There’s a decent argument to be made that superhero cinema would never have gotten to the culturally hegemonic position it’s at today without the tremendously successful history of superhero television to back it up. Since all the way back in the 1950s, audiences around the world have been consuming the stories of these superpowered crime-fighting individuals on the small screen, and they still haven’t gotten tired of them.
From Marvel to DC and beyond, there have been plenty of great superhero TV shows over the years; but it’s one thing for a show to be great, and another for it to be truly groundbreaking. These are superhero series that paved the way for others like them; ones that revolutionized the genre, took risks, and offered something new. These are 12 of those shows, ranked from least to most groundbreaking.
12
‘Teen Titans’ (2003–2006)
The Teen Titans were born in 1964, and just three years later, Filmation produced a demo episode for The New Adventures of Superman and Aquaman. It wouldn’t be until 2003 that the first proper Teen Titans show would come out, and today, it’s still one of the most beloved pieces of animated DC content out there.
Relying on fun characters, compelling storylines, and an animation style that feels delightfully reminiscent of anime, the series had visuals, a mature tone, and a sense of serialized storytelling that were all pretty much revolutionary at the time of its airing. It had a cultural impact that cannot be overstated, becoming one of the very first superhero shows with a proper online cult fandom, and it has aged like fine wine.
11
‘Daredevil’ (2015–2018)
Before the Man Without Fear made his jump to the MCU-at-large in She-Hulk, he was the protagonist of the show that kickstarted Netflix’s short-lived street-level MCU, a far darker and more mature microcosm encapsulated within the world of the Avengers. Daredevil remains one of the most acclaimed superhero shows in history, and even though it deserved to run for a bit longer, it undeniably went out with a bang.
Such gritty, violent, and incredibly mature storytelling was pretty much unprecedented in the superhero genre at the time. Daredevil was a dramatic departure from the campier, more network-friendly tone of the superhero series of its time, offering a far more cinematic quality, a much more grounded scope, and far more complex storytelling.
10
‘Spider-Man: The Animated Series’ (1994–1998)
One of the very best animated adaptations of the Wall-Crawler, as well as one of the first superhero shows that ever truly felt like a comic book turned into a TV series, Spider-Man: The Animated Series is a must-see for any fan of the genre. Captivating, quick-witted, and full of fun action scenes, it still holds up perfectly well nearly thirty years after its conclusion.
There are countless elements that make Spider-Man: TAS groundbreaking. It was full of large-scale serialized story arcs; it depicted Peter Parker as a far more emotionally complex character than children had ever seen on the small screen before; it was one of the first small-screen depictions of the concept of the multiverse; and it even offered some cutting-edge animation. This is precisely what has allowed it to remain so timeless.
9
‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ (1993–1996)
Both a nostalgic childhood classic and a genuinely fantastic series in its own right, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is one of the best kids’ shows of the 1990s. It was an American adaptation of the long-running Japanese Super Sentai franchise, and even though it’s impossible to deny that it’s more than a bit cheesy, that cheesiness became key to its success. It spawned a franchise just as prolific as its Japanese counterpart.
Mighty Morphin was absolutely revolutionary in its East-West hybrid production model, which pretty much ensured its success and gave it a timeless feel that it still has to this day. Its diverse cast and focus on representation were pretty novel for a ’90s children’s show, and the effect of its twist on the superhero team television formula can still be felt and seen all these many years later.
8
‘Batman’ (1966–1968)
Before Tim Burton burst into the scene in 1989 and proved that both the Dark Knight and superheroes as a whole were worthy of being taken seriously, Adam West turned the Caped Crusader into a delightfully campy hero in Batman. Of course, those who prefer much darker depictions of this beloved character may find this show somewhat dated, but those who like to get the best of both worlds ought to check out this far funnier and more laid-back version of the character and his gallery of allies and rogues. This is easily one of the funniest versions of Batman, and that’s precisely the source of its charm.
Batman comics were struggling financially at the time, and Batman ’66 played a role in saving the character from cancellation. As far as superhero shows go, this was the first prime-time network hit the genre had, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was a market for these kinds of stories. It became a huge cultural phenomenon with fans both young and old buying endless amounts of merchandise worldwide, and it’s timeless evidence that camp and superheroes go hand-in-hand like peanut butter and jelly.
7
‘WandaVision’ (2021)
With the MCU becoming the highest-grossing film franchise in history relatively soon into its run, it was only a matter of time before it made the jump to television. There had been other MCU shows before 2021, but none as strongly connected to the mainline cinematic universe as the wave of Disney+ MCU shows that started in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It all began with WandaVision.
One of Letterboxd’s favorite sci-fi miniseries, WandaVision‘s success proved that MCU fans were more than willing to consume small-screen content, as long as it was done right. Taking full advantage of the unique traits and advantages of the televisual format, WandaVision arguably remains the franchise’s best Disney+ TV show. Any superhero media franchises that come out in the future will feel incomplete without television installments.
6
‘The Boys’ (2019–)
Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson‘s The Boys comics aren’t generally considered great, which makes it all the more of a surprise that Amazon was able to take that source material and turn it into one of the most pop-culture-defining shows of the 2010s and 2020s. The Boys, shamelessly graphic and gleefully subversive, is definitely not for everyone; but people interested in an edgy superhero satire simply ought to give it a chance.
A complete deconstruction of both the superhero genre and Western society and politics, The Boys simultaneously makes fun of the genre’s tropes and satirizes modern American society. It doesn’t just break content boundaries: It constantly shatters and stomps on them with a smile on its face, and its fans absolutely love that. It has become a beloved cult hit and an antidote to superhero fatigue, and even though its quality has declined somewhat in its later seasons, its cultural impact is absolutely undeniable.
5
‘X-Men: The Animated Series’ (1992–1997)
Superhero cartoons were by no means an unprecedented phenomenon by the time the 1990s rolled in, but they had never been as grown-up, complex, and seriously serialized as they became as soon as X-Men: The Animated Series entered the chat and changed the game.
One of the most perfect superhero shows ever, X-Men: TAS dealt with topics as serious as prejudice, the civil rights movement, the AIDS crisis, and slavery—something unheard of in the realm of children’s cartoons. Of course, it always complemented this mature storytelling with some thrilling action scenes and an exquisite animation style. Animated superhero shows were never the same after it.
4
‘Arrow’ (2012–2020)
The Arrowverse was the first proper mainstream shared universe that live-action superhero television had ever seen, and for that alone, its impact cannot be overstated. It all started with Arrow, a show released in the midst of the gritty, serious superhero film craze sparked by Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight. The series took a DC character that was more a B-list hero at the time and proved that television was the perfect place for such characters to gain widespread popularity.
Full of iconic characters and phenomenal episodes, Arrow often gets eclipsed by higher-budget superhero shows of its era, but it can’t be denied that it was utterly groundbreaking. It paved the way for the MCU and DCU, proving that shared comic book adaptation universes could work on the small screen just as well as they could on the big screen.
3
‘Smallville’ (2001–2011)
Few superheroes have as many adaptations as Superman. Some have been better than others, and few have been as unique as Smallville. There were no guarantees that a concept like a prequel showing a young Clark Kent struggling to find his place in the world and learn to harness his alien powers was ever going to work, but the creative team behind Smallville made sure that it did—and wonderfully, at that.
Aside from reimagining the Superman mythos with a more grounded scope, Smallville proved that superhero television could also work as a prestige teen drama. Modern, relatable, heavily serialized, and anchored by an effectively cinematic style, it’s one of the very best pre-MCU superhero adaptations.
