We are truly living in a golden age of superhero content.

Not only are big screen versions of our favorite characters breaking records at the box office, there are more options for those who love comic book-inspired stories on the small screen than ever before. And as the genre just keeps becoming more and more popular, everyone – from traditional networks to niche streaming platforms – wants in. Which means that, as viewers, we get to see an increasingly diverse array of properties adapted for our enjoyment.

Let’s be real: Did anyone ever think we’d see actual TV versions of Doom Patrol or Umbrella Academy? Or watch five different series build toward what seems as though it will be an epic small screen take on Crisis on Infinite Earths? Even as we bid goodbye to series like The Punisher and Gotham, exciting new properties like Batwoman and Watchmen wait on the horizon, alongside new seasons of many (many) others. And that’s not even counting the fact that the upcoming Disney+ service may well throw nearly a half dozen new Marvel series at us before the year’s over.

Sleep is for the weak, is what I’m saying.

Let’s check in on where we stand to date with superhero series in 2019, some of which are better than others, but almost all are worth your time.

A note: DC Universe’s latest superhero offering, Swamp Thing, is not yet on this list, as the series had yet to finish its first season when it was compiled. Stay tuned for our year-end update to see where it lands.

On with the show…

13. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Network: ABC

Status: Currently in Season 6

Over the years, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has drifted further and further from its original premise. What started as a procedural series based around the Earth agency whose job involved cleaning up the messes left behind by superheroes like the Avengers is now a…space drama? And there’s time travel? It’s real weird. (And kind of enough to make you furious when you realize that this series is still on TV when something like the far-superior Daredevil isn’t.)

To be fair, S.H.I.E.L.D. is often still quite entertaining, and storylines like an evil Coulson from an alternate reality or Daisy and Simmons exploring deep space to find a cryogenically frozen Fitz from a different section of their timeline can be fun to watch. But it’s also very much not what any of us signed up for when this show began, and it’s hard to identify just what kind of show S.H.I.E.L.D. means to be these days. This iteration of the series, in particular, has little to ground us in its story or to connect us to these specific versions of the characters we once knew.

12. The Punisher

Network: Netflix

Status: Cancelled

It’s not clear that there really needed to be a second season of Marvel’s The Punisher, so it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that the series’ second outing feels more than a little mediocre.

True, there’s plenty of action and bloodshed, and those that felt that Frank Castle didn’t spend enough time in Season 1 indiscriminately murdering people will find a lot to enjoy here. But if you were looking for a deeper conversation around why all these exhilarating and artfully arranged death sequences take place, not so much.

On the plus side, Jon Bernthal is once again fantastic as Frank, and his ferocious, unforgiving energy carries The Punisher through many of its weaker moments. But this isn’t the series his performance deserves.

11. The Gifted

Network: Fox

Status: Cancelled

The Gifted was the sort of series that always swung for the fences, even if the story it wanted to tell often ended up being too big for the scope of the show. Prevented from accessing any major X-Men characters, it ended up having to build its own street-level battle between warring groups of C-list mutants – the Hellfire Club/Inner Circle, Mutant Underground and the Morlocks.

Initially, this conflict places several of The Gifted’s main characters at odds with one another over issues that span everything from mutant rights and government power to medical ethics and protest. But the story ultimately got bogged down in Stucker family drama and sidelined its strongest, most interesting character (Polaris, daughter of X-Men legend Magneto), ultimately becoming less than was initially promised.

But with its decision to let the bad guys win at the end of season 2 – killing off several major characters and unleashing a massive, deadly explosion that ostensibly takes out thousands of human bystanders in the process – The Gifted finally fully embraced a darker, riskier tone. It’s too bad we won’t get to see what might have happened next.

10. The Flash

Network: The CW

Status: Renewed for Season 6

The arrival of Nora, Barry and Iris’ daughter from the future, was a breath of fresh air in Season 5 of The Flash. Not only did her presence add a new dynamic to the West-Allen relationship, it let The Flash play around with the idea of its own legacy. The season’s best episodes mirrored Barry’s original journey in his daughter’s story, right down to her connection with to his first nemesis, Eobard Thawne. The Flash also pulled off some much-needed narrative corrections with Killer Frost and Ralph in Season 5, providing one with a complicated past to explore and finally integrating the other into the core group in an organic way.

Unfortunately, however, Season 5 features the worst Big Bad in series’ history, which brings almost everything else down along with it. On paper, a faceless Jack the Ripper-style metahuman killer seems like a fresh threat. In actuality, Cicada never managed to live up to his own hype, and The Flash couldn’t seem to settle on a real direction or arc for the character. In the end, even replacing original Cicada Owen Dwyer with a vengeance-fueled version of his niece from the future – don’t ask – did little to make this final battle one worth caring about.

9. Marvel's Cloak and Dagger

Network: Freeform

Status: Just concluded Season 2

The first season of Cloak and Dagger serves as an intriguing origin story for our two heroes, Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen, teenagers blessed with the powers of light and dark. It does so by focusing on their lives, backgrounds and the places that they’ve each carved for themselves in the city of New Orleans.

Season 2 leaves much of this character work behind in favor of increased action and more powerful villains and, in doing so, has lost some of what made the show feel fresh. This isn’t to say that Cloak and Dagger’s second season is bad – it isn’t. But it is markedly different from the series’ inaugural outing, in ways that take some getting used to. Season 1’s focus on things like drugs, police corruption and corporate greed certain feels more grounded than a story in which Brigid literally becomes two people, one of whom is a villain or upping Tandy’s powers to such a level that she can take out cars on her own.

However, Tandy and Tyrone’s connection remains as strong as ever, and no matter what else happens that makes the season worth watching.

8. The Tick

Network: Amazon Prime

Status: Cancelled

Here’s the thing about The Tick. You’re probably going to either love it or hate it. It’s a superhero series that skewers pretty much everything we love about superhero series, and if satire is your thing, then climb aboard, because this show is for you. If that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable or leaves you feeling lost, well…maybe not so much. (And that’s okay. This type of humor really isn’t for everybody.)

However, superhero-related media has so thoroughly saturated our pop culture these days that the jokes are easier than ever to understand, and land in a way that they likely wouldn’t have even as recently as 2017 when the first season of this show dropped. There’s a villain whose actual name is Lobstercules, a sentient ship called Dangerboat and a teen henchman who goes by Edgelord. The show makes its heroes do paperwork. And it all just works, even if the humor can occasionally skirt the line of too on the nose.

But in a way, we’re all comics fans now, whether we intend to be or not, and The Tick assumes that means we’re also aware of how completely ridiculous this genre we all enjoy so much is. But as it joyfully breaks down many of the genre’s flaws, it does so with enough heart that we remember why these stories matter in the first place.

7. Gotham

Network: Fox

Status: Concluded after Season 5

Gotham is the ultimate guilty pleasure of superhero shows. Having long ago abandoned the idea that it was a gritty Batman prequel, the show decided to fully lean in to its own insanity, and nowhere was that more apparent than in the series’ final season. As an isolated Gotham divides into Westerosi-like warring regions, we’re treated to everything from death cults to girl gangs to Mad Max-style weapons dealers. And that’s all before we get to the scenery chewing one-upsmanship between sometime BFFs Oswald Cobblepot and Edward Nygma, or the fact that Jeremiah Valeska is apparently both the Joker and functionally immortal. (Kidding, kidding – but seriously, how is that dude still alive?)

Gotham isn’t a particularly deep show, nor is it always a good one. The GCPD is consistently staffed by either the most corrupt or the stupidest officers in the multiverse, and it’s not entirely clear why anyone ever goes to a party, club opening or other social event in this town expecting to live through the night. But in its final season, Gotham gave full rein to its weirdest tendencies and, in turn, actually managed to offer us a take on the Bat-saga we hadn’t seen before. One that didn’t actually need Batman to be worth watching.

6. Black Lightning

Network: The CW

Status: Renewed for Season 3

Black Lightning is a superhero show that’s often better at telling real-life stories than it is superpowered ones. Part of that is due to the fact that, unlike other CW Arrowverse properties, it tends to steer clear from the classic villain-of-the-week set-up in favor of more extended “chapters” that tie back into a larger story. Sometimes that works, and sometimes…it doesn’t, leading to some occasionally unfocused and messy storytelling. (There’s only so many times you need to hear Tobias Whale monologue evilly, if you ask me.)

But there’s no other superhero show on TV that tackles social issues as forthrightly as Black Lightning does, and as a series it offers a much-needed perspective that this genre desperately needs. And Season 2’s focus on the Pierce daughters as they work to understand and use their powers is compelling stuff, precisely because it’s so firmly grounded in Black Lightning’s focus on family and community.

5. Supergirl

Network: The CW

Status: Renewed for Season 5

Supergirl has always worn its proverbial heart on its sleeve, but Season 4 takes things to the next level. Rather than the oversimplified girl power identity it embraced in its earlier seasons, the show instead devotes itself to tackling more thorny contemporary issues such as race relations, immigration, xenophobia, political corruption and more, all with its signature hopeful style. (Kara zor El can apparently convince anybody that optimism is a necessary act, is all I’m saying.)

Occasionally, the show’s real life parallels are a little too on the nose – this is a season that literally puts Lex Luthor in the White House, after all. (And to his credit, Jon Cryer is surprisingly great.) But Season 4 does the show’s best job yet of exploring the heroism involved in both sides of Kara’s life – as a reporter and as Supergirl – while still offering a slate of compelling, nuanced villains for her to face. The addition of Nia and Brainy to the team is a fantastic move, as is the show’s decision to finally reckon with the fact that Kara’s kept Lena Luthor in the dark about her secret identity for years, a move which seems likely to fuel much of the plot next year.

4. Doom Patrol

Network: DC Universe

Status: Officially unknown, though Season 2 is rumored to film in Summer 2019

2019 is apparently the year of utterly bonkers superhero series that successfully challenge what this genre is capable of as a whole. Doom Patrol, the second offering from the DC Universe streaming service, focuses on a group of weirdo misfits with bizarre powers. In that vein, it’s not entirely dissimilar from shows like Legends of Tomorrow or Umbrella Academy, but what Doom Patrol does best is embrace the heart at the center of its strangeness.

The characters at the core of the story – Robotman, Elasti-girl, Negative Man and Crazy Jane – are all broken in realistic, relatable ways, and Doom Patrol doesn’t shy away from delving deep into their various emotional issues. These are characters who often feel more human than hero, and watching them grow and evolve is fascinating in a way that has nothing to do with their abilities.

Best of all, the show never takes itself too seriously, as its dry, self-aware narration (“Aren’t you sick of superhero shows?”) makes evident. Just in case, you know, the farting, multi-dimensional donkey didn’t tip you off. I honestly didn’t expect to even like this series, but can’t I wait to see where it goes next.

3. Umbrella Academy

Network: Netflix

Status: Renewed for Season 2

Umbrella Academy is the superhero show for people who don’t really want to watch superhero shows. Mostly because it’s not really a superhero show. Yes, the main characters all have superhuman abilities, and at one point in their lives sported matching costumes while battling bad guys. But most of them rarely use their abilities, and a frequently belabored plot point throughout the first season is that having special powers has absolutely ruined the lives of those who possess them.

The adopted kids of the Umbrella Academy all grow into deeply messed up adults, with incredibly complicated relationships with and among one another. Their struggle to figure out their family dynamic together is equally as compelling as their race to stop an apocalypse, and the story mixes together humor, heart and straight up weirdness beautifully. (For example: The fact that the kids were raised by an android and a talking chimpanzee butler is simply taken as a given.) Robert Sheehan deserves particular applause for his vulnerable turn as sarcastic, overly dramatic Klaus, whose special ability involves speaking to the dead, but the entire cast is fabulous, right down to Cameron Britton and Mary J. Blige as a pair of time-traveling hitmen.

2. Arrow

Network: The CW

Status: Renewed for, and will end its run with, Season 8

As Arrow winds down its run, the CW’s original superhero saga feels almost as exciting and relevant as it did when it premiered. A strange thing to say, perhaps, but it’s true. The introduction of the next generation of Team Arrow in the 2040 flashforwards – which includes Oliver and Felicity’s daughter as well as Diggle’s adopted son – gives the series both a tangible legacy, and the feeling that these stories will go on long after these particular characters have hung up their proverbial hoods.

Granted, there have been more than a few bumps along this particular road, enough in fact that it feels a bit suspect to be so enamored by Arrow’s endgame. But Season 7 has done its best to give us a completely fresh take on the story of the Emerald Archer, one which has allowed its characters to mature past their vigilante origins and which centers its women in new and interesting ways. It’s once again become a reminder of the best elements of what comic book television can both do and be, and it’s exciting to consider the ways in which it will write its own ending next Fall.

1. Legends of Tomorrow

Network: The CW

Status: Renewed for Season 5

Legends of Tomorrow is the bonkers crazy cousin of the CW’s Arrowverse, a weird, absolutely fearless series that honestly shouldn’t work at all. Yet it somehow manages to be one of the best things on the entire network thanks to its tireless dedication to putting its characters first, no matter how ridiculous a setting the story finds them in. What other series could possibly combine Jane Austen with a Bollywood dance number caused by licking the ashes of a god and still turn out an installment that has something meaningful to say?

It also seems worth mentioning that Legends is one of the few superhero series on today that has what feels like real physical and emotional stakes – characters die, timelines are altered and the one constant in every season is change. Yet, that somehow manages to make the stories it tells matter all the more, and the constant rotation of new faces in and out of the Waverider helps keep things fresh.

At times, the show’s penchant for the outlandish can go too far into silly territory, as evidenced by several of Season 4’s magical creatures plotlines, as well as its too frequent focus on C-list characters Mona and Gary. But when the season sticks the (emotional) landing with a finale that involves resurrection by way of a group James Taylor-singalong, you can’t ask for a lot more from your comic book television.