Smallville Justice
Sep. 30th, 2007 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI just watched a chunk out of the middle of the Smallville episode Justice
... Impulse, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Green Arrow, plus of course not-yet-Superman.
All the same age. And working together. And there was that JL International company name.
Okay, I'm used to Smallville being brain breaky, but this is so much worse than even the summary I read. GA dating Lois??? Aquaman making jokes about swimming naked? Cyborg with no visible Cyborg parts? W T F ???
Plus, Impulse. I mean... okay, *why* this breaks my brain - to me part of the important stuff in the DCU is the way they have generations, legacies, a sense of continuity and kinda sorta growth. Like the existence of the JSA, being the older generation who've been there and done that and do in fact have the know how. And this team? Squishes that all gone. Everyone's the same age. Nobody has any history. It's... *wrong*.
And then there's the thing where the different teams actually have a different ethos and reason for being and stuff. The Titans are family, the replacement family teenagers make when their families of origin kinda suck or don't seem to understand or just aren't in the same world. JSA are the multi generation sort. Justice League *fight*. And in the JLI era were a multinational UN sanctioned organisation, but alas somehow this was deemed a bad thing. Apparently superheros must be vigilantes instead. All of them. Blah.
This Smallville team is like they're being the Titans teenage nobody understands but us, but without any older teams to look over their work so they take on the moral authority that the Justice League always grab. And yet what are they actually doing? Blowing up a business?? I realise Lex is the bad guy, and I haven't watched the season, but this is not the kind of shit the Justice League is for. The JL operate in the light. They're the inspirations. They stand for something and they're not afraid for people to know it. That building-go-boom shit they just pulled on Smallville is more of an Outsiders job, the plausibly deniable borderline team where some of the members go Suicide Squad. Because each team has an ethos and a metaphor and things they do and *do not* do.
And the other thing is - where did the women go? Like Black Canary and Wonder Woman. Okay, thanks to the bazillion retcons, for quite a lot of the time only one or the other was there, but both have been in founding-the-Justice-League stories. And now Smallville isn't exactly founding the Justice League, but they have this team doing the power walk, and it's all men. Huh? I mean in a 'verse with only Clark being a hero the fair enough there's no Wonder Woman. But they've got GA, so why not Canary? And her mom. Except she probably wouldn't fit.
... it's not like I even care, really. I only watched because it was on when I hit the power button. But... sometimes I wonder what's going through TV writers minds, I really do.
PS the thing where I can just not care is much progress. After I watched the godawful live action Justice League with not-vaguely-resembling Fire and Ice and Martian Manhunter and all I spent my entire next therapy session complaining about it. Now I merely complain to LJ. Am saving the NHS very much money. ;-)
... Impulse, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Green Arrow, plus of course not-yet-Superman.
All the same age. And working together. And there was that JL International company name.
Okay, I'm used to Smallville being brain breaky, but this is so much worse than even the summary I read. GA dating Lois??? Aquaman making jokes about swimming naked? Cyborg with no visible Cyborg parts? W T F ???
Plus, Impulse. I mean... okay, *why* this breaks my brain - to me part of the important stuff in the DCU is the way they have generations, legacies, a sense of continuity and kinda sorta growth. Like the existence of the JSA, being the older generation who've been there and done that and do in fact have the know how. And this team? Squishes that all gone. Everyone's the same age. Nobody has any history. It's... *wrong*.
And then there's the thing where the different teams actually have a different ethos and reason for being and stuff. The Titans are family, the replacement family teenagers make when their families of origin kinda suck or don't seem to understand or just aren't in the same world. JSA are the multi generation sort. Justice League *fight*. And in the JLI era were a multinational UN sanctioned organisation, but alas somehow this was deemed a bad thing. Apparently superheros must be vigilantes instead. All of them. Blah.
This Smallville team is like they're being the Titans teenage nobody understands but us, but without any older teams to look over their work so they take on the moral authority that the Justice League always grab. And yet what are they actually doing? Blowing up a business?? I realise Lex is the bad guy, and I haven't watched the season, but this is not the kind of shit the Justice League is for. The JL operate in the light. They're the inspirations. They stand for something and they're not afraid for people to know it. That building-go-boom shit they just pulled on Smallville is more of an Outsiders job, the plausibly deniable borderline team where some of the members go Suicide Squad. Because each team has an ethos and a metaphor and things they do and *do not* do.
And the other thing is - where did the women go? Like Black Canary and Wonder Woman. Okay, thanks to the bazillion retcons, for quite a lot of the time only one or the other was there, but both have been in founding-the-Justice-League stories. And now Smallville isn't exactly founding the Justice League, but they have this team doing the power walk, and it's all men. Huh? I mean in a 'verse with only Clark being a hero the fair enough there's no Wonder Woman. But they've got GA, so why not Canary? And her mom. Except she probably wouldn't fit.
... it's not like I even care, really. I only watched because it was on when I hit the power button. But... sometimes I wonder what's going through TV writers minds, I really do.
PS the thing where I can just not care is much progress. After I watched the godawful live action Justice League with not-vaguely-resembling Fire and Ice and Martian Manhunter and all I spent my entire next therapy session complaining about it. Now I merely complain to LJ. Am saving the NHS very much money. ;-)
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 01:35 am (UTC)If we're unlucky, the Hollywood version overshadows the original to an infuriating degree.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 09:18 am (UTC)times the comics alter to be more like films = lose