What I Watch on TV: The MARVEL Cinematic Universe

I started this series by discussing DC Comics properties, so it's only logical to continue by discussing MARVEL Comics properties. Unlike DC, which chose to create separate universes for its feature film and television properties, MARVEL has created one shared universe for its properties. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, Ant  Man, Spiderman, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and a few others all appear in their own feature films an/or in The Avengers, while some others appear on television, most of them on Netflix. It is those television/Netflix properties that I will discuss here...all in one blog post, rather than breaking it up. I'll begin with...

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is the story of a group of agents, led by Phil Coulson, initially under the command of Director Nick Fury, who strive from day to day to defend the world against HYDRA, the evil organization that we first encounter in World War II in the film, Captain America: The First Avenger. They battle other threats as well that might not be big enough to require the intervention of the Avengers themselves, and most recently have been dealing with the inhumans issue.

Agents of Shield started out a little slow, and for a while during its first season there was some question as to whether or not it would get a second. It did, but that season, too, seemed to lag for a time, in part because the writers had to wait for the cinematic release of Captain America: Winter Soldier before they could take their story to the place where they intended to go. Once that film was released and the show was able to move forward with its story line, however, the show improved, and it has continued to do so.

We first met Agent Carter, Peggy Carter, in Captain America: The First Avenger. Beginning as a British military officer during World War II, she went on to work for the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) soon after the war, after Steve Rogers (Captain America) became frozen in polar ice, and would eventually go on to found, or co-found, S.H.I.E.L.D. Lasting for only two short seasons, Agent Carter told the story of Peggy's time in the SSR.

Daredevil tells the story of Matt Murdock, a lawyer in Hell's Kitchen, New York. As a child, Murdock was blinded when he was exposed to a chemical spill. As a result, he developed enhanced senses. Undeterred by his blindness, he becomes a vigilante, and the incredibly good first season of the show follows his rather violent encounters as he rises to become "the devil of Hell's Kitchen."

The show's second season continued to follow Murdock/Daredevil, of course, but also introduced us to two more MARVEL characters, The Punisher and Elektra. I thoroughly enjoyed the Punisher's subplot and I'm guessing that most other fans did as well because The Punisher is now going to be a show of its own. However, I found the Elektra subplot to be...well...kind of boring. That's just my own opinion, though. I'm sure there are fans out their who enjoyed it.

Jessica Jones came next. Jessica Jones tells the story of...duh, Jessica Jones...a former superhero who has decided to hang up her cape (if she ever wore one) and become a private investigator.

As I write this, it's been nearly a year and a half since I watched the first season (the only one that has aired, so far), and I must admit that I barely made it through. I wanted to like it because I have enjoyed the MARVEL films and had very much enjoyed Daredevil, but for me it lacked... something... and I don't really remember a whole lot about it. Her main nemesis in the season was someone called, if I remember correctly, the Purple Man. I don't remember much about him, either.

Jessica Jones has been renewed for a second season. Hopefully, season 2 will be better.

Luke Cage was introduced in Jessica Jones and became the next MARVEL/Netflix series to premiere. Cage was experimented upon while imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, and as a result of the those experiments has incredible strength and unbreakable skin. He escapes from prison and faces trials and tribulations as he tries to rebuild his life.

Like Jessica Jones, only one season of Luke Cage has aired so far. In my opinion, it was not a "great" show, but it was okay. I do think its first season was better than Jessica Jones' first season. Because they are a part of the overall MARVEL Cinematic Universe, I will watch both shows' second seasons when they become available. I can only hope that they will improve over the shows' first seasons.

Iron Fist is the most recently released Netflix contribution to the MCU. As a boy, Danny Rand was on a plane with his parents when the plane went down in the Himalayas. Danny's parents were killed, but Danny survived and was rescued and raised by monks who train him in Kung Fu. While with the monks he becomes the legendary Iron Fist. Then, 15 years after the crash, he returns to New York and tries to take his rightful place as heir to his father's multi-billion dollar corporation, which is being run by the grown children of his father's former partner, and of which he inherited a majority share.

I've seen a lot of negative reviews of Iron Fist and I don't understand why. Of the four (so far) Netflix contributions to the MCU, I think that it is second only to Daredevil, better than both Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, but I guess we all know what "they" say about opinions.

In closing, I would like to point out two additional aspects of all four of the Netflix shows that I have not mentioned yet. First, all four of them do take a moment or two along the way to mention "the attack on New York" (as seen in The Avengers) or "the big green guy" or some other aspect of events as seen in the MCU, reminding us that they are all taking place in one big shared universe. Second, Rosario Dawson appears as Claire Temple in at least three of them (I don't remember if she appeared in Jessica Jones) adding to the continuity.

Finally, fans know that we have not seen the last of any of these characters. In the way that Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (and the Hulk as well, sort of) were featured in their own films and then brought together to appear in The Avengers, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist will soon be brought together as The Defenders.

What I Watch on TV: The DC Television Universe, part 5

When I began writing this blog series about what I watch on television, I wrote that as a small child my two favorite superheroes were Batman and Captain America. In parts 1 through 4, I wrote about the four DC properties that now share a multiverse, the so-called “Arrowverse,” on the CW network—Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl. Those four shows do not constitute the entirety of DC’s efforts on television, however. There is one more DC property on television, on the Fox network, that does not occupy a part of that multiverse, and this show, I must say, is my personal favorite out of all of them.

GOTHAM

Anyone even vaguely familiar with Batman lore could guess that Gotham takes place in Bruce Wayne’s home of Gotham City, but what they, and you, might not know unless you already watch the show is that it takes place during the years before Bruce becomes Batman, during his adolescence. Though young Bruce is one of the major characters, this show is as much the story of GCPD Detective James Gordon’s efforts to clean up Gotham, long before he becomes commissioner, as it is that of young Bruce Wayne, who takes it upon himself to try to identify who is responsible for murdering his parents right in front of him. Detective Gordon fights crime while Bruce slowly develops his detective’s instincts as he investigates his parents’ murders, setting himself on a path toward becoming the talented detective that the original Batman character was always meant to be.

As the show progresses, we meet a virtual rogues gallery of characters, some of them very familiar to Batman fans, others perhaps not so much. James Gordon’s partner, Detective Harvey Bullock, is a rather crusty and cynical man but possesses a sense of honor despite himself. Bruce Wayne’s guardian, Alfred Pennyworth, is not at all the gentle elderly man whom fans of the ‘60s TV series might remember. Rather, he is a veteran of Her Majesty’s military service who can most definitely take care of himself. Oswald Cobblepot is a smalltime hood whose bad leg/foot causes him to limp and has earned him the nickname “Penguin.” Selina Kyle is a young girl living on the streets of Gotham, doing what she must to survive, who has learned to move with the grace of a cat. Edward Nygma works for the GCPD and seems to have an affinity for riddles. And Jerome Valeska is...well, you’ll just have to watch the show. I cannot applaud actor Cameron Monaghan enough for his performance in that role.

Those are most of the best-known but only a few of the many classic Batman characters we meet along the way. Because the story takes place prior to any of them becoming who they eventually will be, however, at least in the first couple of seasons, the producers apparently felt as though they needed to create a new, already established villain to be the heavy during the period of time in which the story takes place. Thus, Fish Mooney was born.

Portrayed by Jada Pinkett-Smith, Fish Mooney is essentially a mob boss on some level. I’m not going to spend much time talking about her because, in my opinion, she was not that interesting a character. I have nothing against Ms. Pinkett-Smith and my opinion should not be seen as any sort of reflection on her. I’m sure she did the best that she could with what she was given to work with. It was the character of Fish Mooney herself who didn’t interest me. That said, I know that some of my fellow fans disagree with me completely.

I could probably drone on for quite some time about this show. As I said, it’s my personal favorite of the five DC properties of which I have written, and I hope that it will continue for several more seasons. Suffice to say that I will be watching for however long it does goes on.

What I Watch on TV: The DC Television Universe, part 4

So, now we come to the fourth and final show, at least so far, that shares the DC Television Universe...

SUPERGIRL

As you probably already know, Supergirl is the story of Kara Zor-El, who was sent to Earth from Krypton to watch over her younger cousin, Kal-El. However, by the time she arrived on Earth, Kal-El had already grown up as Clark Kent and become Superman. Under the guise of Kara Danvers, Kara lives and works in National City.

Unlike the previous three shows I wrote about, Supergirl did not begin on the CW network in the shared "Arrowverse." Rather, it started on CBS and played out its entire first season on that network, taking place in a separate universe of its own. In my opinion, te producers and/or writers made some mistakes during that first season. For one thing, it seemed as though they didn't believe that the character of Supergirl could carry the show on her own. It didn't take them long to bring the Martian Manhunter into the story, and Superman made an appearance as well. What I personally disliked the most about the show, however, was its tendency toward periodically pushing the "feminist agenda."

Don't get e wrong. I am all or equal pay for equal work and ensuring that capable women have the same opportunities as capable men, etcetera, but sometimes the "man-hate" on this show grew so overt that I started thinking that I was watching the Lifetime channel. I'm not saying that it was because of that, but for some reason(s) the show did not do well, at least in the eyes of the CBS executives. They cancelled the show after that first season...but perhaps in part because something very unusual had taken place shortly before then, the show did not just fade quietly into history.

The CW and CBS had come to an agreement on terms, and near the end of the season there was a crossover episode in which The Flash, who we had already seen visiting at least one parallel Earth, visited Supergirl's Earth. I believe it was that episode that made the possibility of the CW picking up the show for a second season a very real one, and that is exactly what happened. After its first season, Supergirl joined its "Arrowverse" siblings on the CW.

Gone was Calista Flockhart, who had portrayed Kara's boss, Cat Grant. Also gone were those periodic "feminist agenda" pushes, only to be replaced by the "liberal agenda." At one point during the second season I was starting to think that the show had been turned into a far-left liberal propaganda piece and I almost quit watching it—if I want politics, I'll turn to a news channel—but then it seemed to back off from that, at least partially, and become the simple superhero show that I wanted to watch. Since then there have been a couple of more crossovers with the "Arrowverse," including one musical episode crossover with The Flash that turned out to be more enjoyable than I expected it to be.

In some ways, I think Supergirl is the weakest of the four shows I've discussed to this point, but it's still entertaining. Making Jimmy Olsen—I'm sorry, I mean James Olsen—the Guardian (I think that's the right name) is kind of pointless in my opinion, but perhaps that's just me. I think they should give the Supergirl character a chance to carry the show on her own...though it's not like the other shows haven't brought in other heroes, of course.

Arrow started out good, lost its way a bit, and then got good again. The Flash started out a little Saturday morning kids' show-like, then got good. Legends of Tomorrow shares a similar track record, at least in my opinion. So, who knows? Perhaps very soon now, Supergirl will take that step from being just okay to being a really good show.

What I Watch on TV: The DC Television Universe, part 3

So, we began with Oliver Queen on Arrow, and that show eventually introduced us to Barry Allen as The Flash. Together, those two shows bring us to the third of the four programs that share the DC Television Universe, one based on heroes of whom I had never heard until this show was born. Once again, I promise to be as spoiler-free as possible, but I can’t promise not to include any spoilers at all.

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

Legends of Tomorrow is about a group of misfit “heroes,” some of whom we met on Arrow and/or The Flash—Ray Palmer/The Atom, Sara Lance/White Canary, Martin Stein and Jefferson Jackson/Firestorm, Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, and Mick Rory/Heat Wave—who join former Time Master Rip Hunter who has gone rogue, traveling through time in search of Vandal Savage, who killed Hunter’s family in the future. Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl and Carter Hall/Hawkman also join the team. As the show progresses, we see more familiar characters from the “Arrowverse”—Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash, Damien Darhk, and Malcolm Merlyn. We also meet Nate Heywood/Steel and briefly meet the Justice Society of America from the WWII era, including Amaya Jiwe/Vixen, who joins the team.

Where Arrow has been a relatively dark look at Oliver Queen’s journey through his adult life and The Flash has been the lighter, more adventure-oriented but still personal story of Barry Allen, Legends of Tomorrow’s journeys through time have proven to be more purely adventure-based. Character development has been more superficial, though that’s not to say that it has necessarily been week or lacking. For this reason, as much as I do like time-travel stories, it is my least favorite of the three. Perhaps that’s why I don’t have a whole lot to say about it here. Who Knows? I do still enjoy watching it, though. It is one-third of the “Arrowverse” after all.

In The Flash we’ve been introduced to parallel Earths, including one where a young woman who goes by the name of Kara Zor-El holds a special place in the hearts of the people of National City. I sometimes find myself wondering if, as the Legends travel through time, they might one day inadvertently do something to bring some or all of those Earth’s together.

What I Watch on TV: The DC Television Universe, part 2

This blog entry is the second of several in which I plan to talk a little bit about what I watch on television. In it, I write about the second of four programs that share a single DC Television Universe—actually two universes that exist in parallel, but that’s just one of the story elements. I promise to be as spoiler-free as possible, but I can’t promise not to include any spoilers at all.

This time up... The FLASH

As I mentioned in part 1, this iteration of The Flash began in the series Arrow. It is the story of Barry Allen, a forensic scientist employed by the Central City Police Department whose mother was murdered “by a ball of lightning” when he was young and whose father went to prison, having been wrongly convicted of committing that crime. Fourteen years after his mother’s murder, a particle accelerator at Star Labs malfunctions and spreads an unknown form of radiation over the city during a thunderstorm. Barry is struck by lightning during this event and, after lying in a coma for nine months, awakes with the ability to move extremely fast. He soon becomes a costumed crime-fighting superhero known as “The Flash.”

I remember hearing that, although The Flash and Arrow were going to coexist in the same universe, The Flash was not going to be as dark and brooding a show as Arrow. Though that made sense, given the differences in the two lead characters’ backgrounds and experiences, it also gave me pause. Not only do I usually like shows that are a little on the dark and serious side, but the fact that these two shows were going to share a universe meant that superpowers were now going to exist in the “Arrowverse.” When actor Grant Gustin, whom I had never heard of—I never watched Glee—was announced as the lead, my first impression upon seeing a picture of him was that, in my opinion, he was too young to be an accomplished forensic scientist. So, when The Flash premiered, I went into it with a healthy dose of skepticism, and the first several episodes left me with the impression that the show would have fit in well with the Saturday morning lineup of shows that I used to watch as a child.

I almost quit watching it, but then, somewhere in the latter part of the first half of the first season, the show started to get good. Grant Gustin grew into the role in a way that I didn’t expect and I soon had no more difficulty accepting him as Barry Allen. Eventually, time travel worked its way into the storyline, and I do like a good time travel story. If you’ve read my ongoing Solfleet series of novels, you already know that. Over time, pardon the pun, that aspect of the overall plot has become more and more intricate, and it continues to do so. If I have one complaint, it is this: Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash, Jay Garrick/the Flash from another Earth, Wally West/Kid Flash, Jesse Wells/Jesse Quick, the evil speedster in black—Too many speedsters, in my opinion, makes Barry Allen’s character far less unique and impressive. Like Arrow, though perhaps to a lesser extent, The Flash has also introduced a number of other DC characters that have taken a little too much of the focus away from the Barry Allen/Flash character—Cisco Ramon is Vibe, Caitlin Snow is trying not to be Killer Frost, Firestorm was there for a relatively short period, and, of course, there are the aforementioned speedsters.

Unlike Arrow, though, despite all of that, I’ve never felt that The Flash lost something along the way. As promised, it has never been as dark and brooding, but I still enjoyed watching it. Like with Arrow, I have never considered not watching it anymore—not since the early first season. Like I said in part 1 of this series of posts, developing the supporting cast of characters is certainly not a bad thing. It makes them seem more real...more human. I recently heard that there are not going to be anymore evil speedsters after this season. I do hope that is true, and based on the most recent episode of Legends of Tomorrow, it appears as though it is...but more about that in part 3.

What I Watch on TV: The DC Television Universe, part 1

As a small child, by two favorite superheroes were Batman and Captain America. By the time I learned to read, however, Star Trek had hit the airwaves and my interests had moved on to science fiction. As a result, I rarely if ever read comic books. In truth, I never read much of anything until I was a teenager, and then it was all science fiction—strictly science fiction. I knew who many of the most popular comic book heroes were, of course, but I didn’t know too much about most of them. If you would have asked me as recently as ten years ago which characters were Marvel creations and which were DC creations, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.

All of that changed when Iron Man launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in 2008. Since then, I have come to know more about every major Marvel and DC character that has been featured in movies and television over the past several years than I ever knew before. Not as they were presented and portrayed in the comic books necessarily—I know that some changes have been made in the film and television adaptations—but as they have been presented and portrayed in live-action. This blog entry is the first of several in which I plan to talk a little bit about what I watch on television. In it, I write about the first of four programs that share a single DC Television Universe—actually two universes that exist in parallel, but that’s just one of the story elements. I promise to be as spoiler-free as possible, but I can’t promise not to include any spoilers at all.

First up... ARROW

In a nutshell, Arrow is the story of Oliver Queen, the once spoiled, self-centered, playboy son of a very wealthy businessman, the late owner of Queen Consolidated. After having been missing for five years after he went down with his father’s yacht, during which time he went through a lot of changes, Oliver returns home to Starling City to save it from crime and corruption, disguised as a hooded, bow and arrow-wielding vigilante known at first as “The Hood,” then later as “The Arrow,” and then eventually as “The Green Arrow.”

I remember hearing around the time when the first season was going into preproduction that Arrow was going to be a show about the adult son of a wealthy businessman who is just as human as the rest of us, who turns vigilante to fight crime and corruption in a world where superpowers and magic do not exist. That sounded good to me, but then I also remembered hearing that Enterprise, which later changed its name to Star Trek: Enterprise, was not going to make use of any sort of time-travel in its stories, and that turned out to be about as far from the truth as it possibly could have been, so I took that statement with a grain of salt, as they say. Much to my delight, however, Arrow started out as exactly kind of show that the producers had said it was going to be—dark and gritty, the way I’d hoped it would be, with no superpowers or magic. It might have been a little far-fetched in some ways, but events as they were portrayed early on were not beyond the boundaries of what could really happen, given the right set of circumstances and the right personalities. It was a good show.

Eventually, however, it began to change. All good shows do in some ways and to some extent, but these changes were different. I don’t remember the specific order in which those changes took place, so if you’re also a fan and you catch a mistake or six here, I apologize. More and more, and more, DC characters began to appear and take a little too much of the focus away from the Oliver Queen/Arrow character. Despite what the producers had said early on, superpowers and mysticism did slip in. Oliver took on a sidekick, Roy Harper, known as The Red Arrow, a.k.a. Arsenal (can you say Batman and Robin?). The Black Canary showed up and turned out to be Laurel Lance’s sister, Sara, who hadn’t died after all. We learned that she had been trained by Ra’s al Ghul’s League of Assassins (traditionally a Batman foe). She was eventually killed and then resurrected via the Lazarus Pit, as was Oliver himself at one point, a fate which Oliver’s sister Thea also shared sometime after she took over Roy’s role as The Red Arrow, a.k.a. Speedy. Somewhere along the way, we spent some time with the Suicide Squad. John Constantine, who investigates matters involving the occult and sometimes ends up fighting demons, made an appearance (after his own short-lived series had been cancelled). Actually, I wouldn’t mind seeing Constantine again. We also met forensic scientist Barry Allen, who, while back home in Central City, was turned into the Flash after an explosion at Star Labs, but more about that in Part 2 of this blog. As the series progressed, we met still more recurring characters and Oliver’s team of vigilantes grew larger, as it remains to this day.

In my opinion, by the time all of that and more had happened at the end of season 5, Arrow had lost something. It was still a pretty good show and I still enjoyed watching it—I never did consider stopping—but the quality of storytelling had somehow begun to decline. The Ra’s al Ghul storyline had dragged on for far too long—again, in my opinion—and the show seemed to no longer be about the Oliver Queen/Arrow character as much as it had become a vehicle through which to introduce as many DC heroes and villains as the producers and writers could possibly squeeze into it. Developing the supporting cast of characters certainly wasn’t a bad thing—I’m all for character development, as it makes them seem more real...more human—but I felt as though in doing so to such an extent for such a large number of characters, the show had lost too much of its focus—that its overall quality had suffered as a result. I believed that if something didn’t change in season 6, the Arrow quiver was going to very quickly run out of arrows.

Fortunately, this season, someone refilled that quiver. Yes, Oliver still has several characters on his team deflecting some of the show’s focus, and yes, all of those things that I mentioned above are firmly established parts of the “Arrowverse” that remain in some form or another, but something wonderful from a storytelling angle has happened as well. The flashbacks that have been telling the story of Oliver’s five years away from Star (Starling) City throughout the series have finally caught up to his return home, where the series began, but that is only one part of what I am referring to. (Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Sue me.) As I write this, only a few days have passed since I watched the episode in which Oliver is held captive and interrogated by Prometheus, and I have to say that that episode may very well be the best episode in the entire series so far. I’m talking Emmy-worthy, both the story itself and lead actor Stephen Amell’s stellar performance. It presents a major character development moment that, in my opinion, could not have been timed better.

To Stephen Amell: If, somehow, you have been made aware of this blog and are reading this, I just want to say... Well done. Bravo. I am not and never have been a man who seeks the autographs of or photos with, or otherwise gushes over celebrities, but I have enjoyed your show from the beginning and I have to say that your performance in that episode in particular, specifically that moment when Oliver admits to something, was simply incredible. I am very much looking forward to where you take the character from here.