Superman: The Animated Series (Recommended)

I roasted this back in the day because of how tame his power level was, but this is a young Superman story done right.

This show tackles cool characters & concepts ranging from Mxy to Darkseid to the Legion of Superheroes.

And featuring a Kara (NOT Bore-El) surprisingly that doesn't piss me off with her very existence. Imagine my surprise to find out she's NOT miraculously Superman's Cousin who ALSO just happened to survive the explosion because Jor-EL just HAPPENED to have a brother who JUST HAPPENED to be a Scientist who HAPPENED to have exact same idea to Kara but for some reason not himself or his wife.

Fan-fic tier garbage. GARBAGE.

But Kara In-Ze decent, she's a good kid.

In fact, I wish Kara In-Ze was in that Superman Returns deleted scene when he went back to Krypton, and he finds her on Argo or something. Some of kind of payoff for that 5 years he was gone

Back to the show. Clark is a sassy, witty chad.

He's not some Him-bro purse puppy like someone else I know in recent memory I wish I could carve out of my skull. He's a vanilla dork big-brother (like Welling's take) who's underwhelming enough to sell the role but not overdoing it to point it's cartoonish & annoying.

He's good at his job, both of them. And the more times he puts on the cape, the more the universe expands, the guy just attracts trouble and all tryna do is the right thing.

I thought initially him not being overtly geeky would've defeated the illusion but in fact he's still so bland as a person compared to Superman he doesn't have to go out of his way to try not be suspicious, which now that i'm thinking about it would make him more suspicious.

And the sass carries over to Superman, this character (from here to JLU) cops attitude A LOT, it's funny see. A very human Superman with a wide range of emotions as he's in this Superhero career, yet stoic and collected and I love it.

Stubborn as an Ox at times, especially as he gets older & develops more of an ego. He's a leader, but not beyond all reason. A good guy, reliable, very human.

In fact, in a lot of ways, a Shonen protagonist with a hint of slice of life..

I like this guy.

Besides Smallville/ Superman/Superman & Lois/ hell even that Lois & Clark show was charming-

This is THE post-modern Superman, done right.

Honorable mention: 40's Fleischer Superman

I recommend TAS to JL & JLU, since it is technically one timeline (though JL S1 he was nerfed to shit), but it's all part of his story.

Top 3 favorite Lois Lanes of all time. 

• The music is so peaceful, grandiose at the same time. The composer did the tracks justice, she did her part to bring this project to life with a sound reminiscent of Williams work.
• I really like the Retro-Futuristic aesthetic of Metropolis and various other set pieces compared to Gotham & Smallville, it genuinely looks like a city of the future. Reminds me of the Jetsons
• The character writing has that old-school wit to it, where most of the older characters are witty, snarky but professional. Very solid. Vs these days where most characters are random, loud, quirky, and just annoying lol
• As far as Superman lore goes, one of the few things they didn't put in there was Eradicator, Superboy, etc. This show COVERS a lot of the groundwork of Superman content. 3 Seasons+ of content- even Livewire is in here.

If I were to have a complaint (and no it's not Kara), it would be the pre-Singer/Snyder era of how his powers are presented and engineered into visual format. I really like how Singer introduced Superman causing sonic-booms

-and how Zack translated his power into fights.

In TAS show it lacks the aesthetic, the punch/emphasis, he's strong but.... it doesn't lean into it enough for me at times.

Again, It's very tame but while it's underwhelming, he is young and the later installments pick it up eventually.

Surprisingly My Adventures with Lois-Chan tried to mix it up with the sfx & action, but even that show was lacking, so so so many areas, but I'm going to leave that alone for now.

Superman: TAS

grounded Superman version Zack should've did more homework on. Cavill deserved to adapt this Superman.