Celebrating 50 Years Of Wonder Woman

While Wonder Woman was around for more than 50 years, and there was an attempt at a Wonder Woman TV movie just before this, Wonder Woman as she looked in the comics first found its way onto the airwaves on ABC, with the telemovie The New Original Wonder Woman, staring Lynda Carter.

Set in World War II for the first season, the show then moved to the modern day (the 1970s) when it moved to CBS for its second and third seasons.

In 2015, DC gave us comics based on the TV show, with covers by Nicola Scott, with 4 Wonder Woman '77 Specials (and a little more....).

Wonder Woman '77 Special #1 and #2 (June and November, 2015)

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Wonder Woman '77 Special #3 and #4 (May and November, 2016)

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DC On TV Superboy Flash Lois Lane

Continuing a look at various DC characters who have made the transition from comics to television screens....

....this time around, finishing off the major characters who made it to networks in the 20th Century, with Superboy, Flash and Lois Lane and Clark Kent!

Superboy

Superboy (also called the New Adventures of Superboy) came about due to syndication deals,with a little help from the Superman movies (though setting the stage a little earlier than that).  The first episode premiered on October 8th, 1988, with John Haymes Newton as Clark Kent/Superboy and Stacy Haiduk as Lana Lang, placing Clark and Lana at college (with Lex Luthor as a competing student).  This changed with the second season, with Gerard Christopher taking over as Clark/Superboy (but Stacy staying on as Lana) until the show ended in after its fourth season.  Along the way, they did revisit Krypton a little, and brought a few other villains to life, including Metallo, Bizarro and Mr. Mxyzptlk, as well as versions of Superboy foes Yellow Peri and the Kryptonite Kid (and even a few vampires, werewolves and magi along the way, as well as mad scientists, gangsters and a few losses of powers....including in the last of 100 half an hour episodes, with "Rites Of Passage, Part 2", which aired on May 17th, 1992.   

Superboy, in the comics, was phased out at the time (thanks to a change in his history thanks to the Crisis On Infinite Earths and the Man of Steel mini-series....a little more on this below), but just before the TV show, Superboy had been kicked out of his own title by the Legion of Super-Heroes, then got a title all his own, called The New Adventures of Superboy, which featured the adventures of the boy who would grow up to be Superman, in his town of Smallville, being a super-hero and keeping the world safe.  The New Adventures of Superboy #31 (July, 1982) was an average tale of that time, entitled "The Main Event: Smallville, U.S.A" by Gary Cohn, Dan Mishkin, Kurt Schaffenberger and Dave Hunt, with Superboy facing off against Pulsar, a super-villain created by his father, Robert Altus Sr., by stealing Superboy's power for his son, and Superboy fighting him to remain who he is.

Flash

Flash was the first DC character that had his own live action show (who wasn't one of DC's trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman), that started with a two hour pilot on September 20th, 1990, with Barry Allen (played by John Wesley Shipp) being struck by lightning, and, with the help of S.T.A.R. Labs scientist, Tina McGee (played by Amanda Pays), becomes the Flash, using his speed to protect Central City from criminals and disasters.  The show eventually added super-villains (most notably Captain Cold, Mirror Master, and for two episodes, The Trickster), but sadly, it only lasted one season, ending with after an additional  21 one hour episodes, with "The Trial of The Trickster" (dealing with Mark Hamill's Trickster....and how Central City came to accept the Flash as its hero) on May 18th, 1991.

The Flash TV show did deal with Barry Allen as the Flash, but thanks to events that happened during the Crisis On Infinite Earths, Barry wasn't around in the comics at this time, with Wally West (who was Flash's sidekick, Kid Flash), taking over as the Flash (and, at least in the early issues of Wally's Flash series in the 1980s, working with Tina McGee of S.T.A.R. Labs to focus his speed).  Wally had been helping Barry for years before this, and Barry used a little bit of super-speed trickery in "The Flash's Sensational Risk" in Flash #149 (December, 1964, by John Broome, Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella), with Wally losing his memory and Barry pulling a fast one to help him remember (and defeat invading extra-dimensional invaders).

Lois and Clark

Superman came back to television on September 12th, 1993, with Lois and Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman, focusing on the relationship of Ms. Lane (Teri Hatcher) and Mr. Kent (Dean Cain)  and the staff of the Daily Planet (which included Perry White, Jimmy Olsen and Cat Grant) and Clark's still living Smallville parents, and corporate headhunter Lex Luthor, instead of entirely on super-heroics (though Clark did throw on the Superman clothes for a bit in the episodes).  Later seasons did have other foes, such as the Prankster, the Toyman, Metallo, Mr. Mxyzptlk, Ugly Mannheim (and Intergang), Deathstroke and even their own villain, time-travelling Tempus, as well as having Lois and Clark get married (which was reflected immediately in the comics).  The show ended with "The Family Hour", the last of its 87 one hour episodes on June 14, 1997 (dealing with the idea of giving the couple a child...).

Superman was undergoing changes, taking him back to his basics (thanks to DC realigning its history during the Crisis On Infinite Earths), with the Man of Steel limited series defining Superman as the sole survivor of Krypton, Lois and Clark having the start of an office romance at the Daily Planet, and Luthor being an evil corporate businessman in society instead of an evil scientist on the run as been previously established.  Luthor used his Lexcorp corporate resources in Superman #2 (February, 1987, by John Byrne and Terry Austin), figuring out that Clark Kent was Superman in "The Secret Revealed"!  Yet, Luthor, being an ego-maniac couldn't believe someone with the powers of Superman would ever hide his powers behind another identity!


Hopefully, all this gives you an idea how the comics influence the television shows (and how the shows return their influence on the comics).  All these shows helped ready television audiences of the 21st Century to be ready for more shows, like Birds of Prey, Smallville, the Human Target, Constantine, Gotham, Arrow, the Flash, Supergirl and the Legends of Tomorrow!  

DC On TV Superman Batman Wonder Woman

With a group of amazing heroes like they have at DC Comics, they seemed a natural fit for television audiences....


....here's a quick look at some of the earliest attempts to put Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman on your TV screens!

Adventures of Superman

Superman was the first, starting a television series "Adventures Of Superman" on September 19, 1952 and the half an hour episode of "Superman On Earth", which summarized the destruction of Krypton, Clark Kent growing up, and coming to Metropolis to work at the Daily Planet.  After that, for the first two seasons in black and white, Superman had much more of a noir feel, fighting gangsters (and switching from season 1's Phyllis Coates to Noel Neill for the rest of the show), with George Reeves filling out the role of Superman (and Clark Kent, with a wink and a smile) through all 6 seasons.  As the show was in color starting with season three, there were more fantastic menaces, and threats were more accidents caused by professors than anything else, until the show ended with its 104th episode on April 28th, 1958, with "All That Glitters" (and Lois and Jimmy getting in on the super-powered fun!).

In the comics at this time, Superman used a mental image viewer he found to check out history of Krypton (luckily, the viewer he found was his father, Jor-El's, viewer). 

In Superman #113 (May, 1957), with "The Superman Of The Past" by Bill Finger, Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye (and the last two also providing the cover of this full length tale), Superman found his father was an adventurer on Krypton, saving the planet from the queen of the Vergoans, Latora, and her plans to destroy Krypton (Latora wasn't totally evil, as she chose Krypton because it was already doomed....so, after defeating her and her robot army, Jor-El was able to return home to warn his people, though that didn't do any good, unfortunately!).

Batman

Batman was next on people's TV screens, with the series of "Batman", starting on January 12th, 1966 with the half-hour episode of "Hi Diddle Riddle" (followed by its conclusion the next day, "Smack In The Middle").  Batman and Robin pulled double duty their first two years, having two episodes a week, with the first usually involving a cliffhanger, to be resolved the next night (at the same Bat-time, same Bat-channel).  Adam West's Batman was a much lighter hero than Superman, and he had Burt Ward as Robin and Alan Napier as Alfred to confide in.  Batman also fought villains from the comics, including the Riddler, Penguin, Joker, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter, as well as creating a few of it's own criminals like Egghead, King Tut, Shane, the Bookworm and more.  In it's third season, it was reduced down to one night a week, but added Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) to the mix, before the show ended its run with the episode of "Minerva, Mayhem And Millionaires" on March 14th, 1968, having 120 episodes (and one theatrically released movie in between seasons one and two).

Batman comics at the time had a "new look" that had started in Detective Comics #327 (May, 1964), with a much more exciting art style by Carmine Infantino, replacing the Bob Kane look from earlier years (and adding a yellow circle around Batman's chest bat-emblem). 

This proved important in the second story of Batman #183 (August, 1966) with "Batman's Baffling Turnabout" by Gardner Fox, Sheldon Moldoff and Sid Greene (under a cover by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson), as a crook tried to take advantage of Robin to get into the Batcave by disguising himself as Batman, not knowing he was using the old costume design!   Holy costume malfunction, Batman!

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman arrived on TV with her original look on November 7th, 1975, as "The New, Original Wonder Woman" (differing itself from an earlier attempt with a blonde Wonder Woman earlier), and moved from telemovie to a series, with Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, who saved World War II pilot, Major Steve Trevor (played by Lyle Waggoner, who was almost Batman in the 1960s series), and returned him to Man's World from her Paradise Island, taking on the persona of Wonder Woman to fight crime, Nazi spies and aliens (while working with Major Trevor as Yeoman Diana Prince), with a very comic book looking series (at least for the first season).  The series moved to a different network for its second and third season, with the immortal Wonder Woman returning to Man's World to help Steve Trevor Jr. (still played by Waggoner), with Diana and this Steve working for the IADC (Inter-Agency Defense Command), but still fighting leftover Nazis, criminals, aliens, and even a few mad scientists (though never any of the many foes Wonder Woman faced in the comics) to the end of her 60 one-hour episodes, ending with the "Phantom Of The Roller Coaster, Part 2" on September 11th, 1979.

Wonder Woman had been renewed a few times in the comics even in the 1970s, and by the time of the 1980s, Wonder Woman had lost her powers, watched Steve Trevor die (twice), and had him returned to her twice (and regained her powers along the way).

With all this revamping of Wonder Woman, her foes needed a little help as well.  Kobra (a cult leader villain who briefly had his own title in the 1970s, and was more famous for having fought Batman, Aquaman and Superman before this), took Deborah Domaine, the niece of Priscilla Rich (the original Cheetah, who was dying), and transformed the girl into the new Cheetah, with a slightly new look and hoping she's be more than a match for Wonder Woman (but, it didn't work out that way) with "One Super-Villain: Made To Order" in Wonder Woman #274 (December, 1980) by Gerry Conway, Jose Delbo and Dave Hunt, under a cover by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano.

Comic book TV shows evolved, just as the comic books did over time...and more television shows followed, based on your favorite DC characters (and more looks in on them are coming soon!).