Back in the day westerns dominated TV. Just three networks overstuffed with oat operas. You had to decide which show would induce less saddle sore. And there were plenty of hee-haw shoot-them-ups at the movie theater.
Too much killed the format. Ad nauseam. There's hardly a new western series on TV. A movie theater is like a ghost town for saddle sagas, tumbleweed rolling through. You have to watch reruns on TV to get your cowboy fix.
Now superheroes are the Big Thing, both TV and movies. Irony: When I was a kid my peers and some adults questioned my rabid interested in four-color pamphlets. I would be laughed at for spending 12 cents on a comic book. Now everyone, not just nerds, are paying 12 dollars to see the same stuff brought to life on a cinema screen.
A surfeit of product means each one has to match, even beat, the other one. I watched the pilot film for the Supergirl TV series and maybe ten minutes of the second episode. This set-up has Kal-El's cousin arriving on earth after he has become Superman. Supergirl is supposed to be her own person - Feminism! - but there's always the shadow of the Big Guy lurking in the background. This happened before with another series, Birds of Prey, that had Batman lurking in the background, a brief glimpse for Dark Knight fans.
With Supergirl I could do better. An eight-year-old could do better.
Since the character is past her teen years why not called her Superwoman? With superior acumen Marvel changed the appellation Invisible Girl to Invisible Woman years ago so it's not like there's never beenprecendence.
And have Superwoman be completely her own woman. No more being in her cousin's shadow. She arrived on earth but Kal-El didn't make it. Why not? It's not like the parallel universe explanation has never been used.
As mentioned before with a flooded market your product has to stand out. But Supergirl isn't a stand-out creation. In the pilot some Kryptonian criminals have survived, including Supergirl's evil aunt. What's next? Her wicked stepmother shows up with a kryptonite apple?
I'll pass. I would rather suffer thru a stupid rerun of Bonanza. ("Hell, Hoss filled up the outhouse again!")
1 comment:
Perhaps it's the case that males engrossed in comic book culture prefer girls to women? Seems the whole point of the super-hero is having some sort of power-disparity.
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