Further proof that ninjas make everything better

by Thom Yee

Daredevil images courtesy of Marvel Television, ABC Studios and Netflix

Even in the superhero golden age that we’re now living in (though, admittedly, this precise moment is a bit of an extreme valley, right after Batman v Superman and right before Civil War), the state of broadcast superhero television is still a little disappointing. With the mediocrity of shows like Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. typifying the space, it’s fallen to the Berlanti-verse group of superhero television series (so named after their producer Greg Berlanti) to headline the genre, but even its best show, The Flash, doesn’t showcase the genre’s potential on a regular basis. It’s a likable, occasionally ambitious, and incredibly sincere show, but it’s still far too often a sloppy mess that usually only pulls itself together at its key moments while spending the rest of the season meandering until reaching its various finish lines. I mean, I love The Flash, but it’s not exactly a show that trades in depth or complexity or adult themes like Breaking Bad or Mad Men, and with all of this past season’s broadcast superhero TV shows — ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter; WB’s Arrow, Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow; CBS’s Supergirl, NBC’s Heroes, and Fox’s Gotham — past, at, or near their seasonal (or series) conclusions, that’s not a trend that’s likely to end very soon.

And then there’s Netflix. Continue reading →

Anyone ever heard of earplugs?

by Thom Yee

Jessica Jones images courtesy of Marvel Television, ABC Studios, and Netflix

People ask me all the time, they ask me, “Thom, when’s this whole… superhero thing gonna end?” Well… they ask me that after the considerable time they’ve been forced to spend with me and after I’ve finally lightened up enough to let them practice a bit of their own free will.

After they’re pummeled to the point of submission by a group of my various bodyguards and henchmen for such impudence — the impudence of suggesting that superhero movies will go away and the impudence of speaking to me as if I owed them (or anybody) an answer — I tell them the same thing I tell myself:

Superheroes will never end!

Continue reading →

Here Comes… Daredevil, The Show Without Network Censorship!

by Thom Yee

Daredevil images courtesy of Marvel Television and ABC Studios.

Ben Affleck.

For the last few years, I could recall a Daredevil movie as something that once happened, but apparently I’d so divested myself of any specific memories of it that I’d forgotten that Daredevil was once played by Ben Affleck. In one way or another, I think about and talk about superhero movies almost all of the time, even in the absence of appropriate social cues to do so and even in the presence of social norms suggesting to do otherwise, but even at the height of the Ben Affleck-is-the-new-Batman hysteria, I still failed to remember that Ben Affleck had been our one and only onscreen Man Without Fear.

And I supported the Affleck-Batman casting.

And I saw that Daredevil movie.

Continue reading →