dcu | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Green Lantern – Emerald Knights

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Darren

In many ways, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights can be seen as a counterpart to the earlier Batman: Gotham Knight. Beyond the fact that both contain “knight” in the title, both animated films were released as promotional tie-ins to major motion pictures featuring the characters in question, and both are structured as vignettes rather than one continuous storyline. Don’t let that fool you. Unlike the incredibly uneven Gotham Knight, Emerald Knights is actually quite a worthy little movie.

Good to the Corps...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Abin Sur, alan moore, batman: gotham knight, Christopher Nolan, Comics, dc animated universe, DC Universe Animated Original Movie, DC Universe Animated Original Movies, dcau, dcu, Emerald Knights, geoff johns, green lantern, Green Lantern: First Flight, Movies, non-review review, peter tomasi, review | 2 Comments »

Batman Beyond: Out of the Past (Review)

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. This is the last post of the week, and so I thought I should focus on where it all started, with the animated Bruce Wayne.

I don’t think Batman Beyond gets the credit that it so sorely deserves. It was really the first time that it was explicitly acknowledged that Bruce Wayne couldn’t be Batman forever – that, unlike so many other members of the DC pantheon, the character was a mere mortal who would pass away and that he couldn’t wear the cowl forever. The animated television show was the first to wonder what would happen to the concept of Batman, if Bruce couldn’t do it anymore. Would the hero die out and fade from memory? Or would he live on, somehow, enduring forever?

Batman always was a showman…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, batman, Batman Beyond, bruce wayne, dc animated universe, dc comics, dc universe, dcau, dcu, grant morrison, Grantmorrison, kevin conroy, out of the past, paul dini, Talia Al Ghul, Terry McGinnis | 4 Comments »

Batman: The Animated Series – Almost Got ‘Im

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. Given that we looked at Batman: Gotham Knight earlier today, I thought we might take a look at another series of vignettes related to the Batman – this time from the perspective of his bad guys.

Greetings, Batman! You have taken the bait, as I knew you would. Now, prepare to meet your end, within my Aviary of Doom

Aviary of WHAT?

Yeesh, Pengers! How corny can you get?

Fah! Just because you mundane miscreants have no drama in your souls! Anyway, there he was in my av… uh, big birdhouse…

– The Penguin, Poison Ivy and the Joker discuss the state of theatricality amongst modern supervillains

Batman: The Animated Series perhaps represents the best adaptation of the Batman mythos in any medium outside of comics. No other iteration of the character has successfully managed to take in virtually all facets of the Caped Crusader without breaking a sweat – the show can do drama, action, gothic thriller and even comedy. Almost Got ‘Im is a fun little episode which centres around a bunch of supervillains trading stories about that one time that they almost killed the Batman. It’s mostly entertaining just to watch Batman’s eclectic selection of bad guys sitting around and playing cards while talking about business and “you know who”, but each of the schemes is a wacky and crazy death trap straight out of a hokier comic (from a giant dollar coin to exploding pumpkins to laughter-powered electric chair). The episode works because it treats all of this like it’s a regular occurence in Gotham, and these ridiculous plots are just what the villains get up to when there’s nothing better going on.

Card-carrying villains...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: almost got him, almost got im, animated, art, batman, batman: the animated series, Batusi, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dcu, Grantmorrison, joker, Penguin, Television, two face | 3 Comments »

Justice League – Twilight, Parts 1 & 2 (Review)

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. Earlier today, I looked at Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, so I thought I might explore a Justice League episode which was heavy on Superman, Darkseid and Batman…

One of the things that Bruce Timm and his talented bunch of writers found when producing Superman: The Animated Series was that the Man of Steel simply didn’t have as strong a supporting cast of bad guys as Batman had. Without such a recognisable and eclectic collection of rogues to act as foils to their lead, the guys at the DC Animated Universe decided to co-opt in some outside help. In particular the creations of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World. Sure, these characters had been related to the Superman mythos all along (first appearing in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen of all places), so it wasn’t a stretch. Although Twilight certainly isn’t the last appearance of the New Gods (as Kirby named them) within the DC Animated Universe, it is perhaps the climax. And, quite possibly, the best.

You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: animated, anti-life equation, apokalips, batman, brainiac, bruce timm, darkseid, dc, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dcu, fourth world, jack kirby, justice league, lex luthor, new gods, ron perlman, superman, twilight | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Superman/Batman – Apocalypse

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. This is one of the “stand-alone” animated movies produced by the creative team that gave us the television shows.

Prompted by the massive success of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is the first direct sequel in this line of animated films. It adapts the second arc of Jeph Loeb’s Superman/Batman run, and contains several direct references to the first film (including a news report covering “President Luthor’s impeachment”). While the first film worked on the sheer fun of a super-powered buddy cop film, there’s admittedly less to endear this particular movie to an audience – most notably because this same production team had already animated it as Little Girl Lost, an episode of Superman: The Animated Series.

Some looks CAN kill…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: andre braugher, animated, batman, Batman in film, clancy brown, darkseid, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dcu, Ed McGuinness, film, kevin conroy, Movie, new gods, non-review review, review, summer glaue, superman, superman/batman, superman/batman: apocalypse, Susan Eisenberg, Warner Brothers, wonder woman | Leave a comment »

Justice League – Maid of Honour

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. With the review of Wonder Woman earlier today, I thought I’d take a look at one of the better Wonder Woman episodes of the DC animated universe.

While Batman: The Animated Series leaned more towards noir crime stories or gothic tragedies, and Superman: The Animated Series favoured high-concept science-fiction and space opera, Justice League offered action adventure stories, typically told in two or three half-hour episodes for a somewhat grander scale than most of the episodes of the earlier series allowed. In particular, Maid of Honour is essentially a superhero taken on a quintessential Bond film.

They share quite a Bond...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: animation, batman, batman: the animated series, bruce wayne, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dcu, Diana Prince, justice league, Justiceleague, maid of honour, Martian Manhunter, superman: the animated series, Vandal Savage, wonder woman | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Justice League – Crisis on Two Earths

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Darren

Okay, well maybe it’s not quite “stand-alone”, seen as it’s based off a script that was intended to bridge the two animated series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Anyway, some of these movies – such as Justice League: New Frontier – are excellent examples of Western animation in their right. Some – such as Wonder Woman – are spectacular introductions to characters that perhaps never really got the attention that they so sorely deserved. On the other hand, some are just animated versions of a Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster production.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is one of those.

Owlman is a bird of prey...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: batman, crime syndicate, crime syndicate of america, crisis on two earths, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dcu, grant morrison, green lantern, Greenlantern, hal jordan, james woods, Johnny Quick, justice league, justice league of america, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Justiceleague, Martian Manhunter, non-review review, owlman, power ring, review, superman, william baldwin, wonder woman | Leave a comment »

Justice League: A Better World

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. Tomorrow I’ll be reviewing Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, so I thought it might be worth a look at what a world run by an evil Justice League might look like.

One of the central challenges that the iconic Justice League characters have had to face over the years has been the way that the comic book world has slow and sometimes subtly morphed into something far more sinister than the bright-coloured origin stories of the forties, fifties or even sixties. There was a time when supervillains were a relatively harmless sort, the hero would always save everyone’s life and there would be a “happy ever after” ending thrown on – most obviously in the Silver Age, which produced characters like the modern Flash and Green Lantern. Even the characters who were originally somewhat darker and edgier – Superman and Batman, for example, were originally relatively indifferent to human life – passed through this phase with a healthy respect for a game based around rules – the first being “thou shalt not kill”. However, times changed. Villains went from being theives and irritations to being murderers and rapists. Naturally, the fact that no prison could hold a popular bad guy long enough kinda undermines the good that these heroes do – the Joker is always going to kill more people unless he is eventually killed.Sure, there’s comic book logic at play here – the same way that having genius heroes hasn’t altered the way normal people live too much – but at some point the old fashioned values seem a little outmoded. Somebody suggests that a line should be crossed. Various iterations of the characters have tackled the issue in multiple ways, and A Better World is the attempt by Bruce Timm and the writers of the DC animated universe to address it.

Being the group's plucky comic relief isn't without risks...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: a better world, animated, batman, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dcu, flash, gotham city, green lantern, justice league, justice league unlimited, justice lords, lex luthor, superhero, superman, wonder woman | 5 Comments »

Justice League – Hereafter (Parts I & II)

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. With the review of Superman: Doomsday earlier, I thought it might be worth taking a look at some of the other times Superman has “died” in these animated stories.

Despite the rather large cast that the writers and producers used in producing Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, I always felt that the show was better with a more narrow focus. Of course, new characters like Green Lantern and Wonder Woman got their own episodes, but Batman and Superman were rarely the focus of attention – perhaps because they had each had their own television show beforehand, and ample time for exposure. Hereafter is a two-part episode which really feels like two separate stories, both of which are fundamentally about Superman. The first is an exploration of who the hero is, based around removing him from the fictional universe and examining the holes left in his absence. The second half explores what makes Superman a hero, if it isn’t his collection of superpowers.

Part of me wonders where Clark Kent is buried...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: a world without superman, batman, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dcu, doomsday, Dwayne McDuffie, hereafter, justice league, justice league unlimited, Snapper Carr, superman, toyman, Vandal Savage, wonder woman | Leave a comment »

DCAU Fortnight Kicks Off!

Posted on December 4, 2010 by Darren

Right, I am taking a little break from work and blogging and everything for the next little while, just trying to clear my head a bit, so I won’t be around quite as much as I would like to be. However, I do have a treat for the nerdier children of the nineties out there – I’m going to take a retrospective look at the animated DC universe, the Warner Brothers cartoons produced during the nineties and into the last decade which gave us Batman: The Animated Series among many other things. Anyone who grew up during the decade can’t possibly have missed these wonderful little shows, which perhaps got me interested in comic books in the first place.

And he always times it juuust right to catch the bolt of lightning...

Note: Over the course of this two week event (and a schedule can be found below), I will occasionally return to cover something big or huge (like our scheduled Tron: Legacy review, for example). I also hope to have more time to get back into reading and engaging with other bloggers. It has been far too long.

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Filed under: Comics, Television | Tagged: animation, arts, batman, batman: the animated series, Comics, dc, dc animated universe, dc comics, dcau, dcau fortnight, dcu, justice league, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Justiceleague, superman, superman: the animated series, Warner Brothers | Leave a comment »