Static Thoughts - 4 Questions About Supergirl S2B

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Supergirl season 1 was a fun but mixed bag of episodes that did a lot to set the tone of the series.  Its biggest job was planting the show’s flag on exactly what kind of adaptation of Supergirl it wanted to be.  I’ve been over this before, but Supergirl has had a ton of different iterations that the show could’ve chosen and it really didn’t go with any of them.  Instead, they opted for primarily a gender-swapped version of the Superman animated series, making the cornerstone adventures of the Superman mythos about Kara instead of her cousin.  

Now, season 2 has taken that starting point and turned in a knock-out series about the journey of the immigrant in America that could not be more prescient to our current political climate.  All of that is where the series comes from, but I want to talk about where it’s going, which leads me to my 4 questions about Supergirl Season 2B: Spoilers to Follow. 

Sharon Leal is Miss Martian in Supergirl Season 2

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Edited by Robert Beach

One of the interesting things about CW’s growing collection of superhero TV is the way they’ve so definitively altered their brand of superhero TV over its 4 years of growth. When CW first entered the modern superhero show game (excluding Smallville) in 2012 with Arrow, their outlook was incredibly limited and stripped down. The first 2 seasons of the show were all about having as few high-concept aspects as possible and as much angst as the show could fit, ripping off Batman in that category. Even the first ½ season of The Flash fell prey to this, but then the first Flash/Arrow crossover hit, and everything changed. 

Suddenly, everything was about bright adventures, weird concepts, and a expanding array of superheroes that culminated in Legends of Tomorrow. Given that, it was inevitable that Supergirl would be getting more superheroes now that it moved to the CW.  We’ve already confirmed Superman and Mon-El are joining Martian Manhunter in the show’s supporting cast, but now we have one more name to add to the list: Sharon Leal will be playing Miss Martian in season 2. 

Panel Vision - Martian Manhutner

I am a huge fan of Martian Manhunter.  A lot of this has to do with how I first entered the world of advanced comic readership.  When I was younger my first entry point to comics that wasn’t in the form of animated TV was the extensive work of Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis.  These two guys basically invented the tropes and ideas of modern comics, from character identities to universal events 90% of the stuff we like in modern comics can be traced by to Giffen and DeMatteis.  One of their first comics I ever read was a 1988 four-issue mini-series spotlighting the Martian Manhunter and his origins.  This series alone stands as a testament to how influential their work was as it’s still the defining mythos by which Martian Manhunter is written today. 

Since reading it I’ve always been keen to check out any appearances of the Manhunter from mars so when DC announced a new comic series I was intrigued.  So far DC’s post-New 52 titles have been a mixed bag but both Batman and Action Comics turned out very well, so I was optimistic going into Martian Manhunter.  The result doesn’t so much sore as it stumbles at the starting line but makes a decent effort in the process.