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A friend on Facebook reminded me of the “Black Widow” SNL trailer…

While we’re discussing the Hero’s Journey, realize that it doesn’t apply here… There is no way for the hero to return to Krypton. The hero COMES from a world of supernatural wonder into the everyday.

Instead, we get the American Monomyth:
“A community in a harmonious paradise is threatened by evil; normal institutions fail to contend with this threat; a selfless superhero emerges to renounce temptations and carry out the redemptive task; aided by fate, his decisive victory restores the community to its paradisiacal condition; the superhero then recedes into obscurity.”
Except that the hero never leaves town, because the community is constantly threatened.

Jimmy Olsen is the mentor figure. I’m hoping he doesn’t become the Magical Negro.
Kara, on the other hand, IS Jimmy Olsen. She’s the gofer at work, the New Adult. Which is intriguing, in that the Superman/Jimmy paradigm is flipped… Here he knows everything, and Kara has to bumble her way around things. (Yes, I’m hoping for some Red K stories. Or some fun BEMs!)

I’m also hoping that “Katty Perry” becomes more dimensional. I like how Kat Grant has been transformed from a debutante to a driven CEO, but I’m also hoping there’s some exploration of her backstory.

(HA! What if Kara = “Murphy Brown’s secretaries”? Who had the job before her? Any disgruntled employees?)

Yes, this show will skew younger… it’s 8 Eastern, 7 Central, the first hour of prime time. On Monday, which traditionally is for CBS what Thursday was to NBC. But now, instead of sitcoms, we get Supergirl, Scorpion, and NCIS:LA.

The big unknown: the Big S. Superman exists, but can’t appear in these episodes, because, anytime Superman shows up in a story, the story becomes a Superman story. But what about Lex? The DEO? Star Labs? Other heroes which appear because of Superman? That’s why Jimmy Olsen is here… he’s the narrative sock puppet for Superman, as we saw when he handed her the cape.

The BIG QUESTION: what parts of the DCU can the writers of Supergirl use, and which belong to the Arrowverse? Does CBS just get the Superman Family? Or does that also include aliens and outer space?

OOOOOooooohhhh… “Legion of Superheroes”! Replace Superboy with Supergirl. Watch those background characters, viewers! They might be aliens! (Were I a story editor, I’d set that up for perhaps the second season cliffhanger. Use that as a backdoor pilot for Legion.)

It looked to me like they almost tried to make the show as dull as possible. Supergirl insecure? Who wants that? I’ll give it 2 more episodes. I did notice that she mentioned Wicked tickets. CBS must own stock in the musical.

>>>Supergirl insecure? Who wants that?

They tried an insecure hero — Green Lantern — and no one liked it.

A friend of mine has two younger children, one boy and one girl, ages 7 and 10, who have just within the last year been exposed to superheroes of any kind. They both loved the pilot and can’t wait for more, and my friend feels the subject matter in the FLash and Arrow can be too complicated/mature for them. I think as hardcore fans, we can sometimes get caught up in the egocentric idea of everything being targeted towards us, when honestly that just doesn’t have to be the case. I’m not currently reading Batgirl, for instance, but I think it’s an important book that needs to exist for the audience it is being written for.

I thought this pilot was even more fun than the pilot for The Flash, and more earnest without having quite the level of campiness of say a Lois and Clark, or the emo-ness of Smallville, which is perfect for the audience I think it is going for. I’m excited to see that the overnight ratings for this show have been so good as it may prove that the audience they are courting for these superhero shows need not all be the same, and there is quite a bit of opportunity to open the fan base for these things way wider.

Heidi M. said: “I liked how they covered all their bases, from rejecting a sexy costume to explaining why “girl” isn’t a pejorative to head of criticism. ”

The young women I know (women in their 20s) refer to themselves as “girls,” and don’t mind anyone else calling them girls. They don’t find it belittling. It’s a generational change, I guess.

I probably won’t watch this show until the first season is released on DVD, but I’m glad it breaks with the dark and gloomy style of DC’s movies. I’m glad female superhero fans have someone to root for. However, the “Supergirl” trailers DO look a lot like SNL’s “Black Widow” parody trailer.

Power Girl. You know she’ll show up for ratings week. I hope they don’t wimp out by making her PC. Look at cosplayer BelleChere for an idea what the tv Power Girl should look like.

>>>>anytime Superman shows up in a story, the story becomes a Superman story.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be true, there are plenty of ways to include him and still celebrate Supergirl as the show runner (and if somebody wants to pay me I’d share those ideas). However I think including him would be a mistake since the impetus of action seems to be in Kara finding out how to ‘hero’ her way. (This is of course a bit of a sticky widget, since she is a derivative character) Unfortunately that is the primary reason I dislike the inclusion of Jimmy Olsen (I am not talking about changing the traditional aesthetic representation, only the character as plot device). Mechad Brooks turns out a fine performance, and his characterization would be more pleasing if he was an entirely new character, rather than the device to pull in hack-kneed ‘Super-mythos’ references.
Overall I to found the show watchable, and hope that the stories will become more engaging, but defining itself independently of the ‘Big Red S’ and overcoming the history of “prime-time” programming may take more than ‘a single bound’.

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Seems to be working here, might be plug-in specific?

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how do we know they were “wowed”?

Well, the audience does give Supergirl a standing ovation. Usually a good sign that they were “wowed.” :)

I showed my daughter (6 years old, going on 7) the preview trailer, and she’s excited. I think CBS might have something here.

Nimmy –

Basically it’s a video of CBS filing in a large audience of women (mothers and daughters) to watch the pilot. Then after a big standing O for the screening, then they bring out Melissa Benoist (the star of the series) to come greet the crowd. Then there’s a big group shot where they all scream “Supergirl!”. It’s cute.

No allowed in my region. Way to go with the marketing.

In the original story, Battling Jack Murdock went up against Crusher Hogan.

I used to wonder whether he was Happy Hogan’s ethically-shaky uncle, and the reason Happy quite boxing…

kdb

What Bugs Me This Oscar Season Dept.:

You might be right about the Boyhood wins, but man, I thought that was a tremendously overrated movie. It’s an okay slice of life — but ‘best’ anything? Meh. After seeing it, I thought: if you stripped it of its’ gimmick and instead cast actors of different ages in the brother and sister roles — what would be left? Any real surprises or revelations? Or just a rather mild, ambling passage of time with not a lot of drama or distinction.

If you want to see the same idea of watching children grow older over time, albeit in documentary form, buy or rent Michael Apted’s far superior ‘Up’ series (starting in 1964 with ‘7 Up’ and updated every seven years through 2013 with ’56 Up’). And to be fair, since Boyhood was filmed over 12 years, watch just two of Apted’s chapters back-to-back and ask yourself, which is more raw, honest and riveting?

Soapbox rant over. My apologies.

Hey Charlie,

I enjoyed Boyhood and admire it in places, but high-five on that Apted recommendation. I’ve loved the Up series since I discovered it back in 2007 or so.

Let me see… Jimmy Olsen is now black and wants to get into Supergirl’s pants instead of Lois Lane’s sister. Really PC You FREAKS !!! Spiderman has been killed off and replaced by a multiracial (black/hispanic) Spiderman. Superman has renounced his American citizenship. Green Lantern is gay. Perry white is black. Wonder woman may be gay. The new fantastic Four reboot has a black Johnny Storm and a white Sue Storm. And there’s talk of changing Thor’s sex. Archie is knocked off taking a bullet for a gay friend (was it Reggie or Jughead ?) . And now there’s talk of making Captain America black in the movies. This is what happens when liberals get in charge. They’re not satisfied with creating their own set of diverse characters. They have to get in there and destroy our age-old icons. Well FU Libs !!!

@steamboat Fuck you, you bigoted fuck.

Also, you are extremely ignorant about comics.

Please feel free to climb back into your white hood and die there.

@Steamboat, please never comment here ever again. You do remember the medium you are speaking about is Comic Books right?

Normally I would remove the racist rantings of Steamboat, but this time I’ll leave them up as a reminder that this kind of small minded bigotry is real thing. I’ve removed many such comments in the last few days.

There is a glimmer of truth to what Steamboat says, however: how much better it would be to create brand new characters reflecting ethnic and gender minorities and see them gain in popularity? That’s what the new Milestone has in mind and I’m all for it.

My goodness, that steamboat’s floatin on some hateful waves. Anyway…

I’m all for diversifying characters that, to put in bluntly, were created in a time when we weren’t as socially enlightened as we are now (and trust me, I know we, collectively, still got a WAYS to go on that too). So changing characters to reflect different minority groups that have been painfully under-represented by entertainment mediums high and low is something I’m all for. #PushComicAdaptationsForward? And to your point, Heidi, I’m especially stoked for Milestone 2.0; not just for the diversity of characters, but creators as well.

Being non-white isn’t ‘pc’. What an absurd statement.

There’s nothing ingrained in the Olsen character that necessitates a specific race. Get over it.

Casting is SOOOO WRONG. Totally off, Jimmy is not that tall in the comics.

@zach – Right? And god help them if he’s an innie, cause it’s a pretty big part of Jimmy Olsen’s lore is that he’s an outie.

What? Brooks is an innie? Whelp, there goes my childhood.

But what about Dick Malverne????

What year is this again?

Does it matter? This is next year’s Constantine.