Mind you, they're both excellent. I have JLU as a 9 and this is a 10. My reasoning is that once this show got it's stride (and stops nerfing Superman), it's just some of the best character writing I've ever seen in a show. Basically every story being a multiparter allows it to take it's time to build out the stakes and character motivations.
What made this show, and all of Bruce Timm's DCAU is that it's not a superhero show with some good character writing. It's a character show about Superheroes and using world ending threats to tell these stories at high stakes levels.
This is a show that deals with grief, loss, heroism, ideology, faith, race, gender roles, morality, patriotism, individuality, family, xenophobia, romance, politics, etc all in very mature and in depth ways, while also having our favorite super heroes kicking butt.
And it's only a kids show in the sense that there's nothing overtly uncensored for kids (though I think this and JLU having less censorship than the 90s shows does help it expand the storylines comparitively) and that it's never edgy (which I think helps make it timeless).
I honestly have trouble finding many other shows this mature made for adults while also being as upbeat and fun. It never panders to anyone, it respects its audience's intelligence regardless of age.
Yes there are some less interesting storylines in the first season, but the amount of classic thought provoking high intensity stories are so much I can forgive the less memorable ones. And it's never bad, even at it's worst, it's always good. But the bar is set so high that anything less than brilliance is noticable.
Also Batman isn't OP in this one. He gets jobbed way more often than people remember and needs the superpowers teammates to help him out a lot.
What made this show, and all of Bruce Timm's DCAU is that it's not a superhero show with some good character writing. It's a character show about Superheroes and using world ending threats to tell these stories at high stakes levels.
This is a show that deals with grief, loss, heroism, ideology, faith, race, gender roles, morality, patriotism, individuality, family, xenophobia, romance, politics, etc all in very mature and in depth ways, while also having our favorite super heroes kicking butt.
And it's only a kids show in the sense that there's nothing overtly uncensored for kids (though I think this and JLU having less censorship than the 90s shows does help it expand the storylines comparitively) and that it's never edgy (which I think helps make it timeless).
I honestly have trouble finding many other shows this mature made for adults while also being as upbeat and fun. It never panders to anyone, it respects its audience's intelligence regardless of age.
Yes there are some less interesting storylines in the first season, but the amount of classic thought provoking high intensity stories are so much I can forgive the less memorable ones. And it's never bad, even at it's worst, it's always good. But the bar is set so high that anything less than brilliance is noticable.
Also Batman isn't OP in this one. He gets jobbed way more often than people remember and needs the superpowers teammates to help him out a lot.