Okay, this episode was a little better than the first one. It gave the main characters a little space to breath. Sheldon and Chloe have a heart-to-heart that is pretty well acted. So do Sheldon and Brandon. The flashbacks seems to have a little more information, even though so far they're as clear as mud. But at least I can kinda see how they're leading to the 2021 Sheldon that we have in the present day.
There's a whole lot of talking instead of doing. Folks keep saying that supervillains are going all gritty and realistic. But we don't know enough about Blackstar (who seems pretty mellow, unlike his clone) to know whether his clone turned violent, or Blackstar has always been violent, or has gotten more violent, or what. Last episode he was very Doomsday-ish, and Doomsday kinda set off the hyper-violent trend in the comics
Ditto for Iron Orchid last episode. Yes, she killed three members of the Primate Crew, and the Primate Crew gunned done some cops. But the villainess let a security guard run instead of brutally killing him: that doesn't seem too insanely violent to me. Everyone here describes the villains as insane and homicidal, but Iron Orchid didn't seem that way, and we don't know enough about the real Blackstar (as opposed to his duplicate)to know if he's that way. The other unseen villains... who knows?
IMO, the series would have worked better if they had shown Iron Orchid as a homicidal kill-crazy villain, done some old footage of the "real" Blackstar going berserk, and maybe tossing in another kill-crazy villain last episode. Instead of the "the Blackstar we fought is a duplicate!" twist that we got. Maybe it was in the comics, but it just confused what seems to be the main plot here.
The rest of the episode is more of a "recover after the big battle" story. The heroes bury their dead, the main conflict of Utopian and his Code, versus the newer generation's disregard for it, is kind of set up, and basically we get the impression that Utopian is way too obsessed with his Code. By having most people congratulate Brandon on killing Blackstar, it makes it look like his reaction is "normal" and Utopian is the old fuddy-duddy.
The rest is showing Sheldon (the Superman expy) is not a very good parent. But we have had years of Superman being shown to be a jerk. That's why there's a super-dickery page, right? The series telling us again and again that Superman (or Utopian, their version of Superman) is a jerk is already old. If that's the gist of the story, lord help us.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
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There's a whole lot of talking instead of doing. Folks keep saying that supervillains are going all gritty and realistic. But we don't know enough about Blackstar (who seems pretty mellow, unlike his clone) to know whether his clone turned violent, or Blackstar has always been violent, or has gotten more violent, or what. Last episode he was very Doomsday-ish, and Doomsday kinda set off the hyper-violent trend in the comics
Ditto for Iron Orchid last episode. Yes, she killed three members of the Primate Crew, and the Primate Crew gunned done some cops. But the villainess let a security guard run instead of brutally killing him: that doesn't seem too insanely violent to me. Everyone here describes the villains as insane and homicidal, but Iron Orchid didn't seem that way, and we don't know enough about the real Blackstar (as opposed to his duplicate)to know if he's that way. The other unseen villains... who knows?
IMO, the series would have worked better if they had shown Iron Orchid as a homicidal kill-crazy villain, done some old footage of the "real" Blackstar going berserk, and maybe tossing in another kill-crazy villain last episode. Instead of the "the Blackstar we fought is a duplicate!" twist that we got. Maybe it was in the comics, but it just confused what seems to be the main plot here.
The rest of the episode is more of a "recover after the big battle" story. The heroes bury their dead, the main conflict of Utopian and his Code, versus the newer generation's disregard for it, is kind of set up, and basically we get the impression that Utopian is way too obsessed with his Code. By having most people congratulate Brandon on killing Blackstar, it makes it look like his reaction is "normal" and Utopian is the old fuddy-duddy.
The rest is showing Sheldon (the Superman expy) is not a very good parent. But we have had years of Superman being shown to be a jerk. That's why there's a super-dickery page, right? The series telling us again and again that Superman (or Utopian, their version of Superman) is a jerk is already old. If that's the gist of the story, lord help us.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
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