When The Death Of Superman comic came out back in the early '90s, i was a staff artist for the computer game developer/publisher, Interplay Productions. Even in that sort of culture, i tended to be the hermit weirdo - showing up barefoot or wearing zoris, making art in my cave. For a while there the business card read Art Troll as my official title. (Eventually i settled on Existential Cinematographer since i was making movies of things that didn't exist using non-real cameras in virtual space.) My office walls were generally covered with comic and art posters, often with things like Dinosaurs Attack! bubble gum cards and other odd trading cards lining the spaces between. Typical attire for me was comfy pants, t-shirt, and a loose open shirt over that. Sometimes there was a posterboard area on my wall for spontaneous art releases. It was a weirdo lair in other ways, too. I was older than much of the industry, and married, with children by my former wife, in a land of fresh-out-of-school kids and bachelors with too much stake in their futures to be bothered with women in any serious way. (I was the first one in the company that didn't have a share in it. The 10 who were there before me left as millionaires. So when i say they were busy working on their futures, i mean that in a very real way.)
Anyway...
One day the shoeless-casual dude (it was California, dude is appropriate usage) showed up at the office in a dark suit and tie - shiny shoes - all clean and presentable, with the black armband bearing the S shield, much to the confusion of most of the others. Gamer Geeks ≠ Comic Geeks.
And that's how i was dressed for the rest of that week, in mourning for the fallen Kal-El.
When i sometimes speak out about the wretched affairs that are the mainline DC movies, it's often assumed that i'm some Marvel fanboy who doesn't like DC. Quite the opposite is often true - I grew up favoring the DC characters, even when i preferred what Marvel was doing in their magazines at times. Though, admittedly, in the classic "Are you a Superman fan or a Batman fan -Who do you want to be?" argument, i always sided with Green Lantern. (Even back then, it was obvious to me that an artist should using the ring. Architect John Stewart even hinted at that for us.), and it's that love for the characters that has made me so bitter about their absence from the films. If i talk about the tone of the movies, or pure stupidity of some aspects and scenes, then i'm told i must hate Zach Snyder. Not true - i overall enjoyed his adaptation of Dave Gibbons' work, and i've watched Sucker Punch more times than all of his DC films combined. I just wish he'd make the Marvelman/Miracleman movie he so obviously wants to make instead an Elseworlds version of DC. (Okay - That pooch has already been screwed, and the puppies sold for breeding stock) Out there in the 'DC Extended Universe', i'm loving the hell out of a lot of the DC TV Shows and the DC Animated Movies.
Last week, the latest of those animated movies was released - The Death Of Superman, obviously based on the comic storyline referenced above. While the studio heads are busy trying to figure out how to handle the DCFU*, the folks who've been turning out great stories for a couple decades and more have been quietly building their own film universe with a series of intersecting Batman and Justice League movies for the last four years. This one makes... um, quite a few of them since 2014.
Hmm... Let's see.
The Batman movies -
Son Of Batman
Batman Vs. Robin
Batman: Bad Blood
and the Justice League had -
Justice League: War
Justice Leabue: Throne Of Atlantis
and then they directly intersected with -
Justice League Vs. Teen Titans
followed by -
Justice League: Dark
Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
Did i miss any?
I'm not sure about Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay. Frankly, it got turned off when Amanda Waller showed up early on and it was the new skinny generic Waller instead of The Wall. You know - the version where some weak artist decided it was too hard to draw Amanda Waller because she didn't look like the what they were used to drawing, or some pervy artist decided it was more fun drawing pretty girls rather than one of the few people in comics that looked like a human being. At that point, we wondered if the right people were still in charge and decided to come back when our expectations weren't as high. It'll probably be a while. There's just too much in the world to be watched in a single human lifetime, so there's always something else.
And i don't remember if the previous animated Suicide Squad movie, Batman: Assault On Arkham, tucked into this film universe or deviated significantly to meet the source material of the game. I do remember it was superior to, and more enjoyable than, the live action SS movie.
Along the way, they've turned out a couple of enjoyable Elseworlds films, too - Justice League: Gods & Monsters and Gotham By Gaslight. And this is just in the last 4 years - post Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. (Batman: Ninja comes from a different studio, does it not? What about Scooby Doo & Batman: The Brave & The Bold? It's getting a lot harder to track all this stuff!)
I'm not completely certain that The Death Of Superman takes place in that intersecting universe, though it does feel like it at this point. Let me throw out an "Arrrrrrgghhh!!!" that we have to wait about a year for Reign Of The Supermen to follow up on The Death Of Superman. That said, i'm very glad that they decided to do the story as two separate movies. Far better than trying to crunch it all into one film. It was a good idea with Return Of The Dark Knight, and it's a good plan here.
Even with the abbreviated version of the tale used for the previous Superman: Doomsday, it was still a bit too compressed to build the proper emotional momentum and impact. Once one gets past the highly questionable use of cheek lines in the animation, it did not terrible with the character and story, but still was one of the least memorable DC animated movies of that decade. It was certainly far better than the generic third-act creature upon which they slapped the name Doomsday for the DCFU.
Of course, that means we've got time to see him take on the Justice League...
...before the big showdown...
I still prefer "circus suit" Superman to "ski suit" Superman, and see the Nu52 and other endless reboots as a surrender ("We give up. We can't do as good as those who came before us, so we're just going to redo instead.") But these animated movies based on the newer iterations of the characters are quite enjoyable, and far superior to most of the live action films.
If you haven't yet, check 'em out.
frames from The Death Of Superman (2018)
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*(DCEU, or DC Extended Universe, is an unofficial term slapped on by one reporter which really makes no sense. That name would seem to include the comics, films, novels, tv shows, animated movies, etc.,. So for me, i think it's going to be the DC Film Universe when talking about the movies. DCFU just makes more sense. In pretty much every way.)
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