The Witcher would like a word
DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond
- Thread starter dahj
- Start date
Too little, too late. He should have told her in the first episode. Would've really shown the writers weren't going for cliches.
Again, the result of her terrible writing for the earlier seasons.
He gets superpowers, puts on a mask and fights bad guys with superpowers.
Cliche is in the concept, why draw a line there when that doesn't even last very long anyways?
Because it would've shown that a NEGATIVE cliche was being recognized and done away with for once.
Look at that Freeform show "Siren" from around 6 years back. A guy meets a Mermaid whose come to the land looking for her captured sister. The guy has a girlfriend, and in most shows he'd hide this new person from her which would lead to cliche misunderstandings and the girlfriend being portrayed as this shrew.
Instead the writers had him immediately go to her, tell her everything and they work as a team trying to learn how to communicate with the Mermaid and help her and it resulted in a far more interesting dynamic where the girlfriend got to be a whole character for once.
Even Snyder understood this, he had Amy Adams' Lois find out Clark's secret and have them work as partners right from the start.
The Flash could've easily had Barry just tell Iris the truth from Day One and she'd have been a better character for it
Hiding your identity from your loved ones has never made much sense in these stories.
I do recall that many in the Flash audience (myself included?) felt that Iris was indeed poorly served as a character before she learned the secret, and that once she found out near the end of season 1, it led to a marked improvement in how she was written. A lot of us felt it should've happened sooner.
I've believed for a long time that characters who are kept in the dark about a main character's secret are limited, because there's really only one story you can tell about them, which is how the hero lies to them and hides things from them. I felt that when the Spider-Man comics brought Aunt May into the loop at last, it allowed her to become a much richer character with more interesting things to do, and it was a shame when they hit the reset button and put her back in the dark.
The claim is that it's supposed to protect them from being targeted by the hero's enemies, but since the love interests usually interact regularly with the hero anyway, they'd still get targeted (look how regularly Lois and Jimmy were taken prisoner in the George Reeves Superman series). So it's really more about protecting the hero from what the loved ones might give away under torture, but that doesn't sound noble enough.
I've believed for a long time that characters who are kept in the dark about a main character's secret are limited, because there's really only one story you can tell about them, which is how the hero lies to them and hides things from them. I felt that when the Spider-Man comics brought Aunt May into the loop at last, it allowed her to become a much richer character with more interesting things to do, and it was a shame when they hit the reset button and put her back in the dark.
The claim is that it's supposed to protect them from being targeted by the hero's enemies, but since the love interests usually interact regularly with the hero anyway, they'd still get targeted (look how regularly Lois and Jimmy were taken prisoner in the George Reeves Superman series). So it's really more about protecting the hero from what the loved ones might give away under torture, but that doesn't sound noble enough.
And naturally what happened in S1 couldn't last and they needed some time travel nonsense to make her forget until she found out again later.
When JMS had May find out, the best part was Peter finally realizing the truth: He didn't tell May about him not because "she couldn't handle it", it was really because he didn't want to admit to her his role in Ben's death. It was because HE couldn't handle it...and he was wrong again because May didn't blame him for it.
Well it's own fault for hanging out with them as a Superhero so their enemies will suspect things. If they tell them truth and don't associate them with their superhero self then there's no reason for villains to know the connection.
No such thing as a negative cliche if it's done well and right. Which is subjective. Spider-Man keeping his secret from MJ is heartbreaking to me.
Yet had Clark essentially murder his father to keep the almighty secret... (but let's not rehash this here)
The cliche isn't the bad part to me, it's the laziness of writers putting the loved ones in trouble time and time again as an easy story.
It's moronic to me, at least with May there was the real reason of "If I tell her she'll know Ben died because of me.". With MJ there's no real reason.
Then bring them in on the secret and give them more to do than just be "The love interest who is badly written".
I haven't seen Siren, but "Liked" this post for its overall point -- and for the fact that having Amy Adams's splendid Lois Lane in on "the secret" from the get-go, so that she could work alongside Clark as an ally and partner, was the single best narrative choice Snyder made.
I don't know if I would call it murder given that it was Jonathan's request... maybe assisted suicide?
Its called sacrifice.
I'm not sure I quite agree with the Siren analogy, because Maddie wasn't just "the hero's girlfriend" -- she and Ben were coequally the series leads and the mermaid's love interests in a polyamorous romance approached without jealousy or controversy. So in a way, it was still the same dynamic -- the main characters keeping the secret from their loved ones -- just with two main characters in parallel instead of one. Although the number of characters in the loop about the secret increased over time, as is usually the case these days.
Siren was an excellent series, which I just recently rewatched on Hulu, though I missed the concluding third season the first time around (and that season wasn't quite as good as the first two).
At most it would be negligent homicide, but I don't think so, because Clark was a minor (17, I think) and it was Jonathan who had a duty of care to him, not the other way around. If a father orders his underage son "save yourself rather than saving me," the responsibility for that decision lies with the father.
And no, it's not assisted suicide, because that means the person in question actively helps bring it about, rather than simply standing by.
Again a point for why Adams' Lois is so great. She figured it out just over half way of the movie. Like the amazing and hyper intelligent reporter Lois is.
Adams's Lois was the GOAT till Bitsie Tulloch came along her to nudge her into a very close second place.
Looking forward to seeing what Rachel Brosnahan does with the role.
Looking forward to seeing what Rachel Brosnahan does with the role.
I would've said it was Dana Delany's Lois. In fact, I think I'd still say that, with Tulloch a close second.
I wasn't including cartoons. Would've loved to see Delany take on the role in live-action, though. She probably would've been awesome.
I'll never understand why people exclude animation, particularly when it comes to a franchise that originated in comic books. Heck, I just toss in every medium together. Ask me who was the best Superman and I'll put Bud Collyer very high on the list.
I'm not a fan of the superheroes keeping their identities a secret from their loved ones, but it's not something I get that upset over, and it's such an iconic part of so many of the comics, I can see why a lot of adaptations use it. I think my preferred approach are what shows like the Flash too, where they do start out with the hero hiding their identity from people like Iris, but then telling fairly quickly. That why you can do all of the iconic, heroes has to keep identity a secret stuff, but don't drag it out so long the hero looks like a complete ass or the other person looks like a complete moron.
Beh, truth be told I never really like Animated Lois much...Animated Lana was a far better character IMO.
Then again I thought Annette O'Toole's Lana in the Reeves movies was also better than Margot Kidder's Lois.
I know. We've been down that road of discussion before. Agree to disagree.