Superheroes!

[Synobun]

No idea who/what Harbinger is, but I'm surprised it's taken this long for a side character to become a hero in the Arrowverse. They all seem to sip the Oliver sizzurp pretty quick in the early seasons.

 

[Patine]

The top 40 "corniest lines" in mainstream comics was released on a fansite recently (I'll have to recover the link - my settings automatically delete all browsing history unless I bookmark it). One of them that caught my eye, that was just waiting for an opportunity and anyone should have seen coming - Black Canary, in a mid-'90's DC comic issue says, "Stop, or I'll scream!"

 

[EgonSpengler]

A special Superheroes/TIL crossover post!

Rachel Skarsten - who plays The Jok... er... I mean, Alice in Batwoman - played Dinah Lance in the 2002 Birds of Prey series. (And I can't help noticing that she's only 34 years old today, so she was basically a child when she was in BoP.)

 

[EgonSpengler]

Elsewhere, if you have an extra $550 laying about...

 

[EgonSpengler]

Business Insider, of all things, has an interview with Victoria Auth, costume designer for Supergirl.

"There's a world of blues available, so we went back and forth on that," Auth said. "We did samples until we hit it right and kind of just went from there, but wanted it to be able to be photographed outside in the sunlight as well as interior and not look cheesy."

"We did samples where we wanted to kind of pull the red of her skirt into it," Auth said. "So we experimented with some red piping, some red flashes on the hips, that kind of thing. She started to look a little bit like a band leader, so we backed off of that and went with more of the gold accents."

"Traditionally, capes have been out of leather, so they're heavy," Auth said. "And [Benoist] would have to wear a corset underneath her original suit to stabilize the weight of the cape."

Because the stunts on "Supergirl" have gotten more complex and involve "a lot of flying and a lot of flipping," Benoist asked if it would be possible to lessen the weight of the cape.

"We moved into doing ultra suede and printing on that, which omitted the need for a corset and gave her so much more flexibility, and she was thrilled," Auth said.

The costume designer said that the Supergirl suit easily slips on and has a zipper in the back. Other parts, like the boots, cape, and belt are easy to add or remove.

As part of the practical design, Auth also "moved away from neoprene" and chose a "printed Eurojersey that breathes."

"If they're more comfortable and they can function better, move better, say their lines better because they're not annoyed by what they're wearing, everybody wins," she said.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I quite liked the season premier of Supergirl. Somehow this show can hit you over the head with its message and still be fun as hell. I do like the new costume. For a minute, I thought the mysterious, black-hole-throwing escapee from The Phantom Zone was Q'orianka Kilcher, but it wasn't. I also bought into Lena's act. I thought maybe some new writers had decided not to pursue that heel turn in the new season, had decided to do something else instead, and wanted to wrap it up quickly. Melissa Benoist performed the tearful apology scene really well, I think she may be a better actress than I usually give her credit for. I also thought the fact that J'onn doesn't know who the new guy is was kind of an interesting twist.

The Batwoman pilot on the other hand... Well, it was a very pilot-y pilot, so I'll reserve judgment. Friday Night Lights had one of the worst first episodes I've ever seen, and that became one of my all-time favorite shows. The Batwoman voiceover made me want to kill, though. I actually stopped watching after about 10 minutes, because I just didn't have the patience, and then picked it up again later. Skarsten was the only one who I thought could act her way out of a wet paper bag. I hope we get more of her.

 

[Patine]

@EgonSpengler Just an amusing observation here. I think you make at least half the posts on this thread. It's like a late night topical radio show from the '80's or '90's, where your the host, and everyone else is a phone-in guest.

 

[EgonSpengler]

@EgonSpengler Just an amusing observation here. I think you make at least half the posts on this thread. It's like a late night topical radio show from the '80's or '90's, where your the host, and everyone else is a phone-in guest.

Ooh, like Gary Cole in Midnight Caller? Cool. "Barry in Central City, you're on the air, what's on your mind?" Yeah, this thread does seem to have become just a blog. Oh well. I could do a whole music thread by myself, too, but it doesn't seem like too many people here would be into that.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Tim from Palmdale, regular caller.

Keep up the good work Egon.

Meanwhile...I hope Supergirl manages to be at least a bit less heavy handed. It is fun, but not fun enough to balance last season's blunt force assault. First episode wasn't bad.

 

[Synobun]

An episode preview spoiled a pretty big plot point from The Flash for me.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

An episode preview spoiled a pretty big plot point from The Flash for me.

Because everything I watch I watch recorded I never see trailers unless I specifically look for them. What was it? In spoiler tags, of course, for those who haven't seen it yet.

 

[Synobun]

Because everything I watch I watch recorded I never see trailers unless I specifically look for them. What was it? In spoiler tags, of course, for those who haven't seen it yet.

Spoiler :

Barry and Iris have a kid (huge news for me as I'm behind a couple seasons [fixing that now... slowly... very slowly...]) and that kid is also dead. The preview, very first sentence, tells me about how they're grieving the loss of their daughter. I didn't even go out to look for it, just scrolled by. Too late.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Spoiler :

Barry and Iris have a kid (huge news for me as I'm behind a couple seasons [fixing that now... slowly... very slowly...]) and that kid is also dead. The preview, very first sentence, tells me about how they're grieving the loss of their daughter. I didn't even go out to look for it, just scrolled by. Too late.

Oh. Well, that was only a spoiler because you are a couple seasons behind. I can't really say any more since you are catching up, but I will say that I think the past couple seasons were pretty good and well worth a binge to catch up.

 

[Synobun]

I'm trying to do the binge chronologically with all the other series, so it's slow-going.

For example, the next few episodes I'm watching:

The Flash 2.12 Fast Lane
Arrow 4.12 Unchained
Arrow 4.13 Sins of the Father
Supergirl 1.08 Hostile Takeover
The Flash 2.13 Welcome to Earth-2
The Flash 2.14 Escape from Earth-2
The Flash 2.15 King Shark
Legends of Tomorrow 1.04 White Knights
Legends of Tomorrow 1.05 Fail-Safe
Legends of Tomorrow 1.06 Star City 2046

I think I've seen up to the ends of season 5 (or 6) of Arrow, season 3 of Flash, season 2 of Supergirl, and season 2 of Legends of Tomorrow. So I have to catch up to that, and then I'll be in all-new territory. I was hoping to be further along as the CW shows are starting back up now but I'm not. It'll probably be a month until I've caught up to where I left off, let alone to the stuff I've missed so far.

 

[EgonSpengler]

If you're watching season 1 of Legends, you're a stronger person than I. I think I lasted 5 or 6 episodes. The last couple of seasons have been great, though.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm reading here and there about Brie Larson's desire for an "all-woman" MCU movie. Okay, sure, I'm game for that.

I was certainly aware of That Scene in Endgame, and while I liked it well enough in the moment, it also felt very clumsy. If a writer's goal is to craft something contrived, it's important to make it feel natural, part of the flow of the story. I looked up A-Force, a comic I never read, and it seems the writer, G. Willow Wilson, didn't want to come up with a specific reason, which I can sort of understand. I mean, a group of men joining together to save everybody is never questioned as artificial. But she also didn't make it simple happenstance. According to Wikipedia, the all-women group of Avengers emerged from an alternate universe where women are in charge. Again, I haven't read it, but that sounds like the worst option, to me.

Contriving a reason for an all-women group of superheroes...

I remember an issue of JLA that did this when I was a kid. I had to look it up to get the details, but basically an ancient villainess named Siren appeared, who had the power to magically hypnotize men, and only men. Batman, Superman, Green Arrow, The Flash. So it was left to Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Black Canary and Hawkwoman to save the day. Clunky as hell, but it was the late '70s and I was a little boy, so I thought it was awesome (alright, alright, I admit that being rescued by Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Black Canary and Hawkwoman doesn't sound so bad to me, even today ). For the MCU, you could introduce The Enchantress as the villain. Still clunky as hell, but that doesn't mean it couldn't work.

...but making it plausible happenstance:

I start my story with Valkyrie, somewhere in outer space. She gets in over her head with some mega-villain and goes looking for help. Her first instinct is to look for Thor, but she can't reach him. Luckily, there's another hero she's met who, if anything, is even stronger than Thor: The MCU's version of Superman, Carol Danvers. Carol already knows Monica Rambeau and is kind of her mentor in the whole superhero thing (Monica would have her powers already, maybe in Captain Marvel 2?). Now we add some kind of super-science MacGuffin that Valkyrie took and the villain wants, and because Carol and Valkyrie aren't scientists, they bring it to Wakanda to have Shuri look at it. The MacGuffin opens a wormhole, pulling in Carol, Monica, Valkyrie, and Shuri, just because they all happen to be standing around the table while Shuri is tinkering with it. T'Challa and Okoye both dive madly across the room to grab the flailing young princess, but only Okoye is close enough and also gets pulled into the wormhole just before it snaps shut. Escapades follow. From this point, it can basically be just another Marvel movie, the fact that the heroes are all women wouldn't have to matter at all.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I haven't seen Joker, but

 

[Synobun]

The Titans are going to be in the crossover CW event too. I need to pick up the damn pace on this re-watch.

"There will also be new and returning characters introduced in this crossover. These include: Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman, Elizabeth Tulloch’s Lois Lane, Tom Welling’s Clark Kent, Erica Durance’s Lois Lane, Brandon Routh’s Kingdom Come Superman, Cress Williams’ Black Lightning, Ashley Scott’s Huntress, Kevin Conroy’s Bruce Wayne, Osric Chau’s Ryan Choi, Tom Ellis’s Lucifer, Burt Ward’s Burt Ward, Robert Wuhl’s Alexander Knox, Tom Cavanagh’s Pariah, Audrey Marie Anderson’s Harbinger, Katherine McNamara’s Mia Queen, Jon Cryer’s Lex Luthor, John Wesley Shipp’s Jay Garrick (and possibly 90’s Flash?) and Johnathon Schaech’s Jonah Hex."

Bruh.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Titans are going to be in the crossover CW event too. I need to pick up the damn pace on this re-watch.

"There will also be new and returning characters introduced in this crossover. These include[...] Tom Ellis’s Lucifer

They're really going for broke, aren't they?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Pulling in an assortment of characters that I did not even know were based in DC Comics...that helps?