I have a feeling we’re at the beginning of a great comic book fan debate for the next few years. What is the better show; ARROW or SHIELD? I can nitpick with the best of them and neither show has a full on endorsement from me, but it can be unfair in trying to say what show is better at this point in both shows. When I look at some of the comments about the comparison of both shows, there are some nagging fan forgiveness and anger that surfaces.

The obvious unfair comparison has to do with both shows being in different cycles of television life. Take a show like SCANDAL. There was no love for SCANDAL in season one, but by the winter break of season two, the show became a hit for ABC. They had a rough first season, regrouped for season two and the changes and focus paid off for viewers.

Arrow TV Show

ARROW wasn’t a good show with season one. It could be argued that from the winter break to the season finale there was improvement, but the show survived because it was on the CW. For all the fans who are happy about the colorful cast of costumed characters and references to the DC universe in this season, the same fans hated that the producers were rather direct in saying they didn’t want ARROW to be a ‘costume’ show. C’mon, when you change the name of the city from Star City to Starling City and the main character is called The Hood, to me it sends a signal to the comic book fan that they don’t want to do a comic book TV show, whatever that is. However, there may have been a method to their madness in retrospect. ARROW is on the CW which means, and yes we have to say it out loud, the show will showcase wanna be models. If you check the ratings and some of the more prominent review sites, when Oliver Queen took off his shirt and/or worked out shirtless, there was buzz online and a bump in the ratings. A small bump to be sure, but that bump got people to watch. The love triangle between Laurel, Oliver and Tommy also was a boom to the show’s ratings.

The dirty little secret about high adventure shows like REVOLUTION, ARROW and SHIELD is that the core fan base for those shows will tune in no matter how bad the material is. Well, OK, there is a saturation point but look at what happened with REVOLUTION. That show has gone all over the map, there were millions of complaints every week about the show in its first season, and it got renewed.

So, going back to ARROW, since it got renewed, and for the CW the ratings were quite good, the show was been able to branch out with the hero factor. However, there is one other big factor that has helped ARROW, at this point, be the darling of the superhero fan set. Half of the CW is owned by Warner Bros, the same company that owns DC Comics, so access to the vast library of DC characters is possible for the folks at ARROW. Unlike the days of SMALLVILLE, DC Comics now has a coordinated effort to get their characters on as many media platforms as possible.

Agents of SHIELD

Surprisingly, the same can’t be said for SHIELD. OK, I know a bunch of people are going to say Marvel is owned by Disney which owns ABC TV so access to heroes from Marvel Comics should be easy. Well, not so much. You have to remember that before Disney bought Marvel, Marvel was trying to get any studio to use their characters. In some of those sales, a whole book line of heroes and villains were sold to a rival studio. Think about this, in SHIELD there has been no mention of mutants. Mutants can’t be mentioned on the show because Fox has the X-Men and their heroes and villains base cannot be used by anyone else. So right now, you can’t refer to mutants on SHIELD. Here’s another example that makes the point; I’m pretty sure I have never heard adamantium mentioned as a material element on SHIELD. I have heard vibranium mentioned a few times but not adamantium. Adamantium is associated with Wolverine, not currently under contract with Disney.

Another SHIELD hindrance is the expectation placed on the show. You have what is essentially a spin-off of a billion dollar earning movie on a major network, produced by the owners of the network who also own the movie and the comics the movie and show are based on. We as comic book people love to think we have arrived, that we can let out geek flag fly and all is right with the world, but truth be told we aren’t there yet. The sad reality of media production is the people with the money make the rules. The more money at stake, the more risk there is, and the more cautious the production will be. Why do you think so many superhero movie start off with origins? The reboot of Spider-Man did an origin story, why? The people with the money want to put their own stamp on a project is one reason. The other reason is while they know there are fans out there who will see a superhero movie or TV show, they are looking for that audience beyond the core audience. Those are the people who might decide to buy the comic book or watch the spin-off movie or TV show. We are already geared in for it.

The CW is a small network and ARROW is a small enough character that he can be changed into what he is on TV, and the money people knew if they could get the base CW audience, the ones that watch The Vampire Diaries, to watch ARROW because of the love story and the biceps, it would augment the already built in comic book fans. The problem SHIELD is facing is ABC is a major network player, so they have to be all things to all people. They have to be the funny show, the family show, the adventure show, the love story, the goofy humor show and that is tough to do when you are basing that on the premise of a secret spy organization that goes around the world, sometimes not being nice. Anyone watching SHEILD has to notice the creepy slightly evil government aspect to it. SHIELD isn’t the BAU of Criminal Minds, where that team is asked to come in and cooperate with the authorities. Watch any procedural show and you can see where SHIELD is higher than the Feds. When the Feds come in they take over from local authorities and there is resentment by the locals of the outsiders taking over.

Actually, having a ruthless SHIELD show could be quite interesting, and there was an attempt to show some ruthlessness in an episode where to only way to take down the newly created fire villain was to kill him. That only lasted a few minutes because showing SHIELD, a government agency, as bad doesn’t play well with Middle America.

So my guess will be SHIELD will continue to have a rocky first season as it figures out a way to balance all the elements it is contending with. Don’t bet on superheroes making an appearance, at least in the first season. If the ratings can improve, if the fans warm up to it and if the show can pick up non-fans in the process, it has a chance of getting a second season and maybe that will allow it to branch out more. If not, considering fans are looking for costumed heroes every few weeks, more will flock to CW and ARROW.

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Which is Better? SHIELD vs ARROW - November 22, 2013
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