Enjoy this complimentary article, previously available exclusively for Popverse members. If you like what you see, consider becoming a Popverse member.

Looking ahead to the release of Captain America: Brave New World, it feels as if Marvel is fully recharged and ready to tell the big stories in the MCU once again. Whether it’s the President of the United States turning into a Hulk or the emergence of a new superteam of mercenaries and ne’er-do-wells in Thunderbolts*, the pendulum has swung back towards big-scale superheroics on the big screen once again… and it’s not just Marvel who’s headed in that direction, as the first trailer for DC Studios’ Superman demonstrated. Ever the contrarians, this made us think… what about those who have the kinds of super powers that really don’t fit those kinds of stories? For your consideration, fellow fans: superhero stories that look so, so much smaller. Which is to say, British TV superheroes.

This is For Your Consideration, in which we try to come to terms with the inescapable fact that, honestly, there’s too much out there to have time to watch, read, or hear everything — by making some suggestions about things that you might have overlooked but would enjoy, anyway. Think of it as recommendations from a well-meaning friend.

No Heroics: the start of a road that would one day lead to the MCU (and beyond)

Set in a world filled with superheroes, No Heroics — which, like so many British sitcoms, only lasted one series and six short episodes — basically reimagines the classic sitcom format with the added appeal of costumed do-gooders. Creator Drew Pearce — who cited Grant Morrison’s Zenith as “the germ” of the series, with Simon Pegg’s Shaun of the Dead as another stated influence — would go on to work on the actual MCU with Iron Man 3, but his take on the classic “friends hang out at a bar, jokes ensue” format filled with what is clearly a genuine love for the superhero genre (The bar serves “Gamma-Meister” and “Shazamstell”) might be his true love letter to comic books and everything they’ve inspired, even more than a decade later.

Unfortunately, the show is surprisingly difficult to track these days. Perhaps one reason might be that a planned US remake failed to get off the ground — no pun intended — despite having both Freddie Prinze Jr. and Josh Gad attached. Maybe one day, some streamer will pick up the slack and showcase this as the strange forerunner to The Boys that it truly was… (You hear that, Prime Video?)

Misfits: the show that asked 'What if the X-Men maybe deserved to be hated and feared?'

Another ill-tempered take on the superhero genre, Misfits asks two questions that have been implied throughout US comic book history: Firstly, what if super powers were kind of crappy — both in terms of “they didn’t do much good” and “they made your life worse” — and, secondly, what if entirely the wrong people got them? A reasonable summary of this series could be “An accident that is, thankfully, never really explained or explored means that a bunch of young offenders working community service get powers beyond their imaginations and… never really do much with them.”

Despite that, it’s a sharp and funny show that knows when to deconstruct the genre and when to lean into the tropes, and one that’s filled with plenty of familiar faces that would go on to appear in more famous genre offerings on the other side of the Atlantic: Game of Thrones’ Iwan Rheon and The Umbrella Academy’s Robert Sheehan are part of the main cast for the first half of the show’s run, and they’re amazing throughout.

Stream Misfits on Hulu

Extraordinary: the superhero show that makes the magical mundane, and vice versa

The basic premise of Extraordinary is, if you’ll pardon the pun, extraordinarily simple: in a world where everyone develops a superpower by the time they turn 18, the show’s protagonist, Jen, just… hasn’t. It’s unclear why she hasn’t, and she certainly has no idea why, but that’s the driving force of the entire show: how it feels to be different in a world where everyone is already different in exactly the same way.

Like No Heroics, this show is very much a traditional sitcom that uses superpowers for metaphorical purposes and added gag material, but there’s a lot here that will ring true to anyone who’s spent time in the Marvel Universe (comic book or cinematic) and wants something that’s just a little bit more emotional, slightly more heartfelt, and so much more relatable to us regular folk. Plus, you know, there’s a lot of great jokes about the interpersonal dynamics of superteams for all you Avengers fans, as well.

Stream Extraordinary on Hulu

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out Popverse's guides to:

• Upcoming movies
• Upcoming TV shows
• Upcoming comics
• Upcoming games
• Upcoming fiction books
• Upcoming comic conventions