Noel Murray

For hundreds of years, we lived in a world where clowns were popularly understood to be funny and whimsical ... or, at the least, not absolutely freaking terrifying. Pop stars sang songs like “Everybody Loves a Clown” and “Send in the Clowns.” Parents hired entertainers in colorful satin outfits to do magic tricks and make balloon animals at their children’s birthday parties. Ronald McDonald sold us hamburgers. Emmett Kelly and Red Skelton were TV staples. We had a tacit cultural agreement not just to tolerate clowns, but to look forward to having them around.

Has any one person meant as much to the DC Universe over the past 25 years than Bruce Timm? When the animator and TV producer co-created Batman: The Animated Series with Eric Radomski back in 1992, he and his team at Warner Bros. offered a fresh take on an iconic character, finding a balance between the breezy fun of the ’60s Batman and the darker Dark Knight of the ’70s and ’80s. Timm then went on to co-create one of the more entertaining versions of Superman in another animated series, debuting in 1996; and in 2001 he carried the lessons from those two shows into Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, which together comprise some of the best superhero television ever made.