JUPITER’S LEGACY: Episode 1 Review

Jupiter’s Legacy

Episode 1 Review

There seems to be an overwhelming amount of superhero stories being told today. With the genre being so popular these days, there’s nothing preventing storytellers from taking these epic, over the top images from the pages of comic books and bringing them to life on the large and small screen. Jupiter’s Legacy is also attempting to bring some splash pages into live action while also telling a unique type of Superhero story. It just happens to be premiering at a time when there are a handful of other creators attempting the same type of unique storytelling, TV shows like Superman & Lois, The Boys, and Invincible. Jupiter’s Legacy appears to be fit right in the middle of those shows.

From what I can gather in this first episode,the show is aiming to tell a larger story that will be more character focused as opposed to a regular comic book adventure. There isn’t a lot of world building done, and the audience is just expected to accept this superhero world at face value within the first 10 minutes. The world building will most likely be coming in the future episodes.

The thing that surprised me the most about the show is how much they’re leaning into the “pages of a comic book” aesthetic, they’re not trying to offer a “real world” version of superheros. The look and some of the situations reminds me of a few CW shows where they unapologetically pull images and moments straight from the comic books pages. That leads me to believe that this show will fall more in line with traditional storytelling as opposed to a deconstruction of heroes that is so popular now.

The cast is great, especially Josh Duhamel as Sheldon and Ben Daniels as his brother Walter. They fit comfortably in their roles that require them to play the same characters in different time periods. Matt Lanter as George and Elena Kampouis as Chloe are not in a lot of scenes but they definitely make you want to see what’s next in store for their characters.

With the first episode, we get to see the characters at different ages, and I will say I was not too impressed with the make up effects. As impressive as the special effects are during the action scenes, the old age makeup was just not believable to me. Although, if I’m willing to accept that there’s a giant purple man with glasses walking around in some scenes (whose makeup effects actually look good) then I can look past the “old age wrinkles” on clearly younger actors. 

Not a full on thrill or emotional ride, but an intriguing enough setting that I want to see exactly what type of superhero story will this shape up to be, there’s 7 more episodes. After all the blood, guts, and color drained dowerness of recent superhero stories, I’m hopeful this will bring us back to why we love these types of adventures in the first place. 

3.5 out of 5

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