The Tomorrow People, start watching it NOW!

Wednesday night fun with The CW.  

Quickly becoming the best one-two punch on network television, The CW has two unlikely hits in Arrow and The Tomorrow People which are turning Wednesday nights into must see TV.  

Mostly known for schlocky teen melodrama, The CW (or just CW forsake of my typing prowess) is locking down the nerd / action contingent.  Arrow which was their first surprise hit from last season is back and now they’ve struck gold again with another surprise hit.  The Tomorrow People is an awesome new show that may soon surpass Arrow in nerd TV rankings.  

Arrow is back for its second season and is stronger than ever.  Led by Stephen Amell (Oliver Queen / Arrow), David Ramsey (Diggle), Emily Bett Rickards (Felicity Smoak) and the rest of its tremendous cast (click to see the shows IMDB page) Arrow hit the new season with a bullseye and is lobbing hot fire arrows at the competition each week.  What was once a fledgling drama that hoped to retain the CW’s past Smallville audience, Arrow has darted past the non-caped Superman teen series as best comic book show on TV, possibly ever.  

Arrow, which stands for Green Arrow who a poor-man’s Batman, was a surprisingly great show last season.  At first it stumbled along and risked cancellation but once it was green lit for a full season, it found its legs and by the finale the show had solid footing and understood what it did best.  Arrow hit all the beats of a CW show, with love triangles and family drama, but also gave ample nods to comic book fans.  While you’d wait entire seasons from Smallville to give you a Blue Beatle reference, Arrow would throw in DC universe easter eggs at a rapid pace.  Arrow was based on the outstanding Andy Diggle / Jock re-boot of the character from 2007 and includes insider comic book references in almost every episode.  Constantly last year, I would have gleeful chuckles from moments like when it was mentioned that so-and-so would be back from Central City in a ‘flash’ (see, because The Flash is from Central City) or Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) would joke that his sister’s nickname was Speedy (which in the comic book was his eventual sidekick’s nickname, a poor-man’s Robin).  The show not only proved that you could service the hardcore comic book fan but also tell good stories and have great action.  

The show that was paired up with Arrow last season was the long running Supernatural.  Out of all the remaining shows on CW, Supernatural was the closest in tone and demographics to Arrow but it never seemed to work.  

With little fan fare The Tomorrow People was promoted to be Arrow’s new companion on Wednesday night.  As someone who reads comics, visits comic book websites and basically tracks all there is when it comes to super-powered beings and their chronicles, I was vastly unaware of this new show.  Unlike ABC’s “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD” which dominated the fall preview landscape, no one was talking about The Tomorrow People.  Not even CW made a major push for this show.  They were smart by showing a few quick clips of good looking people making things move and giving off a Push movie vibe.  I’m a HUGE Push fan so what could it hurt to set the ‘ole DVR and see what this The Tomorrow People was all about?

Let me tell you, it’s about the most awesome show on TV.  If I were tasked to give it one word, fun, would be the adjective to describe Tomorrow People.  If Arrow is the poor-man’s Batman, TP is the poor-man’s X-men.  Essentially, The Tomorrow People is X-men except all the mutants have the same three superpowers (telekinesis, teleportation, telepathy).  The premise is the same, mutants get their powers as they reach maturity and ULTRA is an evil government / corporation complex that is tasked with killing or recruiting said mutants because they’re a threat to us regular humans.  There’s even a super computer, TIM, which is a poor-man’s Cerebro.

The show stars Robbie Amell (yes, Arrow’s Stephen Amell's real life little brother) as the “Neo” of this world (I know that’s a Matrix analogy but it’s the quickest comparison.  If you wanted to stay within the X-men world he’d be a very poor-man’s Wolverine and really not accurate, trust me on the Neo comparison.  Stop distracting me.), Luke Mitchell as the “Cyclops on the real X-men” and leader of the mutant underground and then the beautiful Peyton List as the “Jean Grey” of the group.  It’s the CW so of course there has to be a love triangle involving the three leads.  It’s unnecessary but I think that’s in the CW bylaws, “All shows shall have love triangles.”  The other two standout actors are Mark Pellegrino from Lost fame and Aaron Yoo from Disturbia and “Oh yeah, that Asian kid” fame.  They’re both personal favorites if not crowd favorites and do so much to make this a well rounded show.  If they’re your 7th and 8th hitters, you’ve got a World Series contending batting order.

TP is still in its infancy, just 7 episodes in, and we’re just now getting to know all the characters and learn their backgrounds and more importantly their secrets.  Since the first episode the special effects have been used efficiently and correctly.  This is a CW show and there’s no doubt that there are budgetary constrains (which is probably why all the mutants have the same three powers) but except for one shot in the first episode, where time is stopped and our heroes are allowed to escape certain capture, the character’s powers are used within the means of telling the story.  If you’re a hardcore sci-fi junky like myself, you’ll recognize the use of some of the effects but like the Matrix, it’s not always the most innovative or new SFX but how you use those effects.  We’ve seen teleporting characters before but TP uses it as a great tool that enhances fighting or chase sequences rather than making the chase or fighting sequences about the teleporting.  It’s all so seamless and a joy to watch.

Like Arrow, TP does the action well but it’s the characters that make the show turn.  Amell’s “Neo” character could be the savior or the demise of the mutants.  He wants to find the truth about his long lost father’s death / disappearance and the only way is through working with his uncle, Pellegrino, who runs the evil ULTRA – bum-buh-baaaa.  See, it’s cheesy but it’s fun.  TP also makes the extra effort.  Mitchell’s leader character, Young, isn’t just a hard-nosed jerk “because that’s what leaders who have the hot girlfriend at the beginning of stories do,” there’s reason behind it.  He was originally taken and trained by ULTRA which he escaped.  One of his secrets is that unlike his fellow mutants, who can’t kill (don’t ask me how that exactly works), ULTRA experimented on him so badly that he does have the ability to kill.  You can understand his hatred of ULTRA and fear of them but the show also tells how ULTRA and Pellegrino’s Jedikiah character saved Young from an abusive and horrible childhood.  Jedikiah and Young still have a father / son bond, albeit very messed up bond (but who doesn’t).  I’m just scratching the surface of what we know and it only gets deeper AND we’re only in the first seven episodes.  It’s a great show.  

While Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD has Disney money behind it and is shepherded in by a multi-billion dollar franchise, I don’t know nor care about any of the characters on that show.  For all of the money and tie-ins that SHEILD could have, we’ve barely seen a superpower used?!  There’s more action and abilities used in one episode of TP than the entire run of SHIELD.  Both shows are still not even half a season in and I hope for both’s success but so far TP has lapped the ABC juggernaut.  I’m usually a “young savior get’s the girl” guy but I was so upset at the recent secret kiss between Amell and List’s characters that I continued to be upset hours after the show.  Mitchell’s Young is a bad-ass good leader and doesn’t deserve to loose his girl.  Not to some high school punk savior!  Just because he didn’t want the rest of the mutants to know he could kill?  See, I’m still worked up about it.

And did I mention the action?  Oh yeah, I did.  Well, it deserves to be said again, it’s fantastic.  Even the characters have fun with their powers.  Do you need to get across country, let’s just teleport.  Do we need some extra spending cash, let’s be pool sharks with our telekinesis.  Even when the group of mutants want a night out above ground and their leader is against it, he eventually turns around and shows up (of course, it helped that Ms. List was dressed to kill with her “assets” on full display).  It might get a little predictable here and there but it’s not formulaic, boring or monotonous like SHIELD or Dracula (which is a spectacular mess) or tiresome like Revolution has become.

As you can see, I could go on and on about my love and excitement for both shows, especially The Tomorrow People.  I can understand if you're intimidated by Arrow because of the deep DC references it makes but it does a fine job of creating two levels of viewing.  While I’m geek-ing out over the boat called Amazo, Dr. Ivo, the future of Roy Harper (and his obsession with red hoodies) and SPOILERS when will Deathstroke turn on Queen; just to name a few of the nods to the Green Arrow comic history.  My girlfriend, who knows nothing about comics, can watch and enjoy Arrow for what it is.  TP has even more appeal to general audiences because there isn’t source material that goes back 50 years.  I’m going along for the ride of TP just like the rest of the world and I’m loving it!

Spread the word.  These shows need our support.  They might not have the reach and traditional network machinery backing them as if they were on one of the major four networks but Arrow and The Tomorrow People deserve the same chance to succeed.  There’s not enough fun being had on TV.  Everyone is either trying to be the next Breaking Bad or push the violence bar like Hannibal or The Walking Dead (all of which I’m a fan of) but there’s a space and need for good fun television as well. 

Watch Arrow and please give The Tomorrow People a try, which you can start from the beginning by clicking here.

Enjoy...

Necrosha, again WTF?!?!

Ok, I know I've been a little negative lately. I've done a lot of reading over the past few weeks with all the days off. So I've been catching up. In full disclosure I usually wait for the Trades to come out for X-Men books. The ones that I get monthly would be X-Force, Cable and Astonishing X-men. I think those have been real quality and don't always flow with the regular series, especially Astonishing X-men.

But I just don't get this Necrosha story. It seems like Marvel was looking at what DC was doing and said we need to have something like the Black Lantern story. First off, there are many things that I inherently don't think are plausible, and for a comic that really bad.

1) They're very wishy washy on trying to explain M-Day and the rise of all these dead X-Men.

2) Most of the "dead mutants" no one cares about. That's been a problem and a gift by the Marvel teams. The popular mutants don't die. Remember M-day and Ice man lost his powers. Well, you can have that so magically he got them back in some half assed explanation ASAP. Magneto's dead and powerless, I don't think so... I can go on. So these mutants that are coming back alive, I have no idea who or they are nor do I care.

Luckily Cable and Ast. X-Men aren't really involved in this story so their books are still solid. But take X-Force. Great idea. Cyclops own personal hit squad. Going after the humans that would have them dead!! I love it. And let's not forget about the art. Crain is putting together some amazing work and has the talent to really do something special. But with such abstract and never seen before art, you really need a simple good story to go along with it or it just confuses me even more.

This is early in the scope of the Necrosha story so I'll give it a chance and maybe the regular books, when they come out in trade form, will tie this together for me. For now, I think they're wasting their Writer's talents as well as their Artist's talents with a wacky story that doesn't seem to be anything we need. The X-men have enough issues with their new island home, moving to the west coast, waiting for the return of Cable and Hope.... Just keep it simple and tell some simple arcs until we get deep into what is surly going to be a big year for the X-men either in 2010 or 2011 (I just get that feeling once the Dark Reign / Siege is over).

End of an Era

The Ultimate brand is and was amazing. If not for the Ultimate brand comics and entertainment would not be where it is today.

It was years since I bought a comic book. I still loved good art but just didn't care about comic books any more. Not after all the Image failures and 50 variant covers, which we all bought. I didn't even read the books.

But time passes and we all grow older, and I still had friends in the biz and others that still would buy comic books. Fortunately I began to make good money and had tons to spare. A few close friends would tell me, "have you read any comics lately?" or "Have you seen what they're doing in the books?" To be honest I could care less. But after months of pestering and then my dear friend Ethan, lent me the Ultimates first trade. I didn't even know what a trade was. I didn't realize that they where telling stories that spanned 5 or 6 issues and where complete stories.

I read Ultimates and was very surprised. It was good. The art was great. And for the first time I actually read the book all the way through and like the story. I was on my way to a week-end trip to visit my aunt in San Diego for some reason. On the way I decided to stop at a comic book store. I picked up Rising Stars first trade and the frist 3 trades of Ultimate Spider-man. I was hooked. By the time I got back from our trip, I was back in the comic book frame of mind.

My girlfriend found a great store that had just opened down the street from her office and she was picking up comics every Wednesday. She told me that this store was actually really cool and the owner took the time to help her out. That store was Earth 2, still the greatest comic book store around, and she said I had to visit them. Thinking that sure, they were nice because you're a hot girl in a store full of geeks, but they won't be nice to me. But I went. To make a long story short, I walked out of there with two short boxes and a $500 tab! Since then, I've been a weekly reader.

The many different Ultimate titles have had their good and their bad, but if not for them I and many others wouldn't have gotten in or back into comics. The new breed of writers and stellar art pushed the medium forward and layed the foundation for all the movies that you're seeing today.

I don't know what the Ultimate brand will look like but I am sad to see it shrink. But like all things, it has served its purpuse. I will miss these books but look forward to the next generation.