In 1996, I vividly remember watching the premiere of Superman: The Animated Series.

Like all children of the 90s, I grew up on a steady diet of X-Men ‘92 and Timm’s BTAS. When Superman: TAS came along, it was most welcome, and capitalized on the success of so many superhero cartoons of that decade.

Unlike other shows of its time, Superman had a fully orchestrated, original score for every episode (as did Batman and all the other Timmverse shows, if I remember correctly), which was awesome, because as great as shows from the 80s were, watching an entire series in succession with the identical themes for every episode can get extremely annoying! A fully orchestrated score for every episode that is new is refreshing and invites the viewer into each chapter.

I became familiar with the composer of the show, the late Shirley Walker, from her work on the 1990 Flash TV series, as well as the aforementioned Batman: TAS and many more superhero genre offerings. Her stuff was always solid, but the intro for Superman may have been her best work ever! I say this with full respect and appreciation to her Batman scores, but because that music was drawn directly from the theme of the 1989 Danny Elfman score (who I just found out was also her mentor), I’d rather give the nod to Supes.

I listen to Shirley’s Superman theme from time to time and always love it, in that it can really be applied to ANY adaptation of Superman and it works.

Try it some time, I’m serious!

For some reason, however, I only just came across the extended, full version of her Superman theme this month. How could this be, you ask??

It’s shocking to say that something this famous and this old (coming up on the show’s 30th anniversary 😬) could go unnoticed by a hardcore fan for this long, but it did, and hey, better late than never!!

Considering Shirley had to follow in the footsteps of the maestro, John Williams, is no easy feat. But nevertheless, she did and succeeded with flying colors, composing a piece of music that fit the character and his show exceptionally well and still withstands the test of time! I enjoyed it thoroughly when I first heard it, and have probably listened to the extended intro only about twenty times since I discovered it.

Absolutely wonderful, epic stuff. A fitting tribute to a great character, and a great career.

I’ll leave you with a fantastic montage of art by the great Des Taylor, which utilizes music from the extended theme, and demonstrates just how fitting a celebration it is for Superman.

Enjoy!