I’m a bit behind, this show premiered a couple of months ago and there was a thread on the DC Universe board about it, but since it’s a JSA-centric show I thought it belonged on this board.

I just watched the first episode and plan to watch the rest, I guess 8 episodes are currently out and there are going to be 13 this season.

I guess I’m old school so it’s odd to think that the JSA only came and went 10 years ago, as the opening title card tells us. So they existed post-2000 not in the 1940s. Another reason why that’s weird is that the show begins in what looks like the real world, but if superheroes are a part of normal everyday life here you would think it might be a little bit different. Like when they did the JSA on Smallville they had to say that they were a forgotten team that operated in secret decades ago and no one ever knew about them. But this is coming in after like 10 years of CW shows so I guess they figure you’re on board with the superhero premise or you’re not.

We start right in the thick of things with the JSA battling the ISA (Injustice Society). They don’t bother to introduce everyone or their gimmick, looks like the ISA is being led by the Wizard or Brainwave. Where did the giant black hand come from, was that Karkull? I think the lady with the braid was GA Huntress? The guy with the hockey mask must have been Sportsmaster. For some reason the big hero of the JSA is Starman, Sylvester Pemberton rather than Dr. Fate or Green Lantern. The entire JSA gets killed except for Starman who is rescued by his sidekick Stripesy in the Star Rocket Racer, I presume. They crash shortly after and Starman dies in Stripesy’s arms telling him to pass on the Cosmic Staff “but not to you, you’re not a hero” he says. Unless that’s a ‘tough love’ way of trying to motivate him, it’s kind of a dick thing to say.

Now we cut to present day Blue Valley, Nebraska where Stripesy AKA Pat Dugan has moved his family; his son Mike, his wife Barbara and stepdaughter Courtney. They don’t know he used to be a superhero but it’s not long before Courtney stumbles across his secret. The Cosmic Staff in this version is sentient, I guess, and chooses Courtney as its new champion. I’m not sure why it needs a champion since it has a mind of its own and can move on its own, mostly dragging her along.

They didn’t name every character we saw but I’m assuming the girl she meets in the ‘loser’s club’ at school, Beth, is going to be Dr. Midnight, the Latina girl Wildcat, and the mopey guy Hourman II. Pat sets up an auto shop and gets a visit from a nearby gym owner Larry “Crusher” Crock, yep that’s the Sportsmaster. The bullies at school are lead by a ginger who must be Brainwave Jr. since his father turns out to be Brainwave.

Courtney goes from hating her stepdad to partnering up with him pretty quick, by the end of the first episode. Kind of played out that storyline from the comic fast. She ends up being drawn to a confrontation with Brainwave but suddenly Pat shows up in his giant robot suit S.T.R.I.P.E. to help out, and: cliffhanger.

It was okay. Meshing Star-Spangled Kid and Starman into one character doesn’t really matter, nor skipping Jack Knight and giving the Staff version to Sylvester (instead of the rod or belt), just details. I don’t like how clueless Pat seems, I don’t like how the JSA treat him like he’s not one of the heroes just because he’s a sidekick or how Sylvester told him he wasn’t a hero.

There was no real character motivation for Courtney to start a hero’s journey, she just finds the poorly hidden staff and starts playing around with it. And it has super duper extra powers that will do a lot of the heavy lifting for her which makes her a little less heroic, I think.

Good costumes, effects, mostly good acting. I wish it the best, I hope it’s good. I don’t care if it crosses over with the Arrowverse.

S01E02 "S.T.R.I.P.E."

This episode picks right up from the pilot and completes the two-parter. Pat shows up in the S.T.R.I.P.E. suit to save Courtney from Brainwave. They go back home and decide not to tell Court's mom or Pat's son about their superhero life.

Somehow Pat gets up early the next morning and does a whole montage of testing S.T.R.I.P.E. and taking it back to the shop for repairs and then out to the field for more tests and back and forth four or five times before the family has breakfast in the morning.

Not much to say about the plot, they decide to go confront Brainwave and they do. It ends with Courtney touching the Cosmic Staff to his head and putting him in a vegetative state. Hmm.

I didn't really track who all was said to be in the JSA/ISA in the last episode, so I went back to check. The JSA had Wildcat, Hourman, Dr. Mid-Nite, Starman (Pemberton), and we saw Flash (Garrick)'s helmet and Sandman, and were told they are all dead. Pat tells us that Hourman actually survived that night and died later. Okay. Presumably all the other JSAers like Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Spectre, Dr. Fate, Green Lantern, Johnny Thunder, Atom are dead too? But we didn't see their bodies. The ISA consisted of Huntress/Tigress (Paula Brooks), the Wizard, Sportsmaster, Brainwave, Icicle, Solomon Grundy, and some kind of giant black shadow-hand that I assume belonged to Ian Karkull but they'll probably make it an evil Obsidian or something.

Brainwave's son, Hank King Jr. is somewhat abused by his dad but also has beef with Courtney for blowing up his car and shaming him for bullying. With Courtney putting his dad in a coma I assume he will become a villain. Odd since he began as a hero in the comics and only became evil later. Which I think was probably done by this show's creator, Geoff Johns, in the "JSA" title. I'll have to check. Does this show also know that he is Sylvester Pemberton's nephew?

I don't like how they reduced Stripesy to "just a sidekick." In the comics he went on all the adventures with Sylvester. He was bigger and stronger, they were both good fighters and equally brave. He also was actually a member of the JSA in the comics (and the Seven Soldiers of Victory and Infinity Inc.) Syl was kind of a child prodigy so probably smarter than Pat, although Pat was an engineering genius who built the Star Rocket Racer and S.T.R.I.P.E. suit among other things. Here he's the guy who kept Syl's suit clean, like a butler?

S01E03 "Icicle"

Who is that janitor guy at the school anyway? They keep lingering on him. It's been a while since I read "Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E." but I think that might be Courtney's real bio-dad.

Why does Pat take Courtney to the mothballed JSA headquarters and show her a bunch of cool stuff only to tell her "let's never be a part of this?" Why is the HQ in Blue Valley, Nebraska? Why did he leave the Thunderbolt pen right where anyone could take it? Shouldn't he have given it to someone who could protect it or at least bury it somewhere?

We find out Icicle is the real leader of the Injustice Society, he apparently has a plan to battle social injustice and maybe that's where they got the name? He did kill Pemberton so it makes sense that he's the big bad but they sure made it seem like Brainwave was the main baddie in the first two episodes.

Icicle kills Wizard's son and then when the Wizard comes armed with his magic wand to ask him about it, kills the Wizard and steals the wand. That's cold. Good thing he didn't come in shooting. Good thing ice can render the wand useless. Icicle's parents and son are down with murder, I guess. Creepy.

Courtney breaks back into the JSA HQ and steals all their power artifacts (or costumes) and plans to recruit new kids to become the new JSA. Is she going to blind Beth so she can be the new Dr. Mid-Night? Will she train Yolanda to box since she never met Ted Knight?

So many questions, this show. I'm not the hugest fans of Geoff Johns' comic book writing but this stuff feels much, much sillier. I guess because it's aimed at the young-adult crowd on the CW?

S01E04 "Wildcat"

I guess it's always been my problem that I get ahead of the story and start predicting where it's going to go, and I'm almost always wrong. When this episode started we see Yolanda Montez at home, we see family photos and an old black and white photo of a man boxing. I thought okay, that's Ted Grant and he's an old family friend, 'Uncle Ted' like in the comics, a mentor to Yolanda. Which may still be true. And because of that, when Courtney starts recruiting she will show Yo the swag she stole from JSA HQ and she'll recognize Wildcat in a picture as 'Uncle Ted' and choose that as her superhero identity due to the personal connection. But I was wrong, Courtney chooses Wildcat for Yolanda for no particular reason. Well then.

The Wildcat suit also has built-in Wolverine claws that can cut through anything, which also allows her to stick to walls like Spider-Man. The suit also increases her balance, agility, strength and durability if she can really "jump off a building." So Wildcat wasn't just a well-trained guy in peak condition, he had an advantage, as will Yolanda. Like with Courtney, giving the gimmick more power requires less of the user which sort of downplays their heroism. But they're kids, I guess it's the same thing they did to MCU Spider-Man. Geoff Johns in the "JSA" comic also gave Ted Grant nine lives, if nothing else. Once we got to the girls in the suits it was pretty fun watching them figure it all out, the best part of the episode.

Icicle shows us the Injustice Society HQ and Dragon King or Dr. Ito is waiting for him. He was the main villain of the "Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E." comic if I recall correctly. He's working on 'The Machine' and Icicle is working on a plan called 'New America.' Dragon King looks a little goofy but not too bad, I think he reminded me of The Terror from Amazon's "The Tick" show. Hoods are hard to pull off in live-action. One day, Cobra Commander. One day. Oh, and they mentioned The Shade, a villain of both Ted and Jack Knight, the Starmen. He must have been behind the shadow hand in the first episode.

We started the episode with a sexting misadventure for poor Yolanda, one that turned her against Henry King Jr. but he seemed as surprised as anyone. Now it's looking like he may not be as bad as we thought, but the heroes don't know that. I think the girl with the skunk-streak is related to Dragon King, right?

Meanwhile the Wizard's wife vanishes mysteriously after warning Pat about this dangerous town they're in. I mean, what are the chances that the JSA and ISA both set up shop here?

I'm glad Pat opened an auto shop and started working, I was starting to think his wife was bringing home all the bacon while he just tinkered with S.T.R.I.P.E. all day long.

S01E05 "Hourman and Dr. Mid-Nite"

Now we're in full on recruitment mode and we don't have to worry much about family drama or Courtney's school life. She fishes through her bag of swag she stole from the JSA and finds Hourman's hourglass and it's glowing. Later she's riding with Pat and their car breaks down and Rick Tyler stops to take a look and the hourglass starts glowing again.

We see Rick's backstory. When he was a kid, his dad Rex (the original Hourman) and wife Wendy run off in the middle of the night after looking through Rex's journal. Something important seems to be happening. They leave Rick to be raised by Wendy's brother Matt Harris who seems to be an abusive dude who doesn't really like kids. Were there no orphanages available?

Meanwhile Beth Chapel, nerdy girl from the 'loser's club' table at school, overheard Wildcat and Stargirl talking at the hospital where they visited a comatose Brainwave last episode, and now she's come over to Court's house to snoop. Court's not home so she starts going through her room and finds the goggles of Dr. Mid-Nite. Putting them on she starts talking to an onboard AI that has the personality of Charles McNider, the original Dr. Mid-Nite, which will certainly help with exposition dumps in the future. In the comics McNider has a unique condition which makes him blind in normal light but he can see in the dark, so the glasses are simply dark glasses. But this is post MCU Iron Man so we need more gadgets. These glasses can see in x-ray, infrared, and can track every object with facial recognition and can connect to all information ever accumulated by the JSA which seems to be more than the internet even has. Beth says the goggles allowed a blind man to see, but how did he see the heads-up-display?

The three girls track down Rick and tell him he is the legacy of Hourman and they should all form a new JSA since the ISA are probably gearing up to do something bad. Rick doesn't care because his parents were killed in a car crash, he thinks, but the Mid-Nite goggles show us that their car was actually run off the road by Solomon Grundy so it was murder, and now he's onboard. How did the goggles have a recording of Grundy killing the Tylers? The good news is that Rick doesn't have to take drugs like in the comics, his powers instead come from the magic hourglass. It's probably full of nanites or something from the Tyler android from the future (if that comic character ever gets name-checked).

And Hank Jr. is having headaches after visiting his dad Brainwave at the hospital. Are his telepathic powers starting to manifest?

And the Fiddler can control peoples' minds, I guess? The other big guy must be the Gambler, is that his name? Roulette's dad? (EDIT: Roulette was unrelated. The Gambler's granddaughter was Hazard). Watching the Fiddler do her thing seemed derivative of Ellen Page fiddling in the Umbrella Academy but I have to remember that show and comic may have been inspired by the DC character in the first place. (EDIT: In the comics, Fiddler's legacy is called Virtuoso, but that was a bit after my time).

It seems like we have ditched the pretense of everyday life and now it's just a rush to jam as many character origins together as possible. Which may work to the show's benefit. It's weird to imagine the JSA as teens but when they are just trying to figure out how to do the hero thing, that's the best part of the show so far.

We're liking them, and I'm thrilled it got my daughter into reading the John's JSA run. It took a little getting used to the hybrid Infinity Inc teen heroes idea.

The one complaint is the overly decompressed storytelling. It moves really slow, and that's saying a lot compared to the source material.


Jeff
www.dogfoodforchairs.com

I'm glad you're sharing it with the kids. My kids aren't into it but we're watching another 80s artifact called Captain N. I just wish shows for kids were written with the base level of reality of adult shows and just focused on things kids like. But the reality always seems much more cartoony.



It depends. If it was a show about the JSA getting together it might be a little slow. If it's a show about Stargirl then they're jamming her show full of JSA at a pretty fast rate. Most of their motivations for becoming heroes are rushed to be sure.

She always like Stargirl from her appearances in JLU.

I do like the fact it hasn't fallen into the usual teen, high school show trap of putting the super heroics as a lower priority to dating, school work, etc in the story lines.

I guess they are packing a lot in, but the plot developments feel kind of slow. Of course that could be because we record it and watch it the same night we watch the giant pile of high speed insanity that is the last season of SHIELD.


I'm still hoping they pull some comic book "not dead" reasons for more of the original JSA and have them appear. They're some of my favorite characters and some of the best parts of the comic run was how there were groups of older heroes mentoring the young ones.

Jeff
www.dogfoodforchairs.com

(1) It's hard to believe the ISA could have killed the likes of Spectre and Dr. Fate if the ISA are weak enough for the new kids to beat. (2) There must be some reason the Cosmic Staff is sentient, I'm guessing either someone's soul lives in there (Starman) or else Fate put the entire JSA in there or something.

That's a good point.
I've been complaining about the staff being sentient without thinking there may be a story based reason. There's no one in that group that could take on Fate or the Spectre (in the comic versions anyway.) maybe its one of them that saved the gang.

Its been funny watching my daughter as she reads more and more of the comics. She was fine at the beginning and now she keeps complaining how Hourman is "wrong."

And I say, "Do you feel my pain now?"

Jeff

Are you guys reading through just Johns' JSA or also Stars and STRIPE?

I think the pain would be greater if CW tried to adapt Robinson's Starman. That might work on AMC or HBO.

S01E06 "The Justice Society"

Pat finally learns that Courtney has stolen the JSA costumes and power artifacts to hand out willy-nilly to a bunch of teens she just met days before, and isn't too happy about it. Finally a scene where the characters act somewhat realistically. It won't last.

Courtney tries to get the swag back from Yolanda, Beth and Rick but they won't give it up, it's too important to them now, and they make a decent case for it. And the show makes a decent case for a teenage JSA since the Injustice Society is finally on the move and all those power artifacts are just sitting around collecting dust; somebody should put them to use. Maybe it would have been better if Pat had found some responsible adults instead of teens to become new heroes but that's water under the bridge.

We finally see the semi-friendly Larry "Crusher" Crock in full on beast mode, with his wife Paula, murdering the high school football coach after he benched their daughter for bad sportsmanship. Soon they are called back into action by the ISA and we get to see Sportsmaster and Tigress in all their glory. I'm curious to hear what today's teens think of a villain called Sportsmaster who uses sporting goods as weapons, I always thought it was pretty cheesy in a good way.

Basically Beth's magic Mid-Nite goggles warn them that an evil hacker, the Gambler, is trying to do something nasty on the internet so they ought to go stop him. Stargirl, Wildcat, Hourman and Dr. Mid-Nite finally team up in costume to put a stop to some evil hacking. Sportsmaster and Tigress show up to defend the Gambler and kill the kids. At least Courtney has a super Staff that can do anything like a Green Lantern ring practically, Yolanda was already a trained boxer, and Rick is just a tough kid with a chip on his shoulder; but then there's Beth who is more of a frail computer nerd who seems terribly out of place in a fight scene. I guess that's why they amped up her gimmick with an AI that can think its way out of any situation.

This kind of begs a couple of questions: First, if the original JSA were so powerful, experienced and skilled, then how did the ISA manage to kill them all in one night? And if they did, how will an untrained, inexperienced new JSA hope to beat them?

I was wrong before, the title card at the beginning of episode one made me think the JSA had only been active for a decade, and then was killed a decade ago, so they were only active from 2000-2010. But it did say 'decades' plural and we see that McNider was born in 1914, I think it said, making him almost 100 years old during the 2010 fight scene, so they may very well have fought in WWII still. Which must mean the old JSA did indeed have some of that Ian-Karkull-granted 'added vitality' or a CW equivalent since they all looked to be in their 40s. I wonder if Pat and Sylvester fought the Nebula Man in the 1940s and were brought to this time period like in the comics? But if superheroes have been active for that long on this world, shouldn't the whole town be swarming with metas?

Another question is that once the original JSA were out of the way, why didn't the Injustice Society take over the world right then? Or whatever they're planning to do. I guess the 'New America' plan required them to all set up fake identities in Blue Valley, Nebraska and hang out for 10 years before they could pull the trigger on their plan. The pilot episode showed us that Pat pulled up roots in California to move the family out to Blue Valley probably because he discovered the ISA were there. But then why did the JSA HQ also just happen to be there?

S01E07 “Shiv Part One”

After an unsuccessful training session, the team splits apart for the day. We find out that Mike is jealous of all the time Courtney is spending with his Dad. Henry King Jr. is hearing peoples’ thoughts the way his dad used to and can’t handle going to prom with Cindy, the bully girl with the skunk-streak. Cindy gets partnered up with Courtney in science class and for a second, they might become friends. But then Courtney blows off her after-school invite because she gets asked to prom by some guy.

We follow an increasingly angry Cindy back to her strange home life with a stepmom who seems like a captive and her dad, the Dragon King, running evil experiments in his lair. She eyeballs a supersuit that belonged to her bio-mom but dad says she’s not ready for it. Mad at dad, she steals it anyway.

It all leads to Stargirl fighting Cindy and burning her face off with the Cosmic Staff! Luckily Cindy has a Wolverine healing-factor (or does that attribute belong to the suit?) She ends up stabbing Stargirl and leaving her for dead (holy cliffhanger!) That shifty-looking school janitor comes out with a sword and scares Cindy away and we realize (or maybe realized last episode) that he’s Sir Justin, The Shining Knight (former teammate of Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy in the Seven Soldiers of Victory, let’s see if they make that reference!)

Barbara gets a promotion or a project at least, so now she’ll be working directly for Icicle in his shell company, hopefully she’ll get something to do.

I didn’t realize until just now that James Dale Robinson who has been credited on this series is the same James Robinson from DC Comics who wrote a long run on “Starman” in the 1990s with Jack Knight, invented the Cosmic Staff (based on the older Cosmic Rod and belt) and of course tied all Starmen past and present into one lineage: Ted Knight, Batman/Starman 1951, Mikaal Tomas, Prince Gavyn, Will Payton, Jack Knight, Thom Kallor, and finally Courtney Whitmore. He’s also the one who put Ted Knight in a mental asylum back in "The Golden Age." Thanks, James.

And of course Robinson and Johns were the ones who started the modern JSA comic in 1999 so they bring a lot of comics’ knowledge to this series, let’s hope it pays off!

She started with the Stars and Stripe series, but the first JSA trade takes place between the two trades of that.
I gave her that one too, and she was hooked.

Robinson's Starman is probably the one big "must read" classic series I haven't read.

Jeff

With these two episodes I'm all caught up and I'll have to review these one per week for the rest of the season.

S01E08 "Shiv Part Two"

Either Pat or Sir Justin delivered Courtney to the hospital. Pat covers for it by saying they got in a car crash in his classic car. He says they needed a police report to cover the story. Did he drag Court to the scene of the crash so they could discover her there? Why did he have to hit a tree going 90? That car has no air bags or even shoulder belts, he could have been much more hurt. What if he passed out from the crash and the cops had discovered him alone, then he couldn't have used it as an excuse for her injuries. Maybe he should have crashed at 30 or 40. Maybe I think too much.

Cindy visits Courtney and it's kind of a nice scene where maybe Cindy doesn't know Court is Stargirl and is trying to be friends in the only way an awkward kid raised by a homicidal war criminal can, or maybe she knows Court's secret and is toying with her. Nicely handled.

Meanwhile Rick, Beth and Yolanda go to Cindy's house to snoop around. Pat runs interference with the clueless mom and it's pretty weak. Beth stumbles on a secret tunnel to the evil lair and you assume she'll find something incriminating and barely get out, or not get out. Instead she finds nothing and heads to Cindy's room where she finds something incriminating. So what was the point of the tunnel red herring?

Cindy and Courtney are about to fight in the street but Henry Jr. shows up and his mind powers start to kick in and he breaks it up.

Not too much happened this episode but I'm starting to think that a show about Cindy being raised by a homicidal lunatic lizard-man pretending to fit into normal life in the suburbs would be more interesting.

S01E09 "Brainwave"

We see young Henry Sr. when he first starts experimenting on himself and getting telepathic powers. Back at King Manor, Henry Jr. discovers dad's VHS diary and starts learning about him.

Courtney asks Pat if they should recruit the janitor who saved her. Pat tells her that they served on another team before the JSA, the Seven Soldiers of Victory. That's a deep cut. I didn't think they would bother to mention them. It's even the original group which includes Green Arrow and Speedy, instead of the retcon group with the Spider or Stuff. Color me surprised. Unfortunately that means they also have to address the elephant in the room that there are eight members of the Seven Soldiers but Wing didn't count because he was Chinese. Oof.

Courtney goes against the team's wishes and tries to recruit Brainwave Jr. but he's not ready to join, he has too much affection for his abusive father. Yolanda tries to kill him because he published her sext photo which seems like an overreaction and he probably didn't even do it, right? It was probably Cindy.

Henry also finds out that Cindy was only dating him to keep an eye on him for the Dragon King. Henry's got a lot of anger and takes it out on some lawyer, right before dad wakes up.

Barbara also invites Icicle and his family over for family dinner night at the Dugan's. She doesn't know he's a villain but Court starts to figure it out. But then Barb walks in on Court and Pat superheroing in the basement for a cliffhanger ending. They really should have told her the first day.

I think Henry, like Cindy, is almost a more interesting character than any of the JSA kids. Raised by a villain, trying to fit into a normal world.

Stargirl
S01E10 "Brainwave Jr."

We finally know where Henry King Jr. stands by the end of this episode. He learns that his father had trouble with his powers when he first got them, seeing into peoples' minds and the terrible thoughts they harbor. But then Henry Sr. met Merri Pemberton, the Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks, and she made him see the good in people. When she died, he turned to villainy. Henry Jr. is starting to see the good in people thanks to a pep talk from Stargirl so he doesn't want to follow his father's villainous legacy, he wants to redeem his father.

We also see a meet-cute of how Pat and Barbara first got together, and then the fallout of her discovering that Pat and Courtney have a secret life as superheroes that might get her daughter killed. Her reactions are fairly normal, meaning she asks Pat to get out and not speak to her daughter again. She also doesn't buy that her nice-guy boss Jordan Mahkent is actually the evil Icicle, but by the end of the episode she's considering the possibility.

Poor Cindy is largely forgotten as our new JSA storms the Dragon King's underground lair looking for answers; she waits in the holding cell her father placed her in screaming "let me out Daddy so I can kill Stargirl!" I wonder what Dragon King's hooded zombie dudes are all about, just cannon fodder of course, but creepy.

The JSA went there because Icicle is holding Brainwave Senior, and Junior convinces the team to try to save him. Rick simply wants to get a shot at Solomon Grundy who killed his parents. Grundy is held in another cell with a door like a bank vault and Rick tears a corner of it open before getting called away to help the rest of the team. I'm pretty sure the next time we see that door it will be off its hinges.

But it turns out Brainwave Sr. prefers the evil life and ends up chasing the JSA until Junior makes a sacrifice play to cover their escape. I suspect that will not be the last we see of him.

And little brother Mike is now mad at everyone for not cluing him in on what's happening, and we left him at Pat's garage. Will he climb inside STRIPE at some point and starting helping out?

There aren't many episodes left. I still say its a weird mix of jamming in a lot of stuff, but having the main plot go too slow.
Plus the standard high school angsty stuff is getting in the way of super hero stuff.

I'm not giving up yet, but I'm hoping more and more for the return of the "real" JSA to help straighten these young-un's out.

Jeff
www.dogfoodtochairs.com

Think thus is set up on Earth 2, One that sirvived crisis, but not same one as in Arrowverse, and did read where they want SG and SG meet up nect season, as in gal power!

Will little Mickie be getting the Imp pen now?

And hourman still looked like a jerk, willing to sacriface his entire team to get at Grundy!

And brain wave looks like a combo of Charles and jean. as as Force fields, Tk and Tp!

loved them showing off though her acrobatic fighting skills!

Is that what happened? Most of the action scenes were so dark I couldn't see anything but the staff flying around.

Jeff

It probably would make sense for Mike to get the Imp. They teased us by mentioning Jakeem and we saw Cindy's friend, Jenny Williams, possibly Jakeem's sister? But those might be red herrings. It would give Mike something to do.

I don't really remember Brainwave's powers from the comics. Jr. could read minds and he was also responsible for wiping Guru's memories of Earth-2 after the Crisis so she wouldn't miss her parents, I think. But I don't remember any TK.

Well they introduced The Fiddler who was responsible for the original "Flash of Two Worlds" coming together, so maybe that will be their gimmick for meeting.

Think have little brother able to use most powerful being on their earth would be something, and brainwave looks like most dangerous and powerful member of their gang!

Ir can always just have Mxy show up to have some fun!

Maybe can have this as a meeting between him and the Imp of jsa!

S01E11 “Shining Knight”

Some of the others here on the board talked about decompression, and boy I sure felt it this episode.

We start off with a tease of learning about Justin, the Shining Knight, but he has amnesia so he can't tell us much. We wait for him to meet up with Stripesy, the one person he remembers, so that he can get his memories back. When he does meet Stripesy, the memories do not come back, at least not much. We get no origin of Justin at least not in flashback form, like we got with Brainwave. Instead Justin just says King Arthur was done with Excalibur so he gave it to me. Okay. I was hoping to see Justin suit up as a hero, maybe as the final shot of the episode leading into the two-part season finale. But no, they are saving that for later. If ever.

Rick, Beth, and Yolanda do basically nothing in this episode. No sign of Sportsmaster, Tigress, Dragon King or Cindy (Shiv). Brainwave confronts Icicle about the New America project. Mostly he says he knows Stargirl's identity so they should kill her; after all, Brainwave killed his own wife and son to be part of the ISA. Icicle says no, and Brainwave says … we'll talk about it later. Always later. Got to pad out this already short season?

Courtney can't get the Cosmic Staff to light up anymore and she decides that's happening because it found out she's not Starman's daughter, although it started that behavior before it found out? She only finds out when her bio-dad shows up and they spend most of the episode skipping school to have some bonding time. After spending about half the episode building up what a nice dad he could be, he turns out to only be visiting to wring some money out of poor Court. The only real value of this red-herring story is that Pat gets to knock the guy out (should have taken the locket back) and Court gets her confidence back, which she wouldn't have lost, if Dad hadn't showed up? Making this a pointless filler episode.

If anyone binges this show, this is one skippable episode.

So the Knight is 1500 years old, and Brainwave absorbed sons power, so is really [powerful now?

And when is that Imp getting out of the pen, maybe at end of season,m as SG little bro gets to unleash him to undo the evil plans?

I felt like they were trying so hard to squeeze in some scenes directly from the comics that they forgot to tell the story.

Jeff
www.dogfoodforchairs.com

Johns' best story with the Imp was probably "Stealing Thunder" where the Ultra-Humanite put his brain into Johnny Thunder so that he could steal the pen from Jakeem. So I'll call it now -- the season ends with Brainwave defeated, but his consciousness goes into Mike and he uses him to get the pen and take over America. Leading into season 2 where the heroes have to band together to win back America.

Nah, sounds too complicated.

They could have had time to film a stinger like that...
It got renewed pretty early.

Here's hoping they weren't too optimistic and give us a full story with beginning middle and end this season.

Jeff
www.dogfoodforchairs.com

That would make for a good season ender, a;most as in to be be continued, and maybe that Imp amd Mxy will be the reason kara and SG can meet next season?

Any rules with the use of the Imp in the pen, as in certain things cannot do?

Good question. I always felt the original incarnation was the most powerful being in existence but limited by the fact that his master, Johnny Thunder, was kind of a dim bulb. However, DC Fandom has this to say: He cannot be ordered to kill, he must interpret commands literally so you have to be careful how you speak, and as an electrical being he is vulnerable to water.

They also add that his summoning word, "Cei-U" pronounced "Say You" (or "So Cool" is close enough) is actually what his name Yz sounds like backwards. So can he be banished by saying his name forwards, sort an inverse Mxyzptlk?

A full story with an end would be nice, but leave the future open for more adventures. A cliffhanger might be a little too optimistic. A first season that ends on a cliffhanger can often cause some regret if the show gets cancelled. Better to save that kind of thing for a later season, I suppose.

I just feel like while they introduced the magical pen, there isn't really time to use it properly this season, so they should just do something to tease it for season 2 (if it comes to that). I'd rather see the Shining Knight actually used properly since they have spent more time setting him up.