It is not uncommon for TV shows to have their ups and downs as they progress, but some superhero TV shows have had consistently outstanding runs over the course of multiple seasons. With the superhero movie boom that kicked off in the early 2000s, much of the talk and commentary on the superhero genre has been focused on the adventures of Marvel and DC’s heroes on the big screen, their sprawling cinematic universes, and the colossal heights of box office success they have risen to. By the same token, superheroes have conquered the small screen just as much as they have movie theaters, with many phenomenal superhero TV shows in both animated and live-action form being produced in the 20th century, and especially in the 2st century as the superhero movie craze has unfolded.
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Of course, with stories unfolding over the course of multiple seasons, most shows will reliably oscillate from both high points and low points of storytelling strength and popularity, with that trend certainly being seen in many superhero TV shows, as well. However, some superhero TV shows buck the odds and manage to maintain their impact and popularity from their pilot episode all the way to their finale. Here are four superhero TV shows that are consistently great from their beginnings to their conclusions.
1) Spider-Man: The Animated Series
For many superhero fans (myself included), Spider-Man: The Animated Series was not just a high-flying, web-slinging adventure with everyone’s favorite Web-Head, but a spectacular introduction to the larger Marvel Universe and Spidey’s many allies. Spider-Man: The Animated Series dispensed with an origin story, leaping right into New York City college student and Daily Bugle photographer Peter Parker (voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes) and his heroic life as the Amazing Spider-Man. The vibrant animation style of Spider-Man: The Animated Series made the show instantly eye-catching for fans of the Wall-Crawler, and so too did the show’s engaging storytelling.
Every episode is filled with plenty of Web-Slinging action, with the show taking full advantage of Spidey’s vast rogues’ gallery right from the start. Additionally, the challenges Peter Parker faces in balancing his personal and superheroic lives were fabulously brought to life on the show. To top it off, Spider-Man: The Animated Series was full of heroic crossovers and cameos long before it was cool, with the X-Men, Daredevil, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, and even Blade teaming up with Spidey throughout the show’s run. Spider-Man: The Animated Series remains one of the greatest and most reverential animated adaptations of Spider-Man from the comics, and though it ended on a cliffhanger of Spidey trying to find a dimensionally dislocated Mary Jane Watson, there’s the belated sequel comic book, Spider-Man ’94, to put a bow on the series.
2) Daredevil
Netflix’s acclaimed Marvel series Daredevil was the opening act of Marvel’s street-level heroes headlining streaming shows on the platform, and the series remains one of the finest achievements in both Marvel’s history and superhero television in general. Daredevil‘s three-season run centers on blind Hell’s Kitchen attorney Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), who leads a double life as vigilante Daredevil. In a time when the Marvel Cinematic Universe had long since cemented its fun tone with an abundance of humor, Daredevil ventured into wholly different and far darker territory in its chronicle of Matt’s legal career, his superheroic battles with the nefarious Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) and the mysterious ninja cult the Hand, and his romances with both Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Elektra Natchios (Elodie Yung).
Daredevil‘s crossover with Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter), and Iron Fist (Finn Jones) on The Defenders also built strongly upon the show’s first two seasons while laying the groundwork for its phenomenal third season adaptation of Frank Miller’s acclaimed “Born Again” story arc. Charlie Cox’s portrayal of Matt Murdock captured The Man Without Fear’s combination of charm, anger, and determination in a truly powerful performance, while Daredevil also became a trend-setting example of delivering astounding superhero fight choreography, especially in the show’s signature and ever-more-elaborate one-take fight scenes. Daredevil‘s impact and popularity proved impossible for the MCU to ignore, with Cox’s Matt Murdock making his big-screen debut via a cameo in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Disney+’s revival series Daredevil: Born Again being retooled mid-production to effectively become Daredevil season four.
3) Justice League/Justice League: Unlimited
There is no more definitive DC superhero team than the Justice League, a distinction cemented in their early 2000s series Justice League and its follow-up continuation Justice League: Unlimited. Building from the outstanding multi-season runs of Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League is the ultimate payoff, uniting DC’s heroes in epic storytelling following the template and decidedly more mature tone of its two predecessors. Because of that stylistic choice and the show’s fantastic animation style, bringing the Justice League and their world to life, Justice League is a DC animated series tailor-made to resonate with any age group or generation of fans.
The continuation of Justice League: Unlimited ramped everything up to eleven, with bigger stories, bigger battles, and a bigger hero roster, all while pulling heavily from Jack Kirby’s Fourth World characters of New Genesis and Apokolips and truly capturing the evil might of Darkseid (iconically voiced by Michael Ironside) as the Justice League’s true arch-enemy. Justice League: Unlimited also concluded with a truly epic finale worthy of all the interconnected DC animated shows preceding it, seen best in the speech given by Superman (George Newbern) to Darkseid about being able to “cut loose” against a villain who can take it. In every frame of their combined five seasons (and their superb opening themes), the Justice League and Justice League: Unlimited package fully deserves its long-standing popularity and reputation as being among the best DC animated shows of all time.
4) Superman & Lois
The CW spent the first two decades of the 21st century as a prolific producer of live-action DC TV shows, including Smallville and the shows comprising the Arrowverse, but the network’s greatest achievement in superhero television by far is the four-season run of Superman & Lois. Set in a world in which the Man of Steel (Tyler Hoechlin) has been protecting Earth for 20 years, Superman & Lois zeroes in on the family life of Clark Kent as both husband to Lois Lane (Elizabeth Tulloch) and father to teenage sons Jordan (Alex Garfin) and Jonathan (Jordan Elsass in the first two seasons, and Michal Bishop in the last two). As a compelling family drama that just happens to be centered on a father raising teenage sons with growing superpowers in his hometown of Smallville, Superman & Lois captivates and moves in each of its four seasons.
Like no other live-action Superman series before it, Superman & Lois also feels cinematic with its gripping action sequences and stunning capture of Superman’s powers. Superman & Lois mines the deep well of Superman lore terrifically with less frequently adapted Superman villains like Morgan Edge (Adam Raynor), Parasite (Rya Kihlstedt), and Bizarro (also Hoechlin), along with Superman allies like John Henry Irons (Wolé Parks) and his daughter Natalie (Tayler Buck). Additionally, Superman & Lois also delivers an unforgettable and unusually grizzled Lex Luthor in the phenomenal performance of Michael Cudlitz. To top it off, the finale of season three and the entirety of season four not only craft a unique and electrifying adaptation of “The Death of Superman”, but also conclude the show on a finale of cementing Superman’s legacy to the world in a way no show or movie had ever done before. Superman & Lois is testimony to the potential of superhero TV shows to wholly match their big-screen counterparts in scale, power, and storytelling, with the series arguably standing as the best Superman TV series ever made by the end of its epic four-season run.
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
