Do you think the CW shows have done more good or harm?

[Anarchist]

Definitely way more good. I think these shows put many character on the radar for quite a few people.

Also, I don't think there has ever been anything close to it before. A connected, shared universe with that many shows. Only the MCU is comparable (which is off course a whole different league, but still). I hope it will continue for many more years to come.

[LifeIsILL]

Definitely way more good. I think these shows put many character on the radar for quite a few people.

Also, I don't think there has ever been anything close to it before. A connected, shared universe with that many shows. Only the MCU is comparable (which is off course a whole different league, but still). I hope it will continue for many more years to come.

I think the cameos and guest appearances have gone down significantly in the later seasons though. I don't even remember any Flash characters showing up on Arrow season 6 or 7

[Captain Craig]

Late to the thread.

Good.

Exposure for lots of characters that have not been exposed to the larger masses. They also wouldn't be exposed anytime soon if the movie division was the only outlet.
Green Arrow gets to have broad main stream name recognition like Hawkeye thanks to the CW show.
Characters like Vixen, Steel, Atom, Gypsy, Vibe, (Killer) Frost and to some extent even Constantine.
Black Lightning and that whole cast got exposure they've never had to date.
Batwoman, even if that has become it's own type of mess.
Then the JSA in Stargirl which CW aired after the DC app dropped it, same for Swamp Thing which to a few generations was not known(the 80s were a long time ago).

[BatmanJones]

Late to the thread.

Good.

Exposure for lots of characters that have not been exposed to the larger masses. They also wouldn't be exposed anytime soon if the movie division was the only outlet.
Green Arrow gets to have broad main stream name recognition like Hawkeye thanks to the CW show.
Characters like Vixen, Steel, Atom, Gypsy, Vibe, (Killer) Frost and to some extent even Constantine.
Black Lightning and that whole cast got exposure they've never had to date.
Batwoman, even if that has become it's own type of mess.
Then the JSA in Stargirl which CW aired after the DC app dropped it, same for Swamp Thing which to a few generations was not known(the 80s were a long time ago).

Exposure is not always a good thing. Some here know I work in theatre, another entertainment industry that always seems to be in existential danger.

In the theatre world there's a maxim that it's always good for someone to see a play, any play, because that will "expose" them to theatre and lead to them seeing other plays. Well, not if they had a bad time at the play! Not if they were bored or thought a play was silly, responses that are all too common to new theatre audiences, because most plays are silly or boring. Those people will never even consider seeing a play again and I don't blame them.

I've tried to share my love of superheroes and superhero comics with friends that don't otherwise care about the stuff that we do on this forum.

Sometimes I'm very successful; if I give them a Tom King 12-issue series or Black Hammer or some other extraordinary thing, that always works. But other times they refuse to even try it out. Why? The CW. They say, "No thanks. I've seen those CW shows and they're the corniest, dumbest things I can remember watching. My kids watch them and it drives me up a wall. Why on earth do you like that stuff?"

I explain to them that I do not like CW stuff, at ALL, but by then the damage is done. They're just not interested anymore. They gave it a shot, they gave these awful CW shows a shot, and they're not coming back. Ever.

Exposure is a double-edged sword. And when it comes to the CW, in my experience, that particular exposure almost always does more harm than good.

[married guy]

I don't think they've done harm.
The CW stuff has given a platform to introduce characters to a whole slew of people who would otherwise be unaware they existed.
Are all these shows 5 star bonafide masterpieces? Hell no! And some characters have been altered in major ways to their comic counterparts, but think about the wide array of characters they've introduced to viewers:

Vixen
Atom
Spectre
Bronze Tiger
Deadshot
Deathstroke
Steel
Jonah Hex
Hawkman
Hawkgirl
Constantine
Martian Manhunter
Ragman
Grodd
Mad Dog (C'mon, whuda thunk he'd be as great as he was?)
Firestorm
Vibe - and he's FREAKING AWESOME!!!!

Then there's the main characters:

Green Arrow
Flash (yes, almost all of Wally's lore has been grafted onto Barry...)
Supergirl
Black Lightning (again COOL AS HELL)
Black Canary
Killer Frost
Reverse Flash
Zoom
Jay Garrick

the list goes on and on and for the most part, not a single first stringer to be seen. Hell, barely a second stringer!!
I think they've done a great job shining light on lesser known characters in the DCU and making them shine. Especially to the non-comic book reader.

[paulojrmam]

On a second thought, it did good to characters that aren't that well known, like Green Arrow and Black Lightning. It did harm to more established characters like Flash and... yeah, that's the only one.

[The Darknight Detective]

On a second thought, it did good to characters that aren't that well known, like Green Arrow and Black Lightning. It did harm to more established characters like Flash and... yeah, that's the only one.

Except he's the most popular of the characters on the CW, so it appears the Flash hasn't been harmed out in the mainstream.

[Powerboy]

Except he's the most popular of the characters on the CW, so it appears the Flash hasn't been harmed out in the mainstream.

It's also relative.

There are people who talk about how "Smallville" harmed the Superman brand. Yes, that ten year run, the longest run of any superhero television series in history, really hurt it. What they mostly mean by harm is, "It wasn't designed to appeal to them but to another group of people".

Green Arrow, Black Lightning, most of the Legends characters and so on were never heard of or barely heard of by the mainstream audience. Now, they are household names.

The Flash has only gotten more popular though a surprising number of people I talk to have read some of the comics.

[The Darknight Detective]

It's also relative.

There are people who talk about how "Smallville" harmed the Superman brand. Yes, that ten year run, the longest run of any superhero television series in history, really hurt it. What they mostly mean by harm is, "It wasn't designed to appeal to them but to another group of people".

Green Arrow, Black Lightning, most of the Legends characters and so on were never heard of or barely heard of by the mainstream audience. Now, they are household names.

The Flash has only gotten more popular though a surprising number of people I talk to have read some of the comics.

Exactly. These shows are not made for the small minority of us who read comics, but the vast majority out there who don't. For them, these programs are fine and are looked upon positively.

[John Ossie]

I don't think they've done any real harm imo, it's given characters who won't be getting movies anytime soon some air time on the television which is cool not just for the characters but for the fans of the characters and some of the shows have been fun to watch imo.

[Captain Craig]

Exposure is not always a good thing. Some here know I work in theatre, another entertainment industry that always seems to be in existential danger.

I don't disagree that for the uninitiated a show like Legends is indeed silly. A bit too aware of itself coming close to the parody threshold at times(but not quite The Tick).
Green Arrow, Supergirl, Flash, Black Lightning are not silly or corny. Ok, Flash may a do a bit here/there but it is not regular, it takes itself seriously. So does Batwoman for that matter although I'm still weighing the trite scripted work on S2 but I digress.

[stargazer01]

It's also relative.

There are people who talk about how "Smallville" harmed the Superman brand. Yes, that ten year run, the longest run of any superhero television series in history, really hurt it. What they mostly mean by harm is, "It wasn't designed to appeal to them but to another group of people".

Green Arrow, Black Lightning, most of the Legends characters and so on were never heard of or barely heard of by the mainstream audience. Now, they are household names.

The Flash has only gotten more popular though a surprising number of people I talk to have read some of the comics.

I wouldn't say all of them are now household names. The Flash is, but the mainstream already knew him in animation. Same for Supergirl and Arrow.

IMO, the Supergirl show also did damage to Superman.

[the COMET]

Sometimes when we are already big fans of a character it can be difficult to accept an alternate take on them, specially when it's in another media like live action. We tend to wish they are portraited the exact same way we know them from our preview experience so others can enjoy them by the same reasons that we do.

Althought mainly because of copywrite issues the opposite is more likely to happen and we get a very different version of we are used to. I found that the remedy for this is to think of them as an alternative universe, allowing them to be different, something good can come out of it eventually.

That said, I strongly recomend the first 2 seasons of Legends of Tomorrow. They have a very oldschool vibe and fun, i started watching last year and was caught by surprise, never imagined i'd enjoy a tv adaptation that much.

[Frontier]

I wouldn't say all of them are now household names. The Flash is, but the mainstream already knew him in animation. Same for Supergirl and Arrow.

IMO, the Supergirl show also did damage to Superman.

But wouldn't you say it helped Supergirl a lot?

[The Darknight Detective]

I was only a baby when Batman first aired in '66, yet had I been my parents' age then, I would have considered it a major harm to Bruce's rep. It turned a serious character (though made for children) into a comedic one. IMO, no live-action program or movie you can name comes close to such a radical departure. My father still talks about it derisively all these years later.

Yet... did it really hurt the character or DC? The show and Batman comics were extremelu popular, but only briefly. However, the backlash from the program's campiness brought us the Bronze Age Batman, arguably the finest depiction of the Darknight Detective before or after. Sounds like a win to me.

BTW, I loved the Adam West Bats when I was little, hated him when I started reading the comics, but started enjoying him again later on by just imagining the old show as an alternate universe (which I do with all adaptations, come to think of it).