DC Universe Animated Original Movies

[Randall]

Justice League: Doom is up! Not great, not bad. Great Dwayne McDuffie tribute, though.

http://animatedviews.com/2012/justice-league-doom/

[Dan]

Got to see a screening of Superman vs. The Elite at WonderCon. An excellent movie and wonderfully adapted by Joe Kelly, who wrote the original story from Action Comics #775 that the film is based on. Everyone should check it out when it is released in June.

At the end of the program, following the film and the panel, they showed off the first trailer for the upcoming animated adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns. It looks glorious!

[Randall]

I thought that Superman vs. The Elite had some faults, but overall I also liked it. The full review of what is a pretty good li'l Blu-ray:

http://animatedviews.com/2012/superman-vs-the-elite/

[Randall]

The Dark Knight Returns reviewed!

http://animatedviews.com/2013/batman-th ... s-1-and-2/

It's a good one, folks!

[EricJ]

I thought that Superman vs. The Elite had some faults, but overall I also liked it. The full review of what is a pretty good li'l Blu-ray:

http://animatedviews.com/2012/superman-vs-the-elite/

A few months late, but finally caught it for "free" on Instant Netflix (along with a job-lot of other discarded Warner/DC animateds, including Red Hood, Batman: Year One, All-Star, and Justice League: Doom)--
I'm a Marvel fan, but I've always respected and pitied DC for being "stuck" with Superman, and having to find the Marvel-like "soul" of his essence to keep him current--Marvel could manage it easily with Captain America, but Joe Kelly came about as close to defining the issue as I've yet seen it done.

Year One was a bit gratuitous , but I'm just waiting for Returns 1&2 to show up for "free". I keep having this instinct that they're about to, any month now.

[Randall]

Not as great as All Star Superman, but maybe a shade better than The Elite. And of course miles ahead of Death of Superman. I give you, Superman Unbound!

http://animatedviews.com/2013/superman-unbound/

[GeorgeC]

I have to say that it was REAL classy to have Lois flip off Brainiac in Superman Unbound... (insert puke icon here)

Yeah, that and four-letter word cussing are what I want to see in DC animation! That's adult for you!

Responsible guardians are really going to enjoy watching this with future comic fans/kids! We all know Marvel and DC editorial still look out for the best interests of historical characters (and their potential audiences), right?


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And people wonder WHY I hate the nuDC-52 and most projects attached to Dan Didio, Geoff Johns, and Jim Lee.

These guys are a big part of WHY DC is such a mess now and has lost its luster...
It's finally out-Marvelled Marvel.

And even the Marvel Zombies think something's wrong there.

The President of DC isn't so great, either. She needs to go along with most of the company officers assigned to DC from WB. Editorial needs a top to bottom cleansing, painful or not. They need people who actually know and understand the characters.

I just hope that this and Flashpoint aren't a tipping point and that we can expect more crassness in future projects.

It's too late for the videogames (aside from the generally excellent LEGO line)... Between NetherRealms (MK vs DC, Injustice: Gods Among Us) and Jim Lee's workshop I don't know who creates the uglier new costume designs for the DC characters. Sexy and classy replaced by slutty hooker looks for the women... Functional and iconic replaced by overdesigned, unnecessary V-necks, and bulky, sculpted chest icons for ALL the characters... These past two Superman animated films don't look so hot, either. Some of the character designs are borderline hideous.

Why couldn't these guys create their own universe at their own company (far, far away from both DC AND Marvel) and ruin that mythology???

The best DC news is that they continue to reprint more of the good old pre-1990s stuff.
Otherwise, I know quite a few people besides myself have completely dropped the DC monthlies and aren't coming back... the 52-sales bump is over and they desperately need the live-action Superman film this year to be a hit.

[Randall]

I was quite turned off by Lois's gesture as well, and agree this "edginess" being seen in DC product is a big turn-off. I tried the New 52, and have now dropped everything, sick of lousy stories, re-told (in an inferioir way) storylines, and cheap deaths. DC is in bad shape, from what I can see. So sad. When they created their new 52, it's beyond me why they stuck with some of the same weak writers, added 1990s Marvel hacks, and then over-edited everything to death, in terms of letting editors dictate story points. It's been a mess for the most part, though there are a few bright points in the line.

However, aside from Lois flipping the bird, I did find this particular film quite good. It just depends on whether you will let one brief thing ruin it for you. I had to review the sucker, so I had to watch the whole thing, and ended up enjoying it. And at least they avoided the cheap death seen at the end of the comic. But is this a child-friendly movie? Unfortunately, that one gesture ruins the notion (for many parents) of someone sharing this with kids of a certain age. Stupid and unfortunate. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but for the older crowd it shouldn't be an issue. And DC doesn't seem too interested in making movies for kids at this point. We may philisophically disagree with DC on that point, and whether Lois should be seen flippping the bird, but at the end of the day I need to evaluate a movie, and not a corporate philosophy.

But I do agree with you.

[Randall]

The New 52 Justice League comes to animation. Given what the animation people had to deal with, they give it a good go.

http://animatedviews.com/2014/justice-league-war/

[GeorgeC]

You're being entirely too kind to Justice League: War.

It's very typical of the drudgery and dreariness Dan Didio, Jim Lee, and Geoff Johns have inflicted on comicdom. As much as I HAVEN'T appreciated what Joe Quesada and his crew have inflicted on Marvel, either, it's still nowhere near as bad as what the DC Trio did to their publishing company and are now putting into the live-action product and animation spun off DC Comics.
The worst aspects of the current Marvel published product has generally been kept out of the Marvel movies I've seen and liked. The people running DC now utterly have no clue about the fact that you want to keep meddling and reinventing characters in the movies to a minimum... they don't understand as much how important it is to cast lead characters well AND keep actors who fit the roles which has led to a revolving door of actors as Batman and Superman the past 20 years in live-action. (Ben Affleck as Batman???!?!?!?!? Who are they kidding????!!????) That's no way to build anything good and keep audiences, let alone the hardcore comic book fanboys (with taste!) on your side, either.

I watched maybe 10-12 minutes of JL: War and haven't picked it up again.
The voice characterizations and character designs put me off that much.
It just bad, bad direction on product that looked and felt very generic and off-putting.
I guess succeeding Bruce Timm and Paul Dini means ditching all the baggage of the stuff that made their product good and memorable, right?
20 years from now, Batman: TAS and Justice League: TAS will still be talked about while hopefully inferior product like The Batman, Beware The Batman, and JL: War rots in landfills next to the old Atari 2600 ET videogame...

Thank goodness that I at least didn't pay for it!

It's bad, folks, and NOT a good sign of what we can expect to see from future DC animated projects set in the "52-verse" which is the worst editorial direction either DC or Marvel have taken in my lifetime. People who didn't like Green Lantern and the Nolan DC films should have expected this JL feature to turn out this way (with the current DC editorial regime and WB liasons). We can expect more animated product to turn out this way and, at best, see very uneven releases from here on out. The great rollercoaster ride for DC Animation which started in 1992 has been officially bulldozed and replaced by a Ferris Wheel... Joy!

Before anybody calls me close-minded, narrow-minded, or whatever closeted thoughts you have, let me explain myself....

There are things that SHOULD be set in a scatological, satirizing, more adult universe which is still appreciable by many people. I would put the best episodes (from the first 8 years) of The Simpsons and the better episodes of South Park as well as GOOD anime in that category.

I don't mind something like the first Robocop film on occasion, either... But Robocop should not be a pattern for mainstream Disney product, either! Heck, neither should princess movies and "buddy/road" movies but people are apparently happy with Disney and Pixar being stuck in creative ruts. I moved on folks because I was bored by that repetitive crap almost 20 years ago!

I think traditional Marvel and DC superhero characters should generally exist in a brighter, more hopeful setting. (I don't mind occasional excursions into alternate reality settings... I'm still puzzled that Superman: Red Son and Batman: Gotham By Gaslight haven't been adapted. They're not kid stories but they are still very good source material for animation in particular.) Good triumphs over evil after a believable struggle -- that sort of thing. I don't buy the proposition that mirroring reality strictly in ALL senses (though usually magnified to an excess by current editorial and writing teams) OR pandering to dreariness and cynicism is the best place for the vast majority of their characters. Superman and Captain America, in particular, are at their best as standard-bearers, the guys we can all count on to lead the way to better things, and enforce a higher-standard without being complete dictators and imposing their will on others. The smartest thing I've ever read about Superman was by the comic creator that revamped the character in the mid-1980s: "Superman is NOT Superman because he has all these powers... Superman is who he is because in spite of all that power he does what's right. He doesn't abuse his gifts and terrorize everyday people with them!"
It's unfortunate that in the late 1980s DC and Marvel decided to ape the critical success of Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns in their mainstream comics and as a consequence their hero universes have only gotten bleaker since then. I think that as a consequence their comics have only become repellant to younger children. Comics used to be written for 7-12 year-old kids and they SOLD much better to them, too. I still think the majority of the great comics ever created were in that age category, too. I find a lot more intelligent insight in comics written towards that age group than anything that's literally porn/slash fiction today! Parents today would be a LOT smarter and more responsible to not let their kids get into mainline DC/Marvel supehero comics. The hero comics today are mainly written for 23+year-old people with very bleak and cynical outlooks on the world. There's no light at the end of the tunnel there...!
I would NOT have said this 30 years ago but it's a completely different world now than it was back then when I think editorial and writers were in general a lot more responsible. The violence and mayhem was nowhere near as over-the-top as it is today. It has become more money, money and instant ego-gratification for comic creators today at the expense of ruining classic characters and undoing the work of much better artists, writers, and editors of the past. DC and Marvel Comics have done a much better job of marginalizing themselves AND shrinking the North American comic book industry to oblivion in the long run than Frederic Wertham and Esteves Kefauver could have hoped to have accomplished during the juvenile delinquency/comic book/government hearings in the 1950s!

I don't consider swearing every other page more adult... I don't consider the objectification of beloved female characters (like Harley Quinn once was) by dressing them up in sluttier outfits and behaving like complete psychopaths character development. I don't care for what's been done to Wonder Woman most recently even though I never much cared for the character outside of the Lynda Carter setting. Batman is a complete dick and utterly unloveable in contemporary comics! Superman has nearly become the opposite of what he was intended to be and frankly much more in line with the more sinister, political connotations of his name...
There are better, much smarter and far more entertaining ways to use these characters than what's being done today!

[Randall]

Thanks for piping in, George!

Once you get past the characterizations (and I totally get that someone maybe can't do that), JL: War was a decent if mediocre movie. The animation was pretty good, the soundtrack was decent, and there was, of course, lots of action. And there was actually some nice interplay between some of the characters, notably Cyborg and Shazam (which--- surprise!--- was not in the original comic).

So yeah, the best part of the film was the part that Johns didn't write.

I have to agree with everything you've said about DC's current outlook (as well as your criticisms about JL: War). I gave up on the whole DC line, disappointed that I found so much of it unlikeable. My kids, if they choose to read DC, will have full access to my colleciton of older trades and hardcovers. I can't imagine them being interested in what is out now, which as you said is sadly inappropriate for children.

[eddievalient]

The worst part is, whenever I try and argue that comics ought to be at least somewhat kid-friendly, I get dozens of fanboys swooping in to tell me that comics aren't for kids and shouldn't cater to them. Head, meet wall.

[Randall]

There should be comics for all ages, including ones directed at adults, and ones directed at kids. But I would prefer to see superhero comics that all ages can enjoy.

[Randall]

Son of Batman!

http://animatedviews.com/2014/son-of-batman/

I can't say I like where these movies are going. Violent, bloody, joyless... Just like today's mainstream comics. Sigh.

[Dacey]

I still wanna check this one out because I've always enjoyed Talia al Ghul as both a character and as a love interest for Bruce...well, except for how she was used in The Dark Knight Rises.