Going back to the immigrant/foundling who became Superman, the superhero genre has often been used as an exploration of what happens when people from variably disenfranchised groups find themselves with unexpected levels of power. Whether the result leads to enhanced altruism or diabolical megalomania is the difference between a hero and a villain. Not all audiences are so eager to read for subtext, which has led to recent stories that push the subtext to the surface and the superpowers occasionally to the background, whether the goal is to make stubborn pre-existing audiences get the point (see ), to make an audience that probably never watched in the first place get the point (Amazon’s short-lived ) or to make a low-IQ potato get the point (season four of ) It’s the genre storytelling equivalent of a bacon-wrapped date.
I’ll leave it for you to decide, in this metaphor, which is the chewy, salty protein (the subtext, probably) and which is the sticky sweet (the superhero stuff, I guess). And maybe you only like bacon or maybe you only like dates or maybe you love them both but don’t love them together, which is crazy because dates are made to be wrapped in bacon and this is what happens when I write a review after skipping breakfast. Like , a series you’ve probably either forgotten entirely or never knew existed in the first place, ‘s is a show that could easily be dismissed as the latest in a long line of shows and movies (and an even longer line of comic books.
