Welcome to the 12th Annual CSBG DC/Marvel Character Tournament!
This time around, you will be voting for your favorite DC or Marvel live action television series and TV movies. Amusingly, this was also going to be the tournament last year, so the delay has changed the list dramatically, as WandaVision, Superman and Lois and Stargirl all debuted AFTER last March! Notably, though, I will not be including Falcon and Winter Soldier, as its FIRST episode only dropped TODAY, so that seems like too little to actually cover for something like this.
The rankings were mostly determined by the use of IMDB user reviews, which turned out to be EERILY in line with the voters back in 2019 when we did superhero cartoons (the first time I can recall a tournament where all four #1 seeds made it to the Final Four). This time around, I made a few more changes, as it was just way too unreasonable for Batwoman, for instance, to be the lowest rated show out of ALL of the shows listed. So I made some judgment calls occasionally with the rankings.
After the shows were all ranked, they were split into four different regions. In the early rounds, we’ll do two regions a day.
This is the third round and here are the second two regions and the match-ups!
Simply choose which show you like better. The voting concludes roughly 48 hours from right now! I’m sorry that the voting is over Twitter, but the site that I had used for embedded poll voting for YEARS was purchased by someone else and it no longer is an option. If you know of another good and free embedded poll site, please let me know, I’d gladly use it in the future. For now, we’re stuck with Twitter polls.
TULSA REGION
Watchmen defeated Lois and Clark, 73% to 27% and Black Lightning zapped iZombie 53% to 47%.
We kick things off with Watchmen, a miniseries for HBO by Damon Lindeloff that was set years after the events of the famous Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons maxiseries, with a sinister group planning to take control of Doctor Manhattan’s powers for nefarious purposes. Meanwhile, police departments have had to become masked vigilantes and one of those vigilantes, Sister Night (Regina King) has to deal with a shocking secret about her beloved mentor, a shocking secret about her own grandfather and a MOST shocking secret about her own husband and his connection to Doctor Manhattan vs. Black Lightning, the current CW series starring Cress Williams as Jefferson Pierce/Black Lighting, the Tony Isabella-created superhero who had retired as being a superhero after getting married and having two daughters, but he was forced back to his superhero identity when his city is overrun by the villainous Tobias Whale and The 100. The show’s current fourth season will be its final one
Incredible Hulk smashed Preacher 62% to 38% and Agents of SHIELD beat Wonder Man 58% to 42%
Finally, we have Incredible Hulk, which was a hit TV series that ran on CBS for five seasons starring Bill Bixby as Bruce Banner and Lou Ferigno as the Incredible Hulk. The series was very similar to the classic TV series, The Fugitive, as just like how David Janssen ‘s Richard Kimble would travel throughout the country on The Fugitive while trying to clear his name, so, too, would Bixby’s Bruce Banner travel the United States while trying to cure himself of his curse of being the Hulk (while helping people AS the Hulk). The series actually won a Best Actress in a Drama Series Emmy Award, a rare comic book series to win the award (this was back when single episode actors could win Best Actor/Best Actress Emmys, a practice that ended years ago). The series was followed by a series of TV films that halted when Bixby tragically passed away vs. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the long-running ABC follow-up to the Avengers films that saw Clark Gregg reprise his role of SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson (after being killed in the first Avengers film), leading up a new team of field agents including characters played by Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge as his initial team. The series took a number of twists and turns over its seven seasons, with Gregg playing literally three different characters over the course of the series
CENTRAL CITY REGION
Flash ran rings around Swamp Thing (2019) 75% to 25% and Doom Patrol served Pennyworth 86% to 14%
First up is Flash, the first spinoff of Arrow (and thus the creation of the “Arrowverse”), starring Grant Gustin as Barry Allen, a young man who received superspeed from a particle accelerator exploding (which gave other people powers, as well). Barry worked alongside the creator of the particle accelerator, STAR Labs, while also working as a rime scene investigator alongside Detective Joe West, who had taken in Barry when Barry was a kid after Barry’s mother was murdered, seemingly by Barry’s father (but Barry never believed his father killed his mother). Barry was in love with Joe’s daughter, Iris (Candice Patton) and they eventually married. The series continues as the central series of the CW TV universe. vs. Doom Patrol, a series that began on the DC Universe streaming service for two seasons but will continue to air a third season on HBO Max, featuring Jane (Diane Guerrero), Rita Farr (April Bowlby), Vic Stone (Joivan Wade), Larry Trainor (Matt Bomer / Matthew Zuk), Cliff Steele (Brendan Fraser as the voice and Cliff in flashbacks, while Riley Shanahan plays the actual robot body of the character), and the Chief (Timothy Dalton) as the members of the mysterious and off the wall Doom Patrol
Punisher shot up Supergirl 52% to 48% and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow beat Legion 65% to 35%
Finally, is Punisher, a spinoff series from the second season Marvel’s Netflix series, Daredevil, starring Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, the vigilante known as the Punisher, with Ebon Moss-Bachrach playing Micro, a former NSA analyst who aides Castle in his mission on crime, as the two uncover a conspiracy involving the killings of Castle’s family. The series lasted two seasons as Marvel and Netflix ended their deal together vs. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, which starred a collection of various characters from other Arrowverse series, led by Caity Lotz’s White Canary. The cast of heroes travel throughout history on various missions, with each season having a distinct concept behind it. The cast has gone through tremendous overhaul over the years. It has been renewed for a seventh season.
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