Bob Strauss May 7, 2021Updated: May 7, 2021, 10:23 am
Josh Duhamel plays the Utopian, who leads the Union of Justice, in “Jupiter’s Legacy.” The show premieres Friday, May 7, on Netflix. Photo: Adam Rose / Netflix
Does the world need another complicated, character-packed superhero series? Especially one that looks as derivative and humorless as “Jupiter’s Legacy”? The answer is maybe.
What might make this one worth devoting eight hours to is how it tackles issues that come with great power. That responsibility is only a starting point for the show’ thoughtful, anguished inquiry.
The show is comic book writer Mark Millar’s (Kick-Ass, Kingsman, Marvel’s Civil War) first big production from his massive deal with Netflix, premiering Friday, May 7. And sure, it foregrounds generational conflict like Amazon’s animated hit “Invincible” and boasts similar, if mercifully less, of that show’s graphic violence. It jumps back and forth through time, lik
Mark Millar explains why the first season serves as an eight-episode pilot of sorts
Tim Baysinger | May 7, 2021 @ 9:00 AM
Netflix
“Jupiter’s Legacy,” Netflix’s superhero epic from Mark Millar, has
a lot of story to get through, given that it spans multiple generations of superpowered people over the course of 90 years. And the eight-episode Season 1, which debuted Friday, only scratches the surface of Millar’s sprawling comic book story.
That’s largely because half of each episode is dedicated to tracking the origin of Josh Duhamel’s Sheldon Sampson, aka The Utopian, and his soon-to-be-superpowered friends who make up The Union. The group’s backstory which begins with the Stock Market crash of 1929 and ends with their journey to a mysterious island where aliens grant them special abilities is only a very small part of the comic books, which mostly focus on The Union in the present day and their kids who struggle to live up to a changing world and their par
Jupiter s Legacy as the most ambitious superhero project ever. Does that assertion hold up now that the small screen adaptation (based on Millar and Quitely s groundbreaking comic book of the same name) is streaming on Netflix? Reviews for the deconstructionist superhero show are now coming online and critics aren t holding back on their thoughts.
A current score of 50 percent on Rotten Tomatoes should give you an idea of which way the wind is blowing. Fortunately, that number only represents the critics and not the general audience, which has bestowed
Jupiter s Legacy with a fresher 77 percent.
Jupiter’s Legacy is without a target demographic despite occasional swearing and some cartoonish violence, it’s practically BYU TV–level bland compared to
Credit: Netflix
With Jupiter’s Legacy, Netflix continues to expand its role in the superhero arena. Now that its partnership with Marvel on shows like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, The Punisher, and more is over, the mega streamer has been building up its catalog with titles like The Umbrella Academy, She-Ra, Warrior Nun now Jupiter’s Legacy.
Netflix seems to have its own in-house version of every buzzy genre under the sun. Ozark, Shadow and Bone, The Crown, BoJack Horseman, and other Netflix original series tend to tap into the zeitgeist. Jupiter’s Legacy is, in turn, pretty firmly in the same wheelhouse as HBO’s Watchmen and Amazon’s The Boys.
Review: Netflix comic book drama Jupiter s Legacy fails to launch avclub.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from avclub.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.