zslane

Agreed. To me, superheroes aren't superheroes if all they are doing is saving kittens and stopping petty crime. That's what a "street-level" hero does in their Year One arc, maybe. After that, the scale of the action had better increase or there's no point in using the genre as a vehicle for storytelling. I mean, "superhero" isn't simply a motif or an excuse to put a character into danger and/or a costume. A superhero is a character with powers beyond that of normal humans, and the conflict and drama needs to be correspondingly epic and non-mundane. Otherwise you might as well just reboot Ally McBeal and drop any pretense of being a show about superheroes (and supervillains). I mean, we have plenty of shows with good guys and bad guys which aren't superhero shows. What makes a superhero show different is the scale of the conflict/action and the size of the fx budget.

Literacy is less important to a generation that enthusiastically reduces all of their deepest thoughts to what can fit into 140 characters, and that has come to believe that anything that can't fit into an easily-typed hashtag, it isn't worth knowing or talking about.

He'll have deep psychological and substance abuse problems himself, of course. And body armor.

That's certainly how DC would approach it...

They need to take Spider-Man in a new direction for this next reboot. Make him darker. Edgier. Grittier. Show him growing up with an abusive Uncle Ben. After he kills Ben and runs away from home, he gets sucked into a synthetic drug ring. That's where he gets his superpowers. And we need to change his powers too. He's too PG. He should have a venomous bite. We're definitely going with the black costume. Probably armor it up, make him look like a cross between a football player and a Navy SEAL. With guns!

I wish Marvel would get the rights to Namor back too, but mostly because I like the character and I think it would give Marvel the opportunity to show how to do a water-based hero right while DC/WB inevitably faceplants with Aquaman.
 
I would also like to see the FF back in Marvel's hands. I didn't hate the Fox films as much as most fans did, but I am not holding out much hope for this new one. I think Marvel would know what to do with it (like maybe hand it over to Brad Bird to direct...)

The MCU Ronan clearly suffered from a number of psych lims: Delusional, Overconfident, Zealot. Plus we don't know if MCU Thanos has the same reputation amongst the Kree that he did/does in the comics.

Yes, well, when you've exhausted all your creative reserves, you start searching for ways to subvert the genre and redefine it so that everyone will call you ground-breaking and fresh. It rarely goes well...

I don't believe this is correct. The gestures involved in an attack with the Gestures limitations are not a "visible effect" of the power as it pertains to fulfilling the Sense requirements of a power's fx. They are merely the gestures that fulfill the requirements of the Gestures limitation. If the character is hiding in a closet and touches his temples (as he must do) and attacks with his psionic blast (or whatever), then his compulsory gesture is hardly making it a visible (or obvious) attack. The gesture itself can not serve as a visible power effect since the gesture is not always visible under all conditions (nor is the attacker, which is why the attacker can't be a component of the visible power fx either).

What evidence do we have that Sue Storm's "invisible force field" powers don't have IPE?

The rule that a power costing END must have fx perceptible to more than one sense is not (situationally) context-dependent. It is an intrinsic part of the power regardless of whether or not the user is hiding in a crowd or standing alone in a set of villainous black armor. The power has visible power fx or it doesn't. The "obviousness" of the user is irrelevent.
 
As such, the telekinetic powers of the Force have no visible fx in the Hero System sense of that term. Force TK has IPE no matter what the situational context is. The important thing to realize is that Vader could easily use his Force TK from a hidden position, with nobody knowing what is causing the objects to fly around. That means his Force TK has IPE. The fact that he often chooses to step out and fight in the open does not suddenly render his Force TK "visible".

I think that's why I like Golden and Silver Age campaigns. To my mind, the heroes should be rescuing innocent bystanders from the machinations of the villains, not from the "collateral damage" caused by their own heroic efforts. There's a kind of cynicism inherent in that "gritty realism" that I simply have no interest in exploring.

I think that's why I like Golden and Silver Age campaigns. To my mind, the heroes should be rescuing innocent bystanders from the machinations of the villains, not from the "collateral damage" caused by their own heroic efforts. There's a kind of cynicism inherent in that "gritty realism" that I simply have no interest in exploring.

Prior to the deconstructionism of the 80s and the nihilism of, well, Millar, four-color superhero comics allowed the reader to safely assume that innocent bystanders miraculously avoided death and dismemberment despite the massive environmental carnage happening all around them. That's the genre convention I prefer as well.

If it sounds that way then either I failed to make my point clear, or you are not really making an effort to grasp it.
 
For all the tv programming that wants a primarily male audience, pandering to men makes sense. For all the tv programming that wants a primarily female audience, pandering to women makes sense. But for any tv show that wants as broad an audience as possible, pandering to either sex too much is foolish as it almost guarantees it will lose a big chunk of that audience.
 
If Supergirl's goal is to appeal primarily to women, then pandering to them makes sense, and alienating most of the potential male audience is of little consequence to its producers and advertisers. But if its goal is to appeal to everyone, then it would be a serious error in strategic judgment to pander to women, since that risks losing a significant portion of the male demographic they ostensibly want to hang on to.
 
It isn't a question of fairness or chauvinism, it is simply a question of what kind of show Supergirl wants to be, or rather, what kind of audience it wants to attract (and maintain). My message to the networks is that they will make more money appealing to everyone than they will appealing to just women, so why not do that? Especially when the source material comes with tremendous potential to appeal to everyone right from the start.

If it sounds that way then either I failed to make my point clear, or you are not really making an effort to grasp it.
 
For all the tv programming that wants a primarily male audience, pandering to men makes sense. For all the tv programming that wants a primarily female audience, pandering to women makes sense. But for any tv show that wants as broad an audience as possible, pandering to either sex too much is foolish as it almost guarantees it will lose a big chunk of that audience.
 
If Supergirl's goal is to appeal primarily to women, then pandering to them makes sense, and alienating most of the potential male audience is of little consequence to its producers and advertisers. But if its goal is to appeal to everyone, then it would be a serious error in strategic judgment to pander to women, since that risks losing a significant portion of the male demographic they ostensibly want to hang on to.
 
It isn't a question of fairness or chauvinism, it is simply a question of what kind of show Supergirl wants to be, or rather, what kind of audience it wants to attract (and maintain). My message to the networks is that they will make more money appealing to everyone than they will appealing to just women, so why not do that? Especially when the source material comes with tremendous potential to appeal to everyone right from the start.

If so then I think they are making a serious strategic error. The same error that movie producers make when they take a movie that could easily appeal to all ages, and turn it into a kid's movie.
 
For instance, the original Star Wars (i.e., A New Hope, prior to the special edition changes) was a movie that appealed to all ages. Every Star Wars movie after Empire progressively lost this quality, and increasingly leaned on elements too juvenile for adults to enjoy or relate to. The equivalent for Supergirl, I think, would be to "target" women and girls, almost to the exclusion of men (who would ordinarily tune into any superhero show you put on the air) rather than making it appeal to viewers of both genders.
 
It seems that only a tiny handful of creators in Hollywood understand that you can make a show that women/girls will enjoy without having to pander to them.

You make some valid points. However, in the specific case of Supergirl's costume, while I applaud the brighter colors, I am nevertheless disappointed by the general style of the outfit. Its conservativeness feels more suited to the 1950s than to the superhero aesthetics of the last couple decades. That's not a knock on their creative vision, merely me pointing out that their particular vision is not going to make me eager to tune in, that's all.
 
As for The Flash, I think you may be giving them too much credit. I suspect that the dark-to-bright red transition is their timid attempt to appeal to the hardcore fans while simultaneously placating the clueless suits who control the money (and who have an outdated and misguided view of the general, non-comic-savvy audience). I can only imagine the kind of wheeling and dealing that had to occur to give Reverse Flash a bright yellow suit and to have Grodd in the show at all. (Though honestly, I don't think anyone at Warners would have ever loosened their sphincters enough to approve Grodd had Marvel not shouldered all the so-called risk with Rocket Raccoon in GotG).

While Age of Ultron didn't explicitly mention it, I think we are intended to understand that it was Coulson's intel that led the Avengers to Strucker's lair in Sokovia. I have to believe that by now the Avengers know Coulson is alive.
 
As for the shapeshifting material that swallowed up Simmons, I don't think it is in any way related to Graviton. That stuff was described as "alien"...

The thing is, Hollywood (and its apologists) aren't advocating "going dark" because they are "open to new looks" as you are. They are convinced that brightly colored costumes can never work in live action, period. It's natural to have a personal preference, say, towards darker tones. It's something else altogether to idiomatically rule out other aesthetics merely because one lacks the necesary creative vision to (figure out how to) make them look good.
 
Now if I were a film or television producer, I wouldn't listen too closely to anyone who thought any aspect of comic book superheroes was "ridiculous" (to the point of dismissing it out of hand). It's all part and parcel of the genre, and when you reject any of its most prominent elements you end up with a nice, hot, steaming mess that isn't really a member of the genre it purports to be (*cough*Heroes*cough*TimKring*cough*).
 
Oh, and a memo to Hollywood: you've used "re-imagining" a genre to "make it fresh" as code for "we don't understand or appreciate the genre so we're going to butcher it for what we perceive as the lowest-common-denom, er, widest possible audience" for long enough. We're onto you. You can't fake it anymore and get away with it like you used to.

I dunno about that. That comic book costume looks no different to me than any high school cheerleader outfit in the country. Add to that the fact that this particular Supergirl is in her mid-20s--it wouldn't be child porn even if she flew around naked.
 
The whole muted color palette for superhero costumes thing has just got to go. It is tedious in its ubiquitousness, disappointing in its creative sterility, and dismissive of its genre roots.

I agree whole-heartedly.
 
I also look forward to seeing the MCU evolve to look and feel a bit less like the modern folklore of patriarchical white priviledge. Don't get me wrong, I love the Marvel Universe and I love its history. But I also have this desire to see it reach (and speak to) as many people as possible, and that's hard to do when all your main characters are white males. War Machine, Black Widow, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch are a decent start, though none of them are lined up to star in their own movies. Black Panther, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Captain Marvel will help tremendously, I think, since each could represent an entire sub-franchise that spawns more interesting and varied characters and projects. It's a great time to be a fan of superheroes!

I agree whole-heartedly.
 
I also look forward to seeing the MCU evolve to look and feel a bit less like the modern folklore of patriarchical white priviledge. Don't get me wrong, I love the Marvel Universe and I love its history. But I also have this desire to see it reach (and speak to) as many people as possible, and that's hard to do when all your main characters are white males. War Machine, Black Widow, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch are a decent start, though none of them are lined up to star in their own movies. Black Panther, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Captain Marvel will help tremendously, I think, since each could represent an entire sub-franchise that spawns more interesting and varied characters and projects. It's a great time to be a fan of superheroes!

It's a fun show, but it sure likes its characters to act stupid sometimes. In fact, the entire episode last week was just painful. And the whole "we must keep Iris in the dark" thing has become so idiotic that I am almost ready to stop watching. I hate it when the script requires characters to lose about 100 IQ points just for the plot, like when Eddie suddenly appears at Barry's place claiming the DA just decided to let him go, and Barry buys it. Or when Caitlin decides to confront Wells, alone, at Wells' home, despite all the dire suspicions of everyone else she knows and trusts. Dumb dumb dumb.
 
There's a point where the fun factor no longer trumps the so-dumb-its-retarded factor, and this show is skating awfully close to that point for me lately.

The Ark was also supposed to be a divine weapon of antiquity. I'm not familiar with any works by Lovecraft in which an Elder God was carried around in a vessel and used by kings and generals to lay waste to armies on the battlefield. Moreover, I don't believe that the final scene with the Ark was intended to be interpreted as the unleashing of a Nameless Cosmic Horror From Beyond. If anything it was the Vengeance of Yaweh unleashed upon evil Men (the virtuous "heroes" at the scene, like Indy and Marian, were simply collateral damage).
 
But more important than any of that, the tone of the Indiana Jones series is utterly non-Lovecraftian.