This episode is the first of the series to introduce us to a series original supervillain, a Superman-hating shock jock named Leslie Willis who gets electric powers (how punny) after an electric storm at a live show and who is now even more mad at Superman for failing to save her from being struck by lightning. Then, she goes on a rampage throughout the town with her newfound powers and Superman obviously has to save the day.
First things first, I absolutely love Leslie's personality. She's the definition of a fun, energetic, and oftentimes amusing villain. She has a lot of attitude and a lot of immaturity, though you also "respect" her in a way for getting a pretty strong grip on the town's consciousness through her crazy talk show. All things considered, she makes this episode a whole lot of fun.
That said, she also presents a bit of a problem - a serious lack of sense-making motives, particularly once she becomes a supervillain. Theoretically, a part of her motives is her anger at Superman for failing to save her, but uh...Leslie seemed to recover completely and got some great powers that she obviously enjoys using. So why be mad? Perhaps even more glaring is everything else she does after becoming a supervillain. Going from a mean shock jock to a pointlessly destructive maniac who threatens the whole town is...a bit of a jump. I'm just literally not even sure WHY she's doing all this villainous stuff. There's a little implication that money may be part of it, but it's not emphasized very much. Overall, there's just not much reason for her to turn into a supervillain other than genre conventions.
But while that may seem like a fairly big flaw, it doesn't really keep the episode from being a very entertaining and fun watch. Livewire's fun attitude is more than enough for me to love her as a villain and thoroughly enjoy watching her. And overall, this episode was well-done in most respects and should be more than satisfying for the vast majority of viewers. But yeah, if they had managed to combine Leslie's fun personality with actual motives it would be even better.
First things first, I absolutely love Leslie's personality. She's the definition of a fun, energetic, and oftentimes amusing villain. She has a lot of attitude and a lot of immaturity, though you also "respect" her in a way for getting a pretty strong grip on the town's consciousness through her crazy talk show. All things considered, she makes this episode a whole lot of fun.
That said, she also presents a bit of a problem - a serious lack of sense-making motives, particularly once she becomes a supervillain. Theoretically, a part of her motives is her anger at Superman for failing to save her, but uh...Leslie seemed to recover completely and got some great powers that she obviously enjoys using. So why be mad? Perhaps even more glaring is everything else she does after becoming a supervillain. Going from a mean shock jock to a pointlessly destructive maniac who threatens the whole town is...a bit of a jump. I'm just literally not even sure WHY she's doing all this villainous stuff. There's a little implication that money may be part of it, but it's not emphasized very much. Overall, there's just not much reason for her to turn into a supervillain other than genre conventions.
But while that may seem like a fairly big flaw, it doesn't really keep the episode from being a very entertaining and fun watch. Livewire's fun attitude is more than enough for me to love her as a villain and thoroughly enjoy watching her. And overall, this episode was well-done in most respects and should be more than satisfying for the vast majority of viewers. But yeah, if they had managed to combine Leslie's fun personality with actual motives it would be even better.
