G.I. Joe: Renegades
The darkest G.I. Joe ever made: the team branded fugitives by a government owned by Cobra, 26 episodes, canceled with its story unfinished. IMDb 7.1. It is free on Tubi.
Genre Action
Bravest Warriors
Pendleton Ward's other great cartoon, free on YouTube and better than its web series pedigree deserves: four teens, the year 3085, and Catbug. IMDb 8.1, 82 episodes.
Initial D
The car anime: tofu runs at 4 a.m. turn Takumi into the touge legend nobody asked for. The AE86, the four links, 82 episodes in rotation on anime services. The most respected machine in any medium.
Black Sails
Starts as a sword and sandal pirate cash grab, becomes Game of Thrones with sails: Flint's war, Silver's ledger, a planned ending that lands. Boardwalk Empire next? This.
Fantastic Four (1967)
The first animated Marvel team: 20 episodes, recycled Dracula cels, the Gee jingle. A museum exhibit that occasionally smiles. Grade it as an artifact.
Fantastic Four (1994)
The Galactus Saga on a cereal budget: Surfer's defection played straight, Doom as a Cold War thriller, 26 episodes of the best First Family hour ever filmed. Disney+.
Defenders of the Earth
Newspaper strips go to war: The Phantom, Mandrake, Lothar, and the Junior Defenders vs. the floating brain Mindball. 65 episodes, vault locked, a funnies page curio.
Thundarr the Barbarian
Sabre and sorcery on a broken Earth with a writers' room of Kirby, Gerber, and Ellison. 21 episodes of broken sun America. Shout Factory Blu-ray is the only real way in.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Noelle Stevenson's five season Netflix run: starts as a toy commercial rewrite, ends as a war epic about propaganda and defection. The best adapted villain romance in animation.
She-Ra: Princess of Power
The original Etheria: Adora's double life in the Horde, Catra, Hordak, and 93 episodes of Filmation rebellion. The appetizer to the 2018 remake.