I wish they would get rid of the secret identity trope on these shows. It's particularly dumb in the case of Superman and Supergirl, who don't even wear masks. One thing I like about the Marvel movies is that they've done away with that for most of the characters -- Spider-Man will be out of step with the others in that regard.
I DVR'd the whole season. I'm up to the episode where they go thru the portal to rescue slaves. So far it's decent.
I've thought so too. Almost makes me satisfied with not getting a full-time Superman. Although, with all the threats she's got on her hands, it surprises me there aren't many instances of heroes from the city next door, popping in to borrow a cup of kickass - just her cousin, and strangers from "CW-Earth". I realize not every story should be set in a world where the JLA, JSA or even the Newsboy Legion exist, but, you KNOW there's gotta be some DC licensed properties available to defend their own cities, and must realize from time to time, what threatens National City also threatens Wherever-the-hell-they-are-Burg. Any world that's got a Metropolis where Lex Luthor is in jail is still dealing with some serious nafariousness itself!
My biggest gripe is how at the beginning of the season they teased about Mon-El's uniform making an appearance but the ol' red & blue never showed. Mon-El was a favorite when I was a child and they didn't do him justice.
A great thing with the rise of The Fantastic Four was the fact that they lived in a big skyscraper in NYC and would be swarmed like movie stars by people on the streets and in the stores. A real unusual approach for super-hero comics of the 60's. MMMS/KoF
I was disappointed with how they handled Mon-El most of the season. I didn't mind turning him into Kara's boyfriend but his entire arc wasn't much of a tribute to the actual comic book character. They also strongly shied away from giving Mon-El the same powers as Kara. For the non-comic book readers, Mon-El's people in the comics have the same powers as Superman and Supergirl.
My knowledge of comics ends about 1982 so I've never heard of Mon-El. Basically I have a lot of those Archie sized reprint books on the different origins of the Superman Family. And a What If featuring Superman Red and Blue....but I'm sure there's another thread for that.
Mon-El was introduced in 1961. I was eight and was SO into the notion that he was actually Superboy's big brother!
I remember Supergirl's Legion Of S-Hs boyfriend being the green Braniac lad/boy/whatever. Some of the old comic books are outright silly, especially those involving super-pets. I don't care what they do as long as they keep things fairly light and not killing characters to seem important (which then gets undone anyway the next time the feel the need to start over again).
Yeah I never bought into Superdog and that crap. Also, weren't we told that Superman was the last survivor of his planet? So much for being the last.
I'm led to understand that technically Kara left the planet before Kal-El, just got interrupted by a wormhole or some other cosmic silliness, and ended up landing on Earth after her cousin but with a few years of more stasis in between.
I'll keep watching if they kill Mon-El. I hear there's some hope for that in the finale? I had to stop watching because of the complete lack of chemistry between Chris Wood and Melissa Benoist. I also didn't understand what Mon-El was supposed to be - they cast an actor who looked the part of a generic frat boy (perhaps not realizing that fans of Supergirl or comics in general probably don't relate to frat boys), but then they gave his character a 1980s style push-button digital watch as if he's supposed to have more depth than a generic frat boy. Whatever he was supposed to be, he was boring as heck. And after he spent the first 2/3rds of the season treating the lead character like trash, I just had to stop watching. Because of her relationship with him, Supergirl (the character) changed from being an inspiring woman into a woman that many women would be ashamed of. Season 1 had set up the correct relationship - Supergirl and James Olsen. That made sense, since Olsen was always a friend to Clark, and then a friend to Supergirl, so it would be a natural continuation of his character arc that his friendship with her would lead to more. And in Olsen, Supergirl had found a man who had some awareness of superpowers and how they affect one's humanity. Their respect for each other was inspiring. And the actors' chemistry was great. The sudden nixing of that budding relationship came out of nowhere, as if a note came down from on-high saying "Supergirl can't date an urban man!". And then to make it worse, James Olsen was then just as suddenly changed from white-collar executive into some kind of "street fighting man" who perhaps wasn't quite as bad as Charles Gunn on Joss Whedon's "Angel" tv show - who fought using a sharpened hubcap, because, you know, he's from the streets nudge nudge wink wink - but was still pretty bad. I just don't know if Supergirl can recover. I hope it will.
Yeah, something happened where Kara went from being a sort of apologetic nerd type but gaining confidence into almost a soap opera woman worrying about her relationship with a cardboard male model at times. Mon-El had flashes of real character at times though. He was kind of a bland character in the comics I remember, but then the Legion Of Super-Heroes had so many members. Supergirl had an orange super cat in the old comics, named Streaky... it had a lightning bolt design in it's fur (and a cape of course), plus there was also super horse named Comet who turned into a blonde guy every so many years who she fell in love with until he turned back into a horse and couldn't communicate again (just had mooning thought balloons about Supergirl, and yes, a cape of course).. and dare I mention Beppo the super monkey (which had a cape and a whole costume too). Nobody thought of these things as the subject for future doctoral thesis' in University cultural communications courses. I seem to have missed the show restarting after a bunch of repeats for a few months and will try to catch up.
It wasn't very good...that fight between Supergirl and Teri Hatcher was awful in staging. http://doblu.com/2017/08/24/supergirl-the-complete-second-season-blu-ray-review/ The ratings for season two became so bad that Supergirl's showrunner was pushed out.
Absolutely pointless to adhere to exact continuity from those '60s books; (was it Mort Weisinger?) the Editor worked really hard to dumb down the books for "fun!" above compelling character development. There wasn't even a flash of personality to any of those characters (from Kara's bunch all the way up to the 30th Century) that was worth saving for 21st-Century storytelling. And this IS from a die-hard DC reader. Although....I'd kill for a Beppo/Ambush Bug maxi-series...!
I've actually been surprised they haven't given Kara at least a pet cat. The showrunners pretty much demonstrated in the first two seasons an underwhelming understanding of Supergirl's history, much less Superman's mythos.
The Supergirl comics I had growing up were a bit past the goofy era of people turning into gorillas or giant ants (red kryptonite usually involved), these were circa 15-20 cent priced ones. She had sort of a life as alter ego Linda but I always wished there was more of that and that it was more developed I guess. The superhero side of things was more lowkey than the usual super characters, saving a cat from a tree level stuff. You knew she was a good person, moral, and still learning things. I did find some of the older ones later, even had the 'Battle of the Super Pets' issue. I remember one where she married Jimmy Olsen, but (get this) it was revealed as being only an 'Imaginary Story'... like aren't they all? There were a couple each in the '60s where the super ladies of the Legion or the super pets of the Legion Of Super-Heroes revolted... that is how short of story ideas these guys must've been. I think if they do a show about someone just living their life as best they can while also being a superhero some of the time that's good enough. This is a character you don't really need the big universe mythology behind, and too much of it probably gets in the way. The only superheroine I liked better was Spider-Woman for awhile when she was a detective in San Francisco (with a white persian cat and Hawaiian boyfriend, hmm). She came from another planet too, but had a ditzy roommate that got some of the stories going. Unfortunately a lot of super females when I did read comics started getting killed off, I still wonder about that, and that was part of what turned me off. It was Supergirl's dead body on a few different comic covers that marked the last time I bought anything regularly. More fun would be nice, but not silly, like some of those goofy gorilla era DC comics were. Keep Kara real, but Supergirl maybe not quite so much?
