James Gunn said fans can expect ‘Max Fleischer cartoons’ in ‘Superman’: what does that even mean?
- Edu Bros
- May 17
- 5 min read

By Edu Bros
During Warner Bros.' presentation at CinemaCon last April, James Gunn teased that fans can expect “the flying dog, the giant Kaiju, pocket universes, old things that were in the Max Fleischer cartoons. Sounds cool, right? Let’s be honest — those are some pretty exciting elements for a Superman movie. First of all, adding Krypto to the story is a major win for Gunn’s film. The Superdog is already a fan favorite, and he’s sure to bring plenty of charm and comic relief to the screen. When it comes to the pocket universes, rumors suggest that Lex Luthor might trap Superman and Krypto in some kind of pocket dimension — a concept with a lot of creative potential. We’ll talk about the Kaiju soon, but what really caught my attention was, of course, the nod to the Max Fleischer cartoons.
James Gunn has already proven to be a massive comic book fan, and has shown that he appreciates the tradition surrounding DC’s superheroes. But mentioning the Fleischer cartoons was such great news to me, and it got me even more hyped for his upcoming movie.
Fleischer’s legacy
We all know how much Fleischer Studios’ Superman helped cement in our minds some of the defining traits of the Man of Steel. However, it’s important to point out that no, they didn’t create iconic catchphrases like “faster than a speeding bullet” or “look, up in the sky,” and Superman didn’t actually fly for the first time in the Fleischer cartoons. Remember, the Fleischer Brothers’ animated shorts adapted many elements from the radio show, including some signature lines and Superman’s flying ability. In the comics, he could “leap tall buildings in a single bound,” but he couldn’t fly yet. Still, these 1940s Superman animated shorts were the first time people got to see an animated version of the superhero, and over time they’ve become an essential reference.
Before the Superman animated short films, Fleischer Studios, run by the brothers Dave and Max, was already established in the industry. They were responsible for two of the most famous characters in animated cartoons: Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor. But when Paramount commissioned the cartoons from the studio, this turned out to be quite challenging for the experienced brothers, since they were more used to cartoony characters. So they had to use rotoscoping to give realism to those figures. Rotoscoping is an animation technique where artists trace over live-action footage frame by frame to create realistic motion. By the way, this revolutionary technique was invented by Max Fleischer in 1915. The first animated short film was theatrically released in Technicolor on September 26, 1941, and eight more were set to hit theaters by August 30, 1942.
Comparing Fleischer cartoons with Gunn’s Superman movie
Right, but what exactly from Max Fleischer’s cartoons can fans expect in James Gunn’s Superman? Since the movie hasn’t been released yet, it’s hard to say. All we have are the two trailers for the film. Furthermore, James Gunn hasn’t talked much about this Fleischer Brothers inspiration. That’s life, so let’s compare what we saw in the trailers with some aspects from the shorts, shall we?
From watching the trailers, we can notice they feature vibrant colors, especially in Superman’s suit. However, these colors are somehow balanced by strong contrast and deep shadows, which give the composition a note of mystery and vintage charm, almost like a film noir. Popular at the time, film noir certainly influenced Max Fleischer’s cartoons, which embodied an atmosphere of imminent danger and suspense, slightly dark.
The number of villains faced by the superhero in those cartoons is quite varied. Among them are mad scientists, daring robbers, as well as anything but friendly creatures, such as an army of robots and a Tyrannosaurus. In each short, less than ten minutes long, Superman has to face a villain in order to save the day — including the intrepid Lois Lane, whose search for a scoop usually puts her in terrible danger. In James Gunn’s movie, the Kaiju remind us of the Tyrannosaurus, ‘the Arctic Giant,’ since they are both large creatures with an appetite for trashing the city.

Another parallel between the Fleischer cartoons and the upcoming Man of Steel movie is the robots. In the second of these shorts, called The Mechanical Monsters, an inventor uses robots to rob banks and steal jewels. These robots have been referenced in later productions. They are alluded to in Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky, as well as in other animated movies and shows over the years. Especially in the second trailer of the upcoming Superman film, we can clearly see some robots in the Fortress of Solitude healing the Man of Steel after he falls from the sky and is rescued by Krypto, so these bots are obviously good guys. But in another shot, we see Superman being dragged into a cell by two Lex Luthor soldiers who look like robots. Or maybe they are just men wearing high-tech armor. Who knows? It’s hard to be sure for now. Anyway, the robots and mad scientist elements in the movie can be somewhat related to those animated short films.

Although Lex Luthor doesn’t appear in the 1940s animated series, he traditionally embodied the role of a mad scientist in the comics, and only decades later was portrayed as a corporate tycoon driven by a lust for power. I bet James Gunn will combine these two aspects: the evil scientist and the selfish businessman.
I’d like to make another comparison. In the trailer, there is a shot of a skyscraper falling down, and it inevitably resembles a very similar scene in the first Superman Fleischer short. Superman holds the Daily Planet’s building, saving it from collapse, but I don’t know if the same action will happen in the movie. Anyway, this scene from the cartoon and the Kaiju destroying the city seem to be what the 1940s animated shorts and Gunn’s Superman have most in common (based only on what we have seen so far).
Definitely, James Gunn’s influence is strongly rooted in comic books, which are the real canon of the superhero movies. All the references, Easter eggs, or whatever comes from DC Comics in the movie have been widely discussed and pointed out on the Internet. Now, after the director mentioned Max Fleischer cartoons at CinemaCon, we hope to find more elements from those animated films in James Gunn’s Superman movie. Besides, it would be a treat to hear him talk more about how Fleischer Studios inspired his work. That would be really great.
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