Heroes don’t need the big screen anymore

It used to be that if you wanted a high quality super hero live action experience you’d have to go see it in a movie theatre, or wait a few months till it got released on tele, DVD, or Blu-ray. Times however have changed, as it so happens now you don’t need to do any of that to get such an experience. Now we have streaming services, now we have CW.

With the advent of high quality Marvel and DC television series there may soon be no need to go to the theatres to watch your favourite heroes and villains go head to head. This change in quality got a bit of a start back in 2011 by CW (formerly WB) and the Smallville TV series that focused on the early life exploits of a young Clark Kent, aka Superman. Smallville was however was not a hero movie killer, but what it did was open the floodgates for other better candidates to walk on through.

The first series to make a proper footing has to be Arrow. This modern take on the green arrow comic book character was, and is a very welcomed addition to the prime time line-up. What the arrow series did was to take a comic book story-line and give it a much more serious, darker tone than previous comic book series offered. Stephan Amell’s portrayal of the character has been of a high calibre, and so have the performances of his fellow cast members. With the Arrow soundly in the door there had to be others on their way and so then we got the likes of The Flash, Gotham, Powers and Daredevil. Each of which has taken comic heroes and villains to an all new level in it’s own unique way. The Flash is the flashiest of them all (see what i did there). It uses the more special effects than the others to great effect, but don’t count the others out because of their lesser use of good old CGor you may miss out on some of the best modern tele has to offer. Gotham for one is much grittier than the other options and the least flashy. It’s main focus is on the evil underbelly of Gotham City and the regular cops that have to fight against them. It is what I’d call a villain origin story. You get to see the likes of the penguin as they were before they took up super villain status.

After Gotham you have Powers which I should mention I’ve seen the least of, due to not actually having a viable option for watching it. Yes I have PS Plus and all, but the PS3 is not currently connected to a tele in my home and I can’t find any option to watch it on either my Vita or PC. All I’ve been able to watch are clips, and boy are they amazing. The acting seems top notch and so does the writing and everything else associated with the show. It literally ups the game on what we consider a comic book TV series.  Infact it actually seems like a race or a competition is brewing between networks to get the next big hero on their network.

Welcome to the race Netflix

Oh and don’t tell me Netflix and Sony PlayStation are not networks now, because they kinda are, especially Netflix. By buying the rights and funding the production of these series to be exclusive to their services I don’t see why they should be considered any different than the likes of CW. After all Netflix has been buying up as much exclusives as they can recently and not many have been crappy ones (I’m looking at you Richie Rich *remake). They’ve recently acquired The Daredevil, which is great by the way. I’m only two and a half episodes into this one and I’m completely impressed. Charlie Cox makes for a pretty convincing Matt Murdock *Daredevil, with his cold direct lines, and that dangerous blind, but seemingly aware stare of his. the writing so far stands up to the punch (pun intended), and so far it seems like this may just be my favourite of all the hero series that I’ll be following. Plus it’s on Netflix so I can watch it anywhere, anytime. Ahh being a comic book fan has never been so good.

With so much high quality options to get our nerd on it is that it is very possible to have a movie like experience during an hour long episode per week. Game of thrones did it and now so too are the heroes. Now don’t get me wrong, movies like Avengers are in a different class than what we are currently  getting on tele these days, but that gap is quickly being closed and that is all thanks to Smallville and Arrow.

So what’s your favorite comic book inspired series? Is is one I’ve mentioned in the article? Please let us know in the comment section below.

if you’d like to hear more of my thoughts on this topic, then I suggest you listen to the Buttonsmashers podcast.