As anot-so-wise but incredibly interesting man once said, people love the cozy feeling the ideas of superheroes give, that the most golden of us will swoop out of the sky to save the day for everyone. This is why once the medium of comics took off, the most popular genre has always been the tales of Batman, Superman, and all of their crime-fighting, vigilante, and power-enhanced contemporaries.
Both individuals like Spider-Man and teams like the X-Men. But sometimes the place where you’ll find the most entertaining iterations of the latter is off on the page and on the small-screen. Here are 5 of the most interesting superhero teams ever put to television.
5The X-Men: Evolution Team
Charles Xavier’s Students
The X-Men are a teamthat act as an allegory of those who feel different and marginalized, banding together to fight for what they believe is right. This team of mutation-enhanced heroes has had dozens of different versions of it in all forms of consumable media.
One of the best iterations of the team is the animated version of the 2000s, the Evolution squad. This team is just like mostother X-Men teams, living at Charles Xavier’s Academy and planning to undertake different missions to improve mutant-kind’s lot in life.
What makes this team much more interesting than other versions is the adolescent viewpoint it operates from. All the main characters we follow in this series, such as Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, Spyke, and Rogue, are in high school, with the adult characters such as Wolverine, Storm, and Professor X taking a backseat. This allows this version of the X-Men team to show how turbulent the life of a mutant is, especially in a period of life that’s already the most turbulent for those with or without powers.
4The Doom Patrol
The Most Unfortunate Team
A team of misfits hidden away in an academy-like environment with even darker lives than the X-Men. The mutants of the X-Men might have each other to share the burden of humanity’s discrimination, with hundreds of thousands of brothers and sisters across the world to be found with Cerebro. Butthe Doom Patrolonly have each other, a small group of people who are considered freaks due to horrific super-power-granting accidents.
A car accident left a man with nothing but a brain to be put into an invulnerable and powerful suit, making him Robotman. A plane accident had a man merge with an otherworldly corrupting spirit, making him a Negative Man. A fall into a lake also corrupts a woman’s body, making her devolve into a messy blob of flesh if the Elasti-Woman doesn’t concentrate.
Combine those people with the recently traumatized Cyborg and Crazy Jane, a young woman with 64 warring personalities within her, and you get the Doom Patrol, a superhero team whose individual and collective stories are as depressing and intriguing as they get.
3The Umbrella Academy
The Hargreeves Family
Another team that could potentially be compared to the X-Men, being an academy of heroes inone big dysfunctional family. On October 1st 1989, many women across the planet became pregnant and gave birth despite having not been pregnant when the day began. Eccentric billionaire and secret alien Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of them and formed the Umbrella Academy, numbering each of these children.
Number One, Luther, has super strength and an ape body following a space accident. Number Two, Diego, can curve the trajectory of objects in the air. Number Three, Allison, can persuade anyone with just one phrase. Number Four Klaus can commune with the dead.Number Five can travel through space and time with these antics having him stuck in a pre-teen’s body. Number Six can expunge bloody tentacles from his body. And Number Seven seems to have no powers only for it to be later revealed to be an incredibly powerful sound manipulator and energy user.
In the series we see these damaged siblings struggling to save the world from the apocalypse over and over again, bickering with each other along the way.
2The Seven
Earth’s Mightiest
The Justice Leagueis potentially the premier superhero team. With the likes of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, they’re the best around. It’s a shame that their parody version can’t live up to those heights. But what they lack in heroics, they make up for in depravity, making them arguably even more entertaining than most iterations of the original team.
Instead of Batman, The Seven have Black Noir, a brain-damaged murder enthusiast. Instead of Wonder Woman, they have Queen Maeve, a jaded alcoholic. Their version of the Flash is a self-centered drug-enthusiast, their Aquaman is a lethally stupid predator, and their Superman variant Homelander is the worst of them all - a megalomaniacal but deeply insecure narcissist who, if it weren’t for the love of the people and his care for his reputation, would be fine to kill everyone and everything.
The Boys might be a show about everyday humans who use violent and risky tactics to take down these supes, but many fans have noted thatthe lives of The Seven are the most interesting part of the series.
1The Misfits
Inner-City London’s Finest
Probably the most unique of superhero teams ever put to screen. As opposed to the tight-knit band of American young adults we usually see, the Misfits are a group of English and Irish young offenders whose series of super-powered antics during their community service has caused more deaths than lives saved.
Each of these appropriately named Misfits gains a power that fits their personality after a storm. Aggressive and self-conscious, Kelly can read minds. Regretful former athlete Curtis can turn back time in certain situations. Social recluse Simon can turn invisible. IT-girl Aisha’s power makes anyone who she comes in contact with intensely attracted to her. And though the provocative wise-cracking Nathan seems to have no powers initially, a dive off of the roof and waking up in a coffin has him discover he’s immortal.
Throughout the series, we see the Misfits either fail to be proper superheroes or not even bother, using their powers for personal gain or to solve the problems brought on by their constant pathological need to cause trouble.
