WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Season 1 of Super Crooks, now streaming on Netflix.
One of the biggest concerns with Netflix's Jupiter's Legacy was how scaled down it felt compared to the comics. It wasn't that bad a TV series, but with its sense of grandiosity diluted, it wasn't a surprise that the show got canceled, mainly losing traction trying to copy the political, slow-burn superhero stories made popular by Zack Snyder's DC movies and The Boys. With Millarworld taking a different approach with Super Crooks, the series is essentially proof that Jupiter's Legacy should have been an anime too.
Both series share connective tissue, as Super Crooks is set before Jupiter Legacy's civil war and the Utopian's disillusionment with his brother, Brainwave, and his son, Brandon. In Super Crooks, Johnny Bolt initially worships the Union, only to become a villain and have the Utopian's proteges Gladiator and Praetorian hunt his criminal squad down.
Super Crooks sees all sides cutting loose, honoring the comic and introducing new dimensions that the source material didn't have, especially when it comes to the character's expanded range of powers, which allows them to truly wreak havoc across America. The Praetorian also has cards that grant him new powers, ranging from the elemental to the psychic, giving him more to work with as he tries to take Johnny's fiends out.
The Super Crooks anime gives room for all the fights to be bombastic and all the powers to become an epic spectacle, which is what the live-action Jupiter's Legacy lacked, be it due to budget or sub-par CGI. In fact, both Utopian and Brainwave get intimidating moments in the anime to flex their powers, as if to remind viewers how their own canceled show lacked impact.
Seeing Praetorian and Gladiator smashing cities to catch fiends and Johnny's team fighting off attackers like Man Mountain and the Bastard definitely feels like the anime has no limitations. Given how Mark Millar loves creating big worlds with over-the-top destructive fights, it just fits perfectly and is definitely something the Union should be doing more of. Seeing Brainwave creating his own fake worlds, Utopian coming off like a Man of Steel or Hutch teleporting all over the world with his rod would have been easier to bring to life as an anime, without the limits of live-action.
Simply put, the Union's heroes have abilities that can only really shine in animated form. It doesn't work being as grounded as Watchmen, and Jupiter's Legacy, should it ever get renewed, would be wise to follow the action-packed anime format that allows full-scale wars. More so, this allows 13 episodes for proper character development, which is what Super Crooks did to add a prelude to Mark Millar's comic.
The audience gets more episodes, better action and deeper characters, which all complement the wild storytelling as opposed to big-budget, 10 episode live-action series that simply won't do the chaos true justice.
