To lock people away without considering their rights. We have the power to do whatever we like. That’s a damn good question, for Supergirl, and for any nation that stands, like the United States, as a colossus astride the world. If you’re willing to abandon those values, what makes you better than Maxwell Lord?” “When you have more power than any human army on Earth you have to be better than this… Ultimately, it’s going to be a battle of values: your values versus your enemies. His words, inspired by his conversation with Cat, cut to the core of Supergirl’s dilemma: The highlight of the episode is a marvelous scene between Supergirl and James. Benoist, as usual, is remarkable in the role of a conflicted hero who has to learn the lesson that another, very different, superhero learned a long time ago: with great power comes great responsibility. It’s all very well done, with lots of good battles between Supergirl and the Master Jailer. It’s not hard to see that the Master Jailer’s methods, which Supergirl abhors, are logical extensions of her own approach to the problems presented by Maxwell Lord. The Master Jailer (Jeff Branson), as he is known, is judge, jury and executioner he hunts down the alien convicts and brings about his own brand of justice with the help of an, admittedly cool, laser guillotine. One of the guards from the crashed Kryptonian prison is still alive and taking justice into his own hands. in this clearly unconstitutional kidnapping, or does he hide the truth for the sake of security? In a compelling scene, Cat proves that, despite her success and overbearing manner, she has a solid core she reminds James of his duty to the truth. Does he report the truth and expose the role of Supergirl and the D.E.O. Since he already knows where Lord is being held, this puts James in a dilemma. Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart) orders reporter James Olsen (Mahcad Brooks) to get to the bottom of Lord’s disappearance. In “Truth, Justice and the American Way”, with a crackling script by Yahlin Chang and Caitlin Parrish, this problematic development comes to the fore. Nevertheless, it has seemed a bit too reminiscent of the United States and its violation of due process for those locked away in Guantanimo Bay, all in the name of “Homeland Security”. He’s a dangerous character, of course, and he knows Supergirl’s secret identity. have had villain Maxwell Lord (Peter Facinelli) locked away in their underground bunker, without recourse to an attorney or to the legal system.
Much to the dismay of many viewers, I’m sure, for the last several weeks Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) and her friends at the D.E.O. Ground breaking or not, however, it’s good to see. So this week’s episode of Supergirl is hardly breaking new ground by addressing one of today’s most pressing moral issues and allowing aliens and superheroes to take on metaphorical significance. And Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns made political commentary - and their dark, nihilist and violent visions of society - central to comic book storytelling for a generation. Chris Claremont’s X-Men, of course, explored mutants as a persecuted minority in a way that allowed them to represent the struggles of real-world communities, most notably, perhaps, gays and lesbians. In the Silver Age, Stan Lee’s Marvel characters addressed drug abuse while, over at DC Comics, Green Arrow and Green Lantern confronted racism and other ills. Captain America socked Hitler on the jaw before the United States entered World War II, and served as a stand-in for the nation as a whole. Or think of Star Trek‘s “A Private Little War”, which used the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans as stand-ins for Earth’s 20th-century superpowers who were, at the time, engaged in a little war of their own in southeast Asia.Ĭomic books too, much to many people’s surprise, have also had plenty to say about social issues and have let superheroes, and mutants, do some heavy metaphorical lifting. Think of The Twilight Zone‘s “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”, a not-so-subtle dig at the era’s cold war paranoia. Sci-fi television has always been particularly suited for this.
Sci-fi has a long history of addressing social and political issues with metaphors built of alternative societies and alien invasions.
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