Adam West's Final Live-Action Performance Was In A Short-Lived DC Comics Show

What would life really be like for ordinary individuals in a world where super-powered beings are constantly leveling cities around them? For a long time, superhero films tended to happily ignore this question, preferring to operate strictly in the realm of fantasy. But that started to change with the Marvel Cinematic Universe's 2012 mega-blockbuster "The Avengers," in which concerns about the safety of onlookers are addressed directly during its third act throwdown. Then, the following year, the DC Extended Universe launched with "Man of Steel," not so subtly evoking the 9/11 terrorist attacks with its climactic imagery of Superman's backyard of Metropolis being reduced to ash and rubble. In doing so, it also inspired a whole lot of serious discourse and po-faced reflections online.

Obviously, though, a somber comic book adaptation about the harrowing aftermath of conflicts between people with extraordinary abilities wouldn't be an easy sell to networks looking for their next crowd-pleaser. Instead, Marvel Studios and DC Entertainment took the opposite approach, assembling a pair of light-hearted workplace sitcoms — "Damage Control" and "Powerless," respectively — about folks whose jobs involve dealing with the property destruction and generalized collateral damage caused by the daily super-battles being waged across the MCU and DCEU ... or, at the least, some unspecified corner of the DC multiverse.

Neither show fared well, however; "Damage Control" never actually made it to the air, while underwhelming viewership led to "Powerless" being canceled by NBC after airing a single 12-episode season in 2017. The latter's axing was a particular shame, as "Powerless" was a perfectly likable DC Comics-inspired TV comedy that could've evolved into something truly special with time. It also featured Adam West's final live-action performance, with the late DC legend and Batman actor making an in-person appearance after having narrated the "Powerless" pilot.

Vanessa Hudgens starred in "Powerless" as Emily Locke, a can-do heroine who, with her endearingly quirky team of colleagues, worked for Wayne Security, a business owned by the Wayne family. (Yes, that Wayne family.) Their speciality: developing outside-the-box products to keep non-superpowered types safe whenever superheroes and supervillains are clashing somewhere nearby.

"Powerless" had a gently oddball sense of humor recalling creator Ben Queen's work as a screenwriter on Pixar's "Cars" films and was quick to establish a relatable dynamic among its leads, in keeping with executive producers Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker's eventual efforts on "Abbott Elementary." The main issue with "Powerless" is that it wasn't especially daring or subversive (unlike Halpern and Schumacker's subsequent DC project, the animated "Harley Quinn" show); with its single-camera format and episodic design, it may've simply been too quaint for its own good. Still, the series had the potential to grow into itself, and its affectionate ribbing of DC's lore was easy to appreciate. 

Just take its use of Adam West, who narrated its pilot with his typical comic gusto before playing Wayne Enterprises chairman Dean West in the episode "Win, Luthor, Draw." There, he gets to playfully nod to his DC legacy in more ways than one, culminating with a fourth wall-breaking monologue where he evokes the dramatic cliffhanger endings of the 1960s "Batman" TV series. Only problem was, hardly anybody saw it; NBC pulled "Powerless" before its final three episodes could air, "Win, Luthor, Draw" included, and only later made the entire show readily available to watch digitally.

Heck, many viewers probably weren't even aware that West was on "Powerless" until after his passing in June 2017. That's no way to treat the best live-action Batman (in my book, anyway)!