Having read the Jupiter’s Legacy comics (but not Jupiter’s Circle) the plot line seems to be mostly
‘Idealistic aging superhero group eventually turns fascist. Rebellious narcissistic younger generation take over but become even worse, don’t even pretend to be idealistic. Finally all exiled supervillains come together to overthrow the so-called superheroes and reinstall a leadership that listens to the people.’
Millar seems to think the Netflix adaptation is fantastic so I guess the plot will be similar, lots of flashbacks, moral angst, teen angst, boomer regret etc. Every new superhero series seems to be focusing on inherited powers and how someone can grow up with a superhero parent, so it may be that Jupiter’s Legacy immediately feels dated. But I’m really hoping it’s good and gets a second season, not least because I know one of the actors and want them to get the success I think they deserve. On the other hand, they did struggle with losing their first showrunner, and there’s been other issues, so let’s hope it’s not a Whedonleague mash-up.
I watched the first episode of this tonight, and I’m curious to see where it goes. It certainly isn’t as misanthropic as other Millar stuff I’ve seen/read, or The Boys. But it is early yet.
Immediate thoughts after the first episode:
dad’s moral code is so inflexible that when son killed the dude that just killed two of the team, and was about to detonate and kill half the state, Dad gets mad? For real?
Binged the whole thing yesterday. Mixed feelings about it. The 1920s story was more interesting than the present-day stuff - it had some kind of direction to it, but it still felt utterly disconnected from the present-day scenes. In the comics the origin story is covered in a couple of pages, with all the original heroes totally on board with Sheldon’s vision of the Island. So that massive build up with everyone at each other’s throats and Sheldon seemingly crazy was completely new. Personally I think they’d have been better off doing the origin story in a single flashback episode and spending more time on the present, which really suffered with waaaay too many characters barely introduced or not given any development. The main Blackstar plot seemed to be entirely forgotten for several episodes in favour of following Chloe’s hedonism and Hutch’s heists, while Brandon gets humiliated and benched for almost the entire season. Not sure why Brandon’s character was changed from nihilist slacker who can’t please his father but doesn’t care to a tryhard whiner who can’t please his father and cares more than anything. I assume they’re trying to set up season 2 for Brandon to become Darth Vader alongside Walt’s Palpatine, but you only get a season 2 if season 1 does well.. Overall though I did binge it so it wasn’t awful and quite a lot of the scenes had some good writing in them. I did find myself wondering if the writers were fans of Lost though, what with all the daddy issues. And the impossible to find Island seeking to separate the good and the evil.
My favorite character was the dude with the magic teleporting thing, maybe because had a minimal of evolution and is driven by a mysterious reasons we don’t know yet.
Three episodes in – it’s fairly good. It doesn’t approach HBO’s Watchmen, or Amazon’s The Boys or Invincible. I’ll stick with it, but it’s not “tell all your friends they gotta see this thing” tier.
My favorite character too. I really like it when superhero/magic stories approach abilities as if there were an intelligent person using it rather than just the personification of that particular power. (Why doesn’t Flash carry a bag full of zip ties? A sap? Or in a more gruesome universe, a box cutter?) His use of his thingy was intelligent and realistic as far as how you or I would use such a thing in the same circumstance, increasing ruthlessness notwithstanding.
On the other hand I thought that dad’s reaction was fairly on point. He’s been doing the superhero stuff for 90 years without killing. We saw the that the same guy had been captured before without having to kill him. Maybe the death was justified in the situation but it feels in character to have his instant reaction be the way it was.
This series was pretty good, although the season ends in kind of a meh fashion. It felt like the season needed a finale episode for the “current” time period, that matched what happened in the 1930s period.
wait… Did you like Heroes? because I remember Heroes about as fondly as the last few seasons of Game of Thrones. (Everything after S1 sucked because they would not kill off Sylar)
To be precise, Heroes nosedived in the finale of season 1. The creators have stated that each season was supposed to have a new cast but when the show was so successful the studio was too scared to drop all these “stars” at the end of the season and forced the creators to carry on telling their stories, thus destroying the narrative structure.
I binged JL over the weekend and liked it well enough. I don’t get the comparison to CW shows. I bailed on arrow in season 3 and flash in season 2. The main issue for me was that these shows constantly manufacture conflict based on dumb decision and silly secrets. I didn’t see any of that here. I also liked that mostly the main characters were older and more relatable for me.
I found the conflicts between both kids and the parents to be over the top. It felt like it was heading to the same dumb decisions and silly secrets that I’d expect in a CW show. Plus the scene in the club and the talk between the two younger generation heroes prior to the big fight and it feels like they are also leaning heavily into relationship drama like the Arrowverse.
I’ve only seen the first episode though. Perhaps it gets better. For now I’ve been distracted by Sexify and The Yin Yang Master (I never claimed to have high standards).
Honestly, all the current time period stuff was pretty weak. Super generic rebellion of kids against parents crap, with some gorey super hero stuff thrown in for shock value.
They spent quite a lot of time establishing how terrible all the parents are at parenting, and they spent most of the rest of the time with those terrible parents, who are also kinda boring and in very bad makeup. Why?
It would have been a better show if they had knocked out the origin story quickly, then focused on the kids. Maybe that’s next season, if there is one.
