I remember Exo-Man, Man from Atlantis, Lucan, Automan, Manimal...
All from YouTube clips, of course. I couldn't possibly be old enough to remember any of them first hand.
I don't think it was a reference to the television show, though. The description doesn't really match, and it seems more like we're supposed to believe Mantis is the iconic hero Bob Kane created back in the '30s to ride on the success of Superman.
Here's the real catch, though. In season two, when Peter had gone to live on the other side, his apartment had framed comic book covers in it. I remember the creators talking about the fact that they tweaked all of the covers so they weren't exactly like famous ones from our world (same layout but different colors or titles). I'm pretty sure one of them was one of Frank Miller's
Dark Knight covers, so now I want to go freeze frame and see what the title actually says...
