Here is my post about superheroes. It does not discuss minorities, women, racial diversity, or any serious issues. It’s about superhero TV series’. I apologize for my shallowness, but I can’t get worked up about the larger cultural issues of super-heroism. So, in honor of this week’s Daily Prompt Discover challenge – Superhero …

All through the spring of this year, Garry and I were binge-watching DC comic book superhero shows. It started innocently enough, but developed into a full immersion. First, we dipped a toe in the waters and watched a single season of “The Flash.” We had three seasons of “Arrow” on Netflix, so we finished that. The next two seasons haven’t shown up, but I think we’ve probably had enough “Arrow.” For now.

Did I mention that we were already watching “Supergirl”? Not sure what city she is in, but obviously, it’s nearby. Not Gotham. Garry watches “Gotham” where baby Batman is learning to be super. It’s so confusing!

During the three Arrow seasons we watched, the show went from reasonably smart and witty, to All-Violence-All-the-Time. Oliver Queen, the not-very-secret superhero (who in Starling City doesn’t know he’s the Arrow?) seemed to be getting increasingly dumb. Maybe it’s all those explosions. Whatever.

Ollie, or Oliver, aka The Arrow, wants nothing more than to protect his loved ones and what’s left of Starling City from (further) harm.

I grew up in New York which has a bad (undeserved) reputation as being particularly violent and crime-ridden. Then I lived for a decade in Jerusalem where, according to the news, terrorism rules. Then I came back to Boston where … well … y’know, there was Whitey Bulger and the Irish “mafia.” If you could take the dangers inherent in all the cities in which I’ve lived, added their crime rates together then multiplied by ten, you would not come close to the perils of living in Starling City for a week.

Those people should go live somewhere else. Between the crazed assassins roaming the streets with automatic weapons, biological onslaughts of epic proportions, and scientists with earthquake machines, At least a quarter of Starling City is leveled every episode. I’m surprised there’s any city left.

Starling has been under continuous attack by evil overlords of every stripe. The League of Assassins. That weird Aussie who was Oliver’s friend on The Island, but took some drug and then hunted Oliver for killing someone he didn’t kill (someone else did it, but it’s complicated). Ollie’s mom was murdered. His father killed himself. His sister was murdered, but came back from the dead after Oliver agreed to become the new Demon Head of the League of Assassins (it’s very complicated). His girlfriend’s sister is currently dead, but I bet she’s coming back. She became an assassin, was briefly a superhero, and is now dead and buried, but on these shows? Who knows?

No one in this DC world stays dead, not even if you see their rotting corpse. Unless their contract with the network is finished, they WILL be back. Maybe with a different name as their own evil twin, but alive.

On the final show we watched last night, Ollie (the Arrow’s) friends are trying to rescue him (or escape?) from the secret, impregnable castle of the ultra-dangerous bad guys and Felicity (don’t worry about who’s who because it doesn’t really matter) said:

“I’ve watched a lot of movies, so I KNOW that there’s always a secret exit from the impregnable castle.” Wow, so that’s where she’s getting her information! I was wondering.

And finally, there’s Ollie, troubled by the feeling that he and “The League of Assassins” have a date with destiny, says: “I can’t escape feeling that everything in my life has led me here, to this place.”

Well, duh. Wherever you may be, everything led you there. Whether you are in the kitchen making a grilled cheese sandwich, or being inducted into the League of Assassins, everything led you to the current moment. True of everyone, everywhere because how else did you get there? Seriously?

Every character in these series has lost one or more people they love and is obsessed with revenge, which means destroying entire cities — or,  alternatively, trying to save the world. We’ve all suffered losses. I don’t know anyone who felt obliged to level a city because someone they cared about died.

You can get over this stuff without a high body count.

If you were contemplating a move to Starling City? In a word? Don’t.

Categories: Humor, Television, WordPress

Tags: chaos, Daily Post, DC Comics, Discover challenge, DPchallenge, humor, Superhero