After watching an action thriller series, I was in the mood for some series based on comic books. This time I wanted to give a DC comics adaption a try. I came across this one when I was reading list of all comic books adapted into TV series and I was intrigued by the premise. What was it about? Let's find out more below.
Brief Story Line
Story was set in the planet Krypton many years before the events of Kal-El aka Superman was sent to earth. The series focused on his grandfather Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe) whose family House of El was stripped of their rank. It was all due to Seg's grandfather Val-El (Ian McElhinney - Game of Thrones TV series etc) persistence not to share important information to the government. Growing up, Seg had to work odd jobs and befriended with a bar owner named Kem (Rasmus Hardiker).
Seg-El with his family and friends lived in Kandor city under the leadership of Chief Magistrate Daron-Vex (Elliot Cowan). There were various guilds in Kandor such as the Military Guild under Jayna-Zod (Ann Ogbomo) who was the highest ranked in the military. She had high hopes of her daughter Lyta-Zod (Georgina Campbell) who also served in the military and was engaged with Commander Dev-Em (Aaron Pierre).
When Seg-El got a visit by someone named Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos - Melrose Place TV series), his whole life would changed drastically. After an incident during a ceremony, Seg-El also become entangled in the political turmoil where he met with Daron's daughter Nyssa-Vex (Wallis Day). Things also got further complicated when Seg got involved with the rebel group called Black Zero, especially with one of their mysterious leader (Colin Salmon).
So what would happen to Seg-El in his complicated life and how would it linked to the future grandson of his? Find them all in this interesting prequel series of Superman.
End of Brief Story Line
Ok, honestly this series seemed to have sooo many cast and it was a bit hard to keep track in the early part. However, it did not take long for me to grasp the plot as it was not really complicated, despite having large cast. What interested me while watching this series was the appearance of some characters who would later on had impact on the Superman stories that I loved for so many years. Superman was 1 of the oldest superhero that I had known and obviously it gave me sentimental feeling. Which is why anything related to Superman, be it movies or TV series adaptation, I would love to find out.
This series did give me some excitement, especially the characters development. I thought the idea of showing us Superman's grandfather during his early days in the planet before it was destroyed was awesome. We would get to see his history and I thought the plot of involving Adam Strange was quite smart. I would not want to get into too much detail of him, other than he was one of the character in DC comics which had influence in Superman's life (obviously comic book readers would know what I meant). Aside from those, there were also super villains whom we also know in Superman's stories shown in this first season, which made it interesting as well.
When I watched the first few episodes, I thought it had quite fast pace and the story was pretty intriguing. However, later on the story was developing into something less interesting and it did become slower. But since episode 6 onwards, the story picked up the pace again and we got few twists that indeed surprised me. The finale episode though, was a bit peculiar. I thought the early part was not intense enough. Half way through it only, we got more suspense and it had an awesome ending worthy of being a season finale and it successfully made me anxious to wait for second season.
For a TV series, the special effects were pretty decent. There were some nice visual effects (loved the one in the finale episode), but there were also parts which were not too spectacular, especially those scenes during snow storm which looked too obvious done in studio. I like the main lead Seg-El who was charming and a likable character, though I thought his love interest story were probably too much. There was also 1 surprising scene/twist which I personally felt a bit ridiculous in episode 9 (apparently this kind of plot was told in 1 of Superman's comic, at least according to Wikipedia). Other characters that I thought was quite nice were Seg's best friend Kem who added some touches of fun, Nyssa-Vex whom I thought was an interesting character and obviously Seg's grandfather Val-El.
Overall I thought that this series was quite OK. It may not be the best comic book adaptation but it did have the rather gloomy, dark and heavy tone which DC comics had in term of movie & TV adaptations. There were few tragic moments that were typical DC which I had gotten used to. It was nice to see Kal-El's origin family and it was certainly kept interesting with the appearance of characters we know from the Superman stories. Those interested in the story before Superman, can definitely give it a try. But if you are interested in the more cheerful or light superhero stories or prefer the story of Superman himself, then you would not like this one. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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