Workplace Comedy POWERLESS Moves Forward at NBC, Set in DC Comics Universe

At this point, audiences are extremely familiar with superhero stories. They've dominated the blockbuster landscape over the past decade, and even had success in live action on television with audiences really responding to shows like Arrow, The Flash, and Gotham in the past few years alone. But at some point, there are only so many different ways to put a fresh spin on an origin story, so storytellers are going to have to start coming at these tales from a different angle altogether.

That's what it sounds like Powerless is doing, a potential new show that just received a pilot order from NBC. As the network watches rivals like The CW, FOX, CBS, and ABC bask in superhero shows of their own, they're apparently coming at it with a different perspective. Deadline describes the show as "The Office, but with superheroes," so it's a workplace comedy that takes place in the DC Comics universe and it's set at one of America's worst insurance companies, following a bunch of non-superpowered people who deal with the fallout of living in a world filled with chaos-causing heroes and villains. So it sounds a little like The Office by way of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

DC's two biggest heroes, Batman and Superman, aren't expected to make appearances, which means that if we actually see any heroes or villains at all, it'll more likely be lower tier characters. There's also no word on whether this will take place in the new DC Cinematic Universe, or the separate TV universe of Arrow and The Flash, or an entirely new TV universe of its own. A to Z creator Ben Queen (who also wrote Cars 2) is the creator/showrunner on Powerless, and if this goes to series, it will be interesting to see exactly how it aligns with DC's plan for their characters. At the very least, a workplace comedy seems to fly directly in the face of the cinematic universe's "no joke" policy.