I never like reviewing TV shows when they first come out. Initial bumps could be worked out and create an intriguing show (Seinfeld) or an out of the gate fast runner could end up being a dud (Heroes). It's been a couple of months since these shows have been on the air and here is my assessment of them.

The Cape:

Like No Ordinary Family I want to like the show. I want to have a good superhero show, OK I'll settle for an entertaining superhero show, but shows like this seem to be made by people who attend Comicon once. They get a basic idea of what is going on, the surface flavor, but they don't get the style, the inside jokes, the internal logic of what comic books are about. It would be like if someone who has never seen a romantic comedy sits down for a weekend, watches a few of them, then is tasked to create one themselves. They might get the cliches but they will not have anything that fans of romcom will like and they definitely won't hook in new people to watch it.

The Cape gives a good try in embracing the fact they are a comic book, but then goes over the top with what they think are comic book moments. In shows like this, the biggest problems creators have is in making a show that works with their own internal logic. If we are to believe the logic of the show, and this illustrates the big problem I see with the show, the man who becomes The Cape is a former police officer, a detective I believe, who is supposedly the mastermind known as Chess. Now, he supposedly died, caught on tape, in an explosion. His family, a wife and a son, are outed, as it were, meaning it was broadcast who the cop was and thus who is wife and kid are. It is so well known that when the kid went to a new school, in the same city (logic problem there) the kids, and we are talking 10 year old kids, put chess pieces in his desk. Now, that's just the set up. Somehow the policeman's wife, who in the first episode is just presented as a wife and nothing more, ends up by the third episode working for the public defender's office.

Take some time to wrap that around your brain. At least in The Good Wife, it took years for that character to work for a high end law firm, and even that wasn't easy going. In The Cape, with a wife who has given no indications of being a lawyer, not only becomes one but gets a job AFTER the city believes her husband is a criminal mastermind. Even if she had a job as a lawyer before, how in the world would she keep her job? Why would clients even go to her? What about her relationship to the court? If her son is going to be harassed by ten year old kids, can you imagine what adults might do?

This show has logic issues like this popping up over and over again and it detracts from what might be an entertaining show. I give the show credit for embracing the superhero genre but it doesn't know superheroes or how they work, which is the downfall of the show for me.

Batman: Brave and the Bold:

I like my Batman brooding, dark and dangerous, so when I heard about this take, all I could think about was the 60's Batman. No thanks I thought. I saw a little of the first episode and was turned off by the art style and what I thought was the goofiness of the show. How could you go from Batman: The Animated Series and the new, rebooted serious Batman to this throwback?

It has been over two years and I had someone ask me if I saw the show. They insisted I should give it a second chance. I did and I'm glad I did! This show is does what The Cape and No Ordinary Family doesn't do. It was created by people who know comics, so they can poke fun gently, tweak and otherwise work within the comic book medium but present something new and fresh. This is the type of cartoon that becomes a classic because kids can watch it and love it and parents can watch and get some of the inside jokes. For a show that makes Aquaman seem cool, you know the writers are on the ball.

Give this one a shot.

Young Justice:

This show I would have to put on a mix between The Cape and Brave and the Bold. There have been some issues for me, but the show has only aired a few episodes. I like it because it has improved with each episode and since it's the same team that has worked on JLU, BatB and others, I know they know the characters and any qualms I have now will either be explained or will be worked out.

This isn't Teen Titans, which I was worried it would be. The animation style is closer to JLU which is a blessing. I don't minds hints of anime but when it gets to the Teen Titans style I just get sick. The show does skirt the kids/teenager line, meaning it wants to be for teenagers but still has some kid actions, but it seems in subsequent episodes they have lessened this. Now, I will say this, the Kid Flash hitting on every female thing is getting old hat. I kind of get how he could be this way (he's a teenage kid who hangs around women like Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Starfire, who have bodies that make Playboy models look anorexic) but tone it down please. Now, what I am digging is the Superman / Superboy tension. For those out of the comic book loop, in this version of the story, Superboy is a clone of Superman, created by renegade scientists. Superman is a bit freaked out by having this clone of himself running around and even though he is the best person to train and mentor him, Superman has been downright reluctant to even acknowledge the kid. It has been a fun thing to explore. This show looks like a winner.