With IGN having given our choices for The Top 25 Comic Book Movies a couple of months back, we decided it was time to look at the history of comic book characters on TV as well.
Live-action adaptations are still far less common on TV than in films (where it seems every few weeks we have a new comic book character arriving in theaters), and there have been several completely botched series among those selections. That being the case, you'll see a large number of animated series among this list, as animation has often been the medium that has best served some of our favorite comic book characters. And yes, The Man of Steel and The Caped Crusader make multiple appearances. What can we say? Those two guys are just greedy when it comes to the amount of TV series they've been in!
This show, featuring all your Marvel favorites, is not for you. It's for your six-year-old. And it's up to you to determine whether or not it's better to wait until your children are older to expose them to the more mature versions of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Wolverine, Loki, Doctor Doom and the like or if you're perfectly happy with introducing mini/juvenile versions of them to your kids when their young as a primer. That being said, there's a wonderfully perverse thrill in watching Super Hero Squad and seeing the Avengers, Dr. Strange, Red Skull, Sabretooth act out plotlines like "a spell backfires and causes Ms. Marvel to fall in love with MODOK," "It's Captain America's birthday bash!" and "hulk has a farting problem." Plus, this show has Some Kind of Wonderful references! Which is every kind of wonderful.
Children of the '80s no doubt have fond memories of cutting holes in their mom's stockings and strapping them to their faces, only to be extremely disappointed in the final product. Regardless, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon deviated from the original tongue-in-cheek violent nature of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's original comics and instead fabricated the Turtles as the pizza-loving goofballs that are now ingrained in pop culture. Because of the cartoon, the Turtles conquered everything from toys to video games and everything in between. If you think the TMNT cartoon didn't impact you in any significant way, we'll remind you that there's an 85% chance you can recite the theme song (written by Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre!) from memory.
Superman had already become an icon from the moment he was introduced, but the character truly became cemented in the public's mind as the quintessential superhero when this show debuted – the first of many TV incarnations of The Man of Steel. While it had a rather corny and simplistic approach, The Adventures of Superman wowed audiences, as relatively impressive (for the time) special effects showed Superman flying, fighting and shrugging off bullets, as he faced various gangsters and evil scientists (rarely was an actual supervillain used). He may have grown resentful of the role, but George Reeves truly became Superman to young viewers, plain and simple, who couldn't get enough of Clark Kent and his powerful alter ego.
There's no denying that the Wonder Woman TV series itself was a bit… messy. While it only lasted for three seasons, the show went through major overhauls during that time, most notably being moved from telling World War II era stories in the first season to episodes set in the then-modern era of the 1970s for the next two years (good thing Wonder Woman doesn't age like the rest of us!). But among some less than stellar stories, Wonder Woman remains a memorable series because of the heroic, inspiring central character and the amazingly dead on casting of Lynda Carter, who so perfectly embodied the Amazonian princess, Diana -- in both looks and attitude -- that she became exactly what most people picture in their minds when they think of Wonder Woman – something that continues to this day.
Making up for an odd late-90s Avengers series that didn't regularly use any of the most notable characters, the current Avengers animated series features exactly who you'd want to see: Captain America, Thor and Iron Man, along with pivotal Avengers comic book characters like Hulk, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, Wasp and Black Panther. The series has used many comic book stories as inspiration, which – coupled with plenty of guest stars from the Marvel Universe -- contributes to the excitement of watching classic Marvel Comics play out in animated form in each episode, with new twists adding to the fun.
