Update: Arrow is Still Trash

Since I haven’t done a post in a while, I might as well check back in with comic based television. I know I said I was done with Arrow last season, but after seeing the trailer for the new season, I got curious as to where they were headed. The result is my first real hate-watch since Smallville. I mean….there are just so many bad things taking place, but the small handful of good things keep me interested in how they’re going to maintain them.

First off, I talked about this before but the whole thing with Oliver Queen maybe/maybe not doing murder is just getting silly. The whole point of a superhero is that they stand on a very basic code of morals, whatever that code may be. It’s hard to know if you’re the kind of superhero these people want to stand behind if that code is changing from season to season. If the writers are going to be so deadset on modeling the Green Arrow after Batman, he’s gotta be less indecisive than that.

And this whole Arrow Academy storyline wavers between “trash” and “kinda tolerable fan service.” And the main problem isn’t that the new team is garbage (although the new team IS garbage); it’s that the only reason there’s a new team is because the writers realized they’ve written all of the old team into a corner. Diggle has fallen so far from awesomeness, he had to run off to the Army just to have a sense of identity. A SUPERHERO had to quit superheroing and rejoin the Army just to feel like somebody. That’s a problem. Meanwhile, Ollie’s sister, Thea has quit being Speedy/Red Arrow to join her brother in politics just to have a credible storyline that isn’t focused on either a). her daddy issues or b). her consistently terrible choices in boyfriends. And Felicity is sick of being Oliver’s enabler even though she stuck around to continue serving as Oliver’s enabler. Because make no mistake, one of the primary reasons that the Green Arrow is an asshole is because Felicity spent four seasons telling him that his best, most dickish self is the key to beating the bad guys. Granted, this week’s episode was probably the best one thus far simply because the scene of Team Arrow assembling was epic (not to mention Stephen Amell settling his wrestling beef yet again with Cory “Stardust” Rhodes who played the villain of the week).

The problem with this show digging so hard into the Batman well is that Batman doesn’t work in a weekly CW show. Batman works well in comics and movies because either you’re not reminded constantly of what an irredeemable douche he is.

In any case, the show is probably going to crawl along on this redemption run until the Green Arrow finally throws down with Prometheus because there’s only room for one Impossible White Man in Star City. But for the most part, it feels like the show is trying so hard to gain its viewers trust back, it's just a reminder of how much they've fucked up.

The Week in Geek 6/8/16: A DC Reboot Is Problematic or Water Is Wet.

As much as I tried to avoid talking about this, here I am giving my limited viewpoint of DC Rebirth, DC's attempt to fix something that used to be broken but isn't really THAT broken anymore but made a lot of people mad back when it was broken. First of all, trying to undo the sins of the New 52, something fans were pissed about five years ago, now that it turns out Big Two comic sales are looking down recently is like an abusive spouse taking you to Red Lobster because they remembered you asked for it five years ago when you met: Thanks but you'd still appreciate it if they stopped abusing you. (From this point, I discuss actual events that have taken place in certain DC comics, so if you're not at least two weeks up to date and you actually care about spoilers, go ahead and stop here. For everyone else, further discussion happens after the jump.)

The Week in Geek: 5/25/16 or My Breakup With Arrow

So, This Week in Superhero Television.....I think I'm done with Arrow. For those of you that don't follow me on Twitter, I do the weekly livetweet for Flash and Arrow under the Black Nerd Problems account. One of my editors, Omar Holmon, used to do it, but I think his neighbors found out he was stealing cable and he had to shut that shit down. Anyway, I'd usually be honored by the opportunity, but Arrow's redemption season has been a painful trudge to the middle of the road. I mean, the show has maintained a steady standard of "not as good as The Flash but better than Legends of Tomorrow" but let's be honest; that's not a high bar to clear in the first place.

When this season started, there seemed to be some light at the end of the tunnel, an attempt to right some of the creative wrongs committed in the previous season. But the writers seemed to make an almost deliberate attempt to solve those problems by either highlighting everything that's been wrong with the show or stepping over said problems altogether. Case in point, the Black Canary II. There has been no one more against Laurel Lance taking her sister's mantle than me. They choreographed her fight choreography terribly and she spent the past two seasons being unnecessarily unlikeable. So, you would think I would be happy they killed her off. But then, her Earth 2 doppelganger shows up on The Flash and she stole the whole episode. She was an amazingly fun villain as the Black Siren, it brought into realization that the writers just plain squandered her on Arrow as opposed to the thought that she'd fallen so hard, she couldn't be written back into glory again. It was just a waste, retrospectively.

The finale was like a window display of everything that's been wrong with this show. Much of this show has been about Oliver Queen's fight against his darker nature and the killer instincts that he picked up during his time on The Island From LOST. For a few episodes, they telegraphed to viewers that the way to combat Damian Dahrk's Sith Lord Magic was for him to expel the darkness in his own heart and embrace the light. But in the end....after Dahrk's magic was nullified by the people of Star City using The Third Act In Dark Knight Rises against him...Oliver ended up succumbing to the darkness by killing Dahrk after he was clearly beaten. Even Diggle, the Arrow's moral compass ended up giving into his dark side by murdering the older brother whose soul he'd been trying to save all season because Andy trolled him a little in defeat. I mean, really, Diggle had turned to the dark side when he tried to kidnap his enemy's wife and pistol whipped her in broad daylight, but hey....who's counting at this point? It's just strange that the show has spent all this time cloning Batman (more blatantly in the finale than ever before) and yet picked the strangest time to step out of Batman's shadow. One of the big problems with American shows like this is that they go on past their structural shelf life. In a perfect world, Arrow would have ended after Season Two when he defeated Slade Wilson and conquered the darkness within the second time (he's gone back and forth about killing no less than four times not including his useless flashbacks to The Island From LOST). But because the endgame is to monopolize CW with entire blocks of the Arrowverse (as is more evident by the inclusion of Supergirl), these shows have to go on being built far away from the foundations they were built on and the past season is the resulting category 4 shit storm. Rest In Peace, Arrow. We will never forget. But we will try.

My comic reviews for the week on Star Wars and The Mighty Thor are available on Black Nerd Problems. And don't forget my ongoing webcomic series with Katie Coats, Neverland: The Untold.

The Week In Geek 10/14/15

This week in Superhero Television....Arrow seems to be getting back on the right path so far. Season Three's heart was in the right place even though it got a little existential "when is the Arrow not the Arrow". Granted, it looks like the writers are taking the long way around, but it's nice that the new season is getting back to the good old fashioned swashbuckling action we loved this show for originally. I also have to appreciate the fact that John Diggle's concerns about Oliver Queen coming out of retirement and his disdain for the Arrow's behavior (I mean, he kidnapped the guy's wife, for fuck's sake) basically mirrors our own. The show fell pretty far...like Robin Thicke level far...and still has a lot of making up to do, but it's off to a decent start. So, there's that. 

This Week In MCU News We Would Have Rather Been Surprised With.... It's finally been confirmed that the Mark Ruffalo will make an appearance as the Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok, scheduled for July 28, 2017. This is a big thing because up until this point, it was said that we wouldn't see the Hulk again after Age of Ultron for a long while. The rumored plot is Thor and the Hulk somehow teaming up with Valkyrie for what Marvel has promised to be the darkest Thor story yet. First of all, let me stop right there and establish that "a dark Thor story" is NOT a very high bar to clear. As much as I enjoyed the previously two movies, in the sense of the scope that Marvel builds at, they're essentially romcoms (The Dark World moreso than its predecessor). Also, I get the addition of Valkyrie in the interest of adding some spice to the already shaky gender politics, but what about Lady Sif? She's pretty badass in the comics, she's already established in the previous movies and the only real notable screentime she's seen is her basically getting friend zoned for Jane "I Don't Need Saving Until I Totally Do" Foster (not to mention her appearances on Agents of SHIELD...gotta love her referring to Agent Coulson as "Phil, Son of Coul"). Hopefully, Ragnarok makes more of an effort to shine more of a light on existing female characters before trying to bring new ones into the fold.

My comic reviews for the week on Ms. Marvel and Batman are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. Also, don't forget about my ongoing fantasy webcomic, Neverland: The Untold. As always, feel free to like and share and comment at your leisure.