Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
The most interesting thing about the doggedly earnest, rather dull new musicalSuperherois also the most underdeveloped.
That is: theactualsuperhero at its center.
(TheSub-Marinerscousin, he explains, presumably accounting for the redundancy of his heros name.)
That is, until he notices and sings about The Man in 4-B.
Setting aside the super-sketchiness of that for just a second, lets talk about Jim.
Heres the thing: Simon is right!
Im from another planet, Jim grudgingly admits, once Simon catches him in the super-act.
My home world is beyond this galaxy.
The beings from my planet are dispatched to other worlds to help those in need.
Its our calling, our only purpose for existence.
We assume the appearance of the people native to the planet, but were invulnerable to any injury.
Once we leave our home world we can never return, and we go alone.
Wait, wait, wait I have …somany questions.
So, does that mean theres onlyoneJim on Earth?
Are there not enough Jims on Planet Jim to send, like, a couple more our way?
Why can they never go home?
Why bother assuming human form?
Why not just stay in energy form, constantly zapping from one catastrophe to the next?
and then running up to the roof to zap off to wherever the voices are coming from?
(Why the roof?
Do you zap better from higher ground?)
Wouldnt those voices presumably exist in the thousands of millions at every nanosecond of every day?
How do you prioritize?
Do you hear the voices rightbeforethe bad thing happens or as its already happening?
Why do you have human emotions, Jim?
How many other worlds are there?
Jim really is Super.
And also super-awkward and sad.
There are a lot of movies out there, man.
And plenty of lurking, disenchanted superheros.
Super-unique or not, Jim turns out to be an empty center anyway.
Will Charlotte and Jim find a chance at domestic happiness together?
/ … And where do the answers lie?
she ponders in Whats Happening to My Boy?
Then, How did this come to be?
/ So much has happened so fast, she opines in Laundry for Two.
They could believably be one long generally elf-y speech (of roughly three minutes in length).
Poor Charlottes got the same problem.
So does the show.
Its feel-good theater, only living up to its title in that it keeps all of us extremely safe.
Superherois at Second Stage through March 31.
