Snyder Superman movie but produced by a team that actually likes Superman. I note that S+L, like Snyder, has a certain intrigue and interest with the idea of an evil Superman; the mass murdering Superman from John Henry Irons' world, the egotistical and deadly Superman from the Bizarro world.

However, S+L is always careful to declare that these versions of Superman are not the *real* Superman; that the genuine Superman is formed by a very specific set of life experiences on the Kent farm and with Lois Lane and with weaknesses on his powers that have given him humility, compassion and self-control.

In contrast, the evil-Supermans are always underguided or overpowered in some way. The alternate Superman in Season 1 was a fully Kryptonian, conquering alien invader who never had a grounded upbringing among ordinary people. The alternate Superman in Season 2 is a violent and self-absorbed celebrity who was overpowered by green Kryptonite and didn't have the limitations that helped Clark master and control and restrain his powers. The true Superman doesn't have a 'pure' cultural origin and doesn't have the heightened powers, but that shapes his heroism while the other Supermans lack it. This allows the show to present a Snyder-style Superman, but as alternate images and divergent versions of the real Superman.

Finished SUPERMAN & LOIS's second season and... this show is SMALLVILLE done right. That's somewhat unfair and also totally fair.

The part that's unfair: SMALLVILLE had a much lower budget than SUPERMAN & LOIS at a time when digital effects were too expensive to show Superman's full array of powers. No TV show in the early 2000s could afford to do HD-quality depictions of Superman flying for more than a few individual shots. SMALLVILLE couldn't pull off superhuman fight scenes or extensive superpowers. Even as late as Season 8, scripts were constantly having any and all use of superpowers trimmed to the bare minimum. Writer Geoff Johns, writing the Season 8 Legion episode, remarked that he started out thinking the Legion characters would use their powers in every scene only to learn it was unaffordable. SMALLVILLE couldn't show global scale threats while SUPERMAN & LOIS could actually afford it.

The part that is totally fair: SUPERMAN & LOIS has a much better sense of life in a small town. At the same time that SMALLVILLE was airing, there was another show, EVERWOOD, a show about a small town created by Greg Berlanti, the Arrowverse executive who is now overseeing Todd Helbig's stewardship of SUPERMAN & LOIS today. Berlanti grew up in Suffern, New York state, a town with a population of 11,000.

S&L benefits greatly from Berlanti if not writing then encouraging S&L's creative interest in all the townspeople of Smallville; everyone in the town has a personality, a history, an agenda, a purpose, a perspective. Instead of the anonymous extras of SMALLVILLE, the S&L version of Smallville's inhabitants all feel like human beings who are a splendid micro-representation of the macro situations when the Earth is under threat.

The only issue with this emphasis on ordinary people with Superman among them: supervillains got a little lost in the shuffle for Season 2. Ally Allston, despite having some in-depth characterization as a cult leader, never really got any definition as a global-scale supervillain powerful enough to punch Superman into a coma. Season 2 was so focused on Smallville and Smallville-ians that Ally Allston becoming a Parasite didn't get much focus; in fact, the episodes would pointedly declare her unimportant compared to Lana Lang's troubled marriage but then need the audience to see Ally as a planetary threat. It's possible that this is an acceptable flaw.

I'll be sad about Stargirl.  It has a fun cast and a good story.

I'm still hoping the Flash will devote some time to being a finale to the Arrowverse.  Or at least Earth One.

Kevin Smith's adventures as an Arrowverse director with his friend, Jason Mewes:

(Mewes and Smith play the characters of Jay and Silent Bob in Smith's ViewAskew universe movies, and in real life, the two have an alarmingly codependent friendship/partnership with Smith having helped/financed Mewes' 10 year journey from heroin addiction to sobriety and Mewes being an assistant manager in Smith's speaking/touring business.)

I did finish Stargirl - it was good.  I thought the twists at the end were a little predictable but effective.  I thought the show finished strong and left everyone in a good place.  The epilogue felt a little tacked on, but I don't know if it was or if it was supposed to set up a season four.  I know Brec Bassinger said season 4 was going to be "crazy" - I always hope writers are specific about that, but I don't know if they'll let us know what they were going to do.

All in all, the show was sweet.  It was different than the rest of the Arrowverse and I'm glad it didn't cross over with anything other than John Wesley Shipp.

I did read that Stargirl might appear on Titans.  That would be kinda cool.  I'm enjoying Titans season four, and I'm glad Doom Patrol is back.  I assume both will be in their final seasons.

There have been numerous allegations of Marvel engaging in plagiarism of the Doom Patrol to create X-Men, but the evidence for this has been uncertain.

Doom Patrol debuted in MY GREATEST ADVENTURE in June 1963, UNCANNY X-MEN was first released in September of the same year. But given the lead-in time, X-MEN would have been conceived, written and drawn starting in June 1963 for a three month lead-in; it's unlikely that Marvel could have read MY GREATEST ADVENTURE and immediately come up with characters and designs and written scripts and produced UNCANNY X-MEN #1 by September; the X-Men would have been in development at least a few months before Doom Patrol first appeared.

The similarities are likely because Doom Patrol creator Arnold Drake and X-Men scripter Stan Lee had similar mindsets: they gravitated to writing about outcasts, misfits and oddballs like the Chief and Professor Xavier; they weren't as enthusiastic about square-jawed, matinee movie handsome stars like Superman. Rather than choose a young, handsome leader, they (separately) chose a man with a disability.

DOOM PATROL has some truly crazy continuity as a comic book series, arguably as tangled and near-incomprehensible as SLIDERS. X-MEN is messy too in its publishing history, but it's periodically smoothed out its bumps. DOOM PATROL, on the other hand, went from a relatively straightforward series about four awkward people in impossible situations (like SLIDERS) to a really tangled, psychologically troubled, self-loathing series.

It's noticeable to me that Professor Xavier, despite being given a dark side, has ultimately been presented as a hero; even when he's had bouts of manipulative and horrific behaviour, X-MEN has in the end redeemed him and cast Xavier's villainy as the character being written incorrectly or Xavier having additional motivations that were heroic. In contrast, the Chief of DOOM PATROL has gone from being a heroic figure to a corrupt, cruel, uncaring, twisted figure of scornful contempt towards everyone and everything.

The difference, however, is that DOOM PATROL has been lauded and admired for its skillful stories of psychological depth as the characters became more self-destructive and dysfunctional whereas SLIDERS is mocked for its incompetence as the show became more and more depressing.

I guess you could say that writer Grant Morrison destroyed the Doom Patrol, but it could be argued that he destroyed it to save it. There would be no DOOM PATROL television show if Morrison hadn't changed the series from a lighthearted, somewhat peculiar superhero adventure into psychological body horror.

The comics where DOOM PATROL took a turn into darker territory and tore down its characters are regarded as the high point of the series with very high quality scripts and artwork. I don't think anyone would consider the script or direction of, say, "The Breeder", to reflect any quality.

I'm personally a bit mixed on DOOM PATROL's shift into darkness. Morrison's reinvention has stood the test of time with most subsequent writers building on his foundation and with the DOOM PATROL television series (and their brief appearance in TITANS) drawing on Morrison's version of the team. Maybe he did the right thing even if I personally take issue with it.

The original Doom Patrol debuted in MY GREATEST ADVENTURE from writer-creator Arnold Drake. Drake was a great writer who presented the Doom Patrol as goodhearted, optimistic misfits: a racecar driver with a huge heart trapped in a robot body (Robotman). A fighter pilot who thrived on physical adventure trapped in a form of "negative" energy (Negative Man). A movie star actress in a body that now stretched and contorted into grotesque forms (Elasti-Girl). All three of them had been caught in bizarre accidents (a car crash, a flight crash, exposure to toxic chemicals) that had warped their bodies into these new forms.

All three of them had been recruited by a heroic genius in a wheelchair (the Chief) to form the Doom Patrol superhero team. All three of them fighting other outcasts who hadn't coped with their situation as well as the Doom Patrol.

Drake wrote great stories and created incredible villains. But MY GREATEST ADVENTURE, later DOOM PATROL, didn't really set the world on fire with sales and didn't become a cultural phenomenon. After a decent run of 41 issues, the 1968 issue of DOOM PATROL #121 killed the team off in a heroic sacrifice to save a small village.

Why did DOOM PATROL fail where X-MEN succeeded? Well, X-MEN didn't actually succeed in its 1963 run either! X-MEN limped to seven years with the original run of Xavier, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel and Beast; it wasn't until the 1975 revival with Angel and Beast swapped out for Wolverine, Storm and Nightcrawler that the X-Men took off in sales. The teen X-Men were too bland; the older and more conflicted newcomers were more compelling.

DOOM PATROL was a good book, but it was arguably not as good as it could have been. Arnold Drake wrote the Doom Patrol as winning, positive personalities with occasional flashes of the body horror and despair suggested by Robotman, Negative Man and Elasti-Woman's situations. The Chief was a reliable, brilliant hero; everyone seemed mostly happy. DOOM PATROL didn't make itself as unique as its characters and concept suggested.

DOOM PATROL was often a very straightforward superhero series, albeit an extremely charismatic, memorable, inventive and fun read. It was probably as good as it could be in a time when storytelling in comics had to be kept simple for readers who might not be able to get every issue, for broad newsstand distribution, for DC's audience being children and young teenagers. The 1968 finale seemed to be the end of the line.

In 1977, writer Paul Kupperberg sought to revive DOOM PATROL. Kupperberg used stories in the SHOWCASE anthology title to reveal that Robotman had survived the explosion that had supposedly killed the team back in 1968. Kupperberg created a new team of original characters joining Robotman to form a new Doom Patrol... and it wasn't great. Kupperberg wrote this new Doom Patrol as a completely generic superhero team run by superheroine Celsius, the previously unknown wife of the Chief.

Due to delays and low sales, DC didn't approve and print a Kupperberg DOOM PATROL series until 1987. The Doom Patrol under Kupperberg were basically the Avengers or a lower profile Justice League; they had none of the original Doom Patrol's eccentricity and all the generic aspects of the team had been amplified.

Kupperberg later blogged about his revival, saying he had changed Doom Patrol to be more like any other superhero team, realizing only later that he'd taken away what made them unique. In all fairness, original creator Arnold Drake often wrote Doom Patrol like any other superhero team with small nods to their peculiarities; Kupperberg took a property that was 80 percent AVENGERS and 20 percent TWIN PEAKS and made it 100 percent AVENGERS. Kupperberg wrote that he met Arnold Drake long after his revival and that he apologized to Drake.

Drake shrugged it off, patted Kupperberg on the shoulder and assured Kupperberg all was forgiven.

The original Doom Patrol had been interesting but occasionally too bland; Kupperberg had made Doom completely bland. Neither version really landed in the public consciousness and Doom Patrol was likely to fade away except writer Grant Morrison took over from Kupperberg starting with #19 of the revival. Kupperberg killed off his original characters to give Morrison a clean slate.

Morrison brought the Chief and Negative Man back to join Robotman but left Elasti-Girl dead. Morrison introduced the character of Crazy Jane, a woman with 64 separate personalities with each having a separate superpower. Morrison changed the cheery tone of the original Chief/Robotman/Negative Man team to all three being more depressed and bleak, especially with Crazy Jane in the mix. Morrison highlighted how the Doom Patrol were troubled, damaged, broken people whose damage sometimes manifested as superpowers useful for investigating 'weird' crime and bizarre supervillains who were engineering the collapse of reality itself.

Morrison also changed the Chief significantly. Arnold Drake's Chief had once been a warm father figure and a genius. He could be bad tempered and impatient when under stress, but he was ultimately a good guy. He was Temporal Flux. He was Professor Arturo. He was Dad. With Morrison, the Chief remained a genius, but he was now distant and cold to Robotman, strangely indifferent to the previous version of the Doom Patrol being killed, and his interest in the Doom Patrol's enemies seemed more about co-opting their powers rather than stopping them from harm. Arnold Drake's Chief was focused on using the Doom Patrol to save lives; Morrison's Chief didn't seem to care.

This change in character was, however, justified by the events of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS the previous year which had destroyed and rebuilt the DC Universe and its history in a new timeline; this new Chief did not necessarily have the same history or character as the original.

Morrison's final arc revealed: the Chief had secretly engineered the race car accident, plane crash and toxic exposure that had turned Cliff Steele into Robotman, Larry Trainor into Negative Man and Rita Farr into Elasti-Girl. He had deliberately set out to mutilate them, curious to know what kind of "freaks" these formerly photogenic, popular figures would become. He had always despised them, regarded them as shallow and narcissistic.

Morrison also revealed that the Chief had also arranged for the 1968 explosion that had killed off the entire team (until they were brought back to life); the Chief had gotten bored with the Doom Patrol, only to become annoyed when the ex-wife he'd abandoned took over his team and legacy and he used her death to regain control. The Chief only allowed the Doom Patrol to learn the truth just when the Chief was about to unleash a nanobot apocalypse upon Earth that would cause Doom Patrol-style mutations across the entire human race.

The arc ended with the Doom Patrol defeating the Chief and decapitating him.

The blatant retcons of the Chief are upsetting to me because I loved the original Chief. The revisions to the Doom Patrol's origins are, to me, offensive and completely out of sync with Arnold Drake's original DOOM PATROL issues. But... Drake actually retconned himself frequently, writing continuity inserts where Robotman had a period of violent instability before the Chief stablized his mind, inserts that didn't fit into Drake's own previous issues.

Later stories have largely maintained Morrison's run. The subsequent Rachel Pollock run kept the Chief's decapitated head alive and offered him a chance for redemption before he met with a final death, concluding this iteration of DOOM PATROL in 1995.

In the 2001, there was another DOOM PATROL revival from the brilliant John Arcudi where Robotman joined a reality TV show of people trying to use the Doom Patrol team name as the brand had fallen out of use; this fun comedy series did a few sequels to the Morrison/Pollock stories. The sales were not great, but it was a highly enjoyable story with a strong ending and an epilogue to the Morrison/Pollock era.

In 2004, DOOM PATROL was rebooted entirely after another CRISIS-continuity restart, and writer-artist John Byrne had the Chief recruit Robotman, Negative Man and Elasti-Girl for the 'first' time. Most people hate the Byrne run. I thought it was okay. A subsequent CRISIS, however, restored the original continuity of the series in an interesting way: the latest CRISIS causes the rebooted Chief, Robotman, Negative Man and Elasti-Girl suddenly find memories of all their previous adventures (and deaths) returning to them.

The Doom Patrol next appeared in Geoff Johns' TITANS as guest-stars, declaring that their history from the Morrison/Pollock run had been reinstated; the entire timeline, including the reboot, were merged into a single history (although some areas remained vague). Robotman, Negative Man and Elasti-Girl had forgiven the Chief for causing their origin stories; it was explained that the Chief (who is somehow alive after his death in DOOM PATROL #95) found remnants of Elast-Girl's elastic form after the 1968 explosion and was able to "regrow" her back to wholeness. He presented saving Elasti-Girl as his apology to the team.

In 2009, the excellent Keith Giffen had a 22 issue run of DOOM PATROL with the rebooted-memory-restored team. Giffen told terrific 'weird-superhero' stories and made lavish use of the Morrison/Pollock stories with the Chief remaining a manipulative and dangerous leader. There were also two issues devoted to the odd continuity situation: Robotman recalls his entire history with the team and his joy when Elasti-Girl finally turned up alive.

Unfortunately, Giffen's run on DOOM PATROL was cut short at #22 before he could ever explain how the Chief went from being a decapitated head who died to a (relatively) restored human body again between 1995 and 2004.

The New 52 reboot in 2011 seemed to once again erase the entire Doom Patrol and restart them. The new Doom Patrol appeared in Geoff Johns' JUSTICE LEAGUE series with the Chief leading the Kupperberg team -- with the Kupperberg characters being killed off in their first appearance. They were treated as cannon fodder in the JUSTICE LEAGUE: FOREVER EVIL crossover. However, their appearance ended with the Chief seeking a new team, presumably Robotman, Negative Man and Elasti-Girl who showed up later in JUSTICE LEAGUE again.

Then we come to the Gerard Way (UMBRELLA ACADEMY)  revival of DOOM PATROL which debuted after the DC REBIRTH story altered DC continuity again where the pre-New 52 continuity starts merging with the New 52 history. The Gerard Way incarnation of DOOM PATROL follows this and is set after the events of the Keith Giffen run while folding in the John-stories as recent events. However, there have been some hints that Gerard Way's series is set in a different continuity from other DC books.

Ultimately, Grant Morrison changing DOOM PATROL from lighthearted adventure to dark body horror has, fairly or unfairly, stood the test of time.

Making the Chief a villain was... a peculiar turn, to put it mildly. In some ways, it was the equivalent of revealing that Professor Arturo deliberately got the sliders lost in the universe by sabotaging Quinn's timer and then faked his own death, then allied himself with the Kromaggs as their spy, then arranged for Wade to be sent to a Kromagg rape camp, then hired Oberon Geiger to trap Quinn in Mallory's body just because he found Quinn annoying.

However, Morrison's storylines and arcs were extremely well-received and have come to define the Doom Patrol. Why is that?

First, it's doubtful that the DC-Vertigo indie comics readership who thrilled to Morrison's writing in 1989 had read the original Arnold Drake issues from from 26 years in the past at a time when reprints and trade paperbacks of underperforming comics were hard to find.

Second: before Morrison, the Doom Patrol concept wasn't reaching its full potential; its more optimistic stories were also blander and too close to other superheroes. Morrison emphasized all the things that made the Doom Patrol different, creating a version of the Doom Patrol that doubled down on the most original asepcts of the original concept.

Morrison's Doom Patrol could actually be distinct from other superhero teams like the X-Men or the Avengers or the Fantastic Four or the Legends of Tomorrow or Team Flash or Team Supergirl. This is the version that has been adapted and sold to television. This is the version ongoing in the Gerard Way series. In contrast, the original Doom Patrol was perhaps not sufficiently distinct from its competitors. It could be argued that Morrison had to break the Doom Patrol in order to save it.

Personally, I don't mind the idea of putting the Doom Patrol in darker stories and circumstances, but my preference is to leave the characters alone. We wouldn't turn Peter Parker (Spider-Man) into a mime who takes a vow of silence; his defining characteristic is his verbal humour. We wouldn't turn Bruce Wayne (Batman) into a deadly gunslinger. (Well. We wouldn't do those things permanently.) But it was apparently okay to turn the Chief from a heroic figure who believed that extraordinary personalities emerged from extraordinary adversity into a twisted supervillain who believed in mutilating people to satisfy his curiosity.

To be fair, Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne never had sales so low that their comics got cancelled. It could be argued that Arnold Drake's Chief was not memorable enough to endure. Timothy Dalton wouldn't have been interested in playing Arnold Drake's Chief; he wanted to play Grant Morrison's Chief. That said, the TV show has found a middle ground for Morrison's Chief: he has done terrible and downright evil things, but he did them to protect one person rather than out of morbid and uncaring curiosity.

I accept that Morrison's new version of the Chief and the Doom Patrol's history were justified by CRISIS changing continuity. And I accept that Morrison's Doom Patrol team was an unforgettable masterpiece whereas Arnold Drake's Doom Patrol team was... written professionally and enjoyable to read, but would probably be forgotten if Morrison hadn't revised it. In contrast, David Peckinpah broke SLIDERS just to break it.

It's interesting because DOOM PATROL was, like SLIDERS, an underperforming property. DC Comics, like FOX, cancelled it, but it had a following and DOOM PATROL, like SLIDERS, kept finding its way back into the publishing/broadcasting schedule. And DC decided to make DOOM PATROL a more conventional superhero action series just like FOX decided to make SLIDERS a more conventional sci-fi action series.

The results were mediocre at best, and then DC and FOX decided to take a strange turn with DOOM PATROL and SLIDERS into body horror, sexual savagery, an extremely in-depth (and confusing) mythology that was initiated by one writer and then overwritten and rewritten by a subsequent writer and then another writer after that.

Both DOOM PATROL and SLIDERS became taken over by creators who were deeply invested in drug culture and writing DOOM PATROL and SLIDERS as a response to their use of drugs. Both DOOM PATROL and SLIDERS became frightening, upsetting, confusing, disorientingly out of sync with their previous incarnations and deeply disturbing.

However, DOOM PATROL was great and SLIDERS was a disaster. I will try to figure out why later.

It has been 25 years since DEADLY SECRETS was released. I think we can say that SLIDERS' comic book series is cancelled by the official bankruptcy of Acclaim Comics.

Oh my God, please do not tell me you're still obsessed with some comic book series from the late 90s. Now, returning to my obsession with some TV show from the late 90s:

I think part of the distinction between DOOM PATROL and SLIDERS is the kind of drugs at play here. I am not the person to impose sobriety on anyone; while I haven't been inebriated since... I think 2011? I never find fault with people for using chemicals as they see fit; I myself take a lot of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, herbal supplements, fiber supplements and fish oils for energy, vision and gastrointestinal maintenance.

That said, there are some drugs that are ultimately debilitating and designed to suppress life and biological function and David Peckinpah was addicted to them and they killed him. SLIDERS was being made on cocaine and heroin, drugs that, in their function and usage by Peckinpah, were antithetical to life.

In contrast, Grant Morrison's drugs of choice were about mind expansion and perspective: they took marijuana, mushrooms, acid and other hallucinogens, but while physical pleasure was a part of it, it was also about stepping outside empirical reality and exploring perceptual and emotional reality which they then put into their writing. In contrast, David Peckinpah's use of drugs was to take him away from writing.

DOOM PATROL benefitted from a somewhat the psychedelic perspective that Morrison brought to it whereas SLIDERS did not benefit from Peckinpah numbing himself to his grief and tragedy. In addition, I don't believe that Morrison's hallucinogens were physically addictive whereas Peckinpah lost control of his body and his mind and his life and his TV show.

I guess it's fair to say that Grant Morrison warped DOOM PATROL as much as David Peckinpah twisted SLIDERS, but Grant Morrison arguably brought new life to DOOM PATROL that continues to this day whereas Peckinpah killed SLIDERS and buried it deep. After that, however, Peckinpah killed himself, so I am disinclined to hold a grudge at this point.

I'd appreciate it if such posts came with context.
https://screenrant.com/joker-new-son-za … dc-comics/

I dunno.

Javicia Leslie will be in THE FLASH, but I've read that she may not be playing Ryan Wilder but rather a parallel universe doppelganger and that Leslie's appearance isn't meant to tie up BATWOMAN in any way.

I generally think that the fan preference is for characters to return as the characters; Oliver Queen as Green Arrow, Ryan Wilder as Batwoman 2.0. Maybe the creators have a plan to give us that but in an unexpected way.

I agree with this, but I suspect that the wish is that if Stephen Amell appears, he's wearing a hood and a mask and firing arrows as opposed to standing in a cloak giving grim intonations.

In terms of BATWOMAN: I don't think there's anything to wrap up beyond a brief reference to how the Season 3 soft cliffhanger has been dealt with. I guess they could also establish that Kate Kane (Wallis Day) has located Bruce too.

And for LEGENDS: ideally, the Flash rescues everyone from Time Jail and they live happily ever after.

I guess, coming from comic books:

There was a period where Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, became a mass-murdering supervillain named Parallax in 1994. He became the enemy of every DC superhero. And by 1995 or so, it became clear that turning the heroic Hal Jordan into a bloodthirsty psycho was going to stick for awhile.

Even then, it was obvious that Hal Jordan would eventually be flying around saving people, fighting supervillains and making green energy constructs again at some point. The status quo for Green Lantern would inevitably reassert itself. It's a bit like SLIDERS: did you ever really believe that Professor Arturo was dead? Didn't you feel on some level that the Azure Gate Bridge professor would be back?

In 1996, the FINAL NIGHT crossover had Hal Jordan sacrifice himself to save planet Earth while offering no real apologies for destroying the Green Lantern Corps and killing all his friends. And it was a bit like Wade 'dying' in "Requiem": did you really believe Wade was gone forever? Or did you feel on some level that Wade's life could somehow exist beyond SLIDERS' fifth season? At some point, Hal Jordan was going to be a hero and a Green Lantern again.

In the 1999 crossover DAY OF JUDGEMENT, Hal Jordan became the Spectre, seeking redemption for his crimes as Parallax. And again, this was declared to be the new status quo. But even then... it was a bit like Quinn being erased. Whether or not SLIDERS could deliver on Quinn's return, Quinn's return seemed inevitable just as Hal Jordan becoming Green Lantern and his crimes being addressed seemed inevitable.

And in the 2004 GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH, Hal Jordan discovered that his turn to supervillain psychopathy had been due to his mind being infected by a primordial fear entity from the dawn of time called Parallax, warping his perceptions and morality and transforming him into a murderer. The Spectre had been drawn to use Hal as a host in order to burn the fear entity out of his psyche. Hal was able to cast out the Parallax infection (along with the Spectre) and restore his body to life and his Green Lantern ring to power. Hal then confronted a DC Universe crisis, explained the situation to Superman, Batman and the Flash, and began rebuilding the Green Lantern Corps. Also, subsequent stories revealed that Hal hadn't killed any Green Lanterns; they had all survived his attacks but been depowered, and Hal rescued them and redeemed himself again.

It was inevitable. The status quo reasserted itself. And I always knew it would. The same way when, watching SLIDERS: I knew that Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo would find their way back to each other. We never saw it onscreen and the show was cancelled, but on some level, I feel that you, Slider_Quinn21, know that shortly after "The Seer", the original sliders were reunited and the original platform of the show was restored.

I imagine that something similar will happen with Green Arrow because ultimately, the iconography of Oliver Queen is not based in him being the Spectre, the Wrath of God, the Voice of Judgement, the ominous extradimensional identity appearing to hand out plot exposition in a booming voice. The iconography of Oliver Queen is that he is a street level vigilante superhero who uses a bow and and arrow.

But maybe they'll accomplish that by having Barry meet Oliver before he became the Spectre via a time travel story.

Yeah looks like the Berlantiverse is done.  Quite the era but it's probably done either way.

One thing I would've liked better would've been for the universe to stick the landing a little better.  It would've been nice if the whole universe could've ended on a big crossover event.  Maybe Crisis - maybe something else.  I know this stuff is impossible to predict, but if they'd known things were shutting down, I wish we could've made this feel a bit more cohesive.

And that's why I'd use Flash as a series finale to the whole universe, not just the Flash.  But I also get letting them finish however they want.

Actually, James Gunn says SUPERMAN AND LOIS will make it to at least Season 4.
https://www.cbr.com/james-gunn-superman … e-seasons/

FLASH's creators assure fans that Oliver's Spectre storyline won't be overturned:
https://www.cbr.com/the-flash-oliver-qu … ow-events/

I suspect that Oliver will appear in the show as the Green Arrow via time travel with Barry encountering Oliver before Oliver became the Spectre.

LEGENDS will unfortunately not get a series finale on THE FLASH.

I read yesterday that the show had a huge plan for a season 10 with the Justice League uniting to fight Destro.  When they found out they weren't getting a tenth season (and that the ninth would be shortened), these plans were dropped.

I don't understand these TV writers.  If there's a storyline that would be super cool and give the fans what they want...why do they insist on leaving those ideas unmade?  He says they need all thirteen episodes to wrap up Barry Allen's story.  But I feel like so much time is wasted on The Flash that they're going to continue that even with a leaner ninth season.  A Justice League story, even if it's just a 2-3 parter, would be a great way to end the Arrowverse.  And to just say "yeah, we wanted this but it won't happen" just irks me.

Maybe this season will surprise me and I'll say "you had 13 hours of television and you used each of those hours perfectly" - but every time this season that Barry fights someone dumb by running around in a circle, I'm going to be sad that we aren't seeing the Justice League unite.  Every time it looks like Barry and Iris are going to break up or whatever, I'm going to be sad that we aren't seeing the Justice League unite.

I know it's their show and they should get to end it how they want.  And they think they need all 13 to end their show.  And, really, they've earned that.

But I'd rather end the Arrowverse right than end The Flash right.  But that's just me.

I'm looking forward tonight to seeing what they do.

Okay, so why was SUPERGIRL never as excellent as Season 4 after Season 4? The writing team didn't change. The cast barely changed. How come SUPERGIRL couldn't maintain the same Season 4 heights for Seasons 5 - 6?

I think the problem is probably: SUPERGIRL's fourth season hit upon a fictional situation that was an excellent allegory for a real world situation: the alien refugees of SUPERGIRL were a powerful analogue for the extremely mixed reception that refugees receive in the United States. The anti-alien hatred storyline was a superb fictional representation to draw parallels between the TV story and real life Islamophobia, white supremacy, white centricism, and hatred and fear of the different. This allegory was perfect -- but then Season 4 concluded its story and SUPERGIRL could never find as strong an allegory in Seasons 5 and 6.

Season 5 has Leviathans declaring that humans have failed to manage the Earth, something Season 6 also takes a stab at.  Both times, SUPERGIRL highlights the climate emergency and ecological catastrophe caused by humans. But the issue here: this isn't an allegory. This is a real world situation. And since it would be trivializing and foolish to have Supergirl conquer climate change on Earth 38/Earth 1, the show could only ever raise climate change and then ultimately have to step back from any of the superpowered characters ever doing anything about it.

SUPERGIRL was unable to identify another fictional scenario to mirror the real world, and the show stumbled a bit as it inevitably gravitated back to Supergirl fighting supervillains of the week. And the content was absolutely fine, it just wasn't as relevant and as meaningful as Season 4 where Supergirl was effectively battling representations of alt-right fascism and modern white supremacy.

Could SUPERGIRL have kept the alien refugee storyline going to Season 6 or maintained a focus on alien refugees even after defeating the President of the United States and punching that smug look off Sam Witwer's face?

Perhaps, but we've all seen from THE X-FILES how destructive it is to stretch out a storyline because the creators fear they can't come up with a better one. Ultimately, SUPERGIRL told its alien refugee story... and wasn't prepared to tell more alien refugee stories or couldn't think of anymore. Except the alien refugee arc of Season 4 was so defining and definitive that every non-refugee story of SUPERGIRL was inevitably going to feel like an afterthought.

I love SUPERGIRL, but Season 4 hit a high mark that no subsequent season could reach.

I agree. We don't need 13 episodes of Barry Allen fighting supervillains of the week just as we didn't need 13 episodes of Barry fighting mirror monsters. I will say, however, that we're just viewers and we don't know the perspective from inside the show.

One instance of this: I criticized the SMALLVILLE finale for not making Lex the center of the story and having him only feature in two scenes. You pointed out later: the finale only had Rosenbaum for two days of filming, so they could only film two scenes and the Clark/Lex and Tess/Lex scenes were the scenes to do. I protested that any scenes without Lex could have been filmed with Lucas Grabeel (the young clone) who could morph into Rosenbaum for whatever Rosenbaum would do.

I later learned that this had actually been the plan, but Grabeel took a lead role on SWITCHED AT BIRTH and SMALLVILLE couldn't book him; SMALLVILLE's budget had been so low by Season 10 that they couldn't schedule guest-stars to keep themselves free and could only hope that actors would be available when filming slots arrived.

It's possible that FLASH could only book the LEGENDS actors for a day or two or weren't able to book them all in the same filming slot or could only get them to film insert shots (like in SMALLVILLE's ninth season when all the returning guest-stars were mostly talking heads on Watchtower's video screens). We don't necessarily know the whys.

Of course, it's entirely possible that Eric Wallace just can't imagine THE FLASH's final season not having 13 episodes with Barry Allen experiencing 13 separate crises of confidence and needing 13 individual motivational speeches from 13 different characters in order to get back on his feet for 13 episodes in a row.