Jupiter’s Legacy arrives at a delicate time for superhero content. Two years past the triumphant conclusion of Avengers: Endgame, there are plenty of other properties vying to stand out from the rest. Some of them, like The Boys and Invincible, have managed to do that. Others, like Jupiter’s Legacy, don’t quite manage that.
The story alternates between 1929 and the present. Sheldon Shampson (Josh Duhamel) is getting visions of his dead father after the 1929 stock crash. He soon finds out he has to gather a team of specific people and search for a mysterious island. In the present, Sheldon and his friends (and family) have been superheroes for the last 90 years. He expects every hero to live by his exacting Code, refraining to kill villains, but the recent brutality of some villains have led to younger heroes questioning this rule. As he tries to deal with his children, he also has to contend with a mysterious threat that may have something to do with one of his old friends, who became the world’s worst supervillain decades ago.
The good thing about the show is the acting on display from some of the veteran actors, especially Josh Duhamel. He brings nuance to a character who can be frustratingly simple (and stubborn). Some other characters, like Walter Sampson (Ben Daniels), Raikou (Anna Alana) and Hutch (Ian Quinlan) are also interesting. However, others, like Chloe Sampson (Elena Kampouris) are annoying, and almost cringy. There are better ways to do the “black sheep” of the family angle. You can have a character being reckless and lashing out against her parents, but you also need to add a compelling reason to empathize with her plight.
The show also draws out the season, leaving the best developments of the first volume of the comic for the next season.
It stretches out the origin story, which is uneven and sometimes grating, especially during the first few episodes. In fact, those first couple of episodes don’t exactly work, leaving behind a bad taste. Thankfully, it gets better, but the flaws don’t entirely go away.
Moments like Sheldon having a therapy session with one of his former villains, and his group exploring the island and managing to pass the challenges thrown its way, are engaging. But they come on the heels of many less than stellar moments. The fight scenes are perfunctory, but compared to something like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, they sometimes feel woefully less polished.
The source material, written by Mark Millar and drawn by Frank Quietly, is one of Millar’s better works in the last ten years. The show chose to take a slightly different direction by playing down the comic’s edginess and real-world political connotations and focusing more on family melodrama. It might have been a good idea, especially since The Boys already feels the niche of edgy superhero content nicely. But it doesn’t play out well in terms of execution.
Jupiter’s Legacy is, unfortunately, not getting a second season. It’s being followed up by a live-action adaptation of Supercrooks, another Mark Millar comic book. We are also likely to see further adaptations of Millar’s creator-owned work, since Netflix bought his imprint, Millarworld. Let’s hope those are better executed as well.