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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:

Monkey See

Deggans Picks 'Gotham,' 'Black-ish,' 'The Flash' Among Fall TV's Best

"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."

i i

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.

i i

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

itoggle caption Fox TV

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.

Talking about death isn't easy, but mortician Caitlin Doughty is trying to reform how we think about the deaths of loved ones — and prepare for our own.

"My philosophy is honesty," Doughty tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I think that we've been so hidden from death in this culture for such a long time that it's very refreshing and liberating to talk about death in an open, honest manner."

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

And Other Lessons from the Crematory

by Caitlin Doughty

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Doughty is the founder of The Order of the Good Death, a group of funeral industry professionals, academics and artists who focus on the rituals families perform with their dead and how the industry disposes of dead bodies. She is also starting her own funeral service in Los Angeles, called Undertaking L.A., that will help families with planning after they lose a family member.

Doughty's new memoir, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory, serves as, among other things, a way for her to cope with working with dead bodies.

"I write a lot because it can take a lot out of you — especially if you consider the job as more than just a trade," Doughty says. "Not only are you dealing with the dead bodies; you're dealing with the incredible sorrow of the families and the fact that they can get very mad at you. ... They're angry that somebody has died and they're looking for somebody to take it out on."

Doughty says she hopes to educate people on the inevitable. On her video series, Ask a Mortician, she answers questions on a wide range of subjects including home death, pet death, necrophilia and what happens to breast implants and titanium hip replacements after a body is cremated. Her Wednesday Addams style and energetic personality is part of what draws viewers.

"I think that humor gets people to watch them; I think cultural references get people to watch them; I think me being friendly and young gets people to watch them," she says. "I'm passionate about presenting it in a way that makes people consider it — and makes people not afraid of it."

i i

Caitlin Doughty is the founder of The Order of the Good Death, a group of funeral industry professionals, academics and artists who focus on the rituals families perform with their dead. Mara Zehler/Courtesy of W.W. Norton & Co. Inc. hide caption

itoggle caption Mara Zehler/Courtesy of W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.

Caitlin Doughty is the founder of The Order of the Good Death, a group of funeral industry professionals, academics and artists who focus on the rituals families perform with their dead.

Mara Zehler/Courtesy of W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.

Interview Highlights

On how she once romanticized crematory work, and how that compared with reality

I think it was probably more romantic than it actually ended up being. I thought of the idea of ... the open-air pyre and leading the body to it and placing it on the pyre and everybody's weeping and it's beautiful. But the reality that I found is that modern crematories are really industrial environments and the body goes into large industrial machines and oftentimes I was the only one there. And it's hot and it's dirty and you get covered in dust [ashes] as you're working.

[The ashes] are inorganic bone fragments, which means that the organic material that is the body — which is your organs, your flesh, the clothes that you're wearing — all burn up. And what's left is inorganic bone and that's what we actually know of as "ashes." And there's so much of it that it can, when you're taking it out of the machine, get on you and get into strange little places that you didn't even know you had.

On the emotional impact of working with bodies

You get used to it, in a way. I don't mean that you get callous, but it becomes a reality of your workplace because if you really took it in in the sense of thinking, "Ahh, this is the dust of a man who is no longer here. We are all mortal!" — if you did that every morning with your cup of coffee, while you were cremating your first body, you wouldn't be able to do the work.

You really have to look past that and really see it as an occupational hazard. That doesn't mean that working with the bodies and working with the family loses its impact over time, but it just means you can't take in the full existential despair of it every time or you just wouldn't be able to come to work every day.

“ When I was working at the crematory, the most shocking thing to me wasn't so much the decomposing bodies or the strange bodies that I saw, it really was that I was alone there. And I was sending all of these people off to their final disposition in the crematorium machine ... and it didn't feel right because I didn't know these people.

On what she would like to see done differently in cremation

If I could see anything change it would be the level of involvement of the family in the death rituals. Because, when I was working at the crematory, the most shocking thing to me wasn't so much the decomposing bodies or the strange bodies that I saw, it really was that I was alone there. And I was sending all of these people off to their final disposition in the crematorium machine and there was no one there and it didn't feel right because I didn't know these people. And it was an honor and I took it very seriously.

But the time when families did come — and that's called a "witness cremation," which is something you can ask for at your local crematory or funeral home — when ... the family was there and they sat with the body and they took the time and they pushed the button to send the body into the flames; it was an incredibly powerful experience because they took responsibility for that body. And they took responsibility for that death and for that loss to the community, and that to me is the thing that we've lost and it's most crucial that we get back.

On using more natural alternatives for burial

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I did go to school to be an embalmer, in something called "mortuary school," which is a real thing. ... Embalming is the practice that the American funeral industry was essentially built on. ... It's the short-term preservation of the body for a viewing and then the body goes in the casket and the idea would be that you are buried after you are embalmed.

But my personal opinion is that we should be moving towards not embalming unless it's absolutely necessary because it is a chemical process and it can be an expensive process for the family.

And [we should] return more to the body as it naturally is and [let] it be buried without a big vault and without a big casket and without embalming — just straight into the ground in a shroud or decomposable casket and be allowed to go back into the earth.

On embalming

It's a very invasive process and a lot of people don't realize that. It involves removing the blood from the circulatory system through a vein and then putting chemicals, including formaldehyde, [in] to replace the blood. It also involves penetrating the internal organs and putting chemicals there as well.

For me, it doesn't seem necessary. If you're shipping a body to Germany or something, you probably want to embalm it — or if there's some reason that you need to preserve it for a long period of time, at the coroner's or medical examiner's office, or for a medical school study, perhaps.

But other than that, if you're just going to have it at a wake and then bury it, it doesn't really make sense to have this environmentally unfriendly, invasive procedure done.

On what she wants readers and listeners to take away from her work

Death is going to happen to you — whether you want it to or not — and you're never going to be completely comfortable with it. But it's an important process, and please consider facing it.

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:

Monkey See

Deggans Picks 'Gotham,' 'Black-ish,' 'The Flash' Among Fall TV's Best

"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."

i i

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.

i i

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

itoggle caption Fox TV

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