Bruce Timm co-created Superman: The Animated Series, which ran for four seasons and remains the defining depiction of the Man of Steel for an entire generation. However, unlike most kids’ shows of the 90s, the series takes an interesting approach to storytelling, particularly when it comes to exploring Superman’s origin story.
Superman: The Animated Series explores the titular hero’s origin story over three episodes, which was surprising for an animated series in the 90s. However, Timm explained how the idea came to be because the creative team faced little to no pushback from the executives. As a result, Timm admitted that the series was able to explore the full scope of Superman’s origin story, and here is how.
Bruce Timm Admitted to Receiving No Pushback Over Superman’s Origin in Superman: The Animated Series
Superman: The Animated Series was created by Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett. It aired on Kids’ WB from 1996 to 2000, spanning 54 episodes. One of the most popular storylines from the series is the three-part origin story titled The Last Son of Krypton.
During an interview with CBR, Timm admitted that showing an origin story over three episodes in the 90s was very offbeat for a children’s show. However, Timm and Burnett went ahead with the choice as they did not face any backlash from the network executives at Kids’ WB. He said:
“I don’t remember that there was any pushback. The people that we worked with at Kids’ WB at the time were very easygoing, much more so than Fox Kids.”
Timm added that the network was more lenient when it came to standards and practices that were common in children’s television such as episodic storylines that rarely carried over. He added:
“These guys were letting us do whatever we wanted, which was great.”
As a result, it is evident that Timm and Burnett were given free rein over charting Superman’s story and adventures in the animated form as they saw fit. This approach would also allow for other multi-part storylines such as the three-part Batman crossover titled World’s Finest in the second season.
Bruce Timm Reveals Why Superman: The Animated Series Explores Superman’s Origin Over Three Episodes
During the same interview, Timm also explained why Superman’s origin story was explored over three episodes despite being told multiple times across different mediums. At the same time, Superman’s origin contrasted with that of Batman, which was never fully explored in Batman: The Animated Series.
“The thing about Batman’s origin story is it’s an incident. It’s something that happened. It’s not a whole episode, it’s six minutes of screen time. Superman’s is epic. It’s got all kinds of biblical stuff in it and a huge scale.”
Timm made the above statement explaining the different approaches taken to explore Superman and Batman’s origin stories. Meanwhile, Timm also admitted that he was excited at the prospect of exploring another planet before bringing Superman to Earth. Therefore, he had fun designing and developing Krypton from the ground up.
Superman: The Animated Series is streaming on Max.
