Family friendly heroics and adorably quirky Norway

If you could have a superpower, which one would you choose? Invisibility? The ability to fly or read minds? Or perhaps superhuman strength?

Personally, I'd shun the stress involved in saving the world and go for one of the more ineffectual powers, such as that of the superhero Moist, who has the ability to make things uncomfortably damp. Or Rainbow Girl, who can harness the entire emotional spectrum, giving her the ability to throw wild, unpredictable mood swings. Captain Hindsight has possibly the most annoying talent of this odd lot (he tells you what you just did wrong) while Dogwelder … well, he welds dead dogs to people. No, he really does. So that would be, er … handy.

These ridiculously useless superheroes, all taken from genuine comic books - sorry, "graphic novels" (best not to offend the nerds) - make DC Comics' character The Flash seem rather special.

The Flash (TVB Pearl, tomorrow at 10.35pm) is a spin-off of television show Arrow and tells the story of Barry Allen (Grant Gustin; Glee), a young forensic investigator who witnesses his mother's murder and the wrongful conviction of his father for the crime. While mourning his loss, Allen gets caught up in a radiation storm, created by a particle accelerator exploding, and is struck by lightning, which sends him into a coma. Nine months later, he wakes up to discover he can move at extraordinary speed.

The storm also created other "metahumans", but these ne'er-do-wells are putting their powers to criminal use. Allen chooses the path of righteous heroism and sets out to protect the city from the new superbaddies while vowing to discover who really killed his mother.

Now I'll admit this genre usually bores the pants off me - in fact, the only superheroes I've ever had time for are the Dark Knight and Ren & Stimpy's Powdered Toast Man (in case you were wondering, powdered toast doesn't taste right unless Powdered Toast Man farts on it) - so it was all the more surprising to find The Flash so enjoyable. It's a simple, family friendly fantasy adventure but it gleefully plays to its classic comic-book charms: likeable characters; a well-paced script that goes easy on the pathos; and plenty of action. Sure, it's silly and cheesy, but it's a bolt of light in these often dark times.