I actually have a copy of the “Gem” comic. Eclipso #1 came with a 3D “gem” (okay, plastic molded in the shape of a gem) glued on the cover … and it was PURPLE ! . . . 
(Hey, it was from 1992… the 90s were big on comic cover gimmicks)
S02E02 Summer School: Chapter Two
UNEXPECTED ARRIVALS - Still on the lookout for evil in Blue Valley, Courtney grows suspicious after an unexpected visitor shows up at the Dugan house. Meanwhile, Barbara and Pat become concerned after a visit from a mysterious antiques collector named Richard Swift (guest star Jonathan Cake). Elsewhere, Cindy puts her plan in motion.
Well that was a good episode. We officially got a Green Lantern, an Eclipse. and a previously unaccounted for ISA member, The Shade.
I liked Cynthia’s make-up/look as Eclipse and the absorbing of her step-mom.
Also, what’s up with Zeke and his nonchalantness with regards to Stripesy’s robot? Is Zeke someone from the comics or from previous episodes that I just don’t rmember? But I agree the robot totally needed a flame thrower.
There was a group of kids (and one adult) in the middle of the town square holding a green glowing lantern, which blew up, whereupon one of the kids started glowing green while floating in the air. No one in town seemed to notice. So Zeke not batting an eye about Pat’s giant robot and, indeed, affixing a flamethrower to it is about par for the course.
Barbara is apparently still working at American Dream. What is the company doing now that the principal has been shattered into a million pieces?
Zeke appeared in a few episodes of Season 1 as the owner of the local junkyard. I think he was a lot gruffer in his appearances in Season 1. I don’t think he’s a comic book character. I think his total nonchalance is an intentional, comedic, character trait. I think it’s supposed to be weird, and amusing, that he just off-handedly accepts that Pat has a giant robot, and seems to think that all mechanics have something like that they’re working on. Makes one wonder what he has at the junkyard…
That seems to be par for the course for all the CW/DC shows. They generally don’t have the budget or prestige to completely shut down large areas of a city for filming, and don’t seem to even have the budget to composite out background activity, so even during epic supers battles, you can almost always see traffic in the background, and sometimes just pedestrians wandering by. It can get really distracting on the The Flash, which features a lot of fights and disasters and whatnot in the middle of “Central City”, which only seem to be noticed by the residents of the city in a one-block radius. Beyond that, life continues as normal during alien invasions, rips in space/time, super battles, localized super storms, miniature black holes, etc…
They seemed to own most of the town in Season 1, and seemed to be acting as a sort of quasi-public town development corporation, so presumably more or less what they were publicly doing. Barbara references a “board” - it seems like she’s now the CEO, and there is a board of directors. There are real-world quasi-public development corporations like that. American Dream was probably set up as a legitimate corporation, both for the cover a legit operation would provide, and because Icicle in his own twisted way was a responsible idealist, and would have wanted American Dream to continue his “good works” if anything happened to him.
S02E02 Summer School: Chapter Three
JIM GAFFIGAN VOICES THUNDERBOLT IN THIS EPISODE DIRECTED BY LEA THOMPSON - After getting a taste of the superhero life, Mike pleads with Pat to let him join the team. Elsewhere, after seeking help from Thunderbolt, the JSA prepare for a confrontation with The Shade.
As a giant Jim Gaffigan fan I am excited about him being in the show and then I looked up Thunderbolt and now I am more excited.
I thought the episode was pretty good. It’s hard to tell The Shade’s motives because he’s after the Black Diamond and tells the JSA to stay out of his way and he seems irritated at their interference of whatever plans he has but at the end he also seems concerned?, maybe, that Eclipso is going to “Kill the children”.
Poor Mike. He had one chance being the wielder of the Thunderbolt and he blew it. Looks like the pen has passed to Jakeem.
I predict that the Shade will continue to act as a villain, for reasons, but then team up with the JSA to take down Eclipso.
Yeah. Shade is arrogant and unpleasant, but doesn’t actually seem to care about anything the JSA does, unless they get in his way.
Agreed. Mike seems to be basically ignored by his family- his dad is always busy with his shop and with the new JSA, his stepsister is too busy being Stargirl, and his stepmom is too busy… doing whatever it is she does. He’s got a job delivering papers, while his stepsister just does whatever she wants. Nobody even notices that he’s being roughed up by bullies on a daily basis.
Then he finally gets the chance to be involved with the family project, and they immediately sideline him after having him use the Thunderbolt to find Shade. Yeah, his first outing with the pen was a disaster, but it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been told to just stay and “guard the garage”.
And then, apparently, the Thunderbolt couldn’t wait to find a new master, and was just waiting for him to say something which could have been interpreted as a wish. His exact words were, “… but now I kinda just wish it was in better hands…”
This episode just pissed me off. If they’re not careful, Mike might end up joining the new ISA…
At least Stargirl consistently argued for Mike’s right to be included in the JSA
That seems to be Cindy’s plan.
Don’t forget, the Thunderbolt outright told Pat that Mike felt “completely and utterly alone”. And yet Pat’s first action after they located the Shade was to leave Mike behind, alone in the garage. Great parenting, Pat!
To be honest, I find the genie somewhat terrifying - worse than the Green Lantern who can modify an action if it’s going wrong. So Cool ™ can’t (or won’t) stop doing what he thinks you’ve asked for. The only people who could deal with SoCool safely and effectively on the fly are folks like Spock or Data (I did like the scene in which they hand-coded a safe wish - and Mike had the presence of mind to do the same even when he was feeling frustrated).
The Shade is a darkness-themed maybe-villain.
The Shade apparently captured, but didn’t kill Dr. Mid-Nite, a darkness-themed hero. (In the comics, Dr. Mid-Nite had perfect dark-vision, used the goggles to see in daylight, and threw blackout bombs to blind opponents.)
The Shade, for unknown reasons, wants Eclypso’s black diamond. Eclypso is also a darkness-themed character, although it is more a darkness of the soul.
I wonder if there is something deliberate about the darkness-darkness-darkness link.
There have been a couple different versions of The Shade in comics, one of which is described as “morally ambiguous”. He fought the Flash, but also rescued him, and was a mentor to Jack Knight, who was the son of Ted Knight, mentioned by Pat Dugan on Stargirl as the creator of the cosmic staff. That version of the The Shade wasn’t a hero, but he also wasn’t a killer.
Courtney don’t strike me as someone familiar with Apocalypse Now. (This is a common problem I notice–teens using references much more likely to be familar to the writing staff than to actual teens.)
I’ve never seen Apocalypse Now, although I did read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness long ago. What quote or reference did Courtney make? Since they moved to Blue Valley from Los Angeles, maybe she had more exposure to old movies than we might assume.
“I love the smell of bacon in the morning…it smells like victory.”
(In the original, it was napalm, not bacon.)
There are young people alive right now that know references to old movies (or even fairly recent ones) solely from the memes.
Something that bothered me in the first season is that it never seemed clear how much ordinary people knew about superheroes. It seemed like Barbara had never heard of Starman for example. It sometimes seemed like superheroes and supervillains were urban legends on Earth-2. But at other times, their existence seemed to be public knowledge, but they just weren’t very common.
This episode seems to have decisively resolved that. Starman and Stripesy apparently were headline news. Which makes it even weirder that Barbara didn’t seem to know who he was in Season 1, or to recognize his picture - he appeared on the front page of one newspaper without a mask. She’s certainly not portrayed otherwise as ignorant or disinterested. Maybe she considered superhero news as akin to celebrity gossip and just didn’t pay attention to it?
And how does Pat maintain a secret identity? He doesn’t wear a mask at all. I guess he managed to put his hand in front of his face in every public photo? Or there’s a sort of code of honor among Earth-2 journalists not to show a superhero’s (or sidekick’s) face without explicit permission?
And, yeah, Mike really has good reason to feel alone and neglected. In that breakfast scene, no one notices that he’s home when he should still be on his route, and that his clothes are torn. Pat always seemed kind of oblivious to Mike, but in Season 1, Mike and Barbara seemed to bond, and late in the season, he had a couple of nice bonding scenes with Courtney. But everyone seems to have reverted to ignoring him. And then he loses the Thunderbolt. Poor guy.