I haven't really watched much of The Cape yet...

[alexandraerin]

...but after viewing the first episode, I'm struck by a fierce desire to call Summer Glau's character "Orwecle" how much the part of the title character's gimmick that isn't tied up in the cape matches the original concept behind my character of Ray Vallenzio/The Fire-Eater. I didn't play it up so much in any version of the Star Harbor stories that actually got written, but the idea that someone had the whole package of crimefighting skills packaged as circus/carnival performer training is where the character came from.

I can't claim credit for the idea (and I certainly wouldn't claim that they got the idea from me), because I didn't come up with it. I lifted it wholesale from The Phantom of the Opera. I mean, Erik wasn't a superhero, but that's where I got the idea of using that particular battery of skills to simulate/replace superhuman abilities.

I'm glad I didn't start watching The Cape before I started writing Gift of the Bad Guy, but I'm glad I'm aware of it now... they're two very different takes on the genre/milieu of superheroic fantasy, but the themes of showmanship underlying things in The Cape could be fertile ground for inspiration as the GotBG storyline moves forward.

Comments

[raymond arnold (from livejournal.com)]

Oh man, I really wanted to like the Cape. I like the concept (both of the heroes and the main villain). I love Summer Glau. But something about the execution just makes me completely not care about anyone. I skipped the previous episode. I watched the most recent one because on top of liking Summer Glau and circus heroes and capitalist supervillains I love me some psychic girls, all the moreso when they have fake science that sounds plausible to explain their powers.

And somehow they made that boring too.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

I think I'm pretty successful in liking it so far. It's kind of a mixed bag. Other than the circus schtick* (which doesn't seem original to me in particular, for reasons outlined above), there's nothing that will stand out as terribly original to people who read Bat-family comics. The costumes and production values remind me quite a bit of the 90s Flash show, and that's not a good place for a show to stand (the nostalgia is strong with that one, but it's not very watchable). The comic book-within-the-show is just an awful television cliche of what actual comics are like.

But it's entertaining me. Don't ask me why.

(And the * is there because I know someone will bring up Dick Grayson. Dick Grayson's specifically a circus acrobat. His circus background's an integral part of his character, but the rest of his skills come from training he received by or through Bruce.)

[raymond arnold (from livejournal.com)]

It's not so much that I've been hungering for circus-themed-heroes, but that I like the particular visual style of the way he uses the cape, regardless of where he supposedly learned it. But I couldn't think of a better buzzword to encapsulate the idea so I just said "circus hero."

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't even necessarily ping on you saying that... I was just explaining the circus element as the one thing that stands out as original to me in a discussion of the show's pros and cons.