Powerless EPs Reflect on the Show’s Unique DC Legacy

Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker currently have two hit DC series on their hands with the animated Harley Quinn, which is heading into its fifth season this November on Max, and Kite Man: Hell Yeah!, which premiered in July on the streamer, but the two fan favorite series aren’t their first foray into the world of DC. Back in 2016, the duo worked on NBC’s Powerless, a sitcom that was set in the DC Universe but centered around ordinary people living in a world populated by superheroes. While the series didn’t pull in major ratings, it remains beloved by fans, many of whom feel that the series was ahead of its time. Now, Halpern and Schumacker, who served as executive producers on Powerless, are looking back on the series and its unique legacy within DC.

“We were very fortunate to have come into that show in several ways but like, one, it was kind of our introduction to DC just as, like, an entity,” Schumacker told ComicBook, explaining that he and Halpern were originally consulting producers on the series and later became showrunners, which led to them changing aspects of the show to lean into “Silver Age kind of zaniness.”

“When we did become the showrunners, we did kind of fundamentally change, it started out as like an insurance company that dealt with the fallout of superhero battles and then we sort of went on more of a Better Off Ted angle, where it was more about gadgetry and stuff. And I think our inclination, at least, was to embrace more of like the Silver Age kind of like zaniness,” he said.  “This is a good kind of, I think, anecdote of like TV in a nutshell and sort of success in failure is just this idea that I think that the network, I think, at a certain point they were sort of like we’re not going to order any more of these. Like, they didn’t cancel it, but they were definitely like no longer inclined to prioritize the show, let’s say and with that sort of came a hands-off approach from them and they didn’t sort of put any reins on us as for as the wackiness.”

He added, “We really did have to kind of thread a needle. There would be a lot of questions asked by us as in can we use this person or this gadget or whatever and we would have to go through a lot of executive emails because they had a lot of stuff going on in the live action world and even though we took place on our own Earth, we called it Earth-P, it was still, by virtue of being a live action show in a sea of DC live action shows with the whole Arrowverse and all that stuff, dealing with portals to other dimensions… So yeah, it’s funny to, you know, anecdotally, you’ll occasionally see somebody tweet about missing Powerless and it’s cool to remember but that was a tough one, too. It was a puzzle figuring out that show and I don’t know. Maybe it was a head of its time.

Halpern had a more succinct reflection: “It was the classic case of once we got sh-tty ratings they left us alone because they didn’t care anymore. And we could just make the show we wanted to make,” he said.

As for their current series, Harley Quinn, it’s headed back to Max this November. The fan-favorite series was officially renewed in November 2023.

“The talented Harley Quinn team has once again succeeded in delivering a season that builds on everything that has come before while still feeling fresh and inventive,” Suzanna Makkos, Executive Vice President, Original Comedy and Adult Animation, Max and Adult Swim said at the time. “They continue to provide hilarious, heartwarming, and deranged stories with our lovable group of DC misfits, and we couldn’t be more excited for the fans to see what they’ve accomplished in Season 5.”