So, um, where's the new Superman cartoon?

Superman ***YAWN***
He had his chances.
Time to give other heroes their cartoon series: Flash, Green Lantern, The Metal Men would all be visually interesting to see on tv.
 
Respectfully, I have to disagree. Superman shouldn't take a break until someone can produce a decent film/TV adaptation for him (other than Smallville, I mean). If any DC hero needs a break, it's Batman.

This I agree with. Green Lantern already has a DTV out. Where's the Captain Marvel DTV?
 
His last toon was Legion of Superheroes and that ended just about a year ago IIRC. But he's also in 3 of the 6 DCU movies, so that's something.
 
If any superhero needs a break, it's Batman, not Superman. As for other DC hero series, Green Lantern and Flash are possible (especially the former, providing how well his DTV is doing), but the Metal Men will never get their own series; at the most, they could appear on The Brave and the Bold.

But yeah, Supey's chances of a new show kind of got shot down when Superman Returns failed to take off at the box office, and since the new Superman flick is currently stuck in the mud, we may be in for a long wait for another one.

But hopefully we'll get one: I've been itching for a new decent Superman animated series for some time. (I don't really count Legion of Super Heroes as a Superman show, BTW; Supes was in it, sure, but that was more of a team show.)
 
Even then, Smallville's been chunksville lately. AMAZING Doomsday FX though. I think it's time for a Superman series based on the post-Infinite Crisis Superman or maybe even All-Star Superman. One in media res, instead of making it an origin story again.


Forget DTVs, these guys need their own series! Geoff Johns is THE writer right now and he's completely rebooted GL into THE comic to read these days. That, coupled with the non-existence of a previous GL series and the added marketability of the DTV made it high time for some GL or even GL Corps limelight.

Meanwhile Captain Marvel is the perfect "superhero in school" motif. Add magic and superstrength.
 
Um... no!

Batman is arguably one of the most popular superheroes at the minute and WB/DC are using him to his full potential. What exactly is wrong with that?

They are even using his popularity to showcase other DC heroes. Thats just good business sense.

Between the movie franchise, animated show, current and very successful video game not to mention revitalized comics... Batman is at the top of his game and his owners are using him to target the kids, the adults and everything in between.


At the minute Superman is not commercially viable... Superman Returns and to a degree the not-so-successful Legions of Superheroes seen to that.
 
That's all well and groovy, but Batman is not DC's only top tier character, nor is he everybody's favorite DC character. That's what's wrong with that. It wouldn't kill DC to toss some of their other heroes a bone on TV once in a while. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing the Dark Knight or anything, but really, how many times can we see Batman and Robin chasing after the Joker, the Penguin and Two-Face before it gets old? I don't think a new DC animated series without the word "Bat" in the title is such a tall order.

Why can't we get a post-Crisis Superman series? Or an All-Star Superman series? Heck, why couldn't we have gotten a DC Comics Presents series instead of Batman: The Brave & the Bold? Does Batman really have to be at the helm of every single DC TV project?


Respectfully, I must disagree. No, Superman Returns wasn't a great movie, but that doesn't mean that Superman isn't a marketable franchise. SR was just a poorly executed film: little to no fight scenes, too long, turning the man of Steel into a deadbeat dad, etc. Supes fared poorly in the wrong hands, so all it would take is for someone to put the character into the right hands. I refuse to believe that there's no audience for Supes and that he can't be done right again.

As stated above, I personally don't consider Legion of Super Heroes to be a Superman show, but rather a team-based show with Superman as its' anchor, so that's not really the same thing IMO.

To sum up: if DC is going to let the Batfans geek out over their favorite character in show after show, movie after movie, DTV after DTV, they could at least allow the geeks for of DC's other premier characters (including the Man of Steel) the same courtesy.
 
Hey, I've got nothing against Batman. I like Batman, just not down my throat. :sweat:

Let's face it; the Dark Knight is overplayed. DC acts as if Batman is the ONLY marketable franchise that they have now. Instead of taking a chance with something fresh, new or different, they just continue to cling on to Batman like a security blanket. How many times is DC going to pass over a project for Captain Marvel, Flash, Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Young Justice or any other character in favor of yet another Batman movie, TV show or DTV? Say what you will about Marvel, but they at least try to showcase many of their enduring characters, not just Wolverine, Spider Man and Hulk. Marvel even produced a DTV for Dr. Strange, fer cryin' out loud!

I may be in the minority here, but I'd personally rather see a really well executed take on Superman rather than the umptee-seventh take on Batman. For me, Batman is like a taco; good once in a while, but not constantly. I like tacos, but if I ate nothing but tacos for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday, I'd be sick of them in short order.
 
As much as I like Batman, I have to agree that Superman should be treated with just as much respect when it comes to quality and marketing. They should both be equal when it comes to productions -- whether it be for television, film or whatever. If there's a Batman series on TV or a film in the theatres, there should be a Superman series on TV or a film in the theatres right along side or right behind each other.

Superman and Batman are the two most iconic characters in comic book history and the greatest contrasting balance of the superhero concept and idealism. I don't think that DC and WB should ever disregard these characters for what they are. I can understand fans wanting to see other heroes take the spotlight and be given the chance to have their own show or movie, but not at the expense of loosing Superman and Batman for a time. Regardless of whatever medium or interpretation is made, every generation should be exposed to these two characters in some respectful form because of what they are and what they stand for. Despite being fictional characters, their absence for too long a period of time would not only diminish their popularity, but also extinguish everything they represent and that which society should never ignore -- truth, justice, and hope beyond just the American way.

Yeah, we can have Captain Marvel and Green Lantern and Spider-Man and Wolverine, too, for a time -- anytime -- but we should have Superman and Batman all the time.

Superman and Batman may not have been the very first or the most modern of superheroes ever created, but they are the standards -- and as much as I love several other superhero characters and concepts, when it all comes down to it, everyone else is a just little derivative of what they are.
 
Batman has a slight advantage in being so continually broadcast in that the incarnations are significantly different. B:TAS/TNBA is significantly different from 'The' Batman, which is way different from Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which is absolutely NOTHING like the more recent movies (thank Ceiling Cat).

Superman, however, is always ... Superman. It's easier to put new spins on Batman, apparently, than it is Superman, without utterly screwing up the character.
 
Between the lawsuit, the reception of the last film, and the fact that DC seems to be burying Superman by replacing him with stand-ins in his own books (Mon-El, Conner, Chris, etc.), I don't think we'll be seeing a new Superman cartoon anytime soon outside of the DTVs. I'd like to be wrong, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
 
As much as I love Batman and all of the different Batman cartoon series, I agree that he's been overplayed and overshadows a lot of the other DC heroes. I would totally be up for a new Superman series since it's been a long time since he's had his own animated series. It will probably be awhile since Superman Returns didn't perform as well as people thought it would and the next movie isn't coming out anytime soon.
 
That's just the works, not Superman himself. That's why the Dailies weren't published through DC. If DC ever want to republish the Dailies or Action Comics #1, they can't. All this means is that Kal-L, the Superman of Earth-2, will henceforth known as Kal-El of Earth-2. Lora was retconned into being Lara years ago, and the expanded origin has been canon for I don't know how many decades, so DC won't miss the original.

Anybody ever read the dailies? Superman is called what he is because originally, Kryptonians got their powers from being physically more evolved than us. Yellow Sunlight had nothing to do with their powers, and their powers don't contain flight and heat-vision, etc. The old "faster than a locomotive" and others are their true powers; they really are nothing but the Nietzchean (sp?) Supermen. These haven't been used by DC in forever, so losing them won't hurt the franchise. Plus Superman isn't on Earth for a reason; he's on New Krypton. They didn't suddenly dump him.

As for a Superman movie, am I the only one who saw Returns as a necessary evil? The Brainiac story acting as a sequel to his cameo in Superman 1 is perfect NOW, but not when a relaunch of the franchise was needed. You can't take the symbol of hope and humanity and throw him in the depths of space fighting monsters as a relaunch. Now that we're prepped for a darker Superman thanks to anti-hero demands and the recently made SR, and since Richard Donner never got a chance to address the Braniac storyarc of his trilogy, I think anti-hero Superman in Space is a good move to make. People who liked SR can treat SR as the sequel it was always intended to be.

EDIT: Oh frak. This DOES, however, mean I can no longer pitch my comic script to DC for an Elseworlds/Unmapped 52-verse story, as it was based on those origins. D:
 
Superman has a long series of live action movies, two cartoon series, four more with him in the justice league (or super friends), and he has had his own DTV twice, he appeared on Static Shock, he has had roles in three DTVs so far, and he will be in two more that we know of, and he has had his Legion of Super heroes. Isn't that enough? Their not gonna do him again after Brainiac Attacks, Superman Returns, and Legion Of Super Heroes. All of those three were failures. Don't worry Superman isn't going away, we just don't need another cartoon for him now, he is the most popular super hero, I'm not saying his comics are the most well to do or everyone likes him, I'm just saying if you think of a super hero you automatically think of Superman.
 
WB/DC are merely being smart...

The public wants Batman, so they give them Batman. I personally don't think he is being overused at the moment, as I said, they are simply targeting every audience... Don't look at it from a fans point of view, see from a business perspective.

Superman's endeavors in various media over the past few years have ranged from disastrous to mildly successful. Thats has got to put any company off...

WB/DC haven't forgotten about Superman... It's still one of their top 5 franchises, but it seems that they honestly don't know what to do with him at the moment. As a result they are taking it slow... figuring out how to bring him back in the best way possible.

To me... that shows respect to the character. Would you rather they threw everything towards the wall at once in the hope that something sticks?
 
I totally agree with you -- but there's no reason why they should not know what to do with the character after over seventy years of history has been established that they can draw from.

The problem is they keep trying to reinvent who Superman is; they keep trying to make him "relevent" (and I can understand that... to a degree), but when it comes down to it, they should never change who Superman is or what he's about and stands for, which to me is always relevent regardless of which day and age we live in.

Yeah, you can tweak his origin for the upteenth time, and you can change his costume (but only slightly), but when it all comes down to it, you really have to be true and faithful to the history of the character. I'm not talking about looking at all the campy or gimmicky things that have come and gone with the character over the decades, but the stuff that has been consistent and has carried over year upon year -- the stuff that strengthens the purity and iconography of the character. You don't have to make Superman "dark" and have him wear black -- because that's not really Superman -- that's Batman! -- but if you want him to be relevent and taken seriously, then make the world he lives in, the situations he deals with, the villians and threats he fights against, and make them dark! But Superman should always be the beacon of light and the ray of hope in contrast to that darkness. The complexity and relevence is already there in who he is and what he strives to do -- you don't need to give him a son (ie Superman Returns) to make him human or relatable. He shouldn't necessarily be too relatable anyway, this is who we would want to be if we could, not who we are. Let's see the splender and wonder of Superman's abilities, and let's see him kick ass against threats no mortal being could take on. That's it.
 
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