Showbits

DC, the animation house responsible for Batman and Superman, have in the last few years brought their stable of superheroes to life in a series of direct-to-DVD feature films. From the aforementioned mainstays to less popular heroes Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, each has gotten a crack at the spotlight. But despite extended length compared with their television series and PG-13 ratings, I found that two recent installments don't always do their heroes justice.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is based on the first six issues of the Superman/Batman comic book that launched in 2003. When Lex Luthor is elected president, one of his first acts is to declare his two arch-nemeses enemies of the state. With villains out to collect the bounty and vigilantes-turned-soldiers determined to follow the letter of the law, Batman and Superman have few places left to turn.

The plot consists mostly of blows being traded among a cavalcade of DC superheroes. While this who's-who of the DCU can be fun for fans of the comics, it doesn't leave much room for character development. There are a few insightful moments, be it in dialogue or in cooperative battle tactics, that reveal Superman and Batman's relationship and ability to work as a team, but mostly it's just one action scene after another.

But the presentation of this film is fantastic, with a vaguely anime-like look. Kevin Conroy and Tim Daly reprise the titular roles they've become famous for in the last two decades, while Clancy Brown and Allison Mack (the latter of Smallville) turn in admirable performances as Lex Luthor and Power Girl, respectively. Unfortunately, the script doesn't afford Power Girl much respect, leaving her a weak-willed woman. (Can you spot LeVar Burton's cameo?)

Public Enemies was followed this February with DC's seventh and most recent video release, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, in which our heroes — Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter — travel to a mirror universe, where heroes are villains and vice versa. Such an encounter could be a fascinating opportunity to delve into what makes someone be good or evil, but the running time of just 75 minutes affords little opportunity for backstory or character development. The most screen time is given to the trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman and their evil counterparts: Ultraman, Owlman, and Superwoman, but the only meaningful dialogue is given to Batman and Owlman. There is a superficial love interest for the Martian Manhunter, but it's not explored in any real depth.

Being such a short film, the plot has to move fast. The Justice League's first melee with the Crime Syndicate occurs just 12 minutes into the film, resulting in an exciting airborne battle. In this scene and throughout the film, the Justice League fight mostly random super-powered troops; the movie doesn't pit our heroes against their equivalents until about the one-hour mark.

Again, the animation is top-notch, though there remain instances where CGI is not as seamlessly integrated as they could be. It would've been clever had Batman, Owlman, or both been played by familiar voice actors, such as Kevin Conroy. But we do instead get excellent performances with James Wood as Owlman, Gina Torres (Firefly) as Superwoman, Bruce Davison (X-Men) as the POTUS, and Kari Wuhrer (Sliders) as Black Canary.

Both movies feature trailers and featurettes that we've seen on DC's other DVDs, which doesn't make for very "special" features. A notable exception is Crisis on Two Earths, which includes an original short film starring The Spectre, the DC universe's manifestation of God's spirit of vengeance.

These two animated films feature top-notch production values and are true to their comic book origins without requiring viewers to be familiar with their other animated incarnations. But I couldn't help but feeling that the PG-13 rating was used not to explore mature themes and characters, but to show grittier slugfests. I don't need "mature" to mean "dark", but I do want to see characters embark on a journey, tackling issues with more than their fists.

Superman Returns, released to theaters in June 2006, was a mixed success: it raked in $391 million from the worldwide box office — a lot of money, but well short of the $500 million expected. Critics were also, well, critical: some found male lead Brandon Routh dull, the plot lacking in action, and the inclusion of Superman's son unnecessary.

But Superman fanboys, even those who can are not blind to the film's shortcomings, still love the film and want even more from it. The various teasers and trailers released at the time revealed footage not seen in the final cut, so we hoped those pieces would be restored in the DVD edition. And though some deleted scenes were indeed made available, there remain even more that were not.

Just as Superman II got a Richard Donner cut, there is now a petition for Warner Bros. to create Superman Returns: The Bryan Singer Cut, named for the movie's writer, producer, and director. These fans have taken what unreleased snippets they could find and strung together this trailer:

As an owner of the original Superman Returns DVD, I would buy another edition and so hope this petition succeeds — but I don't think it will. First, Superman Returns is likely to be dismissed in whatever film is next for the superhero; the potential for a reboot could be confused by further promotion of this film. Second, the Richard Donner cut was a unique situation in which studio politics prevented his vision for Superman II from being realized for more than two decades; I don't know of any similar dissatisfaction on Bryan Singer's part. Finally, since DVDs have regional releases, I'm not sure if it hurts, or is immaterial to, the cause that the petition is based in Argentina.

Nonetheless, you can follow the cause on Facebook or Twitter, though neither have been updated in the last two weeks, just two days after the above trailer was posted to YouTube. Perhaps this cause was just a superhero fly-by-night.

Hat tip to the BlueTights Network.

October 10th, 2004, was a terrible day. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Christopher Reeve — who for the last decade had fought not only a devastating spinal cord injury, but also a lack of support, funding, and research into curing this condition for millions worldwide — passed away.

Made famous by the Superman movies, Mr. Reeve was known to many only by that role, overlooking his political activism, family values, and talented filmography. This diversity was captured in A&E's biography, as I discovered when I played the DVD to a classroom of high school students, who were surprised by how little they knew of this actor. Several other books and documentaries published both since Mr. Reeve's accident and his passing have added more details and layers.

I am writing this blog post about my personal hero not on October 10th, but today, because this is the day Superman would've been 57. I could write much more about how he has inspired me, and how he embodies what a role model can and should be. But I'll keep this short and celebrate his life, not his death, by sharing his 1979 appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson — in my opinion, one of the two funniest people of the 20th century. Mr. Carson passed away just three months after Mr. Reeve, but in this video, we can see them both as we remember them, in their prime:

Hat tip to the L.A. Times.

Most comic book movies have been adaptations of concept rather than of story. What we've seen have not been translations plot-for-plot from one medium to another, but instead familiar characters and situations being used to invent new adventures for a new audience. Such is the case with the recent direct-to-DVD release Superman: Doomsday.

Despite being animated, this movie is not wholly based on the previous cartoon series, either. The voice cast is all-new, including Adam Baldwin, James Marsters, and Anne Heche. The animation style is slightly different — a bit darker and more detailed (the lines on Superman's face suggest an older, more pessimistic character; whereas Luthor looks leaner and younger). And the story's tone is markedly different from anything that's come before.

The movie's first half-hour is based on the 1993 landmark event: the death of Superman at the hands of the alien Doomsday. And the team responsible for this adaptation has done a fantastic job portraying that titular villain, for Doomsday as a mindless organic killing machine has been captured in all his animalistic and fearsome glory. In all his frenetic action sequences, I never once got the impression that he was angry or vengeful or in any other way emotional, but just a mindless automaton. The closest we get to expression is when Superman is the first to not fall to a single punch: Doomsday cocks his head, intrigued or confused as a dog might be — before quickly resuming the fight. Probably the most humanity exhibited in this entire sequence was by the audience at the fight's climax; Superman (particularly Christopher Reeve) is one of my heroes, and to see his death in any medium is distressing.

And that's an accurate word for this cartoon, which is far more violent than its predecessors. Though the film is judicious in exactly what gets shown, the aggression is nonetheless apparent. In one scene, the camera focuses on a soldier's head disappearing into Doomsday's gigantic fist; the screen pans up to Doomsday's face before we see the muscles of his arm twisting and a sickening crunch sounding. We may not have witnessed the murder, but it certainly leaves little to the imagination. Doomsday isn't the only heartless killer; we also see Luthor economically dispose of one of his hirelings. This is all in vast contrast to the Saturday morning cartoon. As far as I know, there was only one death in Superman: The Animated Series's entire five-year span, and that was the bloodless vaporization of Dan Turpin.

For a story about the death of Superman, this escalation was both necessary and appropriate — and it's still probably less violent than the graphic novels. Yet I was still shocked, being unaccustomed to seeing such slaughter in any Superman vehicle. Shock is a good thing, though; when a character or story becomes predictable is when it loses me as a viewer.

It was this captivating and extended opening sequence that kept me through the rest, though I found the follow-up a bit disappointing. It's not just that the parallels to the comic book inspiration disappear after Superman's death; fitting the entire "Death of Superman" / "Funeral For a Friend" / "Reign of the Superman" story, which originally took more than a year of weekly comics to tell, into a 75-minute movie would be a herculean task. But the original story they've crafted to follow the Doomsday blitzkrieg doesn't strike any chords of emotion or intrigue. It's instead a rather mundane plot with no surprise heroes, villains, appearances, or twists — something I'd expect to find in another episode of a Saturday morning cartoon, if I haven't already, and not in a once-in-a-lifetime comic book epic.

Even if the circumstances of Superman's death and return are not wholly true to the source material, they needn't be; this is a different story, in a different medium. The parts that are done well are done extremely well and make the entire package worth viewing, if not owning.

Reuters reports that geologists have found a naturally-occurring mineral matching the composition of the fictional kryptonite, as defined by its museum placard in Superman Returns. The authentic substance will, unfortunately, be known by the name "jadarite".

Scientific developments often imitates art, primarily when it comes to science fiction, as detailed in books such as I'm Working On That. So it's neat to see this trend continue with superheroes, even if it's an instance of nature and not manmade technology.

What other substances might they find next? There have been many varieties of kryptonite: green, the fatal classic; gold, which permanently reduces Kryptonians to mere mortals; red, which causes random mutations; and a surplus of single-instance, Bizarro, and alternative media forms, such as pink kryptonite, which alters the affected's sexual persuasion.

My favorite was an episode of The Adventures of Superman in which some thugs were using kryptonite to determine Superman's secret identity: whoever was affected by the passing rock must be the Man of Steel. But one man was unexpectedly impaired by the kryptonite, causing him to pass out. The catch was that, as long as he was unconscious, he was as invulnerable as Superman himself! What a catch-22.

There was also a reference to kryptonite in a comic book that looked at the inspiration people have drawn from Superman. A father worried for his son with leukemia — until the boy, with more confidence than anyone else in the hospital had, said, "Don't worry, Dad; they'll get the kryptonite out." Brave kid — just like the men who have played him. Is it any wonder my hero isn't an athlete or musician, but an actor and his role?

What are your favorite memories of Superman or kryptonite?

Whether it's my Superman dogtag or my Superman keychain or the contents of my bookshelf or the films I show in my classroom, it's not hard to discern my admiration for Superman and his embodiments. So it was inevitable, despite any lack of affection for Ben Affleck, that I see Hollywoodland.

I knew only that this film dramatized the death of actor George Reeves, who played Superman on the 1950s television show that I grew up watching. I did not know how Hollywoodland would do so, or if it would do so tastefully. As it turns out, the film is structured to parallel George Reeves' life with that of a fictional private detective, played by a famous actor I'd never heard of, Adrien Brody. The movie opens with Reeves' death and follows Brody's investigation into sasve, but also alternates with following Reeves' life from years before he was cast as Superman. The movie thus also ends with his death.

It's that past tense half of the film that the producers claim to be historically accurate, and while Brody is nonexistent, the facts he reveals and personalities he encounters are supposed to be true as well. Brody starts the show as a quiet mumbling type (which ironically is the kind of actor his character criticizes), but as the movie develops, so does Brody. We learn more about how he struggles with love, family, and self-identity, much as Reeves did. Though Superman may be the subject of the film, Brody is the star.

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In my quest for podcasts, I came across Supertalk Concern, a Superman show that doesn't limit itself to the Man of Steel. The latest episode has exciting scripting and production updates on live-action versions of Wonder Woman, The Flash, Justice League, and Watchmen. I'd be thrilled to see DC produce a film that'd succeed on the scale of Marvel's Spider-Man or X-Men.

But best of all in this podcast is a reading of a story the headline of which featured prominently in Superman Returns: "Why the World Doesn't Need a Superman". The show's host got his hands on the Daily Planet newspaper prop used in the movie, and it features actual articles, advertisements, and more. Though his delivery is not very elocutionary, the content of the article is interesting, proposing that, though Superman inspired humanity to achieve piece, it also made them sloppy and unable to care for themselves, knowing that Krypton's Last Son would save them. The message is mixed — though we can claim our independence in his absence, the blood is on his hands of those who have died who he would have saved by his presence — but the value is not just in the rhetoric, but in the insight it provides to its author. If we compare her theories to Superman's reception upon landing the airplane in the baseball stadium, it's astounding to acknowledge how positively everyone welcomed him back — perhaps everyone but Lois, the article's Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Methinks this is personal!

Courtesy Showbits reader Gene comes more film news from the DC universe. This interview with Bruce Timm looks at an upcoming series of direct-to-video animated films that, unlike Mystery of the Batwoman, are not based directly on animated series. Among them, look for a revamp of Superman that will pit two popular bad boys against each other: Adam Baldwin (Firefly's Jayne) as Superman, and James Marsters (Buffy's Spike) as Lex Luthor. Cool!

A week from today marks the four-year anniversary of the release of Daredevil:

It was a Valentine's Day I remember well, having spent it in the theater among fellow lonely geeks. Marvel plans to commemorate this milestone by putting yet another well-known actor into an incongruous superhero role: Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider.

Frankly, I'm not impressed. Neither Daredevil nor Ghost Rider are the stuff legends are made of, and Marvel's attempts to bring these lesser-known heroes to life have been less than successful. The Punisher? Forgettable. Blade? Eventually despicable. Even better-known heroes, such as The Incredible Hulk and The Fantastic Four, have had their share of theatrical bombs. And if you look at Marvel's intentions for the next three years, you'll see that the opportunity for future failures is staggering: Captain America, Doctor Strange, Nick Fury, Thor… and, of course, sequels to previous critical failures but box office successes.

So what makes for a good translation from pulp comics to silver screen? One would think that putting the characters in the hands of directors who know and love them would ensure they are treated faithfully and with respect — but Bryan Singer defenestrated that notion with his masterful interpretations of both Superman and the X-Men, despite having never read a comic book prior to accepting the assignments.

Is it the original character? Certainly a strong foundation and good writing are essential; both have contributed to Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man becoming cross-culture icons, even before their cinematic adaptations. It's no coincidence that those films (or at least the ones lacking George Clooney and Richard Pryor) have also been well-received by geeks and non-geeks alike.

Does this mean we are to limit ourselves to storied superheroes who have been around for forty to seventy years, dismissing any young, fresh characters? Such a severe restriction would discourage innovation in Hollywood and ultimately hurt all parties involved — especially the audience.

What, then, are useful metrics for predicting a superhero's success? What are fair and accurate expectations when indulging in such films? Can — should — they be held to the same standards as any other cinematic enterprise?