Superman has always maintained his iconic look, at least in what fans have seen in movies and television series. He’s always got that perfect hair that does not seem to move out of place even when he’s fighting enemies. Although, there was one time when DC Comics decided to experiment and give him a mullet.
Of course, the mullet did not stay forever as it received mixed reactions from fans. Even Bruce Timm did not follow suit in his interpretation of Superman: The Animated Series.
Superman Artist Refused To Give The Character A Mullet In The Animated Show
Speaking with Screen Rant, artist and animator Bruce Timm talked about the definitive version of Superman amongst the many versions of the hero. He revealed meticulously choosing only the ones that best represented him and dropped the rest.
“There’s been so many different versions of him previously, and we kind of cherry-picked parts of different Superman shows and cartoons and live-action and movies and everything, just the things that we liked, we leave out all the boring parts, we just give you the good stuff.”
In terms of Superman’s costume, he tried to make it as faithful to the original material as possible. Even though it resembles the comics, it has to make a lasting impression on the screen.
“He definitely has some challenges because his costume is pretty old fashioned and it’s in primary colors, we did certain things with that, just with the color palette to kind of darken the blue and put a little black on his trunks to kind of make it look like the comic books, but it’s still a really strong, kick-ass design.”
Finally, when DC Comics told Timm to keep the Last Son of Krypton’s mullet for the animated series, he boldly refused. Even though he was told that it was going to be the character’s look forever, he still declined.
“The biggest thing was, at the time, in the comics, Superman had come back from the dead, and he came back with a mullet. And DC Comics was pushing really hard to give him a mullet in our show, and I was like, ‘No effing way am I giving him a mullet!’ ”
Timm brought the issue to Warner Bros. CEO Bob Daly, and he was ultimately allowed to keep Superman’s traditional hair. The comics also reverted to the character’s original trim.
Superman Almost Had Mullet On Justice League
What’s more surprising than Superman having a mullet is the fact that Zack Snyder actually planned to give Henry Cavill a long hair in Justice League. The director revealed via Tyrone Magnus’ YouTube:
“We talked about it a lot, and I was a slight advocate, a little bit, for the mullet. But, I think there was no way to go back from that, and at the time the studio was really leaning on me pretty hard… The long hair, there was no way to undo that.”
This would have been pretty insane, and fans will need a lot of time to process this, as the previous DCEU installments only saw Cavill sporting Superman’s signature look.
