I already know what some people reading this are going to say. I’ll be accused of not growing up, or having Peter Pan Syndrome, or some other crap. “You’re 50 years old (though you don’t look it)! Why are you watching superhero shows for five-year-olds? You should watch the stuff made for your age group and like it!”
Oh, you mean the shows that never heard of primary colors or sunlight? The ones where everyone are angsty and brooding revenge seekers? The ones that try to NOT be a superhero show whenever possible? One that couldn’t care less about getting anything right about the source material? If I were going to watch superhero shows for grown-ups I’d go back to the 1970s to maybe mid 1990s, when superhero shows for grown-ups were superhero shows. Or maybe go father back and watch the ones for older kids, a demographic that today has no superhero shows unless you count Power Rangers, which is moving to Netflix and thus will probably lose a bunch of audience, and the Lauren Faust version of DC Superhero Girls, which is just Friendship Is Magic with characters better done by Shea Fontana. No offense to Faust but you should have made Super Best Friends Forever again because that looked less like you were ripping yourself off…not that I’d be surprised if that’s just what Cartoon Network asked for because they ain’t too bright up in the CN offices lately.
Look, I have my limits when it comes to kids TV. Don’t even try to get me to watch Cocomelon or anything involving baby sharks (I have somehow managed to avoid the full version of that song for years) because even I can’t deal with those shows. However, my philosophy has always been “a good story is where you find it”, and demographics will not decide what’s “made for me”. I refer you to the previous mention of Shea Fontana’s version of DC Superhero Girls or the numerous articles mentioning Paw Patrol and other Nick Jr and Disney Jr shows. I’m also not the only adult watching Bluey despite not having kids because it’s a well-written show for kids and their parents. You think “Fairytale”, the episode where Bandit tells his daughters about growing up in the 1980s didn’t have parents in mind?
I therefore present the following commentary: that kids are getting better superhero shows than adults are, or rather preschool and early elementary school kids are because the older kids are getting diddly squat right now. I don’t expect adult superhero stories to become exactly like them because then they’d be kids shows. That said, there are reasons I prefer to watch these younger shows, and there are lessons “adult” superhero shows could take from them.
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