For a superhero who can, famously, fly, live-action Superman stories seems to struggle to get off the ground. Whatever plans Zack Snyder had for the evolution of Clark Kent that began with 2013’s Man of Steel were quickly shuttered thanks to constant overhauls and pseudo-reboots. But that’s often how it works with the last son of Krypton, who has never surpassed his 1978 live-action peak when Christopher Reeve put on the cape.
However, if live-action is Superman’s Kryptonite, the character flourishes in animation. The latest super-series, My Adventures With Superman, premieres on Adult Swim and Max this weekend. The show, which combines anime-inspired designs and action with rom-com meet-cutes, is a delightful take on the world’s most iconic superhero. There is something about animation that truly brings out the best in the character — a sense of confidence that doesn’t really translate to flesh-and-blood depictions. There have been more than a dozen different animated series about or featuring Superman since 1941, but these are 15 episodes or shorts that capture what makes the character so immortally great.
“Superman” (Superman, 1941)
In the 1930s, Fleischer Studios managed to survive the Depression with crowd-pleasing characters like Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor Man. And a little more than three years after the character was born in Action Comics No. 1, they’d take the reins on a series of short Superman films. They’d unite the progress on the character made in both the comics and the hit radio serial to give us a take on Superman that feels seamlessly epochal. In fact, 50 years later, when Warner Bros. was looking for a way to distill Batman to his purest form in Batman: The Animated Series, their chief inspiration was this series of films.
“Superman” is the first of these, and what it may lack in pathos, it makes up for in a sweeping sense of derring-do. The plot is simple: A mad scientist created a big laser. Watching Superman valiantly punching away at it and then tearing his way into the villain’s hideout as the music roars triumphantly and his “S” symbol stands out proudly is beautiful escapism. It makes it clear why, even as the United States struggled to emerge from financial ruin, kids were still eager to spend a dime on a comic book. And its quality did not go unnoticed: Long before modern superhero films made bids for Oscars, Superman was the first superhero anything to be nominated for an Academy Award, when it earned a nod in what would become the Best Animated Short Film category.
“Merlin’s Magic Marbles” (The New Adventures of Superman, 1966)
No villain of Superman’s is more iconic than Lex Luthor, mainly thanks to his eternally insecure quest for power and his ability to fit neatly into whatever role the story requires. (Corrupt businessman? Dastardly scientist? President of the United States? Luthor has done it all!) But he’d have to wait until 1966 to make his debut in cartoons, starting in the episode “Merlin’s Magical Marbles” in The New Adventures of Superman, a series of 68 short episodes that drew from the first 30 years of Superman’s existence. It’s not the most honorable inauguration (Luthor’s mostly a cackling weirdo here, though New Adventures would be the first time many of Superman’s classic foes, like Brainiac or Mister Mxyzptlk, were ever put on screen) but it does establish from the very beginning that Luthor is Superman’s archenemy. And Luthor’s plan to deviously trick Merlin contrasts against the morally upright Superman, kicking off a dichotomy that will be played out in animation until the end of time.
“The Case of the Stolen Powers” (The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, 1985)
There isn’t much nostalgia for DC’s run with Hanna-Barbera, the animation studio behind classics like The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo. For 12 years, they’d produced some variation of the Super Friends, a cartoon mostly remembered for lackluster animation and inane plotting. However, in its last season, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, we get something closer to what we expect from a Justice League–centric cartoon. And in “The Case of the Stolen Powers,” the show tackles a common Superman plot line with aplomb. What happens when the man loses all the traits that make him super? Turns out he’s still super. When faced by the maniacal Felix Faust, the magical supervillain who’d stolen his gifts, Superman rushes into battle without hesitation. Superman isn’t brave because he has powers — rather, his true power lies in the fact that he’s brave.
“The Last Time I Saw Earth/It’s Superman” (Superman, 1988)
Stuck between Hanna-Barbera’s stranglehold on the character and his essential rebirth as part of a nascent DC Animated Universe, the Superman series produced by Ruby-Spears is frequently forgotten. That’s a shame, though, as it has some strong qualities, particularly in its approach to Lois Lane. Lane, often portrayed as either an intrepid journalist or a love-lorn chump, is decidedly the former here. She’s inquisitive and headstrong, working on her reporting duties even in the midst of danger, such as in this episode, here she’s trapped in a malfunctioning space shuttle and then menaced by aliens. It’s a kind of curiosity that makes her a match for the Man of Steel, a character that needs her to keep him on his toes, lest he become a simple power fantasy.
“The Last Son of Krypton” (Superman: The Animated Series, 1996)
In 1992, Batman: The Animated Series would prove to be a character-defining success for the Dark Knight, creating adventures that were simultaneously true to the spirit of the best comics while also lending them a vibrancy that could only be captured in animation. It was such a hit that many of its developers would move on to give the same treatment to the Man of Steel in Superman: The Animated Series. While they’d abstained from delivering a full episode based on Batman’s origin in his show (instead opting to leave it as a sort of recurring and haunting reminder for the hero,) they dove into Superman’s origin in a trilogy of great installments; from being shuttled off of his imploding planet, to his childhood with the Kents in Smallville, and finally through his early days as a borderline urban legend in Metropolis. In this coming-of-age tale, we get a broad blend of science fiction/fantasy, saccharine poignancy, explosive heroics — all key ingredients in not just setting up where Superman comes from, but where he will go from here.
“Brave New Metropolis” (Superman: The Animated Series, 1997)
Though you’re probably getting multiverse fatigue, Superman tends to thrive in alternate-universe, “Elseworlds” stories because it’s only natural to wonder what a character as iconic as Superman would be if you tweaked the variables. When you have that much strength — and thus that much capacity for sheer goodness or sheer brutality — there’s a lot of ways that this whole thing could go. In “Brave New Metropolis,” Lois Lane finds herself in a new dimension where she’s “died.” As a result, Superman, driven by grief, teams up with Lex Luthor to take dictatorial control. Everything comforting about Superman, from his power to his red logo is rendered as a tool of oppression here. Eventually Lois goes back to her own timeline, and is so moved by her experience that she decides to reveal her true feelings for Superman. Seeing Superman’s ideals be warped into totalitarianism only enhances the character’s cultural standing, making Superman’s usual choice to be mankind’s symbol of hope all the more inspiring.
“World’s Finest” (Superman: The Animated Series, 1997)
Batman made his comic book debut just a year after Superman, and even in their chummiest moments, the two heroes have always been posited as foils for one another. So when Batman appears in Metropolis for the first time in the DC Animated Universe, they’re both hesitant to trust one another. It’s only when Joker and Lex Luthor form a doomed partnership that they realize that they both fight for Truth, Justice, and the Way of Not Wanting An Evil Clown to Blow Up Cities. It’s a humanizing moment for the strong-jawed Clark: Working together means not having to carry the full weight of the world on his shoulders. And given his trajectory toward being the Justice League’s de-facto leader (He’ll meet The Flash, Aquaman and Green Lantern during the series, too,) it’s a vital lesson for him. Plus, if he can trust a shadow-ey man dedicated to vengeance and bat-themed accessories, maybe there’s a little hope for everyone.
“Apokolips … Now!” (Superman: The Animated Series, 1998)
Lex Luthor might be Superman’s archenemy, but Darkseid is his final boss. A god-like presence, Darkseid had made his first animated appearances in later Super Friends series, but it isn’t until Superman: The Animated Series that we get a real glimpse at his tyranny and wrath. However, with his near-unstoppable might comes the reveal of the effect that Superman has had on Metropolis. Even with Superman seemingly defeated, the people of the city continue to fight back against the alien warlord. Thus, in a departing act of petty contempt, Darkseid murders Dan Turpin, one of Superman’s human allies, sending Superman into a rage that will inform all of their future encounters. It might seem like a lapse in Superman’s stability, but as a character he requires those moments of weakness in order to remain simultaneously aspirational and relatable.
“The Call” (Batman Beyond, 2000)
Superman’s early days are heralded as a time of optimism for the character, but his later days are a little trickier. Thanks to the success of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, it’s typically an era marked by nihilism, with a Superman that’s become embittered and exhausted by a world that he’s destined to outlive. “The Call,” which sees the Justice League’s first appearance in the story of Batman’s protégé, seems like it’s heading that way at first, with a Superman who is ridiculously overbearing and quick to lash out at his own teammates at the slightest provocation. He’s paranoid about a traitor in the ranks — but Batman discovers that the traitor is Superman himself. Luckily, it’s revealed that he’s under the control of Starro the Conqueror, and when he’s not in the evil alien’s thrall, the elder Superman has evolved into the League’s paternal protector. It’s a wonderful reveal after the mind-controlled twist, establishing that Superman’s innate goodness is as enduring as his bulletproof skin.
“Comfort and Joy” (Justice League, 2003)
Superman isn’t the main character of “Comfort and Joy,” an episode of Justice League that serves as a Christmas anthology. But it does let Clark’s sentimentality run wild with the inherent cheer of the holidays and it reveals what Superman’s life is like when he’s able to relax. Clark goes home to his parent’s farm where he reminds them that it was Santa that wrapped the gifts and even tries to peek at his presents using his X-Ray vision. It’s an ultimately light installment of a series typically dedicated to a team battling mega-threats, but it reveals that while you can take the boy out of Smallville, you can’t take Smallville out of the boy.
“For the Man Who Has Everything” (Justice League Unlimited, 2004)
Superman’s origin story is tragic — he’s the last son of an entire dead planet, sent by his now-deceased parents into the cosmos in hopes of a better future — but Superman stories don’t tend to dwell in the throes of misery like his battier buddy does. However, this episode of Justice League Unlimited, inspired by a story by comics luminary Alan Moore, explores Superman’s inherent loss by allowing Superman himself an abrupt visit to a life of utter joy. On an unexploded Krypton, he has a loving wife and an exuberant son, but it’s all, as you may have guessed, the ruse of a bad guy. In one of the most heartbreaking scenes in Superman history, Kal-El embraces his crying son as the dream is destroyed, telling him that he’s everything he’s ever wanted before he wakes back up to his reality. It’s a tear-jerking look at what Superman doesn’t have that shows who he is.
“Destroyer” (Justice League Unlimited, 2006)
“I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard …”
“Destroyer,” the JLU finale and the last entry in the entire DCAU, puts the prime members of the Justice League in a fairly familiar situation: Darkseid has invaded and he’s causing way more explosions than usual. However, what makes this episode stand out is a monologue delivered by Superman as he’s beating the Omega Beams out of Darkseid. Powered by his loathing of Darkseid’s continual degradation of humans, he pounds on the brute while lamenting that he’s never allowed to “cut loose,” for fear of hurting those same humans that Darkseid abhors. But now, Superman delivers all the pain that Darkseid has caused back at him, knowing that Darkseid won’t perish in the attack. It’s an assault delivered in anger but not malice, a perfect example of Superman’s strength — both the power of his punches and his immense emotional fortitude.
“Man of Tomorrow” (Legion of Superheroes, 2006)
As the DC Animated Universe came to a close, its two leading heroes would be rebooted on the Kids’ WB programming block. The Caped Crusader would star in The Batman, retelling his adventures from his early days protecting Gotham, but the Man of Steel would get something a little different. Based on the sci-fi heavy comic, the Legion of Super Heroes saw a team from the future travel to the past to recruit a teenage Clark Kent in their missions. His Superman learning curve would not be in Metropolis, fighting Luthor and petty crooks, but in different galaxies in the 31st century. “Man of Tomorrow” has a few of these advanced heroes coming back to find Clark in the throes of teenage angst, a kid who feels powerless against bullies and his destiny alike. Thus, he needs to be convinced of his own potential. It’s a reversal of how a Justice League-esque team is typically formed, but it allows a rare glimpse into a hero still emotionally working to be the barrel-chested pillar of courage that will inevitably be the stuff of legends. But like all Supermen, he will come to learn of his mighty efficacy.
“Superman’s Pal, Sid Sharp” (Justice League Action, 2017)
Clark Kent’s career as a newspaper reporter often gets shoved to the wayside because of, well, all of the Supermanning he’s gotta do. As such, we rarely get to see his workplace life outside of interactions with a few key characters. “Superman’s Pal, Sid Sharp,” an episode of the vastly underrated anthology cartoon Justice League Action, goes a little further, giving us a rival Daily Planet journalist named Sid (voiced with appropriate discontent by Jon Lovitz) who isn’t impressed with Clark’s “simple boy from Kansas” routine. Superman can’t be a paragon of benevolence for absolutely everyone, and this episode takes us into the life of someone who sees him less as the hero of Metropolis and more like a bizarre dude that always lands on the front page. It’s easy to take Superman’s more “normal” world for granted when his super-powered exploits are so vast, but episodes like “Superman’s Pal, Sid Sharp” show that he doesn’t exist in a Lex Luthor-shaped vacuum.
“I Know Why the Caged Cat Sings” (Young Justice, 2021)
Young Justice is nothing if not sprawling, taking us on a decade-long look at the stories of the Justice League and their younger allies. One such ally is a clone of Superman, Conner, whose appearance forces Superman to confront not only his own existence but the idea of fatherhood. By the fourth season, Superman has a real son, and when he has to explain to his boy what happened to Conner (who is believed to have died,) we see Superman work through his tragic unfamiliarity with mortality. He gets the job done of explaining how a physical demise works adequately enough, but remains wracked with guilt over being unable to save the young man. Like Clark dealing with his father’s fatal heart attack in the 1978 film, or the death of Dan Turpin in Superman: The Animated Series, loss is something seemingly all Supermen have to confront. For all of Superman’s strength, Kryptonite isn’t the only thing that makes him hurt.
