Arrow - The Final Season

Probably true -- unfortunately. I'm personally fond of the classic Superman model, where his supporting cast is the "mortal men [and women]" of the Daily Planet, and Superman is the lone costumed hero (though I will allow visits from cousin Kara). It's bad enough Supergirl hews to the Berlanti "team" formula. Can't Superman & Lois be spared?

And really, of all superheroes, why do Kryptonians need an army of other spandexed goobers to back them up? What exactly are they there for, to hold the Supers' beers?

 

I agree and that’s one of the reasons I don’t follow these shows like I used to. Supergirl needing an ARGUS type team is really kind of de-powering. Before these shows, a Kryptonian on TV or movies didn’t need a regular organization. I think it kinda sucks for Kara to have to need that sort of backup when previously her cousin did just fine on his own. Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl had almost identical formats. However, at least Oliver could absolutely function on his own and his team formed over time.

Barry always had the team at STAR labs and it’s usually shown he can’t do shit without them, other than f’k up the timeline.

I sincerely hope Batwoman doesn’t go in this template direction. If she joins the Crows, I’m out.

 

The first season of Supergirl took the opposite point of view -- that Supergirl's advantage over Superman was that she didn't feel the need to go it alone, that she was more open and inclusive and willing to trust in her friends. It's a conventionally masculine idea that strength requires isolation; Supergirl embraced the feminine strength of community and cooperation. The second episode of the series was titled "Stronger Together," which was defined as the meaning of the "S" symbol worn by the House of El. (This was before Secretary Clinton adopted it as her presidential campaign slogan.)

 

I will say it does open up the stories a bit to have more people involved. Over the decades, Superman has gotten absurdly powerful. Every so often he's depowered a bit, but when only Kryponite can harm him and he can do absolutely anything, he's kinda boring. He was more fun when he could only jump high, outrun a train, and could punch a guy who would sail over a tabletop and that would be that (granted, that was like 85 years ago). So, sure, having a godlike bein having a team makes story sense, but whatever Kara's organization is called, it's really very ARGUS...so much so that I always think it is whevever I pop in. I would prefer more diversity, not just in the genders and orientation but in formats. It's like in the 80's when every Filmation adventure cartoon was just a spin on the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe format.

 

"Every" in this context would just mean She-Ra and BraveStarr, and I guess Filmation's Ghostbusters to a degree, though that was pretty different as it was a comedy. The only other post-He-Man show Filmation did before going out of business was a Fat Albert revival.

 

BraveStarr wasn't a He-Man spinoff, as far as I know.

 

They were both made by the same company. Filmation, which is now owned by Dreamworks. Which is why they are paired together above.



How similar were the toys?

 

Being made by the same studio doesn't make BraveStarr, He-Man, and She-Ra spinoffs of each other.

He-Man and She-Ra are sibling series and She-Ra is a direct offshoot of H-Man, but BraveStarr is its own thing.

 

IIRC in the comics, Hal Jordan just walked up to John in a diner and was like: "Hey, you want to be a Green Lantern?" "Sure..." Beautiful! You're hired!"
Plus I think that in one version of events (that was probably a reycon that was later retconned by a retcon that was also later retconned) Alan Scott just *finds* a ring and/or battery and is just able to use it, thinking it's "magic". No trip to Oa, no hand-off from another Lantern or any hint of the corps (yes, I know the real world reason why that is!)
So with all that in mind, I think we can give them some latitude in that regard. Besides, DC seem to be very very persnickety about how explicit a GL reference this could be.

 

Well, the GLs are a big group of people. Just because we are getting one group of GLs doesn't mean we aren't getting all of them. The COIE implied that the new show will take place on another Earth, but there's no need for that, given how much of the story could take place off world. Plus, there are GLs on Earth.

If Diggle is essentially John Stewart, and I like that idea, then the simple answer is to have John Stewart as the GL on Earth, while Hal is off world.

GL could be on Superman what J'onn is on Supergirl.

I do feel that Diggle as a GL would fit in well with Superman. Superman is mainly a solo act, but that doesn't mean he can't form a friendship with Diggle. Even if Superman works alone, there can be other heroes in Metropolis.

Superman has absolutely worked with GLs before. In the cartoon, they did a bit of a hybrid of Kyle Rayner and Hal Jordan's origin story. Superman served as a mentor to Kyle in that episode before Kyle went off to learn from the Guardians.

In the comics, I remember Superman being offered a GL ring of his own, but he turned it down, saying it would be too much power for one person to have.

Diggle/Stewart, as developed, would make a very good friend to Superman.

 

It *was* magic - that was the original version. At various times they have retconned in and then out an condition to Oa and Green Lantern.

However in all versions I am aware of - regardless of the strength of the connection to the GLC, Alan Scott is a magically powered hero.

 

Of course BraveStarr wasn't a spin-off of He-Man -- we weren't talking about that. I was responding to the claim that all Filmation's adventure shows in the '80s were in the same style as He-Man, i.e. the same format, the same kind of cast composition and storytelling approach. I'd say that BraveStarr fell into the same basic format as He-Man/She-Ra -- a title hero with a talking animal sidekick and a team of allies, opposite a regular arch-villain with a team of mostly incompetent henchbeings. The main difference is that BraveStarr didn't have a secret identity or transformation, though he did have superpowers that he could summon when needed.

But the real point was that Filmation only made a very few shows post-He-Man, so saying "every one of their '80s shows was the same" isn't really saying much, since it's such a small sample size.

As for Alan Scott, yes, he was originally a magic-based hero. The Golden Age Green Lantern was an updating of the Aladdin myth into a superhero story. Aladdin had genies of the ring and the lamp, so Alan had a magic ring empowered by a magic lantern. Indeed, so I've heard, the character was originally going to be named Alan Ladd as a near-anagram of "Aladdin," but the editor thought that was a ridiculous name so it was changed to Alan Scott -- and then a couple of years later, the actor Alan Ladd broke out as a major star.

 

As I said; I know. Point being not every Lantern in the comics got to be a lantern the same way. Some had a ring show up after it's previous owner died, some just got recruited in person right off the street, some manage to inherit the power of a ring through magical genetics or something, and some get possessed by a ring from an alternate universe. With all of that in mind "box containing a power ring drops out of the sky" is fairly well within the bounds of plausibility.

 

Batwoman does have Luke Fox as a main character, and in the comics he's Batwing. So far the majority of the Arrowverse characters who are superheroes in the comics have eventually ended up taking on that identity in the shows, so I'm pretty sure Luke will probably end up Batwing at some point before the end of the series.

Yeah, the fact that none of the DC Universe shows haven't been directly connected to the Arrowverse shows, makes me think that the same will probably be true of the shows that they make for HBO Max too. If Diggle was going to get his own GL show it would probably be on The CW.
I do like the idea of him becoming a supporting character on Superman now that he's going to be living in Metropolis. The producers have said that his appearance on Tuesday's The Flash won't deal with him being a Green Lantern now, but I'm hoping that it might give us some hints what they have in mind for the character. Some of the comments I read after the finale have made it sound like they have some sort of plans for the character moving forward.

I'm the completely opposite, the teams aspect is one of my favorite things about Arrowverse shows. I always enjoy things more when they have more characters getting in on the action.

 

Yes, that's obvious enough, which is why I said "yet." My point was about the present, not the future.

Yes, exactly. Networks have a say in the content of the shows they air, so when Berlanti/DC shows are not on the same network, they aren't in the same universe. Supergirl was a separate reality because it was originally on CBS; Black Lightning was a separate reality because it was originally developed for FOX. The only reason they were able to retroactively put Constantine on Earth-1 was because it was already cancelled and wasn't doing its own thing anymore. Heck, the DC Universe shows aren't even in the same reality as each other -- Crisis put the four shows on four separate Earths.

I think people tend to forget that the Arrowverse's interconnectedness is the exception for live-action DC shows. Outside of the Arrowverse, the only two live-action DC shows that have ever been in continuity with each other were Shazam and Isis in the '70s -- and Isis wasn't even a comics character, but was created for TV. (Although there was a comics miniseries a few years back credibly portraying Batman '66 and the '70s Wonder Woman as a shared universe.)

 

THat's what I meant: He-Man, She-Ra and BraveStarr all had a hero, talking animal friend, opposite gender warrior-tame romantic interest, and a main villain with incompetent minions. Ghostbusters had slightly different kinda weird sidekicks (as it was a sequel to the live action Forrest Tucker / Larry Storch series) but the "main villain with incompetent minions" was in full force. Those were their main shows from 1982 until their closing and they were the same basic format.

 

It was? I don't remember hearing that before.

 

Apparently so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lightning_(TV_series)#Development

 

So, finally saw the finale.

Yeah.... I don't know. As an episode, I really enjoyed it. Didn't cry as I thought I might. But, as a finale to Arrow.... I was so disappointed by Oliver's death. Both of them. I had hoped for something a bit more. But it did fit well with Oliver's last words to Barry, so I guess it had that going for it.

In the later seasons, Arrow definitely struggled as a show now and then. Season 6 was, in my opinion, horrid and 7 was only half/half. But Arrow will always remain one of my favorite shows, with a compelling and interesting hero.

 

One of my main takeaways from the finale (and to some extent the Crisis) is that in my headcanon Sara is the OTP for Oliver because Caity Lotz is just so wonderful. Of course, the same is true for her and Nyssa actually.

In some alternate version of Arrow Sara would have stuck around and been Oliver's partner throughout the entire show as Black Canary. I love her on Legends of Tomorrow of course but man, Caity Lotz had such wonderful chemistry with Stephen Amell (more than Emily Bett Rickards and much more than Katie Kassidy) and in the end I was much more affected by her parts in the finale than Felicity's.