CW's Flash

Also, Iris lacks the major issue with characters like Barbara or pretty much all of the Arrow love interests of being a walking Conflict Ball that only seems to have input in regards to making needless drama. While there are conflicts centered around Iris, she has her own plotline and is more often allowed to contribute to the main plot without that contribution just causing melodrama.

From I've gathered, in the first season weren't any major issues with Lana, the problem came from her being a blatant creator's pet later on.

Lana was always a creator's pet. She was slightly better in the first season because there wasn't as much a focus on her, but every single supervillain seemed to want to kidnap her. This got annoying because it happened nearly every single episode.

Wasn't there a joke in the fandom that it happened to her and Chloe?

Iris actually does stuff for herself, and she's a reasonably strong female lead. Laurel used to do stuff for herself, before she became character diarrhea in season 2. Barbara was always horribly written, from episode one. I never watched enough of Smallville to say much about Lana.

Lana was a victim of Smallville's reluctance to embrace change.

Her initial role was to be the girl Clark had a crush on, but could never make any headway with because he couldn't tell her his secret, and the sheer amount of flimsy lies he had to tell to keep that secret naturally made her suspicious. That lasted for roughly five seasons; that is a long time to keep characters in perpetually frustrated mode.

Laurel has gotten better after she got sober and was attending meetings. I personally think her character has been great but she is no longer a love interest so hopefully she shouldn't fall back into those type of character traps.

Honestly, I've had few issues with Iris as a character so far. She got hate, but I feel like she's a decent character. Her biggest suffering is that this is a CW show that needs jealousy angles.

Laurel also isn't anywhere near as bad at the whole Conflict Ball thing as Sara is/was, who in turn wasn't as bad as Felicity turned into in Arrow Season 3.

Arrow has a real problem with writing it's female characters, but especially whichever character is the love interest at the time, as walking melodrama. Even Thea is like that to an extent.

IIRC, at least some of Iris' hate came from people being reminded of these characters and thus assuming that she was going to have the same flaws, but then it didn't quite turn out that way.

edited 31st Aug '15 7:20:56 AM by KnownUnknown

I think part of that, also, was that the Flash writers saw what didn't work on Arrow and tried to correct that with Iris. There were still problems, but not as many and most of them were fixed by the end of the season.

Let's get to the root of the problem. The CW doesn't know how to develop female characters, because most of its programming caters to women who are mostly interested in seeing oversexualized men.

edited 31st Aug '15 10:39:11 AM by SpaceWolf

The CW is a network, they don't control the writers.

Also, iZombie would beg to differ.

edited 31st Aug '15 10:55:20 AM by alliterator

Networks do mandate and control a lot about the content of the shows they air (they are typically a major source of Executive Meddling), but I wouldn't necessarily be so quick to blame them (or at least, not only them) in this case.

edited 31st Aug '15 11:05:04 AM by KnownUnknown

I'd say the CW is decent when it comes to female characters who aren't love interests to the main male protagonist.

Sounds about right to me.

I think the CW is trying to get out of that stereotype they had. The former president of the CW hated shows like Smallville and Supernatural and she tried to sabotage them by moving the dates around and putting them on Friday but she couldn't cancel them because the ratings were good for the network. She also only picked up shows that interested her.

The current president of the CW is responsible for more genre shows and trying to get away from shows it was known for since he took over. He still picks up some shows like they used to but that is because that was what people thought of when they thought CW.

Tony Todd will be voicing Zoom.

Perfect. He should be the trope codifier for Badass Baritone and Scary Black Man, so his voice is a great creepy fit.

edited 31st Aug '15 2:03:12 PM by comicwriter

edited 31st Aug '15 2:04:52 PM by Halberdier17

Well, that's interesting.

Maybe Zoom is a composite of Zolomon and Daniel West in this continuity. That could possibly tie him into Wally's character arc as well, depending on how they decide to write it.

edited 31st Aug '15 2:22:44 PM by KnownUnknown

I'd be down for that.

Zoom was Wally's enemy, while the Reverse Flash was Barry's so they could be setting us up to see that rivalry instead.

Zoom and Professor Zoom are both Reverse Flashes.

Each Speedster has a "Reverse Flash"

Professor Zoom is Eobard Thawne while Zoom is canonically Hunter Zolomon.

Edit* New promotional art for Season 2 featuring Jay Garrick's helmet◊

edited 31st Aug '15 3:25:06 PM by Halberdier17

I wonder if Wally's origin story is a major arc of s2. I really hope so.

I wonder what explanation they'll use for how Jay Garrick's helmet stays on.

"Speed Force, son."

Duct tape.