Now that The Penguin has wrapped up, it is time to do the important and rigorous work of deciding if it is in fact the best live-action DC Comics show of all time. Which is harder than most people may realize, because there are a lot of them.
While this list, like all lists, is subjective, my bias is toward good TV, not faithful TV — while I may dock some shows for hardly having anything to do with the source material at all, if it’s in the service of a good time, I’ll allow it. The best comic-book shows, however, find a way to do both: hybrid series that operate in the tried-and-true TV genres like procedurals, or soapy dramas, then using the comic-book source material to make those fundamentals feel fresh and new.
DC’s 90-year history is one that is full of reboots, reinventions, and legacy characters that pass on their titles to younger generations. Because of this, the DC stable of characters is a more immediately elastic one — and the best shows here run with that, creating their own version of DC superheroes that wink at the canon, and fans who know it.
Of course, the approach depends on the source material, and DC, through imprints like Vertigo, does a lot more than just superheroics. Some shows on this list are just great reminders that comics are a wonderful medium for all kinds of stories, and in turn can inspire all kinds of shows.
Up, up, and away:
43.
Human Target (1992)
The first of two adaptations of DC’s resident daredevil-for-hire Christopher Chance is one of the weakest shows the comics publisher has inspired. It’s a shame, because the premise is perfect: Chance is a bodyguard/private investigator who protects his clients by impersonating them, making himself the eponymous Human Target. This ’90s attempt at the character fell flat, however, coming across as a halfhearted attempt at a Mission: Impossible–type series with wonderful masks but no personality of its own. ABC canceled the series after seven episodes, and rightly so.
42.
Superboy (1988)
Largely memory holed thanks to legal disputes that kept it off the air after its 1991 finale, this syndicated series about a college-aged Clark Kent and his early forays into superhero work isn’t terribly worth remembering, anyway. Superboy starts rough, with its hero taking on grounded, everyday (read: boring) crooks in its first season but gradually improves as it becomes more comic-booky, and less gun-shy about including colorful superhuman foes. It remains, unfortunately, full of turgid acting and laughably bad writing throughout.
41.
The Secrets of Isis (1975)
Perhaps the DC property that has aged most poorly on this list is still a significant one. The show followed the adventures of teacher Andrea Thomas, who discovered an ancient Egyptian amulet that bestowed upon her the power of the goddess Isis. The sister series to Shazam! was the first live-action superhero show with a woman in the lead role, and is thus remembered fondly by a generation of fans. It helps that the show is short, sweet, and loaded with ’70s charm, much like Shazam! — but it would quickly be supplanted in the culture by another show with less-awkward cultural baggage.
40.
Shazam! (1974)
Preceding The Secrets of Isis by a year (and later paired with it in The Shazam/Isis Hour), Shazam! arguably kicked off a mini-boom of ’70s superhero shows. Unlike later series, Shazam! is pretty unapologetically for kids. Each episode has a clear moral, making sure that every time normal kid Billy Batson becomes Captain Marvel, Earth’s Mightiest Mortal, it’s for a good reason. A Saturday morning show with prime-time action, Shazam! doesn’t hold up terribly well, but it’s not hard to see how it found fans as it led a new generation of superhero shows.
39.
DMZ (2022)
Unceremoniously dumped on what was then called HBO Max and only four episodes in length, DMZ could have been a streaming contender, if it ever seemed like a finished product. Based on the Vertigo book by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli, DMZ followed the medic Alma “Zee†Ortega (Rosario Dawson) into the No Man’s Land of Manhattan following the second American Civil War. While Dawson is a compelling lead and Benjamin Bratt gives a memorable turn as her sinister gang lord ex, DMZ mostly feels like the unassembled pieces of a TV show, and not a series proper.
38.
Y: The Last Man (2021)
Another series based on an acclaimed Vertigo book with a tortured development, the version of Y: The Last Man that made it to streaming (via FX on Hulu) arrived with its promise considerably dulled. The dystopian horror of a world violently rewritten by the sudden death of every cisgendered male mammal except for the seemingly unremarkable Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer) and his pet monkey Ampersand, Y was thoughtful in its updates (the original comic debuted in 2002) but languid in its execution. Canceled after one season, the series never got the chance to ratchet up the tension.
37.
Gotham Knights (2023)
A strange and forgettable attempt to blend a Gossip Girl-esque teen soap into the vigilante justice of Batman’s world, Gotham Knights isn’t so much an adaptation of any specific comic as it is a remix of Bat-mythology. While the young crew of outcasts assembled here (including fan-favorite comics characters Carrie Kelley and Stephanie Brown) could have grown into a show that felt distinct in the landscape of superhero adaptations, Gotham Knights arriving just as the CW pivoted away from DC shows likely doomed it from the jump.
36.
Naomi (2022)
A charming cast and ebullient tone aren’t quite enough to help Naomi make a strong impression in its solitary season on the CW. Chalk it up to the rather oblique source material it adapts quite faithfully. What should have been a straightforward story about high schooler Naomi McDuffie (Kaci Walfell) learning she’s from another world is confused by poorly-defined connections to the DC Universe — severing that connection might have immediately improved the show.
35.
Stargirl (2020)
First produced for the now-defunct DC Universe app before hopping over to the CW as part of the network’s final wave of DC shows, Stargirl felt like a breath of fresh air from the long-in-the-tooth Arrowverse. Colorful and more youth-focused than its sister shows, Stargirl stood out in its depiction of young Courtney Whitmore (Brec Bassinger) learning to be a hero and a friend as she built a new iteration of the Justice Society of America with other second-generation heroes. Rather fluffy but chock full of fun and obscure DC characters like Sportsmaster, Stargirl lasted 3 inoffensive seasons and probably could’ve gone on for a couple more before getting old.
34.
Titans (2018)
The show that led with Robin saying “fuck Batman†had a bit more going for it than its first trailer’s edgy vibe suggested, namely a surprising inclination toward horror and a thrilling approach to action. Titans often struggled with the fundamentals, however, with oddly paced seasons and a cast that never fully gelled, given that its heroes were often allergic to bonding as teammates. A little less angst would’ve gone a long way here, but comics fans will find plenty worth sticking around for.
33.
Dead Boy Detectives (2024)
A little too frenetic and zany for its own good, but not so much that it deserved to die on the vine, Dead Boy Detectives was a victim of this year’s great streaming contraction. Like many shows on this list, this story about teen ghost detectives could have easily settled into a groove if given the chance, but alas, that chance never came — and the troubling allegations against comics co-creator Neil Gaiman (who was uninvolved with the show) likely stymied much enthusiasm for extending the series the chance to do so.
32.
Swamp Thing (1990)
USA’s surprisingly long-running Swamp Thing lives somewhere between the camp of the ’80s films featuring the character and a sincere attempt at budget horror, and the result is pretty endearing for the late-night set. A weekly creature feature where the creature is the hero (and sometimes takes on other creatures) Swamp Thing is a TV series for lovers of trash with cult followings, the stuff midnight marathons are made of.
31.
Birds of Prey (2002)
Many Smallville companion shows were considered, Birds of Prey was the only one to make it to air. It was a pretty good one at that: a Bat-themed Charmed/Buffy-esque show to pair with Smallville’s Dawson’s Creek leanings, Birds of Prey should’ve gone the distance. The rating never came though — Prey played too fast and loose with comics canon to court fans still starved for authentic adaptations, yet leaned on comics references hard enough to possibly alienate newcomers. The result was a strange hodgepodge of a TV series — novel and interesting in hindsight, but maybe not distinct enough to inspire a spot on the DVR at the time.
30.
Batwoman (2019)
Hamstrung by the departure of its lead actor after its first season, the CW’s Batwoman had to reboot itself at the very moment it should have been finding its footing. Fortunately, the fundamentals were there: Batwoman had a slightly spooky take on Gotham with an absentee Batman lifted right from the comics, and adjusted for the Arrowverse it only occasionally intersected with. Unfortunately, fatigue for said Arrowverse was settling in hard by 2019, and much of what Batwoman did well — like staging excellent fight scenes on a CW budget — went unnoticed by most.
29.
Preacher (2016)
A perfect cast in search of a deserving show, Preacher never quite coalesced into a whole as compelling as its individual parts. It’s hard to blame anyone involved — the core trio of Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, and Joseph Gilgun were tremendous in telling the story of Jesse Custer (Cooper) a disillusioned preacher on a journey to find God after learning that the deity is (1) real and (2) walked off the job — it’s just that the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon comic it’s based on is a real doozy, tonally speaking. At its best, Preacher nailed it. At its worst, the show could be quite off-putting. Which, when it comes to a Garth Ennis comic, is another way of nailing it.
28.
The Flash (1990)
Shockingly gorgeous, The Flash is mostly remembered as an expensive failure. The box-office success of Tim Burton’s Batman got CBS to open its checkbook to give those fans a comparable network show, and The Flash spared no expense. Moody lighting, great sets, and expensive costumes fill the screen, but the audience never came. It’s probably not likely that The Flash would have grown into something special — what you see is what you get here — but there’s so much fun here to see.
27.
Supergirl (2015)
Many of the shows on this list had tumultuous behind-the-scenes journeys that took them from one network to another, often getting retooled along the way. Supergirl started as a CBS series with a healthy budget and a sunshiney Devil Wears Prada–esque story about Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist), Superman’s cousin, paying her dues as a journalist and fledgling superhero. After hopping over to the CW for its next five seasons, Supergirl had to distinguish itself more sharply against its Arrowverse peers, giving its superheroics an earnest social justice streak that was occasionally saccharine but usually infused with just enough charm to carry the day.
26.
Bodies (2023)
I would wager a couple dollars you missed Bodies on Netflix, a British mystery series about detectives across three different decades discovering the same corpse at the same location. I would wager double that against you recognizing it as based on a 2014 Vertigo series of the same name by Si Spencer and various artists. Both comic and series have suffered a similar fate — being buried in a landslide of Too Much Stuff — and both are clever little delights that deserve to be remembered. Check Bodies out. Either one will do.
25.
Human Target (2010)
Christopher Chance’s second TV series isn’t any more DC Comics literate than the first, but it is a hell of a lot more fun. A big, splashy spy show with a scale appropriate to the character’s reckless M.O., Mark Valley’s take on Chance brings lots of devil-may-care charm while a supporting cast that includes Chi McBride, Jackie Earl Haley, and Indira Varma, bring loads of charisma. If it had seven seasons instead of two and a slot on the Netflix carousel, it’d probably have a shot at Suits-level fandom.
24.
Smallville (2001)
We’re in the big leagues now. The WB’s ab-forward reinvention of Superman in high school is the rare comic book show to really go the distance despite distancing itself from said comics. “No tights, no flights†was the rule (at least for a few seasons), preferring to build a heartland soap about a young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) who had to keep his origins a secret from his crush Lana (Kristen Kreuk) and curious friend Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) while trying to learn about them himself. As its ten-season run wore on, the show would more openly embrace comic book characters and ideas, becoming a bit of a self-parody in its efforts to put off Clark’s transformation into Superman, which would only happen in the show’s final moments. Even at its worst, though, Smallville remained a crucial stepping stone for everything that came after it.
23.
The Flash (2014)
The Flash was the moment the CW’s Arrowverse truly arrived. Lacking the self-conscious grimness of Arrow that initially kept it away from four-color adventures, The Flash was immediately liberated to go full comic book, kickstarting the small-screen answer to the MCU. Built on the endearingly boyish charm of lead Grant Gustin, the longest-running (ha) of the Arrowverse shows would eventually overstay its welcome after nine seasons, its initial spark sapped by sister series. But what a spark that was.
22.
Arrow (2012)
The most successful superhero TV shows draw clean parallels not to comic books, but to other TV shows. Arrow’s North Star was Lost, pairing the vigilante origin story of shallow rich kid Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) with the ongoing mystery of what happened to him during a five-year struggle to survive on a desolate island. Arrow was an unlikely origin for the wildly successful live-action superhero universe that sprang from it, and at times it seemed like its many spinoffs left it behind. But throughout the peaks and valleys that spanned its eight seasons, the series never suffered an identity crisis, forging onward with remarkable consistency as it slowly recreated the DC Universe in its image.
21.
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993)
Lois & Clark was the closest any superhero TV series came to a zeitgeist-cracking will-they-won’t they. This was the genius of the show as initially created by Deborah Joy Levine: it was a workplace drama first, workplace romance second, and Superman show third. Levine would be fired for season 2 and later producers would tweak that ratio — naturally preferring the Superman aspects — but also going to cartoonish lengths to prolong its eponymous romance. Viewers got tired of the endless bait-and-switches, and the promising and smart show of Lois & Clark’s first season slowly sputtered out by its fourth.
20.
Krypton (2018)
At first glance, Krypton seemed like prequelitis taken to an extreme. It’s not that a sci-fi show (on the SyFy Channel) about Superman’s homeworld was a bad idea, but centering it around Kal-El’s grandfather, Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe) and loosely tying it to the odd genetic oligarchy presented in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel were two very strange choices that ultimately detracted from what the show did well. Once you got past the self-seriousness that infected much genre fiction post-Game of Thrones, Krypton became a sprawling saga that found ways to fold in some of DC’s terrifically fun spacefaring characters, like Lobo the bounty hunter, and big bads like Brainiac. Krypton rewarded those who stuck with its slow burn, and while it ended too soon, it didn’t waste any time getting to the good stuff.
19.
Black Lightning (2018)
The disposable nature and rapid production of comic books often means that they can feel unusually immediate among entertainment media, as writers and artists very openly work through what’s on their mind in pamphlets that hit the streets mere months later. At the Arrowverse’s peak, with multiple shows on the air, DC Superhero series could take on this immediacy, without the self-consciousness of having to sell audiences on superhero shows. Black Lightning is a snapshot of genre fiction working through the first Trump presidency in real time, as its majority Black cast spun a generational superhero fable about race, oppression, and community, often attempting to do so with more nuance than its sister shows. Its greatest success was not building out a cast of superhumans, but a place, as the city of Freeland, Georgia was present in a way that superhero hometowns rarely are.
18.
Pennyworth (2019)
So here’s something you might not have known about Pennyworth: it is not merely an adaptation of Batman comics in its attempt to tell “the origin of Batman’s butler†but in fact a loose adaptation of the alt-history presented in Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta. This audacious sleight of hand elevates Pennyworth from mostly-fine spy show that began life on a little-watched network (Epix, but now streaming on Max) to bonkers streaming curio that you will scarce believe ever happened. But happen it did — for three whole seasons, too!
17.
iZombie (2015)
Comic books weren’t the lure here: Rob Thomas was. The Veronica Mars creator returned in the mid-2010s alongside fellow showrunner Diane Ruggerio-Wright with another cult hit genre exercise, a quirky Pushing Daisies-esque procedural about Liv Moore, a zombie still in possession of her mind, as long as she continues to eat brains. What began as a morbid procedural where Liv helps solve murders by unlocking the memories of the brains she eats eventually escalated to post-apocalyptic thriller as the roots of the zombie plague are exposed — all building to an unfortunately rushed end. Don’t let a maligned finale deter you, though — Veronica Mars’s many endings are divisive too.
16.
Powerless (2017)
Incredibly the only sitcom on this list, NBC’s Powerless was a brave, brief foray into what still is wildly uncharted territory in cape comic TV shows. Heavily retooled before airing and swiftly canceled before its kinks were worked out, Powerless managed to get the most important part of a sitcom right: A well-rounded cast that was already starting to have fun fleshing out the low-level offices of Wayne Security, with Vanessa Hudgens, Ron Funches, Danny Pudi, and Alan Tudyk working menial jobs in a very not-menial world.
15.
Sandman (2022)
It’s mostly a miracle that they did it at all: Neil Gaiman’s sprawling comic about Dream of the Endless (Tom Sturridge) journeys through the mortal world should not work in live-action, and the Netflix series developed by Gaiman, David S. Goyer, and Allan Heinberg only just barely does. Some of the source material’s stranger, more macabre edges have been sanded down in the transition, but the groundwork laid here was promising — and while a second season still seems underway, the future of the show and any enthusiasm for it that has amassed in the last two years is now diminished by the aforementioned allegations against Gaiman.
14.
Swamp Thing (2019)
So, the DC Universe app. You remember it, yeah? A streaming service just for the DC Faithful, with a library that included its own original programming and many of the legacy titles on this list. Swamp Thing was one of the best original series created for it but one of the last to debut. This meant it had the misfortune of premiering just as the short-lived DC Universe streaming experiment was dying down. With its production cut short and unable to find a landing pad elsewhere, Swamp Thing’s capable adaptation of its difficult and dense source material was left to die on the vine.
13.
Constantine (2014)
No disrespect to Keanu Reeves, but he’s not who anyone would have pictured when asked to conjure up an image of John Constantine, DC’s resident dark magician and damned soul trying to stay a step ahead of both heaven and hell. Matt Ryan, though? He was perfect. But horror shows are a hard sell especially on broadcast networks like NBC (Hannibal might have taken up all the oxygen there) and the occult series never got picked up for a second season. Ryan however, was not done playing Constantine — later joining the cast of Legends of Tomorrow.
12.
Doom Patrol (2019)
Abrasive, oddly paced, and with plenty of production difficulties stemming from a shift in streaming services and the COVID-19 pandemic, the odds were against Doom Patrol ever finding its groove. DC’s most existential anti-superhero team was a strange choice for television to begin with, and didn’t always work in translation, but sometimes? It was transcendent. Cheers to the Doom Patrol creative team, for pulling off something as idiosyncratic and singular as the various landmark comics runs they used for inspiration.
11.
Sweet Tooth (2021)
In a world lousy with grim post-apocalyptic settings about how far we’ll go to survive, Sweet Tooth dares to hold on to hope. Bringing a fairy tale touch to the shopworn genre with a wonderfully earnest performance by Christian Convery as an innocent 12-year-old deer/human hybrid named Gus, Sweet Tooth tells the story of Gus’s journey through a world devastated by a plague that coincides with the birth of hybrid children like Gus. A beautiful little show set in the meanest genre, Sweet Tooth is a loving homage to the Jeff Lemire comic of the same name.
10.
The Penguin (2024)
A fantastic bit of sleight of hand work, The Penguin was only kind of about Oz Cobb’s (Colin Farrell) rise to power after The Batman. What it really ended up being was a dark character study of minor comics character Sofia Gigante (a tremendous Cristin Milioti), tracing the rise and fall of a magnetic queenpin against the backdrop of a Gotham City in crisis. Initially wearing its influences on its sleeve — there’s more than a little Sopranos here — the series begins to distinguish itself as it leans into the idiosyncrasies of its world and characters, building to a divisive and heartbreaking finale. What could have been a shallow IP extension has in fact made the films it spins out of and into that much richer.
9.
Legends of Tomorrow (2016)
Few things in television are more invigorating than seeing a struggling series retool itself on the fly to tremendous success. Legends of Tomorrow started its life as the Arrowverse’s biggest flop, with a dull first season about a motley crew of heroes and villains from The Flash and Arrow being recruited by a time traveler to stop a despot’s rise to power. After an overly serious first season, Legends of Tomorrow began a stunning pivot to tongue-in-cheek sci-fi romp that chewed through gags, ideas, and cast members with reckless abandon to become the Arrowverse’s greatest success, and a show that felt distinctly its own.
8.
Lucifer (2016)
Here are two things you can do to make your procedural beloved enough to save it from cancellation and double its lifespan: Make sure it has a really charismatic lead that you would follow to the gates of hell, and then throw them in an immediately obvious will they/won’t they that can fuel a yearslong emotional rollercoaster. Lucifer does both with aplomb, with Tom Ellis having the absolute time of his life as the Literal Devil, and Lauren German as the cop who is literally immune to his charms. Lucifer plays extremely fast and loose with its Vertigo source material — the show merely adopts its premise of the Devil abandoning his job to run a nightclub and then runs off in its own direction. And what fun that is.
7.
Gotham (2014)
Speaking of irreverent fun, few comics adaptations so brazenly disregarded the canon to such buck wild and spectacular results as Gotham. Ostensibly a prequel series about Jim Gordon’s (Ben McKenzie) early days as a Gotham City cop and young Bruce Wayne’s (David Mazouz) first steps toward the cape, the series actually shined as a madcap tale of the city’s transformation from den of everyday crime to strange incubator for comic book villains. Stylish and full of energy, Gotham is a brilliant example of the kind of fun you can have when you don’t have a cinematic universe to worry about.
6.
Wonder Woman (1975)
The most famous female superhero in the biz was never more popular than she was in the ’70s, when a movement saw itself in her story and put her on the cover of Ms. magazine. Soon after, Lynda Carter’s iconic take on the character found the kind of breakthrough success The Secrets of Isis did not. Initially a WWII period piece before becoming a contemporary adventure show, producers would tinker with the series endlessly, tweaking the amount of violence, comedy, and romance throughout, but never diminishing its status as a pop cultural landmark. It’s unfortunate that the high water mark for Wonder Woman’s cultural saturation lies nearly half a century in the past, but Wonder Woman remains a prime example of what a comic book adaptation can do when it connects with the world around it, as opposed to wrapping itself in insular lore.
5.
Adventures of Superman (1952)
Here’s a thing you might notice from this list: TV is very fond of Superman. Nary a decade goes by without some long-running show about the Man of Tomorrow. Adventures of Superman isn’t merely notable for being first, though — it was also a genuine attempt to reflect the character’s comic book adventures while also fitting neatly into the era’s standards for genre television. Following the ’40s radio show, George Reeves’s small-screen take on the hero would continue to cement Clark Kent/Superman in the cultural consciousness for decades to come, while also showing some love to Jimmy Olsen — a vital part of the Superman mythos that modern adaptations struggle with.
4.
Peacemaker (2022)
The best James Gunn projects have a deeply broken heart hidden in layers of off-putting violence and crude humor. It’s an ethos that is well-suited to TV — Peacemaker, Gunn’s first TV series, gets a lot of mileage out of layering the director’s signature sense of humor and penchant for gonzo violence over an angry core wrestling with American jingoism and white supremacy. It also has an opening credits sequence that’s just impossible to skip.
3.
Superman & Lois (2021)
Hands down the best modern take on Superman, Superman & Lois succeeds by occupying a woefully-underserved space in the current TV landscape: The family drama. With its soft-glow Everwood stylings and intentional distancing from the Arrowverse (despite stars Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch originating their Clark and Lois there) the series built its spine on the challenges of raising a family where one son is super and the other is not. The show’s heartfelt sincerity, pitch-perfect Clark Kent and Lois Lane, and community-minded storytelling all go a long way, but what makes the series sing is the way that its writers constantly manage to head fake comics fans. No comics adaptation is better at seemingly teeing up one famous story arc only to zag and reveal they’re actually setting up another one. Of course, it’s not necessary that you know this, but it’s extremely satisfying when you do.
2.
Watchmen (2019)
Everyone seemed to know that a second adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s landmark comic was a pretty foolish endeavor, most of all showrunner Damon Lindelof. What he and his collaborators did instead — one part sequel, one part reinvention of the source material — remains one of the most impressive adaptation high-wire acts in recent memory. Like the original comic book, HBO’s Watchmen is interested in the superhero metaphor as a means to express thoughts about its own genre, its position in the pop cultural landscape, and the sociopolitical moment it arrives in. A riveting thriller about legacy, race, and the white supremacist rot in the heart of America, Watchmen did for superhero TV what its source material did for superhero comics.
1.
Batman (1966)
Did you really think it would be anything else? There was a dance inspired by this show. They didn’t even have TikTok then! Across three seasons and 120 episodes, Batman was a pop-culture hurricane that no comics adaptation has achieved since. Batman’s comedic Technicolor stylings — and the utter sincerity with which stars Adam West and Burt Ward led viewers through them — have lived on through countless references and parodies in the ensuing decades, as well as a mercurial relationship with Batman fans. While Batman’s place in TV history is quite secure on merits, its impact on all Bat media since — usually a deep need to distance each subsequent iteration from its goofy antics — ensures that it will never truly die. It, as they say, lives in every DC Comics’ fan’s mind rent-free.