Superman Animated Series MKV

As part of the ongoing celebration of the 75th anniversary of Superman, Warner Bros. Animation’s Bruce Timm and Man of Steel director Zack Snyder collaborated on a two-minute film that observes some of Superman’s more memorable adventures. The animation includes homages to original creators Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster to contemporary artists like Jim Lee, with stops along the way that give props to Curt Swan, Dan Jurgens, Neal Adams, Andy Warhol, Fleisher Studios, Alex Ross, the Smallville television series, Christopher Reeve, George Reeves, Henry Cavil and Timm’s own work on Superman: The Animated Series.

“It was Zack Snyder’s idea, ” Timm told Entertainment Weekly. “We had approached him about maybe doing a short for the DC Nation program on Cartoon Network. He said, ‘I’ll think about it, ’ and then he had this idea to do basically the entire history of Superman in, like, a minute. We said, ‘Okay … whoooo.’ We started working and quickly realized there was no way to do it, even in a minute.”

Timm, best known for his design, directing and otherwise overseeing such DC Comics-based animation projects like Batman: The Animated Series and, said that beyond the obvious technical challenges involved with changing artistic styles and using as few hard cuts as possible, the most difficult part of creaitng the two-minute short was curating 75 years of Superman moments. What made the cut was of course the original appearance of Superman in Action Comics #1; fights with Lex Luthor, Bizarro, Darkseid and of course Doomsday; a nod to the “Reign of the Supermen” storyline; the modern “electro-Supes” version of the Superman Red/Superman Blue adventure; some Kingdom Come action; Superman getting punched by Muhammed Ali;
Superman fighting giant robots from the hugely influential Fleischer cartoons of the ’40s; Christopher Reeve’s iconic sendoff from the end of his Superman films; the infamous Jimmy Olsen-as-Turtle-Boy cover; the superpets; the Super-Friends; and Henry Cavill’s flight from Man of Steel.