Are there any superhero tv shows worth watching?

A number of years ago I really enjoyed the first few seasons of Smallville. It wasn't Shakespeare, but it was fun, had its share of prerequisite teen-angst for a late 90's CW show, Welling turned into a pretty good teen Kent prior to his becoming Superman, and that theme song...!

But after Smallville I lost track due to the sheer number of superhero shows (or comic book hero related shows). I saw a few episodes (very few) of Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, but didn't see enough to sell me on watching the whole shebang.

I've heard Krypton is great (and that it's terrible). I've also heard Superman & Lois is good. But I haven't seen them...

As you maybe can tell I'm partial to Superman and DC comics... and... don't always enjoy deconstructions as much as well-told "traditional" super hero stories, but I'll go where the watching's good. ;)

Your thoughts on where to start or what to watch?

The Boys. Not as good as the comics, I particularly do not like what they did with The Female, but if you have not read the comics then then it is quite a ride.

Legion is my favorite Marvel show.

It's fun, trippy, and represents psychic powers with dance offs and rap battles.

X-Men: The Animated Series

Can't think of any.

Creature Commandos if you enjoy animation and/or deep DC lore cuts its great.. though I ain't a fan how often they use music with lyrics to convey story and emotion in a very''on the nose'' or ''in your face'' way .. But its great for deep lore cuts giveng more depth to characters comic writers largely dropped sense war time comics but still used like .G.I Robot.. adapting some comic bits that was lacking in a rather organic logical way and best of all actually trying to be mature rather then what people think of as mature

If you want ''live action '' stuff can't really help you as I ain't much for the modern live action superhero media as usually they don't catch the charm and such of comics that much compared the animation anymore to me

Amazon Prime had a deal a while back for the HBO channel (for $2.99 USD I think) and I signed up for it for 1 year. There are quite a few older animated ones on there like Justice League and Justice League Unlimited series, both of which were quite enjoyable. Most were 2 part episodes. Many other DC series are there as well.

If weren't able to take advantage of that deal, you can still watch both JLA and JLAU on TubiTV for free at the moment. I don't know if you consider Ghost in the Shell series a cyberpunk hero series or not, but it's also on TubiTV atm. Last time I checked, that site had a whole bunch of DC series, but last I checked was a while ago, so not sure if they are still available. But worth a check.

Another one I think was called The Invincible or something like that. I think it has 2 seasons so far. A lot of superhero actions, but a lot of twists too. I haven't seen the 2nd season yet, but the 1st was enjoyable. The story I think is fairly mature, but no where crazy as The Boyz, but it's on Prime, but it is an animated type.


I think one was called The Tick and it's also on Prime. It's not your standard hero tv series. It has oddball heroes similar to The Watchmen I believe. This is a non-animated series.
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There's a ton of good and even great animated superhero shows. Pretty much anything from the old DC Animated Universe is gold: Batman TAS, Superman TAS, Batman Beyond, Justice League (Unlimited). After DCAU, The Batman was surprisingly good. Not on the same level as TAS, but decent with moments of greatness. The Batman vs Dracula movie, in the show's continuity, despite sounding pretty dumb, is actually fantastic. Green Lantern TAS was great, and it's really sad it got cancelled without a proper conclusion.

The Marvel animated shows of the 90s didn't age as well. Silver Surfer, also short lived, is probably the best, it feels like a genuinely unique and imaginative space opera. I haven't seen the 90s X-Men show since I was a kid, so I'm not sure how well it holds up. It's new sequel, X-Men 97 is pretty good, though not quite as great as it's often made out to be. Mostly it suffers because it compresses a ton of story into short seasons. Still worth watching for X-Men fans, some episodes are really great, and despite time constraints it excells at making all characters feel bad-ass, even ones I never much liked, like Gambit and Jubilee.

I also have a very soft spot for Kim Possible, a Disney show that's a fantastic parody of superhero and super-spy genres. The episode where they basically do Batman Beyond, but with a stand in for the 60s Batman rather than the 90s Dark Knight (voiced by Adam West no less) is just wonderful.

In terms of live action, I'd say the 90s Flash show is probably your best bet. It feels like it could exist in the same universe as the Tim Burton Batman films, and it's very enjoyable. After that, things are not good. I could never stomach Smallville, the CW shows are mostly terrible with bad teen drama level writing. The only good things about those were some actors on the new Flash. Tom Cavanagh, whom I mostly know from being the super-likeable and optimistic main character of the unjustly forgotten dramedy Ed from early 2000s is great as Eobard Thawn. Sure he's chewing the scenery like there's no tomorrow, but it feels appropriate for the character. And they brought back the actor from the 90s Flash as Jay Garrick, which was nice. Other than that though, it's pretty bad, and it's still probably the best of that bunch. Except for maybe Superman & Lois, I haven't seen that one (yet?).

Lois & Clark: New Adventures of Superman was never great and it didn't age particularly well. Outside of Teri Hatcher being stunning there's not much to go back for there. Gotham was an utterly bizarre show. It has some of the best live action casting for comic book characters ever, but it also is a complete mess of ideas, comic book storylines mashed together and transplanted into a pre-Batman prequel time where they don't really work, and the whole thing doesn't really make any sense. It's usually very engaging, if only for all the characters interacting, but it's hard to call it "good".

The Marvel shows from Netflix got a lot of praise, but outside of the first season of Daredevil, I did not like them much, and even that was just "ok". Other than that they were just kind of boring, in the way most streaming shows are - basically movies needlessly stretched out to be a whole season of tv and chopped up into ten pieces. The new Spider-Noir show is also in that category. Good idea and casting, but half the way through I still got bored. I haven't seen most of the Disney MCU shows. Only Loki, and that was ok-ish in the first season, and kind of a train wreck in the second.

It is just called Invincible, and it is 4 seasons now. It is quite good as well.

The Tick is a parody, a comedy show. Not like Watchmen at all, as it is much more serious and deals with heavier topics.

Well, what about "Supergirl", "Doom Patrol" or "Stargirl"?

If I were to be frank, it's difficult to recommend, even though I did so, just because it's an old cartoon. They were often intended for children and, even if well constructed, can look antiquated and unappealing to those who don't already like them. Lot's of old cartoons are products of their budget, deadlines, and poor writing: are tediously slow, repetitive in content, reuse animation...
But as they come, the 90s animated X-Men show was one of the better ones. For TV shows of the time, the animation is just fine, but it's not film level quality, obviously, which makes it look rudimentary (and unwatchable) to some modern viewers.

If you're open to anime, My Hero Academia is pretty good. The premise is that in the near future, 80 percent of the population suddenly develops superpowers, and some of those people become superheroes or supervillains. The story centers on a boy who was born powerless but dreams of becoming a hero and he gets his chance when he befriends All Might, the greatest hero on Earth, which allows him to gain a great power and to enter a school for heroes.

The concept means it doesn't work quite the same way as a traditional superhero narrative (and in full disclosure I usually hate school stories), but it's surprisingly good at capturing the feel of the genre, even if some of the powers the characters have are pretty goofy. The creator of the original manga is apparently a big fan of western comics and wanted to do something like that for Japan. When I first started watching, I kept waiting for some kind of standard deconstructionist moment, especially with All Might, but instead it turned out that, no, not only is he a great guy, he's actually even more amazing than it seemed at first. Superman and Captain America would be very cool with All Might.

The Boys, Doom Patrol, The Umbrella Academy. Good Omens (let's say it counts as a superhero tv show). Sandman.

Some of the Marvel series (Daredevil, etc).

Nope.

Hi kai2,

Keep in mind that this show is more on the comedy side of things but I recommend watching the original Batman television show with Adam West.