u/No_Location_8199

My thoughts and analysis of the various characters of season 3. Note that I am specifically focusing on how they are depicted in season 3 rather than overall.

Perfect Tier, the best of the best standout characters with near zero contradictions to them:

• Kara/Supergirl: >!Kara is consistent with her characterization from season 2, and is shown to be unsure of who she really is and insecure of whether she's a good person. But she continues her commitment to being a hero, and is proven to be a deeply beautiful person, with her future self having raised Jon lovingly despite how awful her own upbringing was. Her personality and interactions continue to be extremely entertaining, and she is shown to be even more fiercely protective over her loved ones than last season. There are only a couple weird moments with her that I more chalk up to plot problems. Kara is the best character in the show, and earns her spot in the Perfect Tier.!<

Good Tier, characters with minimal issues that overall improve the story:

• Lois Lane: >!Lois is an overall positive presence. Her arc this season is about overcoming her complacency in the present and her fear of parenthood. Lois is shown to be insecure about whether she can be a good mom, being especially fearful of turning out like her father. I think this arc is overall functional, but Lois's overall presence this season feels a bit lacking. The resolution to her arc is just that Jonathan says that her future self wasn't actually a bad mom despite what it may look like. There's also the issue of her lack of a real reaction to her time traveling children effectively being erased when they leave, though I think this is more on the writers not thinking this through. Other than that, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with her this season, she just seems a bit lackluster and could use more time.!<
• Jon Kent/Superboy: >!Jon Kent is a very upbeat and likable boy, despite the harrowing future he comes from. This seems to be because his aunt imparted the best of the world to him. He is excited to meet his parents in the past, maybe a little too eager. He also is shown to value innocent lives and be an effective combatant. The biggest issue with him is probably his treatment of present day Kara. The idea is that he's distancing himself from her because of the pain of losing her, his parental figure, in the future. But to make the subversion work, he acts way too much like he just doesn't like her. The reveal doesn't fully line up with his preceding actions. Overall, he's an enjoyable character despite his existence being predicated on broken time travel mechanics, and it was quite disappointing to see him be replaced by the vastly inferior Jonathan Lane.!<
• Mr. Mxyzptlk: >!Mxy continues his characterization of season 1 of being a chaos gremlin who screws with the heroes for the love of the game. He's quite funny while still managing to be menacing, and his dynamic with his wife is entertaining. A somewhat simple character, but one that works fine.!<

Decent Tier, characters that have a role in the story they effectively serve, but may have some serious flaws:

• Clark Kent/Superman: >!Clark is mostly handled well this season. He's a bit out of focus for several episodes, but he continues to be a very likable and entertaining Superman. His character becomes more focal during the arc of him losing his powers, and how he's still a hero without them and learns to value himself even if he's not Superman. I was overall enjoying his arc... until it turned out that the way to restore his powers was to go to the Fortress his had access to since the beginning. Him not coming up with this for an entire month and needing the idea beamed into his head is seriously damaging to his intelligence, and really sours the overall arc because he shouldn't have been missing his powers in the first place for more than a day. And like Lois, he has the issue of not really reacting to his future children being erased from existence. So overall I think his character is quite good, but with a major piece of damage that knocks him down to Decent Tier.!<
• B1Z/Bizarro: >!Bizarro is a simple minded science experiment, who sometimes lashes out but overall has good intentions thanks to being raised by a loving father figure. His role in the story works fine, the biggest issue being how little he's in the season and how rushed his dynamics with the others are.!<
• Ms. Gsptlsnz/Glitzy: >!Mxy's wife is introduced this season. She is similarly very entertaining and I'd be open to seeing more of her, but she also has little individuality and is not fleshed out enough to go above Decent.!<
• Team Glitzy: >!I grouped these four up because they're all of about the same quality. General Lois Lane, Good Lex Luthor, Scion Kara, and Falmebird Jimmy are all rather simple characters with smaller glimpses to their characterization, but they serve their role in the story perfectly adequately.!<

Inoffensive Tier, middling characters who may be forgettable or have significant issues, but aren't quite bad.

• Lara Lane: >!Lara is a character with very little screen time, and not a lot of characterization. The most substantial bit we get is her being extremely obedient to her mother's orders, but this doesn't seem to fully match with her also having a tendency to rush ahead on her own. It's not impossible to reconcile these traits, but the show doesn't put in the work to do so. Lara ends up just being another combatant for the fight scenes.!<
• The Eradicator: >!The Eradicator is basically the definition of "hype moments and aura" without substance. He serves his purpose of being the season's final boss fight, and that's about it. There is an interesting idea of him being being obsessed with killing the supers because he's the embodiment of Lex's fear of them, but this is just an idea that's sorta tossed in without enough time or development. Essentially the Eradicator shows up, looks cool with powers that seem to make him invincible, casually mentions killing the heroes in other timelines (which sounds like something straight out of the MCU, and isn't nearly as cool of intimidating as the writers think), and then loses because the heroes pushed their glowy powers further. So yeah, ultimately just a boss fight with little substance.!<
• Steward Brainiac: >!I think his characterization in his first appearance was quite great. He's a trapped mind slave who can't accept that "might makes right" is wrong, because that would mean his millennia of service was for nothing. I like all of this. Unfortunately, the finale has him pretty much immediately reverse his convictions and agree to help Clark. This is so abrupt and unbelievable that it severely damages the character.!<
• Slade Wilson: >!Slade is in the season for some reason, and there isn't much more to say. His interactions with Lex can be entertaining, but he does basically nothing the entire time.!<

Bad Tier, characters that make the story worse and have severe writing issues:

• Amanda Waller: >!Overall, Waller's character is consistent with the previous seasons and there's nothing really wrong with her actions. The issue is fundamentally that Waller just appears in this season with no explanation on why she's no longer a fugitive and is in power again. This is an extremely lazy way to undo a previous development, and it makes it seem like consequences just don't apply to this character.!<
• Hank Henshaw/Cyborg Superman: >!Hank starts out okay this season, continuing on with his xenophobic inferiority complex from last season. The issue is how quickly this character escalates to suddenly being a world ending threat. His power level is inconsistent between episodes 3 and 5, and while I think the overall issue with how he got powers is more an issue with Lex, it still hurts his role as the villain because it just doesn't feel right. There is buildup to his hatred of Superman, but killing Superman isn't his end goal, it's shown that he would go on to destroy the world. This is such an escalation that it's unbelievable, and the only real explanation is that becoming a cyborg made him crazy, which isn't explored enough for me to buy it. And just like his turn to becoming the biggest threat yet comes way too fast, the show also decides to give him a last minute redemption where he gives up because he finds out Jon is half human. Pretty much every moment in this season before that characterized him as a complete and utter monster, so this was extremely unsatisfying.!<
• Jonathan Lane/Superman II: >!Jonathan is an annoying little brat. He is constantly rude and hostile towards Clark, which made me think that maybe Jonathan believes Clark abandoned him or something, but it's made pretty clear later that Clark is just dead in the future, so his behavior comes across as unreasonable and cruel. But that's not even the worst part. He's also the awful combination of being arrogant and being a defeatist. He says that they keep going back and keep failing, referring to Jon Kent, which is unfortunately reminding me of the Flash movie, where Barry decides to give up on saving the world after failing to save Batman and Supergirl twice. And surely Lois and Clark explained how Jon Kent did prevent the disaster he came to prevent. It would be one thing if Jonathan said this after the Eradicator mentioned killing them in other timelines, but he no, he said it before. Jonathan arrogantly proclaims that they don't need Superman because he's more than capable, and then basically gives up the moment they start losing. What an unlikable, whiny punk. The only thing keeping him out of Terrible Tier is the fact that there is some substance with his interactions with Lois and Kara.!<
• Jimmy Olsen: >!Jimmy is heavily damaged by season 3. Pretty much his only role this season is his drama with Kara, which is some absolutely infuriating writing. It starts with Jimmy rejecting Kara because he thinks she can do better and hasn't "seen the world" given her upbringing. Now, I now plenty of people are completely against this kind of drama built on insecurity, but I think it actually can work well. The real issue is that the show doesn't dive nearly deep enough into Jimmy's insecurities to make this plot function. We don't get a deeper insight into his feeling or background to understand why he feels this way. Despite being a main character, Jimmy has gotten by far the least amount of backstory or focus, so this plot just feels like drama for the sake of drama. And it gets worse when Jimmy decides to date other people. Moving on is fine, but he clearly wants to make Kara jealous as "payback" for her seemingly moving on immediately. And this rather unlikable action combined with the previous lack of foundation for this conflict makes Jimmy look really bad. But the absolute worst part is when it turns out Jimmy has been ignoring Kara for the whole month after Clark lost his powers. I think this is flat out character assassination. Remember Jimmy in season 2? How he was completely steadfast in his commitment to help Kara, even though he knew her far less then than he does now? How the emotional climax of the season involved him telling her she's not alone, "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere"? That character turns around and ignores her for a month because he's jealous after he rejected her? No, absolutely not. This isn't the Jimmy from season 2. The only thing keeping him out of Terrible Tier is a couple of his interactions with Lex and Jon. I hate to say it because I really liked him in season 2, but Jimmy Olsen of season 3 is a bad character.!<

Terrible Tier, characters than do significant damage to the story and have multiple severe writing problems:

• Lex Luthor: >!Lex is the worst character in the entire show. Let's start with his capabilities. Using a mutilated human body and some circuits, he's able to create a Cyborg nearly as strong as Superman (in episode 5 at least, due to the fore-mentioned unexplained power boost) and who is able to destroy the world. How? He's also able to to create the Eradicator using nothing but Superman's DNA and his own braincells. A clone is one thing, but something with the Eradicator's abilities? Who's also somehow unaffected by kryptonite? How? But Lex being able to pull miracle tech out of his ass is far from the biggest issue. That would be him being a really dumb loser. His entire plan to control Hank was to use a remote which Hank could remotely deactivate. Did Lex not consider this? Did he accidentally give Hank the ability to control tech? But it doesn't even really matter because he just waves the remote inches from Hank's face. What would have happened if Hank grabbed it at super-speed? And before I hear the age old excuse, there is a clear difference between being arrogant and being suicidally stupid. Luthor then loses control of the Eradictor, which means he lost control of two science experiments within the span of a month. Jimmy motivates Lex to help in the final battle, but he contributes nothing beyond stalling the Eradicator for maybe 5 seconds. The only win you can really give him is that he was victorious in Jonathan and Lara's future. Unfortunately, that feels completely unimpactful for two reasons. First, it's not the "clean timeline," it's one influenced already. Lex dies in the original timeline. Second, him being the big threat is tossed aside as soon as the Eradicator is introduced. So he was the big bad for approximately 5 minutes of relevant screen time. Nice. The last problem with this character is he's completely pathetic. Making your villain pathetic deep down is fine, but not when that's all he is. He's not respected by anyone. He's still taking order from Waller (when the end of last season implied he would be independent from then on). He's not a good manipulator and in fact appears to be completely tone deaf, with him not noticing that people weren't supportive of Hank during his debut. And he's unable to defend himself from any threat, not even Lois throwing a punch. The only bit of substance he has is him saying he's seen greater threats out there, but that's far too little too late. This character is now broken beyond repair, and if we do get a season 4, I really hope they don't bring him back. This show needs to move on from him if it's to course correct.!<

What I was going for here was entirely thematic, with balancing being secondary.

A lot of people have speculated that Mega Garchomp Z would get Levitate, which makes sense because it’s always shown flying (and doesn’t get the flying type), but that would certainly be a disappointment, both competitively and design wise. People have also speculated that it would get Ground type Steelworker to make up for losing Ground stab, but that just doesn’t make sense thematically. Why would the specialized jet dragon keep its Ground stab when it leaves the ground for good?

Unless… the weather conditions force it to land. Now we have a dragon that wants to take to the skies and zip around as fast as possible, but when the weather gets bad, it’s forced to land. Here it adapts to its old hunting strategies and returns to taking full advantage of the terrain. I was thinking about giving it a speed penalty while grounded but a) 0.66x speed seems too harsh and a higher number doesn’t feel very pokemon like, b) at that point we’re back to base Garchomp being better than its mega? and c) the ability is complicated enough as is.

Now one thing I really like about this ability is that you can’t run it with Zard Y. If you wanna go for speed mode, you need one of the other less popular sun setters or the even less popular Cloud 9 pokemon. I personally feel like speed mode is the stronger mode; you can invest in speed to outspeed opposing Tailwinded Pokemon or you could invest in bulk while still outspeeding every unboosted pokemon.

Now maybe it’s way too strong getting a speed boost both without weather and with sun, which a lot of teams will be forced to just deal with. At first my idea was that it would only apply when there’s no weather at all, but that didn’t feel thematically fitting when Harsh Sunlight is pretty fair weather for flying. Alternatively it doesn’t get a speed boost in which case is it even better than base Garchomp?

I noticed because my suitcase has the same logo. Must be a pretty old company.

Disclaimer: I put rillaboom at the last moment cause i just felt needing a starter with frenzy plant or somthink.

I was bored last week so I made this. Art is random art from Google (not mine) both will show up if you search up "Mega (Pokemon Name)".

Custom abilities I thought of in my opinion not THAT broken.

In concept Zangoose is just a less tankier and faster Ursaluna but with the potential to out damage/tank it with bulk up and the recovery from the nerfed poison heal.

Seviper has a pretty unique ability making it a little bit tankier, the typing also nerfs that signature ability by a bit since poison/dragon has a lot of resistances, basically just making it take 25% less from everything (since resist is 75% and neutral is also 75%).

Few new moves standard mega stuff. An already existing ability could have worked for Seviper I'm not going to lie but since I was doing a custom one for Zangoose since it basically needed one or the uniqueness of it would be gone (since if ur mega evolving you cant hold a poison orb).

If the abilities or stat destributions are too strong, seviper could be reduced to 33% from super-effective attacks and 12.5% from neutral attacks. The min maxing on Seviper is required in my opinion since it got hit by that hoenn special.

Zangoose min maxing is less required and if its too strong the 15 spatk could be moved back and 15 could be taken out of speed or sp.def. If Zangoose ability is too strong it could simply make it immune to poison damage instead of healing it and id say thats fair and if its still too strong make it take reduced poison damage (6%) instead of 12%.

I was trying to make those concepts as balanced as possible without making the mons broken while also making them unique Pokemon that are worth using over current meta picks.

I lied give them both mold breaker and mixed attacking stats.