Today on the 5: I happened to see that the series finale trailer for Superman & Lois was released this week. Superman & Lois is essentially the last remnant of the roster of superhero shows that CW started with Arrow. I wanted to take a few minutes to celebrate a period of time when CW was doing better work with DC's heroes than the parent companty was.
Ozone Nightmare
The Golden Age Of CW
Welcome to Daily Five for Wednesday, July 24th, 2024. I am relatively sure that I did a five, or at least mentioned on one of our shows, the end of the Flash series that was on the CW network. And I'm pretty sure it was a five. And I talked about the fact that that show was really significant because it had come along at a point where there wasn't a lot of the comic book material that we have today. It did things that allow the movies and other stuff we were seeing wasn't willing to do in terms of embracing the comic book enis of the material. So I got hung up on comic bookiness when I said that. And I happened to see that there was a trailer released for what is essentially the last of the CW shows that would be spun off from the Arrowverse, which started, of course, with Arrow. Show I didn't entirely care for because it felt much too much like they just took Batman and knew they couldn't use Batman. So they just grafted that persona onto Green Arrow. That changed as it went on. But that's how it started. And I really never got into that show. But it absolutely laid the groundwork for a number of other things that would follow it, including Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman. No, I'm forgetting one other one, which I'm sure somebody will remember if you're listening to this. But really, that was where it started. And then the Flash really, no pun intended, accelerated that into fully getting into the comic book nature of-- oh, Supergirl. Of course, I've got to forget Supergirl. It was my favorite of all of them, to be honest. Maybe a tie with Legends of Tomorrow. I thought Legends of Tomorrow did the humor really well. I felt Supergirl was the perfect embodiment of that character. I mean, they perfectly cast both those shows. And that's what-- when I saw the Superman and Lois trailer, because that's in its final season, Superman and Lois came out of Supergirl, even though I know they've set it in a different Earth, and they've said it's not really part of the Arrowverse, whatever. That's all just nonsense. That's where it came from. And so Superman and Lois is going to be ending. And that got me thinking again about the fact that I do-- I don't know that enough credit is really given to the CW shows. We hear a lot about how Marvel with Iron Man and then Thor and Captain America really started and spun up the superhero saturation trend that we're now kind of all tired of. But honestly, the CW shows were, I think, just as significant. They were a different type of thing. It was at a point where DC's successes were really on the small screen. But also the fact that those were really well-made shows. They clearly did have a love for the material. If Flash made one mistake, it's that it used all the best villains up early on, and so there really wasn't much for it to do later. But you look at those first couple seasons of the Flash, and they are stellar. Same thing. Legends of Tomorrow, I thought, got better and better as it went along. I loved how goofy and wacky it got. Supergirl, I thought, because at the time, Superman was in the toilet, as far as DC's usage was concerned. I'm not going to make this another referendum on Why Man of Steel is one of the worst movies. And if you're a Superman film, one of the worst films you would ever watch. But the reality is, that's what it was. And that's what DC was doing with Superman. And Supergirl came along and went back to the core idea of what Superman, the character, actually was, but managed to improve it. Because then when they brought Superman into the show, it wasn't like the two of them were just gender-swapped copies of each other. They were different. They had different attitudes, approaches, power sets. They were great. Supergirl is easily-- now that I'm saying this, because of what ground it made up for DC, Supergirl is the best CW show that was ever on. Because it managed to get me to like a super character again when DC clearly had no affection for the character in their theatrical pursuits. So I just wanted to take a couple of minutes and remind people-- and I'm sure some people remember-- but I do feel like the CW shows got kind of tossed aside. I feel like they were never regarded as well as they should have been. They had some moments of popularity, but again, probably never the heights they really deserved. And I think by and large, while there were certainly valleys, there were a lot of peaks with those shows. And they really did, I think, keep DC's brand alive when they were just destroying it in their filmmaking stuff between the quality of the films themselves and the clear indication that Zack Snyder had no affection for the characters that he was helming. I mean, it's pretty obvious when you go back and look at him. So the CW shows, like I said, Superman and Lois is going to be ending. And that's really probably the end of that entire era, which was past its prime at this point anyway. But it is important to remember that show, because DC has made a lot of mistakes. But one thing-- and partially, I think, because they didn't really care about, so they weren't paying attention. But those CW shows, those represent some of the best of what DC had as far as their superhero content in the modern era. So while I'm glad to see things ending because I think too many shows run too long and they often do run their concepts into the ground, there is a part of me that still thinks, oh, it's too bad. CW, they had it for a while and they did it really well. So it's not bad that the stuff's going away. But it is-- I think it's worth taking a few minutes to recognize just how great it was later.