Is it just me, or are they finding ways to “de-power” the power heroes on the DC shows… follow me…
Hawkman and Hawkwoman are gone
Firestorm is gone
Kid Flash is gone (which is a shame because I really liked Wally)
Steel is hardly on the show and when he is he hardly turns into Steel
Same thing for Ray…he is hardly ever “the Atom” any more.
Killer Frost…gone
Amari hardly does anything
Both Constantine and Vibe have been nipped in the bud…and their powers are semi-useful
Elongated Man effects are “iffy” at best
Where is Grodd?
In essence…where are the effects? Are their budgets being slashed???
You have to realize, the effects and costumes are expensive. There’s a reason why every CW show is shot in Vancouver. These shows are made on a cable network budget. WB/DC doesn’t have Disney money to throw at these and they don’t see a reason to, yet.
Now to answer the why in why those characters are gone:
Hawkman and Hawkwoman sucked as characters. They were easily, along with Vandal Savage, the weakest part of Legends of Tomorrow. There’s a reason the show took off in its second season, because it cut it’s weakest links.
Firestorm is only gone because Victor Garber is getting up there in age and I imagine wants to relax rather than work on a show for half a year. They could still have used the character as there have been many halves to Firestorm in the past, but Franz Drameh is an English native and probably didn’t like being away from home for so long.
Kid Flash’s departure was pretty much out of nowhere, because Keiynan Lonsdale basically wanted to take a personal break. He said he’s not done playing Kid Flash, but he wasn’t going to stick around for the current seasons.
Citizen Steel’s power is basically all CG work and thus was expensive so they barely used his power for more than a few seconds an episode anyway. Right now, they’re clearly doing some kind of story arc with him at the Time Bureau so we’ll see what happens.
Ray’s costume is probably one of the more expensive ones so they prefer he not use it very often, especially considering whenever he does use the suit to shrink or shoot things, it’s more CG work.
Killer Frost, again, more CG work, and honestly I prefer that she’s not as active, because I don’t think the Flash should have a “team”.
Amay’s Vixen left the show, but the actress came back for this season so who knows what they’re doing.
I think Cisco is better relegated to comedy, that’s when he’s at his best, and I agree about Constantine; his character is wasted on a show as comedic as Legends.
I’m actually amazed that Ralph’s powers look as good as they do, especially with the frequency in which he uses them.
Grodd is all CG, and there isn’t much they can do with a character that’s done what he’s done in the comics on a small budget; I mean the Gorilla City episode was bitterly disappointing.
The crazy thing is, most people (including me) haven’t noticed this or at least I haven’t seen people noticing it. Which means, the characters are developed enough that they don’t need flashy effects to keep their audiences.
Mr Pisces… They could have written around Stein’s departure, and you know it. The real answer is one given beneath yours; budget. And it is a good one but I have an answer; stop with the new shows and consolidate.
Oh, and by the way…,Titans is made for a streaming service and the FX on that show have been pretty good.
I’ve noticed it particularly on Legends. Plus they’ve added a bunch of non-powered (and non-DC) characters to the cast also - Ava, Gary, Nora, Shape shifter). Why not use some existing DC characters instead?
I believe main cast members are supposed to get a raise every year along with producers, I think it does come out of the budget for the episodes. In time it gets more & more difficult in my opinion. Similar things happened on Smallville. Show runners left the show so it could survive, new producers took over. As part of the way Tom Welling would get a pay increase he got producing credits. Expect certain cast members to leave so the show can keep their budget.
To add, Victor Garber left Legends of Tomorrow because he wanted to return to broadway. I think Franz (Jax) left because he and his wife had a baby. The special effects they use on these shows are expensive. The CW shows’ budget are not like the movies. They probably don’t want to use their entire budget on special effects, so they try to minimize the amount of time that Ray uses his Atom suit, etc. It’s a shame because we all want to see these heroes use their powers, but I think these shows have done a good job in working around the budget issues.
Ava is not in the comics (unless I forgot someone)
XS is not in the comics
Alezx Dangers is not in the comics
White Canary is like her comic counterpart in name only and when did she become iconic?
Or is Captain Cold iconic now? Because anyone who hasn’t read the Flash comic probably never heard of him before Legends… and that was an AU version
I wasn’t aware Ray is iconic? Anyone… Ray iconic?
XS is not in the comics…
Now Batwoman… is not iconic… but in the comics… she is gay too.
So where are these iconic characters they are “gaying up”. Most of the gay/lesbian characters in the shows are not even from the comics, and the ones who are are hardly iconic unless the D list became iconic. Must have missed the episode where Flash and Superman made out.
Seriously, I agree DC shows and especially Supergirl try to hard to pander to SJW’s but gay people do exist, I don’t think making a few characters few people but hardcore DC fans even heard of gay (when it isn’t original characters like it usually is) is “unforgivable”.
I agree with everything you said except I loved the Gorilla City episode on flash. True it could’ve been more “comic-like”, but at least I finally got to see it in live action. I’m sure you’re right about the budgets. They exploded on CW with so many shows they had to think of every storyline of every show & how it would intersect with the rest of their shows before writing 1 episode of 1 of their shows. I also agree with @JLWWSM about how they managed to make all the shows watchable, despite the budget cuts etc… Which, basically, you were saying the same thing when u concluded your post from what I grasped.