ASM, plenty of romantic melodrama.
It got me to thinking how, during this Golden Age of Comic Book TV and its varying types of series, the one genre that hasn't been jumped on by the networks and streaming services is the soap opera. Sure, The CW's
Arrow had the Olicity ship powering the series for eight seasons. And I know
Riverdale has all kinds of drama happening each week. But for the sake of this column, let's focus on superhero comic adaptations. Because, as I noted above, comics have leaned on soaps for storytelling inspiration for years. Comics and soap operas share many traits, like long-running narratives, familiar settings (hospitals, newsrooms, secret lairs), romance, and often nonsensical twists and turns.