Super Themes gathers over 50 years of film and TV themes that accompanied adventures of the Super Heroes - men of steel, caped crusaders, web-slingers and many more. From Neal Hefti’s hooky 1966 Batman theme all the way to Hans Zimmer’s contemporary sound for 2012 The Dark Knight Rises, the compilation underlines the caliber of composers involved and the everlasting quality of the themes...

Silva Screen Records's Super Themes release contains 33 tracks of some of the most memorable super hero themes from small and big screen. While they are not the original recordings, most are as near to perfection as you could possibly hope for.

The most noticeable "copies" are the tracks with vocals. These include the TV themes for Smallville (although to be honest this is an interesting interpretation); Wonder Woman and Danger Mouse.

While this is probably not a collection that will be snapped up by serious soundtrack collectors (they'll already own most of the the full scores here) the majority of The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra tracks (which is responsible for most of the recordings) are close enough to be almost undetectable to all but the most seasoned of soundtrack buffs.

This is an album that will also act as a sampler for full soundtracks. From this alone, I decided to pull out some of my old scores for a relisten (including The Shadow; Danny Elfman's Batman; John Williams's Superman; and John Powell's Hancock.

CD 1
01 - The Dark Knight Rises - 'Rise' (Hans Zimmer)
02 - The Dark Knight - 'The Watchful Guardian' (Hans Zimmer)
03 - Batman Begins - 'Molossus' (Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard)
04 - Batman And Robin - 'Main Titles & Fanfare' (Elliot Goldenthal)
05 - Batman Returns - 'End Titles' (Danny Elfman)
06 - Batman - 'Main Theme' (Danny Elfman)
07 - Batman 'TV Theme' (Neal Hefti)
08 - Avengers Assemble - 'The Avengers' (Alan Silvestri)
09 - Thor - 'Thor Kills The Destroyer' (Patrick Doyle)
10 - Captain America: The First Avenger - 'March' (Alan Silvestri)
11 - Iron Man - 'Driving With the Top Down' (Ramin Djawadi)
12 - The Incredible Hulk 'TV Theme' (Joe Harnell)
13 - Superman - 'Main Theme' (John Williams)
14 - Superman - 'Love Theme' (John Williams)
15 - Supergirl - 'Main Title & Argo City' (Jerry Goldsmith)
16 - Smallville - 'Save Me' (August Tate, Jeffrey Thompson, Cedric Williams, Greg Slay, Shelby Tate)

CD 2
01 - The Amazing Spider-Man - 'Main Title - Young Peter (James Horner)
02 - Spider-Man - 'Main Theme' (Danny Elfman)
03 - Spider-Man - 'TV Theme' (Robert Harris, Paul Francis Webster)
04 - X-Men: First Class - 'Magneto' (Henry Jackman)
05 - X2: X-Men United - 'X-Men United Suite' (John Ottman)
06 - Kick-Ass - 'Strobe/Flying Home' (John Murphy, Henry Jackman)
07 - Hancock - 'The Moon And The Superhero' (John Powell)
08 - Transformers - 'Autobots' (Steve Jablonsky)
09 - Fantastic Four - 'Main Titles' (John Ottman)
10 - Judge Dredd - 'Suite' (Alan Silvestri)
11 - The Shadow - 'Main Theme' (Jerry Goldsmith)
12 - The Rocketeer - 'To The Rescue/End Credits' (James Horner)
13 - Heroes - 'Intro/Claire’s Theme/Peter’s Theme/Mohinder’s Theme' (Wendy Melvoin & Lisa Coleman)
14 - Hercules - The Legendary Journeys 'TV Theme' (Joseph LoDuca)
15 - Xena: The Warrior Princess 'TV Theme' (Joseph LoDuca)
16 - Danger Mouse 'TV Theme' (Mike Harding)
17 - Wonder Woman 'TV Theme' (Charles Fox, Norman Gimbel)

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Darren Rea