What were great about the Superhero cartoons of the 90's?

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hawksiowarock

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I'm looking for answers, and judging by how many people are part of this site there's bound to be loads of people who are into Superhero cartoons. Now here's my question. What were so great about those Superhero cartoons of the 90's? You know stuff like Batman: the animated series, Batman beyond and etc. Now for granted Ive havent seen these but I would like to know what makes this superhero cartoons of the 90's good.

Is it the animation?, The writing?, the voice acting?. What that certain thing that makes the superhero cartoons of the 90's so good?
 
i think it was a combination of all three. Superhero cartoons from that time started to become a little more ambitious with their storytelling, and catered to more than just the kid audience, and some of them raised the animation, and voice acting bar. 'Batman: TAS' was the leader in this change for superhero cartoons durring the 90's.
 
All things considered, the average superhero cartoon of today is probably at least as good as the average superhero cartoon of the 90's. I think that a lot of the reason for why so many people claim that 90's superhero cartoons in general were better than todays is solely because of Batman: TAS (which is probably the single best such cartoon of all time).
 
Nearly everyone credits Batman:TAS as being THE single greatest animated superhero show of the 1990s, but I personally think that X-Men:TAS was just as good as Batman:TAS was (Like B:TAS, X-Men boasted above average writing and took chances, it showed death and human emotion along side of the super hero action), yet it rarely (if ever) gets the props that B:TAS gets, primarily because the shows' animation hasn't aged well.
 
The problem with this logic is that one must ask how many "average" superhero cartoons are there now compared to the number of "average" superhero cartoons in the 90s? We know there were a few SUPERLATIVE superhero cartoons in the 90s. Are there any SUPERLATIVE superhero cartoons now? I think not.

So while the "average" cartoon now is "at least as good" as the "average" cartoon in the 90s, in the end that argument is moot if every cartoon now is "average."



X-Men's animation hasn't aged well? Were you alive back then? ;) The animation was considered atrocious even in the 90s--it would have been atrocious even by 70s TV standards!

X-Men was always about the stories, which delve deep into comic book lore. The dialogue was hammy and Claremont-like in its cheese factor, but what made X-Men work was that it had the feel of an old fashioned serial that took its time to set up its epic stories. What saved the show was that the imagination in the X-Men cartoon outstripped its execution, which was always shoddy to begin with.
 
:^: OK, you're right. X-Men:TAS's animation was never great, or even good. :sweat: However, if you were able to get past the horrendous animation, the shows' writing was credible and many of the stories were entertaining, if a tad melodramatic.
 
I thought it was the perfect show for 12-14 year olds who craved those kind of serials. For someone like me who watched action cartoon after action cartoon from the 70s-80s where everything was resolved in 30 minutes and always ended with the entire cast standing around laughing at some lame joke, X-Men was a breath of fresh air in that department. I'm not sure I'd be as into it now with better shows of that nature available on DVD, but if this show was airing now, and I was still 12 years old, I'd be on it before any other superhero show currently on TV.

But the kids today who crave serials just simply watch Naruto online. :shrug:
 
X-Men TAS had pretty good writing and adapted several stories that, I have since learned, were inspired by the comics. It's because of that show that I appreciate and, I daresay, like the X-Men as much as I do. Even Spider-Man TAS did that for me to a great extent, for all of its problems and flaws.

I think Batman TAS does win in part because of animation, sure, but it also had such a range of interesting stories. By its very nature it was able to explore more possibilities. In a given episode Batman faces off against the Joker, in another he's fighting a Japanese ninja, in another he's wrestling with guilt over Commissioner Gordon being shot, in another you have a fun episode like The Gray Ghost...

A simple key factor is that 90s cartoons started taking superheroes seriously. In contrast to, say, the super-light Superfriends, they started portraying heroes in our "real world" so to speak and successfully communicated a lot of what made them interesting. Suddenly Superman was not just Superman, but Clark Kent living his life. That stuck. We were there, and now we are here, and the superhero animation of today is better off for the trailblazing that the 90s are responsible for.
 
What BTAS did better than everyone else, IMO, was establishing mood. Even Bruce Timm's later DC shows threw out mood to keep the pace chugging along for modern tastes.

If you watch some of the old episodes of BTAS, one might charitably describe the pacing to be "deliberate" at times. But it really draws you into its forebodingly beautiful pseudo 1930s-style world, if you let it. I remember just lying there in front of the TV every afternoon at 5:30pm and just soaking in the atmosphere, immersing myself in its world. And the show would sometimes slow down the story and just feel around the world and I really liked that.

The other great superhero show of the 90s was Gargoyles, and yes, I consider it a superhero show. In many ways it did the same things as Batman, albeit on a lesser level. But what it did have was a great serial nature much like X-Men did. I remember some of the cliffhangers they had--killer stuff! And what was great about those cliffhangers is that they would usually be continued the next day since they were on daily! I've always felt that weekly cliffhangers lose their power as every day goes by, but daily serials just work perfectly. It's a shame we don't have much of those anymore, except maybe on cable.
 
There was more than meets the eye to 90s cartoons, perhaps a response to the insanity of the 80s stuff. Forget about batman tas, too easy to pinpoint that as the show that got it right. Try The real adventures of johnny quest, dexter's lab, what else... definitely gargoyles, ducktales, tons of great nickelodeon shows that took old ideas, in the case of jonny quest, they really re-invented that show from the ground up, made it more badass. "baddassery" is probably the most accurate term to use for what made 90s shows good. I guess it was an anime influence or something, but a lot of toons back then, just had moments that for no other reason were just badass and cool. What happened to that.... guess real anime took its place...
 
One of the things I liked most about BTAS was how it took decades of Batman styles and stories and streamlined into its own world. I don't think the other superhero shows at the time did that as masterfully. For me, this is the definitive version of "darker" Batman. "Darkest" has its place as well, but I must say I've tired of it.

As for Gargoyles, its scope was more ambitious- drawing from all sorts of mythologies. One of the classics but I suspect it would've done better starting out in print rather than animation.
 
Before 'Batman:TAS', superhero cartoons were pretty basic as far as animation, and storytelling goes. Most of the 'Superfriends' entries are notorious for they're undeniable campiness. I also agree the the animation styles of 'Batman', and 'X-Men' are like night, and day, but they both took risks in writing, and characterization.
 
I don't know. I've seen the comics and the art style used doesn't "grab" me as much as the animated visuals. I guess if they started out in a different visual style it would be different.

My one problem with Gargoyles was that the look of the show varied wildly. BTAS was very inconsistent too, but less dramatically.
 
While the animation in X-Men: The Animated Series hasn't aged that well, I still find the characters and stories to that series to be very enjoyable.

Another superhero cartoon from the 90's that I find enjoyable is Superman: The Animated Series. In my opinion, I think that this series has aged quite well.

Yet another superhero series from the 90's that I enjoy is Seasons 7 and 8 of the 80's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. Starting with Season 7, the series starts to get a little more serious, compared to Seasons 2-6.
 
Arguably, the problem with Superfriends wasn't the tone, but the writing. The characters literally had the same personality (aside from the seasons with Firestorm and Cyborg). Take Aquaman for instance. While his Brave and The Bold counterpart may not be dark, he is certainly different interms of personality compared to Batman, while in Superfriends he had no personality differences from Supes or Bats.



Perhaps, but then some stories were influenced by the voice actors. The Archmage for instance was intended to be a one shot cliched sorceror. But David Warner gave the character a really menacing voice, prompting Greg to bring him back for several more stories.
 
I don't see what is being compared here.

If you compare Superfriends to B:TAS, the gap in writing quality is astounding. It actually had real stories, developed characters, and actual fight scenes.

I remember when CN used to rerun Superfriends back in the 90's, I found it laughably bad even as a kid. The characters were one-dimensional, bad voice acting, NO FIGHT SCENES, and the stories were just lame kiddish fare.

Terrible. The only 80's superhero cartoon that is still watchable is TMNT, simply because it didn't take itself seriously and was proud of its outlandish plots.
 
At first I thought this was comparing them to today's shows but after carefully reading the first posts I can honestly say... because they just were. Are you comparing them to old shows or new shows? If you're just asking why I liked them, all I can say is they were good.
 
Another thing to keep in mind- The Superfriends was adventure-oriented, compared to some of the show's leads in solo action in the 90's. The writing may not have been the best, but it was still good. The show's leads weren't like the regular heroes in the comics- they were just regular people, handling situations and emergencies in addition to keeping the universe safe from threats of evil. The show's heroes merely captured the bad guys by other means, rather than throwing punches and throwing down with them, like in some aspects in the 90's. They used their respective powers, utilities and brain power to capture the bad guys. In another words, they merely outsmarted them without engaging in anything physical with them. I think the adventure aspect, the mild handling of the bad guys and getting others involved in handling the emergencies and situations as a team, has to be at least part of the reason why The Superfriends played on ABC-TV for a total run of 13 years. The group worked as a team- it wasn't about just one person. SF, throughout 13 years, showed the importance of team work. Now, back to the 90's, it's kind of a tough call to make, but my personal favorite from the 90's has got to be Batman, because of the good writing on that program.
 
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