DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Superman: Doomsday (2007)

Written In January 2014

Two things before we get into the review:

1. I have not yet read the Death of Superman story arc, but I am aware that this film deviates greatly from it. I may review this movie again on another day when I have read the book, but as of now, I will be reviewing this as it’s own stand alone film.
2. At one point in this movie we get a quick cameo from Kevin Smith where he makes a comment about Superman trashing a giant robotic spider, this is a little in-joke about how Kevin Smith was once hired to write a screenplay for the unproduced Superman movie, Superman Lives, which would’ve been produced by Jon Peters, directed by Tim Burton, and starred Nicholas Cage of all people as the titular Man of Steel. The guy even had a costume test!

Anybody else want to watch that movie, just to know how much a train wreck it would’ve been? Anywho, time to explain what the movie’s about.

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

The film opens with a narration by Lex Luthor (James Marsters), highlighted by images of Superman doing heroic deeds. Lex describes Superman as a god on Earth, but insists that “there comes a time when even gods must die.”

Lois Lane (Anne Heche) and Superman (Adam Baldwin) are romantically involved, but Lois is unsatisfied with the arrangements of their relationship. Superman insists that they keep it a secret from the public by limiting their encounters to the Fortress of Solitude, and he has not yet confided in her that he is actually Clark Kent, although she already suspects.

Workers from LexCorp unearth a spaceship while digging for one of Lex’s projects, inadvertently releasing a genetically-engineered supersoldier known as Doomsday. Doomsday kills the entire digging crew and begins a bloody rampage towards Metropolis. He kills a deer, a dog, the dog’s owner, and a truck driver (it is implied that other people fell victim to his homicidal fury, as well.) Superman meets the monster there and the two engage in a devastating cross-city battle. Superman ultimately kills Doomsday, but succumbs to his own injuries and dies in Lois’ arms.

The world collectively mourns their fallen hero, and Metropolis honors him with a memorial. Lex, having previously ordered his assistant Mercy Graves to cover up LexCorp’s involvement in releasing Doomsday, kills her to ensure that no one but he knows the truth. Superman’s friends cope with his death in various ways: Jimmy Olsen takes a job at a seedy tabloid newspaper called National Voyeur; Perry White becomes an alcoholic; and Lois visits Martha Kent for counsel.

In Superman’s absence, Metropolis is overwhelmed by emboldened criminals. At one point, Toyman uses a giant mechanical spider to hold a bus full of students hostage. Lois, still grieving, decides to get the children out on her own. As she does, Toyman tries to kill her and a little girl by throwing the bus over a building. As it happens, Superman apparently digs out of his grave, saves Lois, and apprehends Toyman. However, he does not seem quite the same, missing Lois’ apartment as he flies her home and acting surprised when she kisses him. She dismisses it as shock from his supposed “death”. When she receives a call from Martha wondering why Clark has not called home, Lois becomes suspicious.

The resurrected Superman is revealed to be a clone, created by Lex from a blood sample retrieved after Superman’s battle with Doomsday. As such, the clone’s knowledge is merely what Lex has programmed into him. Lex is keeping the real Superman’s body preserved in a tube for his personal amusement, unaware that Superman is still barely alive. He also periodically tortures the clone Superman in a special lead-lined red-sunlight room (to show the clone who is boss, and out of frustrated desire to have killed the real Superman). A robot from the Fortress of Solitude recovers the body and begins restoring Superman to health, a fact Luthor discovers when his surveillance monitors register a signal disruption of several seconds.

Meanwhile, the Superman clone’s attitude darkens when he hears about Toyman killing a four-year-old girl, and in retaliation kills Toyman as he is being escorted to jail. The city is stunned, and Lois suspects he is not Superman. The clone begins threatening the populace into abiding by the law, convinced that terror will prevent crime. The police can do nothing to stop him. Lois discovers Lex’s plan to clone Superman.

Upon returning to Lex, the clone is berated for his behavior. Lex orders him to find the real Superman’s corpse and threatens to kill him if he goes out of line again. Instead, the clone deduces the mechanism behind Lex’s threat — a lead-shielded kryptonite pellet in his brain — and removes it, then sets off to deal with Lex. At the same time, Lois discovers the true nature of the clone after tranquilizing Lex and searching his files with Jimmy’s help. She and Jimmy discover that Lex is cloning an army of Supermen. (Luthor’s cloning technology had undoubtably improved since the earlier attempt resulted in the creation of Bizarro). After Lex awakens and almost shoots them both, the original clone arrives. He saves Lois and Jimmy and destroys the cloning facility, killing all the yet-to-be- awakened clones. Unable to kill the clone, Lex tries to hide in the special room, hoping to lure him in, only to have the clone instead lock him inside and toss the entire room to the street. This latest presumed murder triggers military action. The military attempt to kill the Superman clone, but they fail as the entire force is eradicated by the clone’s heat vision alone.

The robot has revived Superman and has him undergo intensive rehabilitative exercises under concentrated solar energy to bring his power level back to max.

Hearing the news, the real Superman resolves to help, even though his powers are not yet fully restored. To improve his odds he dons a black sunlight-absorbing “Solar Suit” and brings a kryptonite gun (built by Lex Luthor) his robot retrieved from his archives. The two engage in a massive battle, with Superman’s kryptonite gun failing to hit the much faster clone. Jimmy and Lois grab the kryptonite gun to help Superman, though still unsure if he is the real deal or not. The fight culminates at Superman’s memorial, where Lois manages to hit the clone with a kryptonite blast. The clone destroys the gun, leaving only the kryptonite canister. As the two Supermen continue their battle, the canister sticks to the clone’s chest with mud, and Superman vaporizes it with his heat vision. The clone, overcome by the kryptonite vapor, falls under the memorial stone he was holding. Before dying, he tells Superman to protect the people. Lois is sure of the real Superman once he kisses her, and the crowd is similarly happy that Superman is back.

At Lois’ apartment, Superman sees that she misspelled “resurrection” in her article. He mentions winning a spelling bee at Smallville Elementary, revealing himself to be Clark Kent. Lois is caught off guard, but the two share a smile and she happily embraces him. At LexCorp, a critically injured but alive Lex narrates the ending, saying how history has proven that gods can die, but they can also return from the dead. He smiles to himself, musing that there may still be a way for him to destroy Superman.

Am I the only one who thinks that the ending was sequel baiting? I mean I don’t get the point of having Lex say “Maybe there’s a way to kill Superman and make him stay dead after all?” Especially not since this was the start of the DC Animated Original Films line, meaning that none of the movies would follow continuity with each other. With the exception of two pairs of movies, one of which was actually released with two different animation styles. That’s the one thing with this movie that genuinely leaves me scratching my head. Either way, let’s talk Pros and Cons.

PROS:

• Terrific casting all around!
• Adam Baldwin is great as both the good and bad Supermen, knowing him from playing Jayne on Firefly, a character who has far more in common with the likes of Lobo, it was very surprising to find that he could play such a kindly and noble figure. Great job voicing the big man big man.
• Anne Heche, the actress who plays Lois, does a lovely job as well! I wasn’t quite fond of her at first, she sounded a tad off to me, but as the movie went on she grew on me quite a bit!
• James Marsters as Lex Luthor! Oh man, this guy gave me the creeps big time! I haven’t seen Buffy and Angel, so I don’t know a ton about his character on there, but I know him from playing Brainiac on Smallville and boy was he good there. This guy is an amazing actor! I especially loved the one scene where he’s beating the crap out of Superman’s Clone and we don’t know that he’s a clone yet, and the language he uses it feels so deranged because it doesn’t sound like a typical villain gets the upper hand on the hero type dialogue, it sounds like an angry house wife yelling at their husband for walking out on them or something. *shivers* It’s like that bit with the Joker constantly calling Batman “darling” in The Dark Knight Returns.
• The action is fantastic, of course!
• There’s a scene where Lois goes to visit Martha in Smallville so they can grieve Clark together. I actually really like this, because the entire world only lost their hero. But Lois and Martha lost more than that, they lost someone they loved as a person. They lost a man who was so deeply important to them. It’s like, say, when a kid at your school commits suicide, and everyone in the building sort of mourns collectively, but it’s just that sort of sentiment of “Oh God, poor kid!” But there’s people who that poor kid might’ve been friends with, or they might’ve been some Teacher’s favorite student, or something. There’s people who just see a person who’s gone and are as sad as anyone else would be, but there’s also people who actually knew who this person was. What made them laugh, what made them cry, what made them happy, what made them sad or angry or anything else. And that’s who Martha and Lois were to Clark. Everyone else just lost Superman, but they lost a loved one.
• The final scene between the original Superman and the cloned Superman, the latter’s parting words to the former were asking him to protect the people. I really like this because it shows that the “evil” Superman wasn’t truly evil, Lex said it himself, he has all of Superman’s morals but not his mind. He was still trying to protect the innocent and the weak, and making sure that the bad people get their comeuppance. He just went about it in the wrong way. And he just wants to make sure now, that the real Superman will still continue doing what Superman does best. Stand up for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
• I really dig the idea that Lex would be angry that someone else got Superman before him. He’s always wanted the Man of Tomorrow head on a platter, but he wants that platter served up by and for himself. He doesn’t want him beaten to death by some raging engine of destruction.
• The scene where Lois makes out with Lex disturbed me more than actually seeing Superman die, and that’s saying something.
• There’s a bit in the fight with Doomsday where Superman looks clearly exhausted, I really dig that because Superman is rarely put up against a foe who is actually better than him physically. It reminded me a bit of the fight between Batman and Bane in Dark Knight Rises, where the hero who’s used to be the toughest fucking guy in the room, realizes that he’s actually losing a fight for once. Come to think of it, that makes sense since Rises was partially based on Knightfall, which came out the same time as The Death of Superman.
• The final scene with Lois and Clark is classic Superman!

CONS:

• Jimmy Olsen is made a douche for some reason.
• There’s not a ton of evaluation of what’s happened by the end, nobody’s really critical of whether or not this Superman can be trusted after what’s just happened.
• You have Doomsday in this movie and yet there’s very little blood, why? You want the PG-13, go and grab it by the balls! Doomsday ain’t gonna make for a very bloodless movie folks.
• This one’s more nitpicky, but I don’t get the choice they made with how they showed Lex killing Mercy Graves. He takes out a gun, aims at her head, then we cut to outside the building with a wide shot of Lex’s office from the outside, we hear the gun shot, and see a bright light surrounding a silhouette of Lex pointing the gun and Mercy’s body falling. I don’t get why they chose to do it that way. Why not just close up Lex’s hand holding the gun, show his hand jerk slightly with a gunshot sound and then pan over to Lex’s face for his reaction.

For the start of a new project, Superman: Doomsday is a BOLD place to start. Bruce Timm and Company likely had no idea this would work out- Well, they probably figured it would, based on the sales of their previous direct-to-video animated flicks, but regardless, it was ballsy of them to say “Okay, what story should we base our first animated film NOT based on any of our shows? I KNOW! THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN! THAT’S A REALLY COOL ONE, RIGHT?” It was gonna be big, and it IS big. I’m gonna give it, an 8.5 out of 10!

DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - The Batman Vs Dracula (2005)

Written In January 2014

Before I get to the plot, can I just say… This a REALLY random set up in my opinion. Who would even think to set up a powerless hero who’s normal shtick involves being a detective, not someone who typically goes head to head with supernatural beings, and even when he does, 7 times out of 10, he’s hanging out with the Justice League and people who DO work with this kind of stuff. I’m just saying. Onto the plot.

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

The Joker and the Penguin break out of Arkham Asylum and race each other to find a stash of stolen money hidden within a crypt in Gotham Cemetery. The Joker is quickly intercepted by the Batman and is electrocuted when he falls into a river by his super-charged joy buzzers while the Penguin takes the opportunity to enter the cemetery himself. While searching through a crypt, the Penguin accidentally cuts his hand while using his umbrella-sword to open a coffin he hopes contains the money, finding a body instead. The blood from his hand drips on the corpse’s heart, which brings it to life; it is none other than thevampire lord Count Dracula, his body having been moved from Transylvania to Gotham City after his “death.” After attacking and turning a watchman at the cemetery into a vampire, Dracula hypnotizes the Penguin into becoming his non-vampiric servant so that he may lead him through Gotham to feed and guard his coffin during the day while he regains his strength.

While patrolling the city, the Batman witnesses a vampire attack, but decides to put the incident at the back of his mind and, as Bruce Wayne, proceeds to host a corporate party at his manor. The invigorated Dracula appears at the party, disguised as a cultural anthropologist under the name Dr. “Alucard” (“Dracula” spelled backwards), claiming to be visiting to study the Batman (believing his legacy had an influence on Batman’s existence), and takes an interest in Vicki Vale, a reporter who is interviewing and dating Bruce. After failing to turn Bruce into a vampire to quench his thirst, Dracula turns a waiter into a vampire that assaults Bruce’s butler Alfred. Realizing the imminent danger, Bruce immediately deduces “Alucard” is Dracula. Upon further research, Bruce learns that Dracula is behind the disappearances of several Gotham citizens, who have been dubbed “Lost Ones” by the media and turned into vampires, and attempts to find a way to synthesize a vaccine for the victims. Due to eyewitnesses claiming to see a bat-like figure during the attacks, however, it is mistakenly reported that the Batman is behind the disappearances instead. When Batman goes to Gotham Cemetery to look for Dracula, he gets chased down by a SWAT unit, all of whose members are taken by Dracula as they chase him back into the city. During a fight with the Batman, Dracula offers him to join him in his conquest of Gotham, though the Batman naturally refuses. Just as Dracula has the Batman at his mercy, the sun rises and Dracula is forced to retreat, vowing to kill Batman for rejecting his offer.

At the cemetery, the Joker reappears alive and well and confronts the Penguin, saying the shock to his head helped. He asks where the treasure is, thinking Penguin has already found it, chasing him into Dracula’s tomb. However, despite Penguin’s warning to not open Dracula’s coffin, Joker ends up “breakfast in bed, freshly-squeezed” for Dracula. The Batman tracks down the vampire Joker as he feasts in a blood bank and captures him. While the Batman attempts to concoct an antidote from the Joker’s infected cellular structure, Alfred discovers that Dracula once had a vampire bride, Carmilla Karnstein, who met her demise when she was exposed to sunlight. During his research, however, Bruce stands up an understanding Vicki, who is soon kidnapped by Dracula. Finally, the Batman is able to cure the Joker of his vampirism and ascertain the location of Dracula’s lair in Gotham Cemetery before returning him to Arkham. He then proceeds to mass-produce the vaccine to defeat Dracula and cure his victims.

Dracula attempts to sacrifice Vicki's soul to reanimate his bride Carmilla. Upon learning that Vicki has been kidnapped, the Batman rushes to Dracula’s lair with his anti-vampirism vaccine and arsenal of weapons, defeating and curing all the “Lost Ones” that attack him in the catacombs beneath Gotham Cemetery. The Batman then frees Vicki, disrupting the reanimation ritual. Dracula sends the Penguin to recapture Vicki while he fights the Batman, who lures Dracula into the Batcave and towards his prototype solar energy-storing machine and incinerates him with the sunlight stored within, reducing Dracula to a pile of ash and bones. This also frees the Penguin from his control, who, while chasing Vicki, finally finds the hidden treasure that caused all the trouble in the first place. Sadly for Penguin, he is arrested and blamed for Dracula’s kidnappings, causing the media to think he was forcing people to find the treasure. Having defeated an ultimate evil, the Batman triumphantly continues his duties to defend Gotham against anyone who may threaten its safety.

Contrary to my opinion of this being random, I really dug this movie. It didn’t quite hit me like Return of the Joker, Phantasm or Sub-Zero, but it was a much appreciated breath of fresh air after having to put up with Mystery of the Batwoman being so… Uninspired. This however, what’s a more inspired (if not, again, random) idea than Batman having to match wits with the Gothic Prince of Darkness, Count Dracula. Brought to a wonderfully creepy life through the voice of character actor, Peter Stormare. And makes this movie better for me, is that it’s set in a series that was a big part of my childhood; The Batman! While in all of my last four reviews I praised Kevin Conroy and company for their delightful and iconic takes of these characters, Batman: The Animated Series was not the Batman I grew up on. Like many, I actually spent my Saturday mornings looking forward to the continuing adventures of the caped crusader on Kids WB brought to life through the efforts of Rino Romano and company in their own series, The Batman. And that’s not to say I never watched B:TAS, I caught a few episodes here and there growing up, and of course like any sane 12 year old, I religiously watched Justice League and Justice League Unlimited on Cartoon Network. I also watched plenty of Teen Titans as well, but that review is next on the itinerary. But either way, I don’t get why people don’t talk about this show so much? It may not have had the same level of prestige as TAS and it may not have been as reverent to what came before it as The Brave and The Bold. But it was still pretty clever, the animation was generally pretty great, and how do you not love that theme by U2’s The Edge? Anywho, let’s get the pros and cons!

PROS:

• Peter Stormare is wonderful as Dracula!
• Kevin Michael Richardson gives a great performance as the Joker, I find him extremely underrated!
• Tom Kenny surprisingly makes for a pretty kick ass Penguin.
• Rino Romano is wonderful as Batman and Bruce Wayne respectively.
• Tara Strong is in this movie, I like Tara Strong.
• There are parts of this movie where the Joker is arguably creepier than Mark, Jack and Heath’s Jokers respectively. Not combined of course, God only knows how creepy that would be. Or maybe just Scott Snyder. 
  Seriously, what the fuck man?
• This Dracula is actually DRACULA, it’s not some toned down cartoonish caricature of the Lord of the Vampires, it is the real deal and creepy as hell.
• The vampires in this movie suck blood, they don’t steer away from it, we see them actually chomping down on people’s necks and lapping it up.
• Before being brainwashed, The Penguin refuses to serve Dracula. This feels pretty in character to me, given how much of an arrogant bastard he generally is.
• Vampire Joker is especially creepy!
• This is more of pro from the actual series, but I like that Penguin and The Joker are actually worthy physical combatants to Batman. They aren’t some guys who use tricks to best the guy, they can actually best him physically. This makes the fights more intense when you realize that these are actually guys that Batman can’t put down with ease.
• Batman actually gets to use science to solve his problems for once. This is something that we never really got to see Batman do in his prime in these movies. I say in his prime because we see Bruce trying to synthesize an antidote for the Joker Venom in the Batman Beyond movie. But regardless, Batman isn’t just a master detective and excellent combatant, he has degrees in advanced science and engineering! This is something I enjoy seeing
• The flashbacks/dream sequences in this film are wonderfully eery and well handled, especially with the repeated use of the Martha Wayne’s pearls falling onto the ground and always transitioning with the sound of a gunshot.
• When we first hear that the Joker’s broken out of Arkham again, all of the inmates sort of cheer. I find that funny.
• Joker’s “death” was really well handled, and while it wasn’t as emotionally effective as it was in Return of the Joker, it was, again, very creepy. With The Joker letting go of the ledge he was hanging from screaming “BYE BYE BATSY!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Quickly realizing his joybuzzer was malfunctioning and struggling to keep afloat when hits the water as the electricity brings him to his final end. Or so I thought.
• There’s this quick scene where Dracula feeds on the Joker inside his coffin and Penguin tries to make a joke about it, but you can see he’s absolutely horrified. This is especially great because of the Penguin’s face where he just stares at the scene like “That is the most fucked up thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

CONS:

• While I generally find Tara Strong to be a delightful presence, I don’t get why Vicki Vale had to be here.
• While the movie doesn’t stray away from the horror aspect, I wish it had the maturity to actually talk the way characters would here. I’m not asking for something like Blade where characters openly and actively use the f-bomb multiple times throughout, but actually throw out some real insults.
• At the end of their final conflict, as Dracula is dying, he proclaims in a horrified confusion that Batman is Bruce Wayne. Why did he just now acknowledge this? He never noted it beforehand or even hinted at knowing this, it just sort of comes off like a superhero movie cliche that the villain must always find out the hero’s true identity before being finally defeated.
• I wish we’d been given more explanation about these vampires, every good movie featuring these creatures gives some kind of explanation about what the deal is.

Overall, this was a real treat. It felt good to hear Rino, Tom, Kevin and Alistair Duncan again as Batman, Penguin, Joker and Alfred respectively. Peter Stormare was great as Dracula. And the story was surprisingly effective emotionally, I won’t say it hit me as hard as Mask of the Phantasm and Return of the Joker, but it did something that none of these other movies have really done for me; creeped me the fuck out! I’d say Return of the Joker came close, but with that added element of science fiction, in my mind it felt like something that could easily be corrected. With this movie though, I was genuinely left wondering, how the fuck is this going to be fixed? Ultimately, I’m gonna give The Batman Vs. Dracula a 7.8 out of 10.