Seventeen years ago, I was twelve years old. I can distinctly remember thinking that there wouldn’t be another Superman show on television for quite a long time. Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman had finally gone off the air.  As a nerdy kid, this did not make me very happy. I had post-finale depression.

Four years later, I was sixteen years old. The memories of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman were still semi-fresh on my mind. But when I was sixteen, I viewed the show differently from when I was twelve. What had changed? I had matured a bit. I remembered how the show drifted from the earlier seasons’ roots. The particularly outlandish episodes like the ones with H.G. Wells in them stood out vividly in my mind.

So when the television show Smallville was announced, I thought to myself “this isn’t going to be very good”. In fact, my dad of all people convinced me to watch the pilot. As it turns out, the WB/CW did a really good job of bringing the man of steel back to the small screen. I even remember my high school girlfriend getting upset at how religious I watched that show. That was probably because I drooled over Kristen Kreuk. Sure there were some seasons where the show lost footing and some bad episodes. I have a friend who always mentions the episode where Lana turns into a witch. For them, that was the last straw. But you know what? I stuck with that show and I don’t regret it. The last season definitely made up for some of those seasons that weren’t quite as good. We finally saw Clark put on that cape, we finally saw him fly, and we finally felt the closure that we needed.

It probably doesn’t come to your surprise when you hear me say that I’m a huge fan of the CW’s version of the Green Arrow. This Green Arrow is different from Smallville’s version of Green Arrow. He’s dark, he’s gritty, and he kills people (or at least he did in the first season). Heck they even introduced Ra’s Al Ghul as a character (although he’s yet to make an appearance).

So with Arrow doing so great, what has the CW decided to do? They’ve decided to bring a new hero into the mix as a spin-off to Arrow. It’s been twenty three years since The Flash has had his own feature on the small screen. It’s time for a new Flash show! The show’s tone is already set from Arrow. It’s star is an attractive looking skinny kid named Grant Gustin who starred in Glee. But the most exciting news that I’ve heard about this is that the actor who played The Flash in 1990 (John Wesley Shipp) is going to play an important role in the show. I’m thinking they’re going to let him be some sort of mentor to Barry Allen. I think this is a great way to pass the torch. This is reminiscent of Richard Hatch playing an important role on the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica.

I hope you guys are just as excited as I am to see the fastest superhero make his return.