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ABSTRACT
Hanna-Barbera's Superheroes Universe – also known as Hanna Barbera's World of Super Adventure – is a joint name for a series of animated short features produced by the famous Hanna-Barbera Productions between the 1960s and 1980s. Originally, it included characters such as Birdman and the Galaxy Trio or The Impossibles – all of them presented as a syndicated line of cartoons shown in American networks. It is not difficult to define Hanna Barbera's heroes as a straight response to the rebirth of superheroes narratives in the 1960s, with its main idea of a shared universe concept. Nevertheless, the whole World of Super Adventure line presents a very interesting case for analyzing the superhero paradigm as it moved beyond the basic comic book medium. A proper analytical insight will require three components of Hanna-Barbera's superhero construct: 1. The cartoons themselves and their visual/narrative specifics emulating Marvel/DC patterns; 2. The Gold Key Comics adaptations/expansions of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, namely Super TV Heroes magazine, as a part of Hanna-Barbera's primal paratextual/transmedia system; 3. The modern comic book series—Future Quest—as a revival of Hanna-Barbera's superheroes in a universe-dedicated and much more serious approach that brings back the heroes to their initial, graphic storytelling form.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. In a short documentary feature about the creation of Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, entitled Birdman: The Forgotten Hero, the artists involved in developing Hanna-Barbera’s winged Avenger admit that this particular character (and the whole show as well) was designed to emulate popular superhero franchises such as Fantastic Four, Spider-Man or even Star Trek: The Original Series.
2. However, as Mark Evanier explains, Hanna-Barbera’s original superheroes should not be perceived as a direct copies of Marvel or DC’s characters. Instead, according to Evanier there is a lot of nuanced differences between the heroes like The Mighty Thor and The Mighty Mightor (despite the obvious similiraties in visual appearances or nicknames). See: https://www.newsfromme.com/2014/02/16/wiki-worries/.
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Notes on contributors
Tomasz Żaglewski
Tomasz Żaglewski is a PhD in the Institute of Cultural Studies at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland). He is an author of many comics-related academic papers published in the most important Polish art and social sciences journals. Recently his papers were published in the “Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics” and “International Journal of Comic Art”. His main academic interest is in regard to superhero narratives as a transmedia and transcultural phenomenon. He published the very first Polish monography about a modern comic book film: “Kinowe uniwersum superbohaterów. Analiza współczesnego filmu komiksowego” (“Superheroes' Cinematic Universe. Analyzing a modern comic book film”) by the PWN Group publisher. In 2018 he presented a papers during “ImageTech: Comics and Materiality” conference at the University of Florida and “Superheroes Beyond” conference at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.