Cartoon versions of comic book characters that are better then the originals

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Funloving

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What cartoon versions of comic book characters that are better then the originals?

I would say there are several DCUA characters I could mention, but I will leave that to others.

I will go with less obvious choice and I say Apocalypse. In every cartoon he appeared in Apocalypse came across as more menacing, more powerful, more epic, more intelligent and just flat out better then the Apocalypse from the comics, who comes across as a played out jobber at this point.
 
Guess i'll start with the DCAU ones (one of them anyway): The Penguin in B:TAS. The Golden-Silver age comic book one was an eccentric thief with a pretentious sense of being a cultured member of the society elite, the modern comic book one is (usually) a mobster involved with mostly realistic illegal activities, and the Burton one was a freak. The B:TAS one was all three! Also, the pretentious "cultured gentleman" image he tried to go for was more pronounced in that version than in any other, which made his personalty all the more interesting and fun.
 
Most of the DCAU is better than its comic book counterpart. Obviously some of the adult themes and turmoil in the comics are done better, but the DCAU took the best parts of the comics, left out the crap, and made it into a good series. Bruce Timm did a wonderful job with the DCAU.

There are also certain elements of TMNT 2k3 that were better than their comic counterparts. Some of the TMNT fandom agrees some comic stories were done better in the cartoon.
 
Considering the current condition of the Marvel Universe after Civil War, The Initiative, Dark Reign, and One More Day, I'd say any Marvel Animation at all, including The Super Hero Squad Show. They may be 8 year olds, but at least they're actually heroes.
 
I'd say anything Batman-related is better in the DCAU series (and Brave and the Bold) than anything the comics have made in the 90s and 2000s... least Batman in those shows isn't a jerk***** like in the comics (and the Joker has a high enough IQ to come up with actual plans vs. just being Freddy Krueger in clownwhite/gruesomely killing a population the size of Texas per appearance). Won't even go into stuff like Identity Crisis/Superboy-Prime/etc...

-B.
 
The thing about animation is it has the ability to pluck and pull from comics and take the best and leave out the worst. So it wouldn't really be hard to find some characters who are better in animation.



Agreed with on SO many counts. I find Joker more interesting on the kids shows rather than recent comics. He's become as one note as Spider-Man's Carnage, (who was based off of the Joker) Also, I kinda found what the DCAU Joker did to Tim Drake much more creative than what the Joker of comics did to Jason Todd...but that's just me...

Venom of the Spider-Man series always tends to be better in animation than he tended to be in the comics when he was VERY overused. Spec Spidey's Venom went and did something that the one in comics should have done YEARS ago in blabbing about Spidey's identity... Especially since we've already had the "I won't tell your secret because you are mine and only mine to kill" with the Green Goblin. Plus, I never really liked the whole "lethal protector" thing anyway...Then again, I've never been a fan of the many Symbiote characters...
 
Thas tends to be the reason I prefer the cartoon adaptions to the real comics for shows. I find it odd that comics will rarely update their characters as much as the cartoons tend to.

I'd say most of the characters in Iron Man: Armored Adventures are better than their comic counterparts; especially the villains. I assume that's why Tony has been fighting heroes for the past few years in the comics rather than his villains, because they're just flat out terrible in the comic and no one's really bothered to try to reinvent them much (though I'm sure once the movie comes out, they'll try to shove Whiplash into the comic again catch some sales from movie-goers)
 
I'd say The Spectacular Spider-Man's version of Tombstone, from illiterate goon to emotionless criminal mastermind, that's quiet an upgrade.

I also like the DCAU's take on Brainiac, tying his origins to Krypton gives his conflict with Clark a much more personal edge.
 
To be fair they did they did to tombstone because they wanted a Kingpin character and couldn't get the rights to Kingpin.



To be fair most Iron Man fans said the latest comic arc with Mandarin was the best story that featured the character. I think most of the Iron Man villains are interesting concepts that are almost never used well, though Ghost has been used well in Thunderbolts recently.

Plus Geoff Johns was able to revamp Flash's Rogues gallery recently and make them more interesting.
 
I'm going with the Teen Titans. They managed to take what is probably the most stale franchise in comic books today and turn it into one of the most trend-setting and well written cartoons of the last ten years.
 
I'm not a fan of the character design, but I like the M.O. The Batman gave to The Penguin: committing crimes to replenish his family's lost fortune. It also works well with the "cultured gentleman thief" a previous poster described him as.
 
This far in and no one mentioned Mr. Freeze yet? They turned just another goofy villain with a gimmick among Batman's rogues and made him a much more deeper and sympathetic character.
 
The Penguins motive behind his crimes in The Batman was a nice touch, but i hated his personality in that show. He was the complete opposite of the sophisticated intellectual he has been shown as in most incarnations; in The Batman he was instead crude and stupid. Oh well, at least he had a much bigger role in that show that in any other Batman continuity.
 
I have never felt that an animated version of a cartoon character even came close to a comic book version of a character, there is just something about the confinds of 20 minute show that limit's the characters progression but the only character that even came close would be Mr. Freeze from Batman: TAS. His character really shined in the animated series, especially in "Heart of Ice" or whatever the episode was called, that was a chilling tale to say the least.
 
How was comic book Mr. freeze better then BTAS Mr. freeze? It doesn't seem like BTAS Mr. Freeze came close to being better then DCU Mr. Freeze, he flat out was better.
 
I'm definitely going to agree with the posters who mentioned Tombstone in "Spectacular." They took a dumb thug, and turned him into the type of villain I like, one I can respect.

This might also come as a surprise to some of you, but I am going to say the Spectacular Spider-Man version of the Green Goblin. It feels, to me anyway, like they combined the best bits of classic Green Goblin, the modern Green Goblin and wove them into their version. It's a lot more cohesive. Don't get me wrong, I love the Green Goblin in the comic books, and I enjoyed his ressurection, but I'm not going to pretend it was all that cohesive... I don't think it's the mess a lot of others think it is, though.

And yes, I'll also throw my hat in for Mr. Freeze in Batman: TAS. Such a sad and tragic character. Plus one of the few I felt got a complete story in the DCAU. I didn't much like the disembodied head, but they more than made up for it in "Batman Beyond"
 
That really only applies if the character only shows up for one episode. I think the opposite is the main problem with comic characters; they're around for 50+ years and are pretty much milked dry by the companies. Animated shows tend to be shorter, so they can at least make some attempt at giving them a proper arc; though most still do not. I feel Mr. Freeze is a bit of an overrated example, considering, like GregX mentioned, the whole 'disembodied head' thing he was eventually degraded into by the end of the show. It's kind of a good example of how having a villain around forever isn't a good thing and the writers either run out of ideas or just simple stop caring and rehash the same ones over and over again. Mr. Freeze would have benefited more from, ironically, being a one-shot character as his initial appearance was very strong.
 
I agree. Spetacular Spiderman currently beats most of the modern Marvel comics, in my opinion - or at least the ones I have read. Rather than focusing on making characters as unlikeable as possible and filling storylines with unnecessary violence, the current Spiderman animated series fills it's stories with likeable protagonists and side characters, villians who are menacing without resorting to graphic on-screen carnage, and multi-layered plots that combine a lot of the classic storylines from the earlier ages of Spiderman comics with new twists and variations. Best of all, the show actually respects their female characters and gives them depth in the areas that they truly need it in (likeability and personality), rather than the areas many artists focus on. :p
 
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