Superheroes On TV

Batman was not the first superhero I saw on TV. That honor belongs to the Man of Steel, the Metropolis Marvel, Kal-El, the one 'n' only Superman. Everyone knew Superman, and in the early '60s, everyone had watched Superman on TV in reruns of The Adventures Of Superman, the venerable '50s series starring George Reeves. Concurrent to this, all of the kids in my neighborhood also watched chapters of the old Flash Gordon movie serials, as well as Astro Boy cartoons, both of which were shown every afternoon on The Baron And His Buddies, the popular kids' show hosted by Syracuse's own local vampire, Baron Daemon. If you also include the Mighty Mouse and Popeye cartoons we all watched, like, everywhere, then it's safe to say that all the kids in North Syracuse had plenty of exposure to televised superheroics well before the debut of the Batman TV series in January of 1966.

Nonetheless, it was the success of Batman that paved the way for more superheroes on TV. Prior to Batman, nearly all of the super adventures we saw were old--second-hand entertainment, already enjoyed previously by our elder siblings, or even an earlier generation. Superman was from the '50s; Popeye from the '30s through the '50s; Flash Gordon from the '30s. Astro Boy was roughly contemporary, but a syndicated import, not, y'know, fresh Amurrican entertainment. At the beginning of 1966, Batman was really the only superhero starring in brand-new televised exploits; he would have plenty of company by the end of that year.

(This new superhero fad had its first effect on advertising. I recall seeing superhero motifs in TV commercials for Bactine and Lucky Stripes chewing gum, and I loved 'em. The images of Stripeman and a flying, bat-caped Bactine container were as much a part of my TV experience in '66 as The Monkees were.)



Almost all of the new superhero shows would be animated. In September, the new Saturday morning cartoon schedule on CBS included The New Adventures Of Superman, Space Ghost, Frankenstein Jr. And The Impossibles, and even The Lone Ranger, starring another character we all knew (like Superman), but who couldn't be called a superhero because he was, y'know, a cowboy. On weekday afternoons, we were treated to The Marvel Super Heroes, a series of serialized adventures starring a rotating roster of Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Sub-Mariner, and The Hulk. These were shown in Syracuse on a show called Jet Set, alongside a collection of whatever other cartoon goodies Channel 5 could get its hands on (including Sinbad Jr And His Magic Belt, in which our seafarin' hero gained super strength via the wonder of his titular magic belt).





There were live action superheroes, too. Most notable of these was The Green Hornet with Van Williams and Bruce Lee, though there were also two comedy superhero shows, Captain Nice and Mr. Terrific. I was aware of Captain Nice, and even owned a Captain Nice comic book, but never managed to see an episode of the show. I did watch both The Green Hornet and Mr. Terrific, but not many people did; all three series were short-lived.




More animated superheroes followed: Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man on ABC, The Superman-Aquaman Hour Of Adventure on CBS (the latter including additional heroics from The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom, Teen Titans, and The Justice League of America), and a variety of other super-doers created for the small screen: Mightor! Super 6! Mighty Heroes! Birdman! The Galaxy Trio! Super-President! Surely, evil must tremble before this assembled might of right!



The cancellation of the prime-time Batman in 1968 signaled the ebb of the public's interest in superheroes. Although Batman quickly returned in a new cartoon series in the fall of '68, the costumed hero fad had run its course.

With the plethora of superhero movies and TV shows available now, it's odd to look back and realize that it did once seem like a fad that had ended. In the early '70s, Superman and Wonder Woman made (perhaps incongruous) guest appearances on a Saturday morning cartoon series based on the kids from The Brady Bunch; an ABC Saturday Superstar Movie called "Popeye Meets The Man Who Hated Laughter" teamed the super sailor-man with other characters from the King Features stable, including Flash Gordon, The Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician; and Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Batman and Robin united in a new cartoon series called Super Friends.

Me? I was 13 by the time Super Friends debuted in 1973, and it wasn't at all what I was looking for in televised superhero entertainment. I wanted a gritty new Batman series--no, not "Batman," "THE Batman!" I wanted something that would reflect the perceived (by me) maturity of the 1970s Batman comics stories by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams; in my mind, Medical Center star Chad Everett was born to play The Batman in a serious crime drama, with British actor Christopher Lee as the megalomaniacal Ra's al Ghul. That's what I wanted, not kids' stuff like Super Friends.



Alas, I never really liked any of the live action superhero TV fare of the '70s. Well, at the time, I confess I did kinda like the atrocious Wonder Woman TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby, and the awful late night TV adaptation of the musical It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman. The original Captain Marvel had become one of my all-time favorite comics characters, but I couldn't warm to his banal escapades in Shazam! Lynda Carter was a freakin' knockout, but I found her Wonder Woman series to be too campy, and this young man had outgrown camp, see? Isis? Spider-Man? The Incredible Hulk? None of these was ever quite what I had in mind.






It took decades before there would be a superhero TV series that would captivate me. I loved Smallville, the tale of the boy who would be Superman, from the moment of its debut in 2001. Nowadays, I have all the superhero TV entertainment I could ever want, from all those DC Comics shows on The CW to Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC to Gotham on Fox to the edgier Marvel shows on Netflix. From feast, to famine, to an endless bounty, all within my lifetime. Up, up, and away.



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