Spoilers Supergirl - Season 2

[Mr. Adventure]

2) Even though I know these writers have a penchant for following the comics, making M'gann a White Marian feels like a misstep because I think there's a more interesting story that could've been told by making her the actual "Last Daughter of Mars". Going the route that they did also introduces an inconsistency in the way that they've handled Martian shape-shifting, as every time they've done it up until the very last scene of the episode, the person doing the shifting has reverted to their 'natural form' briefly in between shape changes. If you're going to go the route of making her Green Martian form a disguise, at least be consistent with your shifting effect and don't hold off the reveal that she's actually a White Martian until the last scene of the show

Ah, but have we seen a White Martian shape-shift?

The White Martian reveal was about the only interesting thing in a by-the-numbers episode.

 

[tomalak301]

I'd say this was one of the more weaker episodes for me. It reminded me a lot of that Voyager episode with the Rock and Roulette wasn't really all that interesting. I still liked the stuff with M'Gann and Jonn but the stuff with Mon'el feels a little cliched right now. Hopefully that will change soon.

 

[DigificWriter]

The DEO doesn't have the authority to arrest or detain humans. When Alex arrested Max Lord in season 1, it was clearly established as something irregular, illegal, and unethical, and it didn't last long. So they wouldn't be likely to do it again.

The DEO could've used its FBI cover to make something stick.

Why? Then it would just be the same as J'onn's story. This way, we get to look at the Martian race war from the other side, adding complexity to it, and it complicates the J'onn-M'gann relationship going forward in ways that just having her be another Green Martian would not.

The Arrowverse writers do not have a good track record when it comes to doing stories that rely on subterfuge. Aside from the Harrison Wells = Eobard Thawne thing, every time they've done a storyline involving secrets and lies, things have fallen flat in the end.

That's not actually true. In "Childish Things," when J'onn impersonated Max to break into his secret room and overpowered the guard, it was implied that he changed directly from Max to Hank. His eyes glowed red as Max, then we cut to the guard asking "Who are you?" and the camera tilting up to show Hank with his eyes glowing. As edited, there didn't appear to be enough time for him to change to J'onn in between. And in "Myriad," J'onn changes from a little boy to Hank in front of Eliza Danvers. Again, it cuts away to her reaction to save on CGI rather than showing the morph directly, but given that it's later established that she still doesn't know what his true form looks like, that confirms that he changed from one false form to another without reverting to his true self in between (beyond the glowing eyes and some green veins on the face). If you have Netflix, you can check and see the scenes for yourself, as I just did.

So clearly Martians can shift directly from one false form to another. Reverting to their native form in between may simply be easier, so they prefer to do it when they can. J'onn might be reluctant to show his true face to someone new, and M'gann had obvious reasons for hiding her true form from J'onn.

To clarify, I wasn't talking about the previously used shifting effect depicting characters in full-on green or white prosthetics. I was talking about brief "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" transitional glimpses of the character's real form, which is not what we got here.

Okay, that raises an interesting semantic question -- does "Arrowverse" just mean Earth-1, or does it mean the entire interconnected multiverse of these shows? For what it's worth, the Arrowverse Wiki still doesn't count Supergirl among the shows it covers, instead just providing a link to the Supergirl Wiki on its front page. Although that may change once Supergirl guest-stars in the three other shows.

The producers are using the term to officially encompass their franchise as a whole, Multiverse included, but for the sake of the Wikis, the decision was made to link the Arrow(verse) and Supergirl Wikis but keep them separate. I also believe that the Arrow(verse) Wiki's articles on Constantine link to that show's individual Wiki rather than articles that are natively hosted on the Arrow(verse) Wiki itself.

 

[Christopher]

The DEO could've used its FBI cover to make something stick.

But that's the point -- they would no longer want to. J'onn had a problem with Alex arresting Max in the first place, and Alex and Kara both came to recognize that it was wrong to detain him. It would undermine the whole moral point of that story arc to have them suddenly forget those ethical lessons and start violating civil rights again for no reason.

I mean, the only reason Alex and Kara were ever okay with arresting Max was because he implicitly threatened the Danvers family. It was that personal threat that made them willing to compromise the law and their morals, and even then, they backed down and found a less immoral way to neutralize the threat. Roulette is just some petty criminal by comparison.

The Arrowverse writers do not have a good track record when it comes to doing stories that rely on subterfuge. Aside from the Harrison Wells = Eobard Thawne thing, every time they've done a storyline involving secrets and lies, things have fallen flat in the end.

The only writer this show has in common with those staffs is Andrew Kreisberg, and occasionally Greg Berlanti on a story level. A lot of people seem to think that every show has the same writing staff doing all four shows at once, but that would be an impossible amount of work for just one staff to handle unless it consisted entirely of speedsters or Kryptonians. The shows have the same executive producers overseeing them, but each one has its own separate writing staff, with Kreisberg being the only showrunner working regularly on two series simultaneously (Supergirl and The Flash).

I feel Supergirl's writing staff has been better overall than the other Berlanti shows' staffs. They're certainly more committed to social commentary and sci-fi allegory, as seen in the very different ways in which Supergirl and The Flash handled the ethics of illegal detention.

To clarify, I wasn't talking about the previously used shifting effect depicting characters in full-on green or white prosthetics. I was talking about brief "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" transitional glimpses of the character's real form, which is not what we got here.

And that's not what we got in the examples I cited either. As I said, I rewatched those scenes on Netflix before I posted, so I could be sure I described them accurately. You can watch them yourself if you have a Netflix account.

The producers are using the term to officially encompass their franchise as a whole, Multiverse included

Source, please? Can you link to an example of that?

 

[DigificWriter]

@Christopher I'm trying to find a source for the term "Arrowverse" being used to encompass the entirety of the "Berlanti-verse" - including the various Earths we've seen - and failing, but I know I read it in an article/interview online within the past few months, and want to say that it was either Greg Berlanti or Andrew Kreisberg who mentioned the term and the way that it's used internally.

You are right about the two specific instances you cited, BTW (I went and checked myself), but I'd point out that we do see green cracks shine through when J'onn changes from a little boy into Hank.

However, we did see them use transition effects like what I was describing during Season 1 in Blood Bonds and, I believe, Strange Visitor from Another Planet, for both the White Martian and J'onn, so I guess the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they haven't been as consistent with the effect as I thought they had since they've actually done it two different ways.

 

[Christopher]

However, we did see them use transition effects like what I was describing during Season 1 in Blood Bonds and, I believe, Strange Visitor from Another Planet, for both the White Martian and J'onn, so I guess the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they haven't been as consistent with the effect as I thought they had since they've actually done it two different ways.

There's no reason it has to be an inconsistency. As I said, maybe changing directly from one false form to another requires more concentration or exertion than changing back to one's native form first, so it's something that a Martian can do if there's a reason for it, but doesn't always do. These are living beings, after all, not machines. It's reasonable that they'd have some versatility in the way they use their abilities. I mean, look at Supergirl. Sometimes she glides gracefully to a balletic landing, sometimes she comes down hard and fast to a bent-knee "superhero landing." Sometimes her heat vision is a pinpoint beam, sometimes she turns it up to 11 and it's a torrent of energy. Or look at all the different ways the Flash can use his powers -- run really fast, slow down his perception of time, vibrate through objects, go back in time, go to other universes, etc. There's no reason to insist that a superpower has to be used in a single unvarying way when we have so many examples to the contrary.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ You're right, and I basically admitted that I was wrong about seeing inconsistency when none actually exists.

 

[The Lonely Man]

Well episode two of season two aired here in the Uk last night. I know I'm going against the grain here but I really don't see the appeal of this Superman.
He's too small, both in height and physique, he's too young, he needs a shave and to be perfectly honest, a bath wouldn't go amiss.
He looked really out of place in scenes with Hank and James.
I'm disappointed, we were promised the Superman we had been waiting on and in my eyes at least, they failed to deliver.

I didn't like him at all. The wait goes on, the last great Superman I saw was Dean Cain in the pilot episode, although Brandon Routh was decent.

 

[Dick Whitman]

My local CW channel was a test pattern for the first 10 minutes!

I live in Wisconsin and watch the show on the Milwaukee station. On Facebook I saw at least one other person in Minnesota had the same problem.

I tuned in to the channel a few mintues early. Seeing the usual local affiliate commercials and exactly when they should have picked up the national feed I got a test pattern with "NEW YORK TX" written in the center. I was right before the first commercial break that we got the actual show. I am 38 years old and I had never seen anything like this. I have seen bad reception, cable outages, and shows interrupted for breaking news. But never dead air.

I finally saw the beginning on the CW app today. This show has slow and steadily surpassed The Flash as my favorite of all these shows. The overall quality is more consistent. Even though it has long term story arcs and mysteries the individual episodes are more enjoyable. The Flash gets way too bogged down in its season long arcs. With characters being to defined by how they react to the current crisis of the season.

Even though Supergirl is the only show set on that Earth, the scope and world building is better than on Earth 1. Which has many series set on it. Supergirl is doing a good job of showing the effect of Aliens publicly living on her Earth. More than we have seen the effects to an average person living in Central City among Metahumans.

 

[JD]

Well, at least now we got our fight club episode that appears to be a requirement for modern SFF shows.
It was a pretty good episode.
I liked the stuff we got with Mon-El, although I was a bit disappointed they seem to be just ignoring the name thing. Him and Winn was a really fun pairing.
Any question about whether or not the Alex/Maggie relationship is going romantic is gone after this one.
The stuff with M'Gann and J'Onn was good. I was starting to wonder if she was going to actually be a Green Martian, but then any question I had went away as soon as she mentioned the White Martian guard who let her go. Now that we got confirmation at the end, I wonder how long it will be before J'Onn finds out? I can't help but wonder what happened to the Green Martian she let go.
The fight club stuff was OK. It was nice to get so much Alex/Maggie stuff, and Bam Bam Bamford's role as co-director meant we did get some good fights out if. Dichen Lachman did a pretty good job, there just wasn't much to the character.

 

[Christopher]

I know I'm going against the grain here but I really don't see the appeal of this Superman.
He's too small, both in height and physique,

He's 6'0", half an inch taller than Dean Cain and equal in height to John Haymes Newton and Gerard Christopher. He's only an inch shorter than Kirk Alyn, George Reeves, and Henry Cavill.

he's too young,

I've said so myself, given that this is supposed to be an older, more experienced Superman, but they addressed his slower aging in the episode. Anyway, compared to other screen Supermen, he's three years older than Christopher Reeve was when he first played the role, two years older than Dean Cain was at the start, and a year younger than Cavill was in Man of Steel.

he needs a shave and to be perfectly honest, a bath wouldn't go amiss.

Huh? Do you imagine you can somehow smell him over the television?

He looked really out of place in scenes with Hank and James.

Right, because both those characters look so much like we've seen them portrayed in the past...

I'm disappointed, we were promised the Superman we had been waiting on and in my eyes at least, they failed to deliver.

The only criticisms you've actually offered here are about his appearance. You said nothing about his performance or the writing of the character, which are the main things other people have praised. Did you watch with the sound off, or something?

Well, at least now we got our fight club episode that appears to be a requirement for modern SFF shows.

I suppose it's sort of a companion piece to the "superhero fight club" promotional videos The CW has done.

Now that we got confirmation at the end, I wonder how long it will be before J'Onn finds out?

Berlanti shows generally don't drag out secrets for very long. Heck, I'm surprised even we found out her secret so soon. On Young Justice it took most of a season.

 

[Reverend]

As much as I like Dichen Lachman, I don't think she brought the bombast and charisma to the role that it sourly needed. Roulette should have a much bigger personality. She's supposed to be the equivalent of a circus ringmaster. In short, Tress MacNeille hit it so much closer to the mark.

Watching that clip actually makes me wonder if they could pull off something similar later on when the CW universes start crossing over more. With Supergirl instead of Wonder Woman, White Canary instead of Black Canary, Speedy instead of Huntress (because the CW's Huntress was very forgettable) and I guess their version of Vixen is fine as is. Not sure if I can say the same about CW's Hawkgirl. Both the Hawks from LoT felt decidedly weak sauce and the actress playing Hawkgirl was just never terribly convincing in a fight. Maybe M'Gann instead? Or Caitlin as not-evil Killer Frost?

 

[The Lonely Man]

He's 6'0", half an inch taller than Dean Cain and equal in height to John Haymes Newton and Gerard Christopher. He's only an inch shorter than Kirk Alyn, George Reeves, and Henry Cavill.




I've said so myself, given that this is supposed to be an older, more experienced Superman, but they addressed his slower aging in the episode. Anyway, compared to other screen Supermen, he's three years older than Christopher Reeve was when he first played the role, two years older than Dean Cain was at the start, and a year younger than Cavill was in Man of Steel.




Huh? Do you imagine you can somehow smell him over the television?




Right, because both those characters look so much like we've seen them portrayed in the past...




The only criticisms you've actually offered here are about his appearance. You said nothing about his performance or the writing of the character, which are the main things other people have praised. Did you watch with the sound off, or something?.

I didn't actually no. A character like Superman though I think, and this is a personal thing granted, that appearance is pretty darn important, if he doesn't look like Superman, I'm not buying him as Superman. You can't stick a blue suit , red cape and an S on any old actor with black hair and call him Superman.

With the exception of his conversations with Perry Whyte there wasn't a great deal of difference between Clark and Superman, he was the same character in or out of costume.

Look at his scenes with Jimmy Olsen, Olsen looks far bigger and far more filled out. Jimmy Olsen, towering over Superman.

I do have this magical new device, available in any good retail outlet, Smell- o- vision.

Believe it or not, I can't smell him over the Tv, was a funny line though. Maybe it was the fact he looks like he needs a wash and shave. A million miles away from the symbol of hope he is portrayed to be. Kinda like the evil Superman in Superman 3. That's what I see when I see this current version.

 

[Christopher]

A character like Superman though I think, and this is a personal thing granted, that appearance is pretty darn important, if he doesn't look like Superman, I'm not buying him as Superman.

The only live-action actors I've ever really been able to accept completely as Superman visually are Christopher Reeve and Henry Cavill. I think Hoechlin is more convincingly Superman-like than Dean Cain or Tom Welling, certainly.

With the exception of his conversations with Perry Whyte there wasn't a great deal of difference between Clark and Superman, he was the same character in or out of costume.

Which is true of basically every live-action screen Superman except Christopher Reeve.

Look at his scenes with Jimmy Olsen, Olsen looks far bigger and far more filled out. Jimmy Olsen, towering over Superman.

James Olsen, a dozen years past his cub-reporter phase, grown into an accomplished adult. The whole point of the character in this show is that he's not a kid anymore. Why is that so hard for people to grasp?

Maybe it was the fact he looks like he needs a wash and shave. A million miles away from the symbol of hope he is portrayed to be.

What????? You can only be a symbol of hope if you're perfectly groomed? Must come as a huge shock to all the millions of people who were inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. Or Jesus.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

The only live-action actors I've ever really been able to accept completely as Superman visually are Christopher Reeve and Henry Cavill. I think Hoechlin is more convincingly Superman-like than Dean Cain or Tom Welling, certainly.

Exactly so. I agree 100%.

 

[Mudd]

Welling's the only one i've never bought. Reeves, Reeve, Cavill, Cain, Hoechlin are all fine physically. I guess Routh was okay.

George Reeves's Clark Kent was a good deal more humorous, relaxed and maybe even smarter than his Superman.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Well episode two of season two aired here in the Uk last night. I know I'm going against the grain here but I really don't see the appeal of this Superman.
He's too small, both in height and physique

True. Poor casting, and not at all a convincing representation of the larger than life character.

I didn't actually no. A character like Superman though I think, and this is a personal thing granted, that appearance is pretty darn important, if he doesn't look like Superman, I'm not buying him as Superman. You can't stick a blue suit , red cape and an S on any old actor with black hair and call him Superman.

Agreed. The same applies to any superhero--the reason George Clooney (for one example) was stuffed into a Batsuit, but failed at becoming / selling the character.

With the exception of his conversations with Perry Whyte there wasn't a great deal of difference between Clark and Superman, he was the same character in or out of costume.

...and that is terrible. One of the hallmarks of the character throughout his history was the effective establishment of Clark and Superman as two distinct personalities. As you observe, Hoechlin was the same in and out of costume.

Look at his scenes with Jimmy Olsen, Olsen looks far bigger and far more filled out. Jimmy Olsen, towering over Superman.

Another good point. I do not buy the very desperate excuse that James is an adult now, so that's the reason he's larger than THE hero. Even in boots, Benoist appears to be taller than Hoechlin.

 

[.:: TSN ::.]

Would not have guessed that Miss Martian actress is only 6 years younger than Hank's actor. Almost accused him of cradle robbing during the episode. I honestly would have guessed her age to be nearer to 30 than 50.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Would not have guessed that Miss Martian actress is only 6 years younger than Hank's actor. Almost accused him of cradle robbing during the episode. I honestly would have guessed her age to be nearer to 30 than 50.

She was voted "Hottest Teacher" (by her students) on Boston Public, almost 20 years ago.

 

[The Lonely Man]

The only live-action actors I've ever really been able to accept completely as Superman visually are Christopher Reeve and Henry Cavill. I think Hoechlin is more convincingly Superman-like than Dean Cain or Tom Welling, certainly.




Which is true of basically every live-action screen Superman except Christopher Reeve.




James Olsen, a dozen years past his cub-reporter phase, grown into an accomplished adult. The whole point of the character in this show is that he's not a kid anymore. Why is that so hard for people to grasp?




What????? You can only be a symbol of hope if you're perfectly groomed? Must come as a huge shock to all the millions of people who were inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. Or Jesus.

I'm not quite mastered the quote breakdown yet so this might appear a bit of a mess, apologies.
But anyway,

Hoechlin is more convincing than Tom Welling ? Wow. Granted Welling never actually played Superman but for me at least, he was as perfect as I've ever seen as CK. If I had to design a Superman from the ground up I think he'd come out looking like Tom Welling.

Dean Cain played Superman and CK far differently, he was perfect as Clark but with the exception of the pilot episode he wasn't great as Superman, Brandon Routh also played them differently.

James Olsen ? Better tell Superman that, he called him Jimmy in the show. Besides the point anyway, this isn't about his character development, which I actually find very refreshing, it's about the fact he is more physically imposing than Superman. To me, that doesn't sit quite right.

As for the last point, you've went off on a bit of a tangent, we were promised the Superman we had been waiting on, I think Superman works best as a clean cut kinda guy. I know this show has mastered the art of re-imagining characters, and on the whole I'm fine with that. Superman in my head canon though is untouchable. I don't wanna see him appear scruffy and unshaven. It doesn't work for me