(jazz music)
- Hey, what are you reading there?
- A proper newspaper.
Do you think we have too many superhero stories?
- Yes.
You, I agree with that.
- I mean I love superheroes as much as the next person
but I just feel like, there are just too many.
- Yeah, definitely too many,
got too many of them.
- I mean with so many superhero comics
and movies and TV shows
it just makes the powerfuls seem less.
- Yeah, it feels like a bit of a stretch to me.
- Powerless!
(drum and bass music)
- If you guys didn't know,
Powerless is the first comedy series set in the DC Universe.
Vanessa Hudgens plays Emily,
a spunky young insurance adjuster specializing,
wait nope,
that is wrong,
that is the synopsis for the original show
before they changed it into what it is today.
But fun fact, the synopsis is still up
on the official NBC website right now.
Nobody tell them.
Let, they're just gonna keep it there
for as long as possible.
The actual synopsis for the show we ended up getting,
is that Emily Locke is the director
of research and development at Wayne Security.
Along with her team,
they make products that allow civilian life in Charm City
to be more bearable
as they're constantly faced with superheroes
and supervillains fighting all the time.
- And it has the best title sequence
and it perfectly embodies the bystander story.
It zooms in past the superheroes
to focus in on the civilians caught in the action.
So when you think of bystander stories
you'd probably think of Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen
or Agents of Shield.
But by definition,
those aren't technically bystander stories.
In Peter Coogan's book
Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre,
he defines bystander stories
as stories that "decentralize the hero.
"The bystander protagonists are generally not members
"of the superhero's supporting cast.
"In bystander stories the tellers are peripheral
"to the superhero action,
"they are witnesses to it,
"but usually to only a small part of it."
End quote.
- With this definition you can see
that bystanders stories as a TV show,
it's kind of a rare thing that Powerless is doing.
But there have been comicbooks
that show the bystander side of superheroes.
Just to list a couple of examples,
there's Deadline, the Marvel miniseries.
Gotham Central focuses on the cops instead of Batman.
Civil War: Front Line focuses on reporters
during Marvel Civil War.
There was The Silent Night of the Batman
Christmas Special Comic
that I actually talked about a couple years ago.
But probably most famously is the Marvels Miniseries
by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross.
This features classic iconic Marvel moments
but instead of being seen from the hero's perspective,
it's seen from the perspective of photographer Phil Sheldon.
In the comic, Sheldon explains his experience and feelings
seeing these superheroes.
Quote, "Marvels, I called them, and that's what they were.
"Next to that, what were we?
"Before they came, we were so big, so grand,
"we were Americans, young, strong, vital!
"We were the ones who got things done.
"But we'd gotten smaller.
"I could see it in those same faces.
"Faces that had once been so confident, so brash.
"We weren't the players anymore.
"We were the spectators."
End quote.
In this mindset of superheroes making humans feel smaller
is not anything new to humanity.
As the opening to Batman V Superman points out
with the wonderful Neil deGrasse Tyson
"Every major discovery has made humans
"feel smaller than we are
"or that we previously thought we were."
First we thought Earth was the center of everything
but no it's not.
Then we thought humans were this special kind of creature
but really we're just another animal on this planet.
And then here comes superheroes
to question our entire existence.
We're not even special on our own planet.
- It's kind of the importance of having bystander stories
because we not only get to see these characters
that are larger than life do amazing things
but we get to see the significance
of what those amazing things mean to us as people.
But the sheer volume of superhero comics,
TV shows, and movies being released
great superhero feats kind of become commonplace.
We've become a little desensitized.
To quote Syndrome from the Incredibles,
- When everyone's super (laughing)
no one will be.
- We need juxtaposition to understand
the sheer volume and magnitude of these super feats.
- So we need these bystander stories
to make humans feel small in comparison to superheroes
to make them feel larger than life as they are.
It adds a bit of texture to a two-dimensional world
filled with nothing but people in tights and capes
doing all sorts of crazy shenanigans.
It acts as a kind of palate cleanser
to remind us just how super these superheroes are.
So take Batman, for example,
I'm sure we all know that Batman doesn't really have
any superpowers in the traditional sense.
He's a guy that goes out
and fights crime dressed as a bat.
But that's information only us the readers know.
To the people who are living in Gotham City,
they don't even know if Batman is a guy
or some creature of the night.
They don't know what he is.
- Hell, I don't know.
I don't even know if he's human, Cris.
All I know is that this city's changing for the better
thanks to him.
- And that ambiguity makes Batman appear
way more super than he actually is.
As Peter Coogan say's, quote,
"Focusing on the very human police officers
"makes the supervillains truly frightening and weird,
"and the superheroes as well."
- And that's what bystander stories do.
They kind of ground us in the reality
that these super feats are happening in something
that should reflect our reality.
One of the fun things about Powerless
is that they exist in the world of superheroes.
If you watch a show like The Flash or The Arrow
and then watch Powerless,
you kind of get to see the world
that these superheroes are fighting to save.
And when you get to see that more,
you kinda see more of what the heroes are fighting for.
- It gives the world a little bit more credibility
if we not only see these fantastic superhero battles
but also see the consequences of their actions.
Going back to the Marvels comic,
Phil Sheldon explains an altercation
between the Sub-Mariner and Human Torch, quote,
"It must have seemed like a glorious aerial ballet.
"Dangerous, beautiful and thrilling.
"And maybe it was.
"But not for us.
"What we saw was carnage and destruction and confusion."
Which is why I think the original concept for Powerless
would have been a much better show.
It was supposed to focus around an insurance company
taking place in the superhero world.
That original concept for the show
was more about the people
who were affected by the ripples
of living in a superhero world
rather than being so closely tied
to the superheroes themselves.
Heck, in the show that we ended up getting,
one of the main characters is related directly to Batman.
By taking a further step back from the superheroes
we give power...
- [Scott and Ricky] To the powerless.
- That's the name of the show.
- You get it.
- I'm proud of what we've done here today.
- Me too!
- Yeah.
I bumped the mic.
(laughing)
- Powerless.
What do you guys think about Powerless?
Are you watching it?
Do you like it?
I think it's just oh, it's fine.
- Yeah, I love the idea of it
but I want more. - Yeah.
We'd also love to know your thoughts about
whether bystander stories
increase the effect that regular superhero stories have,
increase their weight a little bit.
- Yeah.
- Ricky, where can people find you on the internet?
- I was gonna be clever and say on the internet.
- Oh dang.
I beat you to it.
- You did!
You can find me on YouTube at YouTube.com/stewdippin
and you can find me on the podosphere
on the Flashback Flicks: Retro Movie Podcast.
Just search Flashback Flicks and hopefully we show up.
- Thanks for joining.
If you wanna watch more videos
you can click on the screen right now.
I actually have no idea
what video is being recommended to you.
YouTube just says it's the best for you
so I know you'll like it.
I've been Scott, reminding you to read between the panels
and grow smarter--
[Scott and Ricky] Through comics.
See ya.
- [Scott] What?
(Ricky laughing)
Powerless!