I watched Superman/Doomsday this weekend. Not great, but worth the price of a DVD for family movie night (much better than the previous week’s entry of “RV”!)
I have the Justice League: New Frontier for next week.
I kind of like these Direct to DVD animated features. I don’t read superhero comics anymore, but I still like the genre. Plus my son is a superhero nut! These DVDs get out interesting stories that would be too costly to produce as live action. (DC also used the Justice League Unlimited series to tell stories like “For the Man Who Has Everything.”)
I have seen both of the Ultimates DVDs from Marvel. I thought they were fairly weak. I have not seen Iron Man DVD (saw the film, though. AWESOME!) or the Dr. Strange version.
What I like about DC’s plan is that it seems to want to make animated versions of significant stories that would not necessarily translate into film. Marvel seems to be less discriminate in its selection of material to translate to animation.
DC’s next offering seems to be a story to tie into the upcoming sequel.
From Wikipedia:
I love how animation is being used now to tell subplot of tent pole action franchsies (Star Wars also did it).
I’m hoping that someday each company tells the following stories (I seem to think I started a thread asking this as a question a long time ago):
DC:
Kingdom Come- It could never be made live action due to cost constraints and general confusion. Would be beautiful.
Golden Age- Same thing as Kingdom Come. The PG-13 rating would really be helpful here.
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?- The best “Death of Superman” story ever told. Actually, this is probably my favorite comic story PERIOD.
Hawkworld- I think it would make an excellent film. Maybe with the success of little known Iron Man, Hawkman might get a shot.
Watchmen (in a trilogy form)- Even if the movie is great, it will be too short to get everything.
MARVEL:
Secret Wars- The first one!
Infinity Gauntlet- An underrated story.
Spiderman/Wolverine- It would be tough without a Berlin Wall, but I’m sure they could figure something out.
Capt. America in WW2- Basically the first few pages of the first volume of Ultimates should be their guide.
OTHER:
I watched Marvel’s two animated Avengers movies and thought they were god-awful. What’s more, they’re basically the same movie twice except that the second one has some extremely stupid take on the Black Panther thrown in for good measure.
I haven’t seen the Doomsday one, but I thought New Frontier was decent. It’s missing a lot of the “magic” that the comic has, for lack of a better word. It’s fine, yeah, but nothing really that special. It was weird hearing someone other than Kevin Conroy voice Batman.
A Wonder Woman cartoon is in the works, supposedly based on George Perez’s 80’s reboot of the character. As a Wonder Woman fan, I’ll watch it, but I’m not expecting anything too incredible.
I recall that there was supposed to be a “Judas Contract” Teen Titans animated feature, as well.
It’s a neat idea, I guess, but I generally find that the cartoons just wind up being less-good versions of the comic that they’re based on. DC’s are better than Marvel’s, but I think even the DC stuff is pretty mediocre. As I recall, there are also some Hellboy cartoons that I’ve never watched.
I liked the New Frontier but couldn’t get through Doomsday. It was just so stupid.
Examples include:
-Luthor shoots his body guard/assistant. No real reason given except to prove that he’s evil.
-In fighting Doomsday, Superman (whose priority, you may recall, is to save lives) doesn’t think to try and get Doomsday out of the heart of the city and then in the end kills him by slamming him into the ground from orbit and leveling several city blocks.
-No Justice League? In the comics, Doomsday thrashing the League was a good start to showing how powerful he was and what a fight Superman was in for. In the movie, Doomsday thrashes some guy with a shotgun and a random trucker.
Plus the character designs sucked. Lois looked Asian, Lex looked like he had just gotten off the rack and Superman’s face looked like Bizarro’s.
I’ve always wanted to see, if not an on-going series, then a film-length animeted Dr. Strange cartoon - done in classic Steve Ditko style - portraying the initial confrontation with the Dreaded Dormammu, Clea & the Mindless Ones. That would be beyond awesome.
I can’t agree with all your Superman: Doomsday criticisms, though I will agree with your spoilering them:
Luthor’s reason for killing Mercy Graves was quite clear. Public knowledge of his involvement in freeing Doomsday would be an unimaginable catastrophe, and he didn’t trust ANYONE but himself with that knowledge. She killed everyone else who knew, and he killed her.
Meh. Part of the genre. But I’ll say that he certainly intended to move the fight out of the city; he simply couldn’t overpower Doomsday long enough to accomplish it. Also, I think the leap into the stratrosphere was pretty much a desperation move; the boy from Smallville was already hurt badly enough so that there was no hope of controlling his descent. All he could do was leap and pray.
I don’t mind the absence of the League. I think Superman works better, as a concept, as the world’s only super-hero (or at least the only hero anywhere near his scale).
I’ll agree with you on the character designs. There were trying to distance themselves from the Animated Series, but it ended up with Superman being, well, ugly.
I’d like to see some of the independents getting filmed. Astro City or Powers would be great. If they wanted to do an older work maybe Concrete, The Elementals, Mage, or Nexus.
I used to see episodes of a Saturday morning when I was a callow youth and for the life of me I can’t recall the name of the kid who changed into into him after shouting out some word.
It’s driving me nuts, who was he and what did he say?
The name of the cartoon was Shazam!, which was/is also Billy Batson’s magic word. Though the character is named ‘Captain Marvel,’ that name cannot be used for marketing purposes for that particular charcter because Marvel Comics owns the trademark (which they snapped up just to be jerks.)
The problem with your argument is that you are right and I am wrong, which leaves me with no response. Well, I was thinking of the live-action show from the 70s, not the cartoon, which I’ve never seen.
Late 1930s: Superman is introduced.
Later 1930s: Captain Marvel is introduced. It out-sells Superman.
1941: Matinee serial Adventures of Captain Marvel, starring Tom Tyler.
1940s: The owners of Superman (eventually to become DC Comics) sue the owners of Captain Marvel into bankruptcy, and acquire the rights to the character
1950s? 1960s?: A British company produces Marvel-Man, who bears a breathtaking resemblance to Captain Marvel. Would later reach the US under the name Miracle-Man, to avoid copyright and trademark litigation.
1960s: Marvel Comics produces their own version of Captain Marvel. Much litigation ensues. In the end, Marvel owns the right to publish a magazine with the title “Captain Marvel”, while DC owns the original character. Since then, everything DC publishes in the USA uses the title “Shazam”.
1974: Shazam! a live-action Saturday morning TV show
1981: The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam! an animated Saturday morning TV show.
Today: Billy Batson and the Legend of Shazam in pre-production, scheduled for release in 2009!!! Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) to play Black Adam!
I don’t know what the situation is in the UK regarding the copyright and trademark issues. chowder:
If the character had a red suit, yellow boots, and a white cape, then it was Captain Marvel.
If he wore a blue suit, red boots, and no cape, then it was Marvel-Man.
I haven’t seen Superman: Doomsday, but I liked New Frontier and didn’t like the one Avengers movie I saw. I think these direct-to-DVD stories are a great idea though, and I hope they do more of them. I like that they’re aimed at adult audiences, and I think there are a lot of great adaptations waiting to happen.
I saw the Dr. Strange animated film AND the animated Iron Man one. I will tell you now-save your money, or rent if you must see them. Weak weak weak. DC seems to be much better at animated films for some reason.
Also, even though no one asked: Shazam! I always liked Marvel Jr’s outfit better.
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