Sunday, January 09, 2011

The Cape


So, yeah, I'm a sucker for comic book masked crime fighters -- not, in this case, super-heroes, and yes, there is a difference. Spider Man is a super-hero who wears a mask. Batman is but a masked crime fighter. You do see why, don't you?


Anyway, so I watched the premiere of NBC's The Cape tonight.


It had great promise ...


Didn't deliver it for me. Too on-the-nose -- scroll down a few days on the blog and you'll see what that means, if you don't already know. 


I like the Obi-wan character, the circus master, played by Keith David -- he used to do voices on a Disney toon I wrote for, Gargoyles. Good actor. But overall, I won't be putting this one on my must-watch list.


Too bad. 


I expect that Robocop, Spawn, and The Destroyer, just to name the first three that spring to mind, could call the po-lice and get The Cape's writers arrested for theft, too. If there was something in the show not swiped from one of those, I missed it.


My collaborator Reaves once wrote a duology featuring a cloak-fighter. His guy was better. Out-of-print, but if you can find copies of The Shattered World and The Burning Realm, pick 'em up. 

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Ah, the "Cloak Fighter"? I remember that character. It was very good and I did like the way he(Perry) set it up...like a dervish with shards at the edge of the cloak, I think.

I did not think of that while I was watching The Cape but I did have the same thought as you with the parallels with the movies you mentioned :)

Lately, I have had the feeling that nothing really original has shown up in movies and television shows out of that industry. I do feel that originality from Hollywood does seem to be dropping off...

Just my thoughts...

Steve Perry said...

Actually, while I'd like to take credit for it, it was Reaves's books where the cloakfighter showed up, not mine.

Easy mistake, since we've written a lot of stuff together.

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Thanks...sorry 'bout that. Thinking him and writing you :)

Also I don't see that many movies overall so my opinion is, to say the least...skewed.