Batwoman, introduced into the Arrowverse last year, finally made her debut in her own television series… appropriately titled Batwoman. In this series, Kate Kane, Bruce Wayne’s cousin, returns to Gotham City three years after Batman mysteriously vanished so that she can track down and rescue an old flame from a supervillain and, in doing so, she adopts the identity of Batwoman to bring fear into the hearts of the criminal and superstitious.
As a pilot episode, it does what it needs to do. It introduces the hero, gives her some history, introduces the antagonist, and sets up future episodes. We get to see Kate in the bat-costume – which is quite a bit different and more plain than the version we saw in the Elseworld crossover last year, but I’m sure that version is coming. Mostly, though, it’s Ruby Rose being Kate and it’s… okay.
I’m not overly complaining because this is one episode and it’s always hard to judge a series from one episode, especially the pilot, but this first episode did strike me as pedestrian and dull. The action was largly flat, the writing was clumsy, and the characterizations were weird… does anyone remember the name of that guy who worked at Wayne Enterprises who knew Bruce Wayne was Batman? Because I sure don’t and the fact he’s supposed to be a recurring character doesn’t make that a good sign.
Overall, it’s lackluster and by the numbers. It doesn’t try to do anything new or exciting or groundbreaking, but it does what it needs to do and I suppose that’s good enough.
The Flash debuted its new season with one of its more phenomenally strong episodes in a long time as Barry, still reeling from the erasure of his future daughter from the timeline, has to fight a literal black hole that keeps popping up all around Central City.
Folks, I loved this episode. I was expecting this to be another in a long like of sad and mopey episodes that usually follow major story events, but this premiere kept it light and optimistic, even putting a positive spin on Nora’s erasure. What’s more, the episode debuted Barry’s brand new supersuit and it has to be the best one yet. It’s bright red, the chinstrap is back, the suit has the winged ears… it’s the most comic book accurate iteration of the suit so far and it looks amazing.
Barry vs. The black hole with Queen’s theme from Flash Gordon playing was probably a series’ highlight.
I enjoyed the humor, the heart, and the superhero adventure of it all. Yeah, it devolved for a moment into the cliched story of Barry wanting to save someone that everyone else thinks should die for the greater good, but it worked with the episode’s theme… if anything, this episode was like a good old fashioned silver age story.
Supergirl also debuted a new episode and, although I haven’t watched an episode of this series for a year and a half, it was easy to get caught up for the most part — what’s the deal with Alex’s new girlfriend?
This is a relatively simple superhero story of bad guy shows up and the gang has to beat her before she does whatever bad things she wants to do. Of course, being Supergirl, this isn’t the main crux of the story as that revolves around Kara stuggling to tell Lena Luthor the truth that she is actually Supergirl.
Overall, it wasn’t bad. Not as good as The Flash, but it was full of enough character moments and new problems that I was entertained for the hour.
I like Supergirl’s new costume as well, but I’m not a fan of the blue body condom look… there’s not enough red.
But, it’s still nice.
I haven’t really been completely invested in the Arrowverse for a couple of years… not really because I had anything against it, but I just didn’t have a lot of time to watch. I caught up with The Flash, but I really haven’t watched Arrow or Black Lightning in a year. I feel bad too because I genuinely enjoy it.
I need to keep up with this fun before Crisis on Infinite Earths blows a whole in my life.
Jason Gaston 