They are having fun with bits of the Superman mythos on Supergirl. This week’s title, Strange Visitor From Another Planet, is one of the descriptions of Superman from the radio and tv show days. It’s nice to see the nods to the decades-long history of the various characters.
After a lot of preview material, and a slow build across both Arrow and Flash, Legends of Tomorrow finally debuts, the newest addition to the CW-verse, or Arrow-verse, depending on which name you like better. Rip Hunter gathers a group of heroes and villains both to fight the immortal evil of Vandal Savage. Except for Rip himself, all of the other characters have appeared on Flash and/or Arrow. It really was one of the longest builds to a new series I can remember seeing. The CW shows are showing the same attention to continuity and building a cohesive world that Marvel Studios is using on their shows, and the DC movies so far have utterly failed to.
Khalid continues his journey as the new Dr. Fate. So far, he’s mostly stayed in Brooklyn, aside from a few detours to another plane. Now, he takes a substantial road trip to Mont Saint-Michel, France. It’s actually a nicely balanced story about a servant of one sect of gods helping out people in general. I like how Levitz did this.
The sort-of reintroduction of the original Teen Titans moves ahead in “Masks.” I’m a bit torn about this whole project. When DC did their big reboot, the group that got screwed over the most was the Teen Titans. As you can see in the original versions of several books in the first few months, even the company itself didn’t have a coherent position on Titans history. This feels like a book that’s trying to compromise. The Titans history is still missing, but there was some weird sorta team that briefly existed that everyone forgot. That’s a great metaphor for the Teen Titans being treated so shabbily by the reboot.
The Secret Six continue their quest to deal with the white pillars and save Black Alice. They’ve been running into various opposition, since the destruction of the pillars supposedly will let horrific Elder Gods into our world. This time, they have more serious problems, as suggested by the title, “Watch A Yellow Sun Fade.” If that’s not enough of a clue, they end up in Metropolis.
Arrow has been doing flashbacks almost every episode. Now, they do things a bit differently. The episode opens with a flash-forward, four months from now. Oliver stands over a fresh grave, looking very upset. Barry, also looking sad, turns up. Oliver vows “to kill him,” the “him” in question presumably being whoever is responsible for the grave. They carefully don’t show us the name on the marker.
The Flash comes back from the hiatus with “Potential Energy,” a show that mixes some great special effects with a mild overdose of soap opera. It opens with Barry having nightmares about a date with Patty. They get an uninvited party crasher and things go downhill quickly.
Supergirl has to deal with “Childish Things” in this week’s episode. Since I first learned what Winn’s full name was, I was pretty sure this was coming. Winn’s father is Winslow Schott, the Toyman, usually a Superman foe. Here, he kills several guards as he escapes from prison.
Back from the winter hiatus, Liv Moore and her friends return for, “Method Head” this week’s episode of iZombie. They open on a down beat, as Ravi tells Major and Liv about Hope, his experimental rat. With no warning, the “cure” wore off, which is not at all what Major wants to hear. This is also when Ravi finds out that Liv and Major broke up last episode. Blaine, too, is equally thrilled when he hears about the temporariness of the cure.
Supergirl debuted later than most of the fall shows, and is still doing some odd stuff schedule-wise. It went to hiatus later than the others, and now seems to be back early for one week. I’m not sure I see the plan there, but we get to see a new episode early, so I’ll take it.
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