Arrowverse’s Best Post-Crisis Move Is Ditching the Government
by Zachary KandellHaving heroes interact with the government is always complicated. At one end of the spectrum, they’re usually hunted by police because of their acts of vigilante justice while on the other, heroes act as essentially superpowered law enforcement. Given that so many heroes take enforcing justice or keeping the peace into their own hands, comic book adaptations always have to address that relationship eventually.
The Arrowverse shows have dealt with it in different ways, including Barry Allen being part of the Central City police on The Flash and Oliver Queen earning deputy status in the Star City police department on Arrow. Now, post-"Crisis," a couple of shows are making a change to the way they deal with oversight. Legends of Tomorrow has shut down the Time Bureau and Supergirl is sidling away from the DEO. “Crisis on Infinite Earths” even ended with Barry moving away from relying on the police, introducing the Hall of Justice for the Justice League to operate out of, away from the government.
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From the looks of it, these are going to be positive steps for the shows. It’s going to be a big change since the DEO has been part of Supergirl since the beginning and some pretty prominent characters in Legends of Tomorrow have their origins in the Time Bureau, but a movie like this can help a lot to help the storytelling on the different series.
For one, bureaucracy is only fun up to a point. Sure, there's some great gags and plotlines to get out of it, like the constant conflicts between the Legends and the Time Bureau about Mallus or when they have to convince Hank Heywood to not cut funding to the Legends. Having something like that to push back against can work well for a story, whether for comedy or drama.
But notice that it’s always pushing back against the bureaucracy. On Supergirl, it’s played much more for drama now, as Lex Luthor owns the DEO now. He’s Kara’s boss while she’s trying to expose him for the villain he is. That story’s not going can't be glossed over, like shutting the Time Bureau will be on Legends, but the Supergirl story points to a more fundamental issue with superheroes and the government.
Let’s look at what J’onn J’onzz says about his recently revealed Tower. “I thought that, since LuthorCorp now owns the DEO, National City could use its own collective," the hero states. "A headquarters to keep this city safe, to work outside of corporate and government oversight, whose interests might not always side with justice.” Superheroes almost always say that they’re on the side of justice, and it’s hard to get that when there are other interests at play.
The DEO is especially difficult since it was formerly a government agency that is now run by a corporation. How can they guarantee that it really has the right incentives to be interested in justice? It’s a hard question to answer, and working outside of the structure of the DEO might be the best way for the characters to enforce justice and the writers to explore those ideas.
This change also gives the writers more ways to make the characters’ lives difficult. Sure, there’s no longer the threat of the government shutting them down, but they also lose a support structure. The Legends don’t have the Time Bureau to help out anymore (though how helpful they ever were is really up for debate). If something goes truly wrong, they’re completely on their own to deal with it. That’s how they’ve done their best the whole time, but it’s harder if you have nothing else to fall back on.
Supergirl will have an even rougher go of it. Everyone is still officially working with the DEO, even if only because no one wants to lose sight of whatever Lex is up to. “Keep your enemies closer," as the saying goes. At the same time, they have a side project to undermine Lex Luthor, which means most of the characters will be living double lives pretty soon. A double life is great for drama since there’s an inherent conflict in everything that the characters do. That character dynamic usually comes from secret identities in superhero stories, but it doesn’t have to be. Here, it’s from something else entirely.
Heroes tend to be at their most interesting when they’re rogue, working on their own against a world where justice isn’t done. Wherever there are problems, they go to solve them, and it’s simply a more interesting story when there are powerful groups for them to fight against. Working with a large government agency means they’ll never be the ones fighting against overwhelming odds. By dropping the government and not working under government oversight anymore, the Arrowverse shows have given themselves a great chance to explore some stories and ideas that were closed off to them recently. It’s a big change to the universe, but one that should lead it in a better direction.
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