Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Starman Plays Noctropolis - Part Six
In which we ponder the inability of the Noctropolis City Police Department to find a supervillain who advertises her location with billboards. Also, we encounter some PG-13 fan-service, cope with the selective usefulness of our invisibility powers and confront our greatest nemesis.... SPOTLIGHTS!
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
The Flash Episode Guide: Season 2, Episode 12 - Fast Lane
For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.
Plot
A new metahuman menace with the power to transform himself into living asphalt distracts Barry and Harry from their new plan to seal the breaches between Earth 1 and Earth 2. Meanwhile, Iris - determined to do something about Wally's drag-racing - places herself in danger in an effort to save the brother she's just getting to know.
Influences
The Flash comics of Geoff Johns (creator of Tar Pit) and the New 52 Flash series (Wally West as a juvenile delinquent Iris is trying to scare straight).
Goofs
Calling the final fight with Tar Pit anti-climactic is putting it mildly.
Performances
Tom Cavanagh does some great silent acting here as we see Harry pondering his betrayal of Team Flash throughout the episode.
For the first time, Wally West is given time enough to be something other than the reluctant son/brother and Keiynan Lonsdale develops the character wonderfully in these moments.
Artistry
The special effects during the sequence where Barry rescues Wally but doesn't quite rescue Iris are wonderful.
Flash Facts
Barry displays his gift for speed reading twice in this episode, managing to read everything he needs to know to catch up to Harry's expertise regarding CFL Quark Matter in seconds. However, Barry can only retrain this knowledge for about half an hour and requires refreshers to keep the knoweldge in his short-term memory.
In the comics, Tar Pit was a man named Joey Monteleon. The younger brother of crime-boss Jack "The Candyman" Monteleon, Joey got involved in the family business but was sloppy about his work. He was imprisoned but was confident his family's connections would get him out. He was wrong. Six months later, Joey turned to meditation to calm himself and discovered a metahuman ability to astral project his mind into inanimate objects. He enjoyed "joyriding" until he made the mistake of placing his mind inside a vat of tar and got stuck.
Luckily - for Joey, at least - he discovered he could shape the tar into a humanoid body and that his new form made him virtually invulnerable, extremely flexible and gave him the ability to project intense heat as well as toxic fumes. He was also able to disguise himself as a road by flattening himself against it.
The DCTVU version of Tar Pit seems to have the same powers listed above. His origin, however, is completely different. No reference is made to Joey Monteleon's family and Joey is said to have spent most of his youth living in a juvenile detention facility. The biggest difference, however, is that Joey gains his powers after being dropped in a vat of tar just before the STAR Labs particle accelerator explosion.
Barry's first fight with Tar Pit ends after he tricks Tar Pit into breaking a fire-hydrant. This gambit has been used against a variety of super-villains in comic book history - usually electricity and fire manipulators as well as beings like The Sandman or Clayface who are made of material that can be dispersed or diluted by water.
Tar Pit's appearance just before being frozen by The Flash - a giant monster - is based on the character's appearance in the comics.
Technobabble
Tar is not just used in roofing. It is also used in the manufacture of medicines and flavoring for candy and liquor.
Scramjets are a supersonic unoxygenated vehicle. They are able to move faster than conventional aircraft because they lack the weight of the liquid oxygen used to fuel traditional propulsion.
Using Eobard Thawne's research and the brain sample he took from The Turtle, Harry Wells constructs a device that - once attached to The Flash's suit - will allow him to harness Barry's speed and slowly drain the Speed Force energy from his body.
Harry notes that Earth One has yet to create CFL quark matter.
Joe comments that Tar Pit's first victim looked like he was dipped in a volcano. Barry confirms that the depth and uniformity of the burn pattern is something you'd see if a body had been submerged in something like lava but with a lower burn temperature and an added chemical characteristic. Joe adds that there was no secondary accelerate - which Barry notes would not be unusual in the case of a metahuman attack.
The helicity of a particle is left-handed if its spin and motion is opposite.
Cisco and Caitlin determine that Tar Pit's first victim died from suffocation, despite his burns and that there were metahuman particles in the oil left on the victim's body. Cross-referencing O^2 levels in the organic matter, they find a direct match to animals trapped and preserved in an asphalt seep. In essence, the first victim was fossilized.
Cisco and Caitlin suggest Barry can defeat Tar Pit by reducing his temperature, since the viscosity of asphalt lowers as its temperature lowers, before hardening completely.
Barry theorizes that the solution to permanently closing the breaches lies in the electromagnetic insulator of the quark matter.
Harry constructs a breach implosion reactor that can permanently seal a breach after being thrown through it.
Harry also builds nitrous grenades to neutralize Tar Pit. Each one has ten times the concentration of the average hot rod's nitrous tank and they are triggered by extreme heat - 650 degrees. This is the temperature at which asphalt boils.
Caitlin calculates that Barry has lost 2% of his speed following Harry's planting his device on The Flash costume.
Caitlin says that Harry's leeching Barry's speed resulted in chromosomal damage that could have permanently removed Barry's powers.
Dialogue Triumphs
Cisco: Did I just make metahuman Tinder?
(As Cisco pulls up a record on who Tar Pit is based.)
Cisco: And there it is! Who's the best hacker in the world, people?
Caitlin and Barry: (in unision) Felicity Smoak.
Cisco: What is wrong with you two?! That's not friendship!
Barry: Look, I know that this has been hard for you. But you're not in this alone -
Harry: Yes, I am. As much as you all want me to be part of your team, that's never going to happen! I'm always going to be a father first. And one day, Zoom is gonna make me choose between you and my daughter and every time, unblinkingly, unflinchingly, I will choose my daughter. I will betray you.
Barry: That's binary thinking. It doesn't have to be either/or.
Harry: Life IS either/or! Yes/No! Black/White! Love... Hate. From the dawn of time to this moment right now.
Barry: I guess I just have more faith in you than you have in yourself.
Joe: Look, I know you just lost your mother. And you just found us. It's been like a whirlwind. Now, I can't tell you how to live your life. But I can tell you this. You are not alone. You have people that sit up at night worried sick about you and they're not going to stop worrying about you. That's what a family does. They put up with each other. And we put each other first. Before ourselves.
Wally: So you're not mad at me?
Joe: For being reckless with your life? Yeah. Hell yeah, I'm mad at you! But I'm more mad at myself for being something I'm not. I'm not your friend, Wally. I'm your father. I'm your father. I ain't letting you go.
Wally: Okay.
(Joe's phone goes off. He picks it up and looks at it.)
Joe: It's Barry.
Wally: Go. I'll stay with her.
Joe: You're sure?
Wally: Well, she's my sister, right?
Joe: (slapping him on the back) That's my boy.
(After Joe punches Harry and throws him into a cell in The Pipleine)
Caitlin: Why did you put him in there?
Joe: Because if I didn't, I would have killed him!
Barry: You know, it's ironic? I was just saying how much you remind me of the old Wells. And now here we are, just like I did with him, standing on either side of this glass with me asking you "Why?"
Harry: I'm doing what I have to do to save my daughter.
Barry: Yeah, at any cost, right? At the cost of Joe's daughter?
Harry: I told you I would betray you. I told you I would have to choose!
Joe: You choose wrong.
Harry: Really, did I? Because I just sacrificed my daughter. Because I just sentenced my daughter to death to save your son!
Joe: You want a pat on the back?
Harry: I want you to send me home!
Wally: Growing up we didn't have a lot of money to go to the movies or buy toys. Instead she would just take me in the car and we'd go for these long drives. Just her and I and her music. I remember being on the road with her and just... watching the scenery flash by and feeling so happy. And now when I race... feeling that rush of speed, it's like... it's like I get to go back to those days. I didn't want to stop because, if I do...
Continuity
Joe West's father was a police officer as well.
As a child, Wally wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. Reportedly, so did Barry.
We find out the sample Harry took from The Turtle's body in 210 was of his brain tissue.
The expression "Two heads are better than one." may only exist on Earth One. It is possible, however, that Harry is just being difficult when he says he never heard that before.
Wally's street-racing nickname is Tail Lights, because that's all the people racing him see of him.
A radio news bulletin at Diamond Detailing mentions Oliver Queen's mayoral campaign - an on-going plot-thread in Season 4 of Arrow.
Barry refers to Patty's departure in 211.
Cisco develops a new app that monitors all the news and social media in Central City for rumors of metahuman activity.
Joe refers to when he first confronted Wally on his street-racing in 210.
Barry's usual average speed is 1500 mph. During the first fight with Tar Pit, when Harry first started draining his speed, his average speed was 1450 mph.
Iris is not allergic to flowers.
Barry refers to Cisco's revealing his secret identity to Snart in 116.
Untelevised Adventures
Francine West apparently died sometime within the past week, off-camera.
The Fridge Factor
Iris doesn't come off as the tough Lois Lane figure the writing is trying to turn her into in this episode. Partly due to Candice Patton's performance (she doesn't play tough convincingly, I'm afraid) and partly due to the fact that it's been so long since we've seen Irish doing any reporting work, much less serious investigative reporting. And she's injured in order to give Barry, Joe and Wally more motivation to do what they do.
The Bottom Line
Tar Pit's a bit lackluster as a villain and while I'll give them credit for trying to give Iris something to do, it's been so long since we've seen her doing any reporter work that thrusting her into the Lois Lane role this week seems truly forced. It's also problematic when Iris' injury serves as a call to action for three male members of the cast. The subplot with Harry saves it, however and the whole thing is just inoffensive enough that it manages to be mediocre overall.
Plot
A new metahuman menace with the power to transform himself into living asphalt distracts Barry and Harry from their new plan to seal the breaches between Earth 1 and Earth 2. Meanwhile, Iris - determined to do something about Wally's drag-racing - places herself in danger in an effort to save the brother she's just getting to know.
Influences
The Flash comics of Geoff Johns (creator of Tar Pit) and the New 52 Flash series (Wally West as a juvenile delinquent Iris is trying to scare straight).
Goofs
Calling the final fight with Tar Pit anti-climactic is putting it mildly.
Performances
Tom Cavanagh does some great silent acting here as we see Harry pondering his betrayal of Team Flash throughout the episode.
For the first time, Wally West is given time enough to be something other than the reluctant son/brother and Keiynan Lonsdale develops the character wonderfully in these moments.
Artistry
The special effects during the sequence where Barry rescues Wally but doesn't quite rescue Iris are wonderful.
Flash Facts
Barry displays his gift for speed reading twice in this episode, managing to read everything he needs to know to catch up to Harry's expertise regarding CFL Quark Matter in seconds. However, Barry can only retrain this knowledge for about half an hour and requires refreshers to keep the knoweldge in his short-term memory.
In the comics, Tar Pit was a man named Joey Monteleon. The younger brother of crime-boss Jack "The Candyman" Monteleon, Joey got involved in the family business but was sloppy about his work. He was imprisoned but was confident his family's connections would get him out. He was wrong. Six months later, Joey turned to meditation to calm himself and discovered a metahuman ability to astral project his mind into inanimate objects. He enjoyed "joyriding" until he made the mistake of placing his mind inside a vat of tar and got stuck.
Luckily - for Joey, at least - he discovered he could shape the tar into a humanoid body and that his new form made him virtually invulnerable, extremely flexible and gave him the ability to project intense heat as well as toxic fumes. He was also able to disguise himself as a road by flattening himself against it.
The DCTVU version of Tar Pit seems to have the same powers listed above. His origin, however, is completely different. No reference is made to Joey Monteleon's family and Joey is said to have spent most of his youth living in a juvenile detention facility. The biggest difference, however, is that Joey gains his powers after being dropped in a vat of tar just before the STAR Labs particle accelerator explosion.
Barry's first fight with Tar Pit ends after he tricks Tar Pit into breaking a fire-hydrant. This gambit has been used against a variety of super-villains in comic book history - usually electricity and fire manipulators as well as beings like The Sandman or Clayface who are made of material that can be dispersed or diluted by water.
Tar Pit's appearance just before being frozen by The Flash - a giant monster - is based on the character's appearance in the comics.
Technobabble
Tar is not just used in roofing. It is also used in the manufacture of medicines and flavoring for candy and liquor.
Scramjets are a supersonic unoxygenated vehicle. They are able to move faster than conventional aircraft because they lack the weight of the liquid oxygen used to fuel traditional propulsion.
Using Eobard Thawne's research and the brain sample he took from The Turtle, Harry Wells constructs a device that - once attached to The Flash's suit - will allow him to harness Barry's speed and slowly drain the Speed Force energy from his body.
Harry notes that Earth One has yet to create CFL quark matter.
Joe comments that Tar Pit's first victim looked like he was dipped in a volcano. Barry confirms that the depth and uniformity of the burn pattern is something you'd see if a body had been submerged in something like lava but with a lower burn temperature and an added chemical characteristic. Joe adds that there was no secondary accelerate - which Barry notes would not be unusual in the case of a metahuman attack.
The helicity of a particle is left-handed if its spin and motion is opposite.
Cisco and Caitlin determine that Tar Pit's first victim died from suffocation, despite his burns and that there were metahuman particles in the oil left on the victim's body. Cross-referencing O^2 levels in the organic matter, they find a direct match to animals trapped and preserved in an asphalt seep. In essence, the first victim was fossilized.
Cisco and Caitlin suggest Barry can defeat Tar Pit by reducing his temperature, since the viscosity of asphalt lowers as its temperature lowers, before hardening completely.
Barry theorizes that the solution to permanently closing the breaches lies in the electromagnetic insulator of the quark matter.
Harry constructs a breach implosion reactor that can permanently seal a breach after being thrown through it.
Harry also builds nitrous grenades to neutralize Tar Pit. Each one has ten times the concentration of the average hot rod's nitrous tank and they are triggered by extreme heat - 650 degrees. This is the temperature at which asphalt boils.
Caitlin calculates that Barry has lost 2% of his speed following Harry's planting his device on The Flash costume.
Caitlin says that Harry's leeching Barry's speed resulted in chromosomal damage that could have permanently removed Barry's powers.
Dialogue Triumphs
Cisco: Did I just make metahuman Tinder?
(As Cisco pulls up a record on who Tar Pit is based.)
Cisco: And there it is! Who's the best hacker in the world, people?
Caitlin and Barry: (in unision) Felicity Smoak.
Cisco: What is wrong with you two?! That's not friendship!
Barry: Look, I know that this has been hard for you. But you're not in this alone -
Harry: Yes, I am. As much as you all want me to be part of your team, that's never going to happen! I'm always going to be a father first. And one day, Zoom is gonna make me choose between you and my daughter and every time, unblinkingly, unflinchingly, I will choose my daughter. I will betray you.
Barry: That's binary thinking. It doesn't have to be either/or.
Harry: Life IS either/or! Yes/No! Black/White! Love... Hate. From the dawn of time to this moment right now.
Barry: I guess I just have more faith in you than you have in yourself.
Joe: Look, I know you just lost your mother. And you just found us. It's been like a whirlwind. Now, I can't tell you how to live your life. But I can tell you this. You are not alone. You have people that sit up at night worried sick about you and they're not going to stop worrying about you. That's what a family does. They put up with each other. And we put each other first. Before ourselves.
Wally: So you're not mad at me?
Joe: For being reckless with your life? Yeah. Hell yeah, I'm mad at you! But I'm more mad at myself for being something I'm not. I'm not your friend, Wally. I'm your father. I'm your father. I ain't letting you go.
Wally: Okay.
(Joe's phone goes off. He picks it up and looks at it.)
Joe: It's Barry.
Wally: Go. I'll stay with her.
Joe: You're sure?
Wally: Well, she's my sister, right?
Joe: (slapping him on the back) That's my boy.
(After Joe punches Harry and throws him into a cell in The Pipleine)
Caitlin: Why did you put him in there?
Joe: Because if I didn't, I would have killed him!
Barry: You know, it's ironic? I was just saying how much you remind me of the old Wells. And now here we are, just like I did with him, standing on either side of this glass with me asking you "Why?"
Harry: I'm doing what I have to do to save my daughter.
Barry: Yeah, at any cost, right? At the cost of Joe's daughter?
Harry: I told you I would betray you. I told you I would have to choose!
Joe: You choose wrong.
Harry: Really, did I? Because I just sacrificed my daughter. Because I just sentenced my daughter to death to save your son!
Joe: You want a pat on the back?
Harry: I want you to send me home!
Wally: Growing up we didn't have a lot of money to go to the movies or buy toys. Instead she would just take me in the car and we'd go for these long drives. Just her and I and her music. I remember being on the road with her and just... watching the scenery flash by and feeling so happy. And now when I race... feeling that rush of speed, it's like... it's like I get to go back to those days. I didn't want to stop because, if I do...
Continuity
Joe West's father was a police officer as well.
As a child, Wally wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. Reportedly, so did Barry.
We find out the sample Harry took from The Turtle's body in 210 was of his brain tissue.
The expression "Two heads are better than one." may only exist on Earth One. It is possible, however, that Harry is just being difficult when he says he never heard that before.
Wally's street-racing nickname is Tail Lights, because that's all the people racing him see of him.
A radio news bulletin at Diamond Detailing mentions Oliver Queen's mayoral campaign - an on-going plot-thread in Season 4 of Arrow.
Barry refers to Patty's departure in 211.
Cisco develops a new app that monitors all the news and social media in Central City for rumors of metahuman activity.
Joe refers to when he first confronted Wally on his street-racing in 210.
Barry's usual average speed is 1500 mph. During the first fight with Tar Pit, when Harry first started draining his speed, his average speed was 1450 mph.
Iris is not allergic to flowers.
Barry refers to Cisco's revealing his secret identity to Snart in 116.
Untelevised Adventures
Francine West apparently died sometime within the past week, off-camera.
The Fridge Factor
Iris doesn't come off as the tough Lois Lane figure the writing is trying to turn her into in this episode. Partly due to Candice Patton's performance (she doesn't play tough convincingly, I'm afraid) and partly due to the fact that it's been so long since we've seen Irish doing any reporting work, much less serious investigative reporting. And she's injured in order to give Barry, Joe and Wally more motivation to do what they do.
The Bottom Line
Tar Pit's a bit lackluster as a villain and while I'll give them credit for trying to give Iris something to do, it's been so long since we've seen her doing any reporter work that thrusting her into the Lois Lane role this week seems truly forced. It's also problematic when Iris' injury serves as a call to action for three male members of the cast. The subplot with Harry saves it, however and the whole thing is just inoffensive enough that it manages to be mediocre overall.
Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Five #7 - A Review
The fight continues as Batman and his inner circle face off against Superman, Wonder Woman, Killer Frost and Bane while Batgirl tries to rescue Catwoman. Meanwhile, on another world, Katar Hol returns home to find his wife is missing. And he is not pleased.
There's a lot of action in this issue. Yet Brian Buccellato takes the time to slow things down and allows for the kind of conversations he's famous for writing. The final scene between Bruce and Selina is particularly touching.
The artwork seems a little off this week. Mike S. Miller's pencils are uncharacteristically sloppy and some of his poses (particularly in the fight scene between Killer Croc and Batgirl) seem unnaturally forced. The inks by J. Nanjan are also far too thin in some panels, barely enhancing the original pencils at all.
There's a lot of action in this issue. Yet Brian Buccellato takes the time to slow things down and allows for the kind of conversations he's famous for writing. The final scene between Bruce and Selina is particularly touching.
The artwork seems a little off this week. Mike S. Miller's pencils are uncharacteristically sloppy and some of his poses (particularly in the fight scene between Killer Croc and Batgirl) seem unnaturally forced. The inks by J. Nanjan are also far too thin in some panels, barely enhancing the original pencils at all.
Monday, February 1, 2016
Supergirl Episode Guide: Season 1, Episode 12 - Bizarro
For a summary of the episode guide layout & categories, click here.
Plot
Kara's nervous about her first date with Adam Foster. But her real test of courage this week will come in the form of a mysterious evil twin, who challenges Supergirl's reputation as a champion of good as she begins causing trouble around National City. Meanwhile, J'onn must deal with the consequences of his White Martian prisoner and ponder the threat of their invading the Earth.
Influences
The Bizarrogirl arc of Sterling Gates' run on Supergirl and the Terror Incognita arc of Mark Waid's run on JLA.
Goofs
We're told Maxwell Lord began abducting Jane Does two years ago. Granting that Lord is the kind of sleaze who would do that sort of thing for all manner of experiments, how could he have been abducting women the same size and hair-color as Kara for the past two years when she has only been Supergirl for a few months?
Why did Maxwell Lord give Bizarro Girl a new costume with darker colors and a backward-S after she's changed by the exposure to Kryptonite? It's stylish, sure, but what's the point?
How the heck did James survive Bizarro's flame breath after trying to kick-activate his signal watch?
Performances
While his performance is hardly subtle, Peter Facinelli does a fine job of making Maxwell Lord the kind of smug. creepy villain you love to hate in this episode.
It;s a quick moment, but the scene between Winn and James discussing their problems is a nice bit of work from both Mehcad Brooks and Jeremy Jordan. We haven't gotten much interaction between James and Winn except as adversaries so it's gratifying to get a scene of the two as equals.
The scene between Kara and Bizarro at the end is deeply moving.
Artistry
The fight sequences between the two Supergirls are handled well and the direction does a good job of disguising the stunt doubles needed for Melissa Benoist to fight herself.
The script does a fine job of suggesting it will be Alex, not James, who will wind up being the target of a revenge-crazed Bizarro. So it's all the more surprising when Bizarro kidnaps James.
Super Trivia
The concept of the Bizarro duplicates first appeared in Superboy #68. In this story, a scientist developed a duplication ray which accidentally created an impure clone of Superboy. The clone was as noble as Superboy, but shunned by all the people of Smallville due to his ugly appearance, except for one blind girl. The story was intended as a tribute to Frankenstein.
Years later, Lex Luthor - having learned of this incident - rebuilt the duplication ray to create a clone of Superman he could manipulate. It turned out the Bizarro clone was as noble as Superman, but his efforts to do good often caused harm instead. Eventually, Bizarro left Earth along with a Bizarro clone of Lois Lane, and used the raygun to create a Bizarro world on which they could live.
In most modern retellings of the Superman legend (post-Crisis and Superman: The Animated Series, in particular) Bizarro clones are the result of Lex Luthor's failed attempts to clone Superman. The clones have varied in temperament, with most fitting the earlier mold of easily manipulated but basically noble monster.
The Bizzaro Supergirl in this episode fits the same mold, being a creation of Maxwell Lord's super-science who is manipulated into fighting Supergirl.
In the post-Crisis DC Universe, one Bizarro traveled into space and built a cube-shaped world near a blue sun. The blue sun gave him the power of Bizarro-Vision, which allowed him to create new Bizarros. One of the Bizarros he created was a Bizarro Supergirl, whom he later sent to Earth in a rocket to keep her safe. This led to the Bizaro Supergirl running amok on Earth, as seen in Sterling Gates run on Supergirl.
The Bizarro duplicates in the comics have the equivalent yet opposite powers of their regular Kryptonian counterparts, such as Flame Breath instead of Ice Breath or Freeze Vision instead of Heat Vision. This is also true of the DCTVU version of Bizarro.
Bizarros also react differently to Kryptonite than regular Kryptonians, with the common Green Kryptonite isotope making Bizarros stronger rather than weakening then. Bizzaros are made weak in the presence of Blue Kryptonite, which is harmless to regular Kryptonians.
Though never named as such, the reversed-Kryptonite J'onn devises in this episode glows blue, in reference to the Blue Kryptonite of the comics.
Technobabble
J'onn says the Jane Done he examined at Lord Technologies was comatose and her cerebral cortex function was practically non-existent.
Alex says the evil Supergirl can't be the result of cloning because even if someone had gotten a hold of her DNA, the clone would still be an embryo. This suggests there is no scientific way to accelerate a clone's growth in the DCTVU - at least not with the technology known to the DEO.
Maxwell Lord used an elementary genetic synthesis to create Bizarro. He isolated Supergirl's genome and then flooded the Jane Doe with a concentrated infusion of DNA. He got Supergirl's DNA from the arm of the Red Tornado, which Alex gave him in 106.
J'onn suggests that they can reverse engineer the chemical compound of the DEO's synthetic Kryptonite, theorizing that if regular Kryptonite makes Bizarro stronger,reversing its ionic charge should have an oppositional effect.
Dialogue Triumphs
(Watching footage of the evil Supergirl in action)
J'onn: (To Kara) Not exactly one for your "greatest hits" reel.
Alex: I sent a team to scan the area. No signs of extra-terrestrial activity, so we can probably rule out an alien shape-shifter. (looking at J'onn) Unless there's something you're not telling us?
J'onn: The skirt was surprisingly comfortable, but no.
Kara: She's as strong as me. She flies like me. She fights like me. Except for the fact that she talks like Cookie Monster, she is exactly like me!
Cat: You two have not had your first kiss yet? Kiera, you are like a character from a Jane Austen Novel. (glancing up at a screen) Bizarro.
Kara: (sputtering) That's not that weird! I mean, we've only been out a couple of times!
Cat: No. I named HER Bizarro.
Maxwell Lord: I ordered you to kill Supergirl.
Bizarro: You say... Supergirl bad. But Supergirl help people.... Supergirl not bad.
Alex: He made the Bizarro you.
J'onn: Is that what we're calling it?!
Kara: Another CatCo trademark.
James: How do you feel about drowning our sorrows?
(James begins pouring two drinks from a bottle of whiskey.)
Winn: I know what my sorrows are. What, uh... what sorrows exactly do you have, sir?
James: (chuckles) Bottoms up.
Winn: Yeah.
(The two clink glasses and drink. After taking a sip, Winn stares at James.)
Winn: What are you doing, man?
James: Having a drink with a friend.
Winn: No! With Kara.
James: Huh?
Winn: Why - why did you tell her that you were happy about her and Adam?
James: Because she likes him. And that's what she wants me to say, man. C'mon.
Winn: No! Look, dude... Dude, I've been stuck in the friend zone so long that I'm just thinking about buying some investment property here. But you? Man, you could be with her and you know it. Literally, all you have to do is say the word. So why don't you?
James: Winn. I'm in a relationship.
Winn: Look, dude, I know that you care about Lucy. You don't have to convince me. I get it. But nobody wants to be in a relationship with somebody who wants to be with somebody else.
(Winn downs the rest of his drink and sits back down at his desk as James rises, looking thoughtful.)
James: Good talk.
Winn: Yeah.
(James gets up and starts to walk off with the bottle of whiskey)
Winn: Leave the bottle.
(James sighs and puts the bottle on Winn's desk.)
Continuity
Maxwell Lord began "disappearing" Jane Does over two years earlier. Seven women have disappeared in that time, being transferred Lord's private facility - Prometheus Genetics. He began working on the woman who became Bizarro three months ago.
J'onn refers to his invasion of Lord Technologies in 110 and the Jane Doe he examined there.
Kara's go-to coffee order is a spiced pumpkin latee with extra foam and a little cinnamon sprinkled on the top.
J'onn refers to The Red Tornado from 106 and how it was programmed to mimic Kara's powers.
Cat Grant dubs the evil Supergirl "Bizarro".
The DEO does not have legal authority to arrest people.
Alex and Kara determine that Maxwell Lord knows Kara's secret identity and about their relationship, but decide to keep this information secret from J'onn.
Maxwell Lord is being held indefinitely in DEO Cell 19 at episode's end.
The Fridge Factor
It seems remarkably foolish for Alex to insist on keeping Maxwell Lord's knowledge of Kara's secret identity a secret from J'onn. Forget all the problems that keeping secrets from one another has caused their team before - HE'S A FREAKING TELEPATH AND A DAMN GOOD DETECTIVE!
The Bottom Line
A welcome return to form after last week. Oddly, the only bits that don't work are Kara's romance with Adam but that's mainly because it's clear that subplot is a distraction from the main meat of the episode. Everything else is spot on.
Plot
Kara's nervous about her first date with Adam Foster. But her real test of courage this week will come in the form of a mysterious evil twin, who challenges Supergirl's reputation as a champion of good as she begins causing trouble around National City. Meanwhile, J'onn must deal with the consequences of his White Martian prisoner and ponder the threat of their invading the Earth.
Influences
The Bizarrogirl arc of Sterling Gates' run on Supergirl and the Terror Incognita arc of Mark Waid's run on JLA.
Goofs
We're told Maxwell Lord began abducting Jane Does two years ago. Granting that Lord is the kind of sleaze who would do that sort of thing for all manner of experiments, how could he have been abducting women the same size and hair-color as Kara for the past two years when she has only been Supergirl for a few months?
Why did Maxwell Lord give Bizarro Girl a new costume with darker colors and a backward-S after she's changed by the exposure to Kryptonite? It's stylish, sure, but what's the point?
How the heck did James survive Bizarro's flame breath after trying to kick-activate his signal watch?
Performances
While his performance is hardly subtle, Peter Facinelli does a fine job of making Maxwell Lord the kind of smug. creepy villain you love to hate in this episode.
It;s a quick moment, but the scene between Winn and James discussing their problems is a nice bit of work from both Mehcad Brooks and Jeremy Jordan. We haven't gotten much interaction between James and Winn except as adversaries so it's gratifying to get a scene of the two as equals.
The scene between Kara and Bizarro at the end is deeply moving.
Artistry
The fight sequences between the two Supergirls are handled well and the direction does a good job of disguising the stunt doubles needed for Melissa Benoist to fight herself.
The script does a fine job of suggesting it will be Alex, not James, who will wind up being the target of a revenge-crazed Bizarro. So it's all the more surprising when Bizarro kidnaps James.
Super Trivia
The concept of the Bizarro duplicates first appeared in Superboy #68. In this story, a scientist developed a duplication ray which accidentally created an impure clone of Superboy. The clone was as noble as Superboy, but shunned by all the people of Smallville due to his ugly appearance, except for one blind girl. The story was intended as a tribute to Frankenstein.
Years later, Lex Luthor - having learned of this incident - rebuilt the duplication ray to create a clone of Superman he could manipulate. It turned out the Bizarro clone was as noble as Superman, but his efforts to do good often caused harm instead. Eventually, Bizarro left Earth along with a Bizarro clone of Lois Lane, and used the raygun to create a Bizarro world on which they could live.
In most modern retellings of the Superman legend (post-Crisis and Superman: The Animated Series, in particular) Bizarro clones are the result of Lex Luthor's failed attempts to clone Superman. The clones have varied in temperament, with most fitting the earlier mold of easily manipulated but basically noble monster.
The Bizzaro Supergirl in this episode fits the same mold, being a creation of Maxwell Lord's super-science who is manipulated into fighting Supergirl.
In the post-Crisis DC Universe, one Bizarro traveled into space and built a cube-shaped world near a blue sun. The blue sun gave him the power of Bizarro-Vision, which allowed him to create new Bizarros. One of the Bizarros he created was a Bizarro Supergirl, whom he later sent to Earth in a rocket to keep her safe. This led to the Bizaro Supergirl running amok on Earth, as seen in Sterling Gates run on Supergirl.
The Bizarro duplicates in the comics have the equivalent yet opposite powers of their regular Kryptonian counterparts, such as Flame Breath instead of Ice Breath or Freeze Vision instead of Heat Vision. This is also true of the DCTVU version of Bizarro.
Bizarros also react differently to Kryptonite than regular Kryptonians, with the common Green Kryptonite isotope making Bizarros stronger rather than weakening then. Bizzaros are made weak in the presence of Blue Kryptonite, which is harmless to regular Kryptonians.
Though never named as such, the reversed-Kryptonite J'onn devises in this episode glows blue, in reference to the Blue Kryptonite of the comics.
Technobabble
J'onn says the Jane Done he examined at Lord Technologies was comatose and her cerebral cortex function was practically non-existent.
Alex says the evil Supergirl can't be the result of cloning because even if someone had gotten a hold of her DNA, the clone would still be an embryo. This suggests there is no scientific way to accelerate a clone's growth in the DCTVU - at least not with the technology known to the DEO.
Maxwell Lord used an elementary genetic synthesis to create Bizarro. He isolated Supergirl's genome and then flooded the Jane Doe with a concentrated infusion of DNA. He got Supergirl's DNA from the arm of the Red Tornado, which Alex gave him in 106.
J'onn suggests that they can reverse engineer the chemical compound of the DEO's synthetic Kryptonite, theorizing that if regular Kryptonite makes Bizarro stronger,reversing its ionic charge should have an oppositional effect.
Dialogue Triumphs
(Watching footage of the evil Supergirl in action)
J'onn: (To Kara) Not exactly one for your "greatest hits" reel.
Alex: I sent a team to scan the area. No signs of extra-terrestrial activity, so we can probably rule out an alien shape-shifter. (looking at J'onn) Unless there's something you're not telling us?
J'onn: The skirt was surprisingly comfortable, but no.
Kara: She's as strong as me. She flies like me. She fights like me. Except for the fact that she talks like Cookie Monster, she is exactly like me!
Cat: You two have not had your first kiss yet? Kiera, you are like a character from a Jane Austen Novel. (glancing up at a screen) Bizarro.
Kara: (sputtering) That's not that weird! I mean, we've only been out a couple of times!
Cat: No. I named HER Bizarro.
Maxwell Lord: I ordered you to kill Supergirl.
Bizarro: You say... Supergirl bad. But Supergirl help people.... Supergirl not bad.
Alex: He made the Bizarro you.
J'onn: Is that what we're calling it?!
Kara: Another CatCo trademark.
James: How do you feel about drowning our sorrows?
(James begins pouring two drinks from a bottle of whiskey.)
Winn: I know what my sorrows are. What, uh... what sorrows exactly do you have, sir?
James: (chuckles) Bottoms up.
Winn: Yeah.
(The two clink glasses and drink. After taking a sip, Winn stares at James.)
Winn: What are you doing, man?
James: Having a drink with a friend.
Winn: No! With Kara.
James: Huh?
Winn: Why - why did you tell her that you were happy about her and Adam?
James: Because she likes him. And that's what she wants me to say, man. C'mon.
Winn: No! Look, dude... Dude, I've been stuck in the friend zone so long that I'm just thinking about buying some investment property here. But you? Man, you could be with her and you know it. Literally, all you have to do is say the word. So why don't you?
James: Winn. I'm in a relationship.
Winn: Look, dude, I know that you care about Lucy. You don't have to convince me. I get it. But nobody wants to be in a relationship with somebody who wants to be with somebody else.
(Winn downs the rest of his drink and sits back down at his desk as James rises, looking thoughtful.)
James: Good talk.
Winn: Yeah.
(James gets up and starts to walk off with the bottle of whiskey)
Winn: Leave the bottle.
(James sighs and puts the bottle on Winn's desk.)
J'onn: We're going to put her under. The way she was when I first saw her.
Kara: She won't feel any pain, will she?
J'onn: She won't feel anything.
Kara: We have to try and help her.
J'onn: We will.
(Kara takes Bizarro's hand)
Kara: We have to try and help her.
J'onn: We will.
(Kara takes Bizarro's hand)
Kara: I'm going to hold your hand until you fall asleep, okay?
Bizzaro: Afraid!
Kara: I know. I once went to sleep for a long time too. I was afraid. But when I woke up, I wasn't alone. You're not going to be alone either.
Bizzaro: Afraid!
Kara: I know. I once went to sleep for a long time too. I was afraid. But when I woke up, I wasn't alone. You're not going to be alone either.
Bizarro: Thank. You. Kara.
Continuity
Maxwell Lord began "disappearing" Jane Does over two years earlier. Seven women have disappeared in that time, being transferred Lord's private facility - Prometheus Genetics. He began working on the woman who became Bizarro three months ago.
J'onn refers to his invasion of Lord Technologies in 110 and the Jane Doe he examined there.
Kara's go-to coffee order is a spiced pumpkin latee with extra foam and a little cinnamon sprinkled on the top.
J'onn refers to The Red Tornado from 106 and how it was programmed to mimic Kara's powers.
Cat Grant dubs the evil Supergirl "Bizarro".
The DEO does not have legal authority to arrest people.
Alex and Kara determine that Maxwell Lord knows Kara's secret identity and about their relationship, but decide to keep this information secret from J'onn.
Maxwell Lord is being held indefinitely in DEO Cell 19 at episode's end.
The Fridge Factor
It seems remarkably foolish for Alex to insist on keeping Maxwell Lord's knowledge of Kara's secret identity a secret from J'onn. Forget all the problems that keeping secrets from one another has caused their team before - HE'S A FREAKING TELEPATH AND A DAMN GOOD DETECTIVE!
The Bottom Line
A welcome return to form after last week. Oddly, the only bits that don't work are Kara's romance with Adam but that's mainly because it's clear that subplot is a distraction from the main meat of the episode. Everything else is spot on.
Starman Plays Noctropolis - Part Five
In which we start searching for the plant-manipulating villain Greenthumb. Do we do this by - reasoning that in a city of eternal night there's only so many places he could get plants - combing the local greenhouses?
No! Instead we harass the employees of a high-class architecture firm, chat with a plethora of cultural stereotypes and have our partner seduce and beat-up a maintenance man. THEN we go look for the city greenhouse.
Yeah. Darksheer's kind of a crap superhero, isn't he?
No! Instead we harass the employees of a high-class architecture firm, chat with a plethora of cultural stereotypes and have our partner seduce and beat-up a maintenance man. THEN we go look for the city greenhouse.
Yeah. Darksheer's kind of a crap superhero, isn't he?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)