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Pictured: the Roof.

It's because of this that the Superman from the DC Animated Universe stands head and shoulders and broad, heroic torso above any other Superman you can watch on your television. The DC Animated Universe is a sprawling epic that spans multiple TV series and encapsulates everything good about DC Comics characters, including Superman. And how did they pull the sword from the stone and make a likable, engaging Superman? Well, first off, they didn't try to make him the anti-Batman.

So much of the modern Superman character has been a response to what Batman was doing a year before, and it ruins him. The whole reason Batman and Superman finally team up is because they're not yin and yang. Sure, Batman's a bit of a dickhole and Clark Kent throws the worst goddamn parties, but when you decide that the Superman character needs to be who Batman isn't, you miss out on so much badass stuff. The DCAU Superman works because it never stops to reconsider why people like Superman in the face of Batman. They figure that people will like Superman because he's a decent guy, he can fly, and when he needs to throw down, buddy, Superman can throw down harder than anyone.