T
Last week, I was able to redeem some “reward points” from Best Buy which I then applied to a purchase of the “Special Edition” of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. That made for a darned good price…even though I had to go to TWO Best Buys to find the edition that came with the Batman figurine. I must admit to some disappointment that this Batman is NOT part of the Infinite Heroes line…unlike the Green Lantern figurine that came with Green Lantern: First Flight this past July.
I was really looking forward to this new animated movie…particularly for the fact that the characters–Superman, Batman, and Lex Luthor–would be voiced by their “classic” voices from the Batman, Superman, and Justice League/Unlimited animated series.
In anticipation of the movie, I read the graphic novel the day before it came out, which was both blessing and curse. It was a blessing in that I got a real kick out of things that were taken word-for-word from the source material…but it made changes and omissions that much more glaring, having the original so fresh in memory.
The basic plot of the movie is that Lex Luthor has been elected president (he ran on a promise of change/improvement to horrible economic conditions throughout the country). As president, he’s brought meta-humans under government supervision…and those that refuse to work FOR him personally (such as Superman and Batman) are outlaws. Luthor is then made aware of a huge kryptonite meteor heading toward earth, and seeks to manipulate things to set Superman and Batman in poor light while raising his own status in the public eye to even higher levels. When he puts a bounty on Superman’s head, the super-powered baddies come outta the woodwork, including villains not normally fitting in a story such as this.
The thing I noticed immediately with this film was the animation itself. It seemed really simplistic, with a lot of static backgrounds, and limited movement in the foreground as I watched. Something about it throughout the film seemed to be of lesser quality than the Green Lantern film from earlier this summer.
At the same time, I really dug the visual style of the characters–I liked their visualization, based on Ed McGuiness’ art from the source material. This combined with the classic voices is enough to almost overcome the animation limitations…at the least, I’m willing to let it go for my enjoyment of the visual design and the voices.
There are some minor omissions–the future-Superman doesn’t show up, and there’s no sign of nor mention of Green Lantern. The change that bothered me the most, though, was the ending…especially with a character’s role being swapped, when the character swapped out actually appears in this same movie (it’s not like it had to be changed because the character wasn’t used!). I get that the change was made presumably to keep this as much more of a “buddy flick” rather than the first arc of an ongoing series…but to me, the original ending would still have been perfectly valid here.
All in all, I was thoroughly entertained by this film, even though it’s incredibly short. I get that it takes time to create animation, and so an animated film will be shorter than live-action…but I’d rather wait a bit longer to get a film with a bit more to it.
The extras with the special edition make the package worth far more as a whole than just the film itself. There’s a Blackest Night documentary looking at the opening of the story–I’m pretty sure this is recycled from the Green Lantern: First Flight DVD. There’s also a nice documentary looking at the history of Superman and Batman as a team. This was quite interesting, and I tend to enjoy analyses of the characters, so this was right up my alley. It also allowed me to put a couple more faces with names I’m familiar with.
There are some other extras that–honestly–I haven’t gotten to yet.
Overall, I’m very glad I picked this up. It’s not quite up there with Green Lantern: First Flight and Justice League: New Frontier…but I enjoyed this more than Wonder Woman…and CERTAINLY far, far moreso than I did the Superman: Doomsday film (I hold to this day that the only worthwhile bit of having bought that one was the retrospective documentary about the original Death of Superman comics).
Even if you aren’t into buying dvds…this is well worth renting to just watch it once. It’s nothing deep, but makes for a little over an hour’s good entertainment.
Filed under: The Rest of the Stack | Tagged: Batman, Public Enemies, Superman | Leave a comment »
For me, this is a mixed bunch. My favorite of these five specials is the Betty Cooper Confidential–probably because it seems best suited to the format. It read very much like a short story from one of the Archie digests I’d buy in the checkout lane at Walmart or some such. Even this is largely a preview for another book, though. The story–which has Betty’s diary blown away on the wind and then recovered in pieces by her friends–is one of those that plays all the characters as being friends, with far less competition or other conflict between them than in other stories. Given this is a light-hearted piece, that works fine. I’ve never been a great judge of a good age group for Archie books…but I’d say this one’s quite mild and safe for any age that’d be interested.
The Popeye comic features a reprint of what seems to be a classic serial in which Popeye & friends encounter a “ghosk” on their ship. There’s not much to it, but it’s definitely got the feel of the old Popeye cartoons I’ve recently exposed myself to. I can mostly hear Popeye and Olive’s voices in my head as I read this, but there’s something distinct to these pages–they are not simply an adaptation nor exact source material for any of the cartoons I can recall. The Ghost theme seems chosen for Halloween (where these specials are intended to be available for giving out)…but the few pages we get does not give a complete story, and just seems to end after giving up several clues and a likely reveal, though no real details or context. Still, it’s a good sampler for what Seeger’s classic strip is like, and for seeing Popeye in comic panels rather than in motion on a tv screen.
The Star Wars issue is a brief story that sees Han and Chewie wind up on a planet in need of fuel, and discovering undead inhabitants doomed to relive the accident that claimed their lives. In a way, this story feels rather out of place for what I’m used to with the Star Wars universe. At the same time, it’s also plausible given the suspension of disbelief one needs in order to believe in aliens, space ships, and The Force. We do get a “complete adventure” in these pages, which is nice–it’s just a quick slice-of-life sorta piece detailing this one particular incident the characters faced. I couldn’t say how it holds up to Star Wars canon, but it’s certainly worth the couple minutes it takes to read!
I’d expected the Casper/Little Lulu to be my least-favorite of all of these, but it has some slight charm to it. I don’t particularly LIKE it, but I can appreciate the strips for both characters for what they are–classic strips that were well-known in their time (I at least know OF the characters, even if I can’t tell you much of anything else other than what you see in this issue). Like the Popeye issue, this is interesting as a classic of comic strips, but if you’re not interested in the characters going in, this probably isn’t going to do anything to change your mind.
Finally, the Domo issue–which was sitting next to the just-released full-sized volume of the same title (Domo: The Manga) feels very much like a previw and nothing else. I’m not even sure what to make OF Domo or whatever the character may otherwise be called. I’ve seen the image of the character represented in various elements of pop culture, but know even less about it than I do Casper. The stories contained in this issue don’t really make sense to me, and I’m relatively certain as such that I am not at all the target audience. If you like Domo, this might be worth your time. If you don’t…then don’t bother with this.
Comic Reviews by Walt 