I know a lot of people didn’t like Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel because of the controversial ending, but I did like it and thought the ending was perfect when it comes to creating the mythos of Superman. He is not a God and he needs to learn his lessons so as not to repeat mistakes. With that said, I was very excited to see Snyder’s animated short celebrating 75 years of Superman.
Bruce Timm, the Godfather of DC Animation, had this to say:
“It was Zack Snyder’s idea. 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. There was just too much stuff, so we tried to put in little nods, even if only in the background.”
As much as I loved Man of Steel, this 75 Years of Superman short was just a masterwork. I’ve been reading comics since the 70s and have a strong familiarity with the history of Superman in comics, on television and through the movies, and think this is probably the best homage I have ever seen for him.
Plus, bonus points for the homage to Super Friends, my favorite cartoon as a little kid. Check out the 75 Years of Superman video and let us know what you think.
