It's Me, Esme

So, as I have said many times, I am a nerd. No no, a Nerd. Capital N. I love comics. I make no secret, no bones, about that. So it should be no further surprise that I watched the Arrowverse. It's *probably* in my interests, and if not, I know there's a buncha other CW shows in there.

Being a comic fan, like many comic fans before me, I have always wanted to see my faves in live action. But there was always something...lacking. Even going as far back as the original Superman movie with Christopher Reeve when things really began to head in the right direction...while that came SO CLOSE, there is some goofy-ass shit in that movie. And they just got goofier (And I say this as someone who loves 3 and 4. But I don't deny what they are.)

The two biggest problems were always money, and special effects. Most of the superpowers needed effects we just didn't have available until relatively recently. (Arguably, we still have a ways to go.) To really translate comics, you needed both, and if you could ever get past those hurdles, then you had to get past how everyone saw comics as Biff! Pow! Batman '66 silliness. Batman '89 was a HUGE step forward. It had the money, and being a largely grounded character, they could keep the effects simple and limited to stuntwork (broadly speaking), and they treated the source material with respect.

There was a few good moments, but still they struggled. Trying to distill decades of comics to a two hour story (If you're lucky!) makes things difficult.

Around the time of Spider-Man 2, I hit on a main thing that really bugged me; movies fail to capture the real feeling of comics of those ongoing stories. You get a movie, you wait a few years, you get another chapter, and you MAYBE get three, and then it's been ten years, and well...I walked out of Spider-Man 2 saying something like, "You get three movies, and then they reboot, starting from scratch with a whole new origin story, and the same old villains! You never make any progress!"

And I am SO SO SORRY WITH HOW RIGHT I ENDED UP BEING. Three movies and reboot has almost become a cliche, and I saw it coming, but I digress.

I knew what I REALLY wanted was a weekly comic TV SERIES, that could capture that done in one story, leaving on cliffhangers, building to something big. Buffy did it, in their way! But again, if movies struggled to have the money and technology...LOL good luck with tv! There was always attempts, like Batman, and Wonder Woman, and as good as they were for their time, again, they just couldn't go all the way.

And then along came Heroes! That was it! That's what I've been waiting for!! Welll...the first season, at least. It captured the feelings of comics so well, it brought powers to the small screen, and it was SO good, and almost everything I wanted...except it wasn't an adaptation of anything. It was familiar, but it wasn't the same as seeing the Jean Grey on tv. But for the first time, it felt possible to some day see comics as tv series!

Sure, there was Smallville, and that was definitely a foundational show, but it was a bit too "Dawson's Creek" for me to get THAT into at the time. The more comicbooky that show got as it went on though, the more interested I became.

And uh, that got longer than I planned, before even reaching the Arrowverse. I think I am going to draw a line under this post as building context for the next one.

💎E💎