STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

SEASON ONE

In a world where the identities of prominent superheroes are known to the public, with their own marketing teams and PR representatives, behind the scenes many are not as scrupulous and heroic as they portray themselves to be. Homelander (Antony Starr) tries to portray himself as a virtuous Captain America type, but is arrogant and immoral behind the scenes, with more than a few dark skeletons in his closet. The brash A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) is reckless and ends up killing the girlfriend of young Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) right after he proposes to her. This sets him on a course for revenge, when he teams up with the gruff Australian Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) who has his own score to settle. Meanwhile, the young, beautiful Annie January/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) becomes disillusioned at the murky world the people she looked up to inhabit.

The superhero craze, which began in the early 00s and shows no signs of letting up, has morphed from something aimed at the pre-teen crowd, to something grown adults have come to have a subversive fondness for, intent on exploring the deep, dark inner turmoil of the tortured heroes, or what they serve as some kind of subliminal metaphor for, blah blah blah...And so we have this part light hearted, part dark and brooding Amazon Prime series, that takes a wildly counter cultural approach to the genre.

Regarding the aforementioned grown adult superhero love in, of all those blamed for this trend, British actor Simon Pegg is one of those whose name most frequently pops up to get the blame, so it's fitting here that he has a supporting role as the unfortunate Hughie's dad. But he's largely forgotten in the background, leaving us with the lead stars to really carry the thing. Starr has charisma and presence as Homelander, matched by Urban's dark, brooding turn as the man who's eventually revealed as his nemesis. Usher is really the token black role as the immoral A-Train, while Moriarty is a quiet revelation as the innocent, unassuming Annie/Starlight, with an alluring beauty that does her no problems.

It's an original and clever idea, that's biggest problem is that it is just never as engaging, effective or funny as it could be. But it's certainly got buckets of potential, and if this series doesn't really blow your socks off, there's loads of hope for Season Two. ***