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As The CW's new superhero series The Flash debuts tonight, it seems there are more TV shows based on comic books in prime time than ever before.

And a look at two of the best new network TV dramas this fall also reveals two different ways to tell superhero stories on television, both with wonderful results.

It's tough to find a more traditional superhero story than The CW's take on The Flash, which opens with a voice over from the hero himself:

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"To understand what I'm about to tell you, you need to do something first ... you need to believe in the impossible," he says, preparing the audience for a few shots of him speeding across town at supersonic speed.

In the comics, Barry Allen is a forensic scientist who gets covered in chemicals after a lightning bolt hits his lab. And that's pretty much how The CW's TV version goes, too.

When Allen wakes up nine months later with the gift of superspeed, a couple of scientist sidekicks explain what happened and help him understand his new powers.

"You got struck by lightning, dude," says Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon, the tech-oriented engineering genius who eventually invents his friction-resistant uniform. Later, he tells him, "you thought the world was slowing down; it wasn't. You were moving so fast, it only looked like everyone else was standing still."

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Grant Gustin as Barry Allen on The Flash. Jack Rowand/The CW hide caption

itoggle caption Jack Rowand/The CW

Grant Gustin as Barry Allen on The Flash.

Jack Rowand/The CW

Star Grant Gustin has boy-band-ready good looks and an earnest energy; just what we expect from a hero like Barry Allen. There are no clumsy attempts to make his story more sophisticated — The Flash is just a good-guy hero chasing bad guys in a story that's half police procedural and half superhero fantasy.

It works well. But what's also amazing here is that The Flash is completely different from fall TV's other great comic book series, Fox's Gotham.

Fox's show is a Batman series without the guy in the black battle suit. It starts with the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents when he's 12 years old. A principled rookie detective named James Gordon takes the case and tries to comfort him.

"When I was about your age, drunk driver hit our car, killed my dad," Ben McKenzie's Gordon tells Bruce Wayne, played by David Mazouz. "I know how you feel right now. But I promise you, however dark and scary the world might be right now: There will be light."

Gotham is many things: a noirish police drama about the rise of a good cop in a bad town. The story of a little kid who pushes himself to become a superhero. An origin tale for villains from Batman lore, including an early version of The Penguin and a new crime boss played by Jada Pinkett Smith, Fish Mooney.

The show stitches together pieces of past Batman versions into a new story. It has the gritty feel of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight movies — including crime bosses named Falcone and Moroni — but a touch of the timeless goofiness from Tim Burton's Batman, with flip cellphones and cars straight from the '70s.

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Jada Pinkett Smith (second from right) stars in Fox's Gotham along with John Doman (from left), Camren Bicondova and Robin Lord Taylor. Fox TV hide caption

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Jada Pinkett Smith (second from right) stars in Fox's Gotham along with John Doman (from left), Camren Bicondova and Robin Lord Taylor.

Fox TV

A drama like this is heaven for comic book geeks, especially when you consider that the first Batman many fans saw on TV was Adam West's campy take on the Caped Crusader.

"Holy cliffhangers, Batman!" Burt Ward would shout while playing Robin, stuck in one of 1,000 elaborate traps laid for the Dynamic Duo in their 1966 live action series. (Turns out, Batman used complex math to figure a way out of the trap, yet again.)

Back in the 1960s, superheroes were mostly a joke, leaping around in tights and launching cartoon graphics with every punch. And it didn't get much better a decade later, when The Incredible Hulk's alter ego, David Banner, chased off a nosy reporter with a classic line.

"Mr. McGee, don't make me angry," Bill Bixby's Banner told the sneaky reporter, who always seemed on the verge of discovering that he could turn into a giant green rage monster. "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Decades later, comic book series like The Flash and Gotham succeed because they take comic storytelling seriously. Classic comics offer stories refined over many decades, with characters that have evolved as times change.

These new TV series treat that history as important building blocks, with extra nods to the classic storylines for fans who are paying attention (Easter egg hunters, look for the shot of a mangled cage in tonight's Flash episode).

That's why I don't worry when others complain about the growing number of superhero-themed TV shows: If every series turns out as well as The Flash and Gotham, this comic book geek is ready to see a lot more.

That preacher is Ames. He grew up in Gilead and married his childhood sweetheart, who died in childbirth. Since then, he has lived alone. When Lila steps into his church to get out of the rain, he is immediately taken with her. She has never really been in love but sees in him someone who may have answers to her questions. She wonders if she can find salvation in religion, and she wants him to baptize her, which he eventually does.

They are an unlikely pair, but Robinson says her directness both challenges and attracts him. "If you are habituated to a certain role in life, you can forget what it feels like to be challenged," she says. "And I think that the fact that she comes to him so honestly with these very fundamental questions is very invigorating to him."

In a series of poignant encounters, Lila and the reverend approach each other warily. Lila seeks out and then resists the comfort he offers, until he wears her down with tenderness. But Lila doesn't slip that easily into love — or faith. Her past keeps coming back, angry thoughts overtake her, and she often fights an urge to flee Gilead. At one point, she tries to wash away her baptism because she questions whether a Christian heaven has room for people like Doll, the woman who raised her.

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"Speaking from a Christian perspective," Robinson says, "that idea seems, on its face, un-Christian, you know? And also there's a way in which ... whether you accept these theological propositions or not about, you know, inclusion and exclusion, there's a way in which I think we're kind of culturally ingrained with the idea that people have greater or less dignity or beauty depending on where their lot falls, you know. And I think that's very wrong."

If the promise of salvation seems false to Lila, the solace of love does not. She understands, and so does the reverend, that they have found something rare in each other.

“ Being really in love with someone is sort of like seeing them the way they ought to be seen.

"Being really in love with someone is sort of like seeing them the way they ought to be seen," Robinson says. "And the fact that we have this as a very isolated experience, most of us, if we're lucky enough to have it at all, distracts us from the fact that it is another kind of seeing that has a kind of deep grace built into it."

Lila may think about running away, but she doesn't. As long as Ames is still alive, she will stay by his side in Gilead.

Read an excerpt of Lila

West Africa is a poor region, struggling to improve its economic growth.

It had been succeeding. Last year, Sierra Leone and Liberia ranked second and sixth among countries with the highest growth in gross domestic product in the world.

But this year, growth has stopped because of the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. On Wednesday, the World Bank released a report saying the epidemic's economic cost could reach $32.6 billion by the end of 2015 if the outbreak spreads.

In such poor countries — the combined 2013 gross domestic product of the two nations and similarly hard-hit Guinea was about $15 billion — that's an astounding amount of money.

The grim scenario is based on economists' estimates of costs, and it assumes that containment efforts will move slowly, allowing the disease to spread from the hardest-hit three nations into neighboring countries, including Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Senegal. World Bank officials are hoping that "slow" scenario won't come true.

"With Ebola's potential to inflict massive economic costs on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and on the rest of their neighbors in West Africa, the international community must find ways to get past logistical roadblocks and bring in more doctors and trained medical staff, more hospital beds and more health and development support to help stop Ebola in its tracks," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

The World Bank study says that no matter what happens in coming months, Ebola already is having a huge economic impact. Right now, it is killing workers and causing "higher fiscal deficits; rising prices; lower real household incomes and greater poverty."

Over time, the disease will have indirect consequences as people change their behaviors, according to the report. When countries get hit with widespread fear of contagion, people become afraid to meet or even show up for work. That, in turn, "closes places of employment, disrupts transportation, motivates some governments to close land borders ... and motivates private decision-makers to disrupt trade, travel and commerce by canceling scheduled commercial flights and reduction in shipping and cargo service."

This week, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are trying to call attention to the huge costs of Ebola. The organizations are holding their annual fall meetings in Washington. On Thursday morning, a news conference will feature the presidents of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone as well as the heads of the CDC, the World Bank, IMF, the United Nations.

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Broad channels of short-term economic impact from the Ebola epidemic, as laid out in the World Bank report. For a larger version, click here. Courtesy of the World Bank hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of the World Bank

Broad channels of short-term economic impact from the Ebola epidemic, as laid out in the World Bank report. For a larger version, click here.

Courtesy of the World Bank

Estimates of Ebola's potential economic damage come on top of Tuesday's release of the World Bank and IMF's assessment of annual global growth. The report noted that factors such as disease, debt, war and terrorist attacks are slowing global economic expansion. The forecast for this year's average global growth slid to 3.3 percent, down 0.4 percentage point from April.

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Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET

Here's a roundup of the latest developments on Ebola. We'll update this post as news happens.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest confirmed that the U.S. will conduct additional screenings of passengers arriving from the Ebola-infected region of West Africa. JFK, Newark, Chicago O'Hare, Dulles and Atlanta's Hartsfield airports will implement measures that would affect about 150 passengers a day.

The World Health Organization today also updated its Ebola figures, reporting a total of 8,033 cases and 3,879 deaths from the disease in West Africa.

In Spain, Teresa Romero Ramos, the nurse who was admitted to a hospital in Madrid after caring for an infected priest who'd returned from West Africa, reportedly told health authorities three times that she had a fever before she was placed in quarantine.

There were also reports that she may have become infected by touching gloves to her face while she was removing a protective suit she wore while caring for an Ebola patient.

Her dog, Excalibur, was euthanized, reportedly inside the apartment she lived in with her husband. The dog's body was then transported to an incinerator, reporter Lauren Frayer tells NPR's Goats and Soda blog.

Earlier, The Guardian reported:

"In a note distributed on social media by several animal protection organisations, Javier Limn Romero said health officials had asked for his consent to put down the dog Exclibur.

" 'I said no. And they told me that they would ask for a court order to enter my house and put him down,' Romero said in the note.

"The appeal was sent from Limn Romero's isolation ward in the Carlos III Hospital where his wife, Teresa Romero Ramos, is also in quarantine."

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This is an undated image released Wednesday by animal rights organization PACMA of a dog named Excalibur who is owned by Javier Limon and his wife, a nurse who was infected with Ebola in Madrid. Authorities said they planned to euthanize the dog as a precaution. AP hide caption

itoggle caption AP

This is an undated image released Wednesday by animal rights organization PACMA of a dog named Excalibur who is owned by Javier Limon and his wife, a nurse who was infected with Ebola in Madrid. Authorities said they planned to euthanize the dog as a precaution.

AP

A social media campaign to save the dog had been running with the Twitter hashtag #excalibur.

The Guardian newspaper cited the Spanish paper El Pais as saying that the nurse first contacted health authorities on Sept. 30. The Guardian writes:

" ... she complained of a slight fever and fatigue. Romero Ramos called a specialised service dedicated to occupational risk at the Carlos III hospital where she worked and had treated an Ebola patient, said Antonio Alemany from the regional government of Madrid. But as the nurse's fever had not reached 38.6C, she was advised to visit her local clinic where she was reportedly prescribed paracetamol [aspirin].

"Days later, according to the El Pas newspaper, Romero Ramos called the hospital again to complain about her fever. No action was taken.

"On Monday, she called the Carlos III hospital again, this time saying she felt terrible. Rather than transport her to the hospital that had treated the two missionaries who had been repatriated with Ebola, Romero Ramos was instructed to call emergency services and head to the hospital closest to her home. She was transported to the Alcorcn hospital by paramedics who were not wearing protective gear, El Pas reported."

Reuters quotes Spanish health authorities as saying today that another person being monitored in Madrid for Ebola had tested negative for the disease:

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Hospital workers attend a prayer vigil outside Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Tuesday. LM Otero/AP hide caption

itoggle caption LM Otero/AP

Hospital workers attend a prayer vigil outside Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Tuesday.

LM Otero/AP

"The man, a Spaniard who had travelled from Nigeria, was one of several people hospitalised after authorities confirmed on Monday that a Spanish nurse had caught the disease in Madrid.

"A second nurse was also cleared of Ebola. A third nursing assistant was hospitalised late on Tuesday for monitoring, a source at La Paz hospital said — bringing the number of people examined in hospital for Ebola to five, two of whom tested negative."

The chief medical officer at La Paz University Hospital, Dr. German Ramirez, was quoted in El Mundo as saying that Romero contracted Ebola when she touched her face with gloves she had used in the room where she was treating Manuel Garcia Viejo, a priest who had worked in Liberia. Viejo later died from the disease.

In Dallas, as we reported in another post, Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who traveled from Liberia and was the first person diagnosed with the disease in the U.S., has died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Hospital officials say Duncan "succumbed to an insidious disease, Ebola," this morning.

In a statement, the hospital said: "He fought courageously in this battle. Our professionals, the doctors and nurses in the unit, as well as the entire Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas community, are also grieving his passing. We have offered the family our support and condolences at this difficult time."

Health officials are still watching a group of people who had contact with Duncan after he developed symptoms of the disease but before he was placed in isolation at the hospital.

Duncan first sought hospital care on Sept. 26 and was admitted on Sept. 28. Before his hospitalization, 10 of the 48 people being monitored had close contact with him and are being most closely watched. Since the first symptoms of the disease can begin in eight to 10 days after exposure, "this is a very critical week," said Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner. "We're at a very sensitive period when a contact could develop symptoms. We're monitoring with extreme vigilance."

In Omaha, Neb., a freelance cameraman, Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted Ebola in West Africa and is being treated at Nebraska Medical Center, will reportedly receive blood donated by Dr. Kent Brantly, who earlier survived the disease. Antibodies against Ebola in Brantly's blood could help Mukpo fight off the infection, officials say.

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, burial teams reportedly refused to collect bodies of Ebola victims in the capital and went on strike, apparently demanding more money, though officials there told The Associated Press that the situation has been "resolved."

The AP says: "In neighboring Liberia, health workers said they planned to strike if their demands for more money and safety equipment were not met by the end of the week."

And in Geneva, as NPR's Marilyn Geewax reports, the World Bank issued an estimate of the projected cost of the Ebola outbreak, saying it could reach $32.6 billion by the end of 2015 if the virus spreads significantly beyond worst-hit West Africa.

"The enormous economic cost of the current outbreak to the affected countries and the world could have been avoided by prudent ongoing investment in health systems-strengthening," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

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