Back in the 90s a lot of what gave heroes their popularity was the undeniable edge that a lot of them took on and the fact that as deadly as they could be a lot of writers were looking to give the heroes a sense of morality as well that factored into their survival as believable characters. After all the act of simply letting a hero wail on the bad guys was quickly becoming a thing of the past since more people were starting to wonder if the bad guy was really to blame or if there was some underlying problem that hadn’t yet been addressed. Yes, this has since become more of a cop-out than a valid line of reasoning, but it’s also fair to state that it’s opened up the comics and many story lines in a lot of interesting ways. Back in the 90s though it was a way for a lot of pop culture to evolve, and this included cartoons as well as live action shows. In fact, one could say that the two worked in tandem to keep the interest in superheroes high enough that people kept watching and really enjoyed what they saw.
Here are five of the top superhero shows from the 90s.
5. Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
As Mike Bedard of Looper suggests, this show actually brought people back to Superman since the last movie that was featured before this show came out was simply abysmal and did nothing to continue the legendary career of Christopher Reeve, the man thought to be the best of any that have donned the cape and outfit. While it featured special effects that weren’t quite the same caliber thanks to the fact that it was a TV show, the story line and casting was still great enough that it was widely accepted by many fans and managed to get them interested in the man of steel once again as he took on one adventure after another.
4. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
How many of us can remember just about everything about the original group of Rangers when they came out in the US? Of course it was an adapted idea but it caught on quickly and was widely popular with so many fans that it’s since gained a humongous following and is just as popular now as it was then. Things have definitely changed with the Rangers since the initial group, but the interest of the fans has remained since despite the number of Rangers that have come and gone there are still a few that a lot of people tend to remember the most, and plenty of side stories that have come as a result of the show’s popularity.
3. Transformers: Beast Wars
This was definitely a different take on the Transformers and it was fairly short-lived, but it did have more of a chance to make something out of itself since the whole idea of the Transformers taking on the form of animals both alive and extinct was pretty interesting. It did appear a little limited in relation to the whole idea of turning into vehicles, but the CGI version of the show was something that offered up a lot of different and interesting ideas as well, as more characters were eventually added in and the cast continued to grow just a bit as the show went along. It’s still an interesting idea to this day really.
2. Batman: The Animated Series
You didn’t really think this was going to get left off of the list, did you? Batman has been a part of pop culture for so long that he easily predates the 90s in terms of popularity, but this was the decade that he really started to come out as a big-time draw in animation, and as a result his name only continued to get bigger. After a while it was seen that Batman was almost capable of anything with enough planning, as he’d been great before, but in the 90s he was becoming all but unstoppable. It does become slightly irritating to think how much Batman has been played up throughout the years, but a man that has little else to do but train, train, and train some more on how to become the best vigilante possible is bound to become pretty hardened.
1. X-Men
The 90s were a big decade for the X-Men since they saw a huge surge in the comics and the idea for further representation wasn’t too far off if anyone can remember. The cartoon could only go so far when it came to what Wolverine and the others could do, but there was always a way to calm the fast-healing mutant down and on top of that he was more of a team player at that time. Still, it was fun to see him take people down from time to time since he’s always been one of the more popular members of the X-Men.
Those are a few picks, it’d be great to hear who else has a top five.
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