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 10/21/15

This Week In Superhero Television.... Agents of SHIELD is really coming around. It's nice that this has finally turned into a full fledged show with an identity. Some people still aren't as excited about Daisy Johnson (formerly Skye) still being the focus, but I think if they look closer, they won't see the same character they did before. In fact, Quake was a character that mostly fun but never really got to see her potential reached.

I mean, really....what the fuck ever happened to Quake? I mean, she had this great setup as Nick Fury's protege that "will go on to do great things and be one of the best agents ever." She had her own team of young, DIVERSE superpowered agents, most of which we've never heard from again including Phobos, the goddamned god of fear. This is one of those cases where Marvel could have BEEN doing the All New All Different thing ages ago. As a matter of fact, I'm going to go ahead and take that, in retrospect, as a direct attempt on Marvel's part to not let Brian Bendis OR Jonathan Hickman be great (even though they are both clearly allowed to be great now), but I digress. I think the complaining about Daisy wouldn't be so vocal if it weren't for the fact that the Most Interesting Story On The Show (What the Fuck Happened to Simmons) has been relegated to the side story.

Meanwhile, on The Flash, some of the sins of Season 1 have come back to bite this show in the ass. This week's episode mostly dealt with Captain Cold's abusive father blackmailing him into a crime spree. Since the writers have essentially defanged Cold, making any episode with him involved into anime filler (at least until Legends of Tomorrow finally debuts) it took them bringing The Voice of Darkseid in to give The Flash a reason to get shot with the cold gun. It's always interesting to jump into the minds of villains and their vulnerabilities, but the fact that it's a CW show means there's always the possibility that the writers will give into their urges to pander to the Lowest Common Denominator. In this case, that means having Golden Glider sit in the hero's lair and make doe eyes at Cisco. By the way....if your sister is a supervillain that can turn things to gold, why the fuck are you still robbing banks?

And then there's Arrow.... Last time we talked, Arrow was at least TRYING to move back to a palatable direction that isn't Oliver Queen becoming an assassin god. Now, things have picked up speed and the writers have begun to inoculate the show against sins of the past. It makes sense for the characters, given the events of last season, but come on, Oliver and Diggle starting off the new season in a bromance quarrel is not quite the nail biter we'd like. So, Felicity locks them in a room and basically orders them to suck it up. This barely takes an entire five minutes to accomplish before the duo are back on the streets, kicking butt again. So, they're speaking again and Felicity solved a problem by doing something other than crying. Two birds in one stone. They even got rid of Oliver's horrible flashback wig (despite the ever looming problem that these flashbacks are still happening even though nobody really cares at this point). Now, if only someone would do something about Diggle's awful welding helmet. I mean, his superpower is a gun. Don't you need depth perception to effectively shoot people? The show started off with him missing a bad guy directly at his side and I can't help but think maybe the narrow ass slits might have been an obstacle. Oh, well. I guess we can't have everything we want.

My comic reviews for the week on Tokyo Ghost and The Invincible Iron Man are available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. And don't forget about my webcomic, Neverland: The Untold. As always, feel free to like, share, comment and spread the word at your leisure.

The Week In Geek 5/14/15

It's sort of hard to explain how exactly CW is getting The Flash so right. This week's episode sort of brought back into focus a). Flash's standing as "the Superman of the Arrowverse" as well as b). the villainy sort of resembles professional wrestling. Captain Cold is admittedly part of the bad guy game specifically because he loves it. And probably because he's better at it than he ever was at being a small time crook. The implication of destiny being as much a factor for villains as it is for heroes is one of the major building blocks of superhero lore and shines through clear as day on this show. The only major problem I have with the show is its handling of Iris West. It made sense at first to keep her out of the loop of Barry Allen's identity, but in the meantime, in delaying the inevitable, the show has to find side plots for character development. It just so happens that these particular side plots have made her sort of intolerable not unlike Lana Lang on Smallville. Cockblocking Linda Park, making the Reverse Flash thing all about her, pulling Barry in and out of the Friend Zone at her leisure...not very endearing.

Meanwhile, the CW also dropped a first look at their next spinoff, Legends of Tomorrow. The best thing they could have done is bring back Caity Lotz as the White Canary or Canary Original or whatever they're going with. She was always the more entertaining opposite to the Arrow because Laurel is the WORST and has been for two seasons straight, suffering from a little more of Iris West Syndrome. The best I can figure is that this spinoff is in response to Marvel/Netflix setting up The Defenders starting with Daredevil. With the turnout Daredevil had, I doubt LoT is going to compete with that, but it shows that DC is at least trying to give fans what they want.

Also, my review for this week's issue of Thor is up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to read, share, comment at your leisure.

The Week In Geek 3/25/15

It seems like I do more Flash updates nowadays than I ever cared to do before. I really have to find a way to get Will over at Black Nerd Problems to invest in some kind of "Talking Dead" type of thing where we sit around and talk about the episode of Flash we just watched or something. People seem to like that sort of thing.

Anyway, this week marks the episode in which The Flash turned into professional wrestling....which sort of puts it in dicey territory. At the end of the episode, Flash meets with Captain Cold and they come to some sort of terms where they don't hit one another too close to home and the Rogues don't hurt people. This is one of those quiet-as-kept landmarks where casual watchers who don't read the comics get to see a side of comic-based storytelling that we haven't seen in a while in the era of Marvel's "it's all connected" approach. As awkward as it came across in the show, this actually makes it more in line with a lot of stand alone comics. Sure, there are the big guys who lurk in the shadows, plotting the end game (Reverse Flash), but there are numerous villains in comic-dom who just keep showing up because they like it. Cold says it numerous times and he's just starting to have fun being a supervillain. Hell, his sister turns things into GOLD and he still just wants to steal things for the hell of it. I think this all lends itself to what people love so much about this show. The degree of investment isn't nearly as heavy as buying into a universe where everything is urging you to watch something else (as high quality as it may be) to get an even bigger effect. It's an amazing representation of comic storytelling that Smallville just never managed to pull off.

My comic reviews for the week are still and always available on Black Nerd Problems. This week, I took a look at Batman Eternal and Uncanny X-Men.

My Favorite Things 2014: Movies and TV

Television

True Detective: If someone had told me a year ago that "American Horror Story For Murder Mysteries" would be one of the most awesome things to happen to television in 2014, I would have laughed heartily at them. And I would have been dead wrong. Nic Pizzolato took everything that's enjoyable about the experience of a hard boiled mystery novel and packaged it into a well-produced, streamlined series. I mean, these were some of the most beautifully shot parts of Louisiana I've ever seen. And it took full advantage of Matthew McConaughey's new season in the limelight. Rustin Cohle is one of the most compelling (at times, confounding) characters I've seen on a show like this in years. The only sin committed was that we didn't get to spend more time with these backwater super sleuths.

The Flash: I have to say this one took just about everyone by surprise. CW finally has the expanded superhero franchise its wanted so badly. The best thing about the Scarlet Speedster's series is that it never attempts to capitalize off of Arrow's success with creating a dark, gritty, Nolan-esque universe for it's lead to play in. In fact, it does the opposite. It's genuinely hopeful and intentionally trite, making Grant Gustin's Scarlet Speedster a Superman surrogate of sorts. And Jesse L. Martin playing Joe West does this show so many favors on so many levels.

Movies-

Captain America: The Winter Soldier- TWS is easily the best representation of where Marvel is in terms of production quality and representation of source material on the screen. This is what it looks like when you manage to tell a decent story and still deliver fast paced action without really compromising either element. Who would have thought the same guy who killed it as Johnny Storm (the only real standout aspect of the Fantastic Four movies) would go on to become and, basically, OWN the role of Captain America?

The Week In Geek 12/10/14

So, this week's midseason finale to The Flash kicked several levels of ass. The fight between Barry and Reverse Flash...who is TOTALLY Dr. Wells (sorry if that's a spoiler but if you haven't figured that out by now...)....was pretty incredible looking for primetime network television. I've been hearing a lot of complaints about Iris West's character, but I'm sorry....I love a pretty brown girl as the leading lady in an interracial relationship. By the way, I don't seem to remember all that complaining when Lana Lang was the leading lady in Smallville and that was maybe one of the worst shows in nerd history. Just saying. At this point, the complaints that "it's so CW" just have to stop. We (I'm speaking to my generation in particular) have to learn to get used to the fact that comic culture HAS to attract younger viewers to survive. I mentioned this in an article a while back, but fans have to get better about sharing. Otherwise, we end up looking like insiders and troll. Just ask the Gamergate trolls.

My reviews for the week are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. This week, I took a look at:

Thor: I am more convinced than ever that the new lady Thor is actually, Roz Solomon, Odinson's SHIELD girlfriend. That's why she was so desperate to get the hammer back before she turned back into Someone That Roxxon Would Recognize (from the Last Days of Midgard story). Anyway, I do appreciate that the hammer kinda offer tutorials in how to be Thor like Green Lantern's ring. Other than that, there's not much else to say. Jason Aaron is going to be remembered as one of the premier names when they talk about Thor in the 2010s.

Avengers/X-Men: Axis- Okay, this week was slightly better for Axis but not by much. I know Deadpool is supposed to something of a hood ornament to uptick your sales a little bit, but it just didn't work out here. Spider-Man, as usual, was something of a boon to the story and Scarlet Witch looked great and all, but this plot is so rough. It literally pains me to review it.

Batman Eternal: The funny thing is that the whole Jason Bard plotline hanging over the book has basically made plot "A World Without Jim Gordon", furthering DC's initiative to make Commissioner Gordon into a nigh-superhero. I've said this before, but aside from Batman, he's the only other thing saving Gotham from descending into Hell. This is, in part, why I'm so disappointed that the Gotham tv series sucks so bad.

No, I'm NOT Calling The Flash and Arrow "Flarrow"......

So, this week was the big two night "Flash vs. Arrow" crossover event and despite my mild skepticism (a "versus" scenario would have been a bit more plausible a few weeks ago before Barry did Mach One to put Not-Quite-Colossus on his ass), it was actually much better than I expected. One thing it did very well was establish a clear tone for each respective show in this one universe. And love or hate them, you can at least say that these two shows know exactly what kind of shows they want to be. You've got a shitshow like Gotham that has virtually no identity and, at the same time, EVERY identity. Sometimes, it wants to be a by-the-book procedural cop drama set in a famous fictional city. Every once in a while, it's a Batman prequel when it needs to bring back viewers. Other times, it wants to be Boardwalk Empire set in a famous fictional city. Some days, it's Rise of the Penguin. And sometimes, as evident by the many larval stages of Jada Pinkett Smith's wig, it wants to be a Bronner Bros. hair show in Atlanta. Arrow, makes a very clear statement in almost every scene that it's a primetime Batman surrogate. The Flash is obviously meant to be a Superman replacement (because we will NOT see Superman on primetime television again for a while; Thanks for nothing, Smallville), far more hopeful and cartoonishly optimistic than his gritty counterpart. It's actually the kind of dynamic I hope will take place in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (despite Henry Cavil's sad eyes). DC gets a lot of crap for being so slow to the starter blocks in competing with Marvel's unstoppable engine of movies, but as far as TV goes, they know how to sell a product. Then again, I could be wrong.