wonder woman | the m0vie blog

Justice League Unlimited – For the Man Who Has Everything

Posted on December 18, 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. We’re winding down now, having worked our way through the nine animated features, so I’m just going to look at a few odds-and-ends, some of the more interesting or important episodes that the DC animated universe has produced. The one adaptation of his work Alan Moore is actually happy with is well worth a look.

Van, when you were born, it was the happiest day of my life. When I first saw your beautiful little face, your tiny fingers squeezed my hand so tight, like you never wanted to let go. I’ve watched every step, every struggle…I-I’ve… but, Van… Oh, Rao help me… but I don’t think you’re real. I don’t think any of this is-is real…

– Superman confronts the fact that none of this is real

Alan Moore is one of the best comic book writers out there – and he’s perhaps the greatest writer ever to work with the character of Superman. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? is an oft-referenced fond farewell to the Silver Age Superman (which prompted a similar storyline for Batman with Neil Gaiman’s Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? in the wake of the character’s recent “death”), but I’ve always preferred his one-shot story For The Man Who Has Everything. Adapted into animated form as one of the first episodes of the relaunched Justice League Unlimited series.

Super-dad!

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: alan moore, batman, black mercy, dave gibbons, dc animated universe, dc comics, dc universe, dcau, for the man who has everything, Joe Chill, justice league, justice league unlimited, krypton, mongol, Smallville, superman, wonder woman | 7 Comments »

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

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: Wonder Woman

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. This is one of the animated feature films involving the characters from the creators of the original animated shows.

Did you… did you stop Ares?

No. I didn’t. I couldn’t.

What? Why not?

I had to save you.

(slap!)

Ow!

– Diana clarifies to Steve that she isn’t a damsel in distress

I have to confess, I’ve never been grabbed by Wonder Woman as a concept. Is she a feminist? A socially conscious superhero? A female superman? A superhero who is willing to take a life if it’s necessary? A diplomat? She’s been all these things and many more, which is perhaps why it’s hard to get a handle on her – which is perhaps why it’s difficult to care for her. Her origins cannot be summed up in a single sentence like Batman (an orphaned “rich kid with issues… lots of issues”) or Superman (who Grant Morrison managed to sum up in eight words) – her origin will likely eat up at least a paragraph of this review. As such, you can understand my surprise that Wonder Woman is perhaps the best DC comics animated adaptation they have produced to date.

Taking a swing at the character...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alfred molina, amazons, ares, batman, dc, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, feminism, greek, hades, joss whedon, keri russell, nathan fillon, Paradise Island, rosario dawson, Steve Trevor, superhero, virginia madsen, wonder woman | 4 Comments »

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 »

Grant Morrison’s Run on Justice League of America – The Deluxe Edition, Vol. 3-4 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 13, 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 Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths later on today, I thought I’d take a look at Grant Morrison’s graphic novel which inspired it in someway. However, I figure – given that large debt that the entire Justice League cartoon owes Morrison’s iconic tenure on Justice League of America – it’s time to take a look at the latter half of Morrison’s run on the title.

We have no powers, there are millions of them and there’s a child in there who needs us to save the world. Let’s go.

– another day at the office for Superman

I remarked in my review of the first two deluxe hardcovers collecting his work on the series that I was perhaps a lot less impressed than most with Morrison’s work on the title. It was grand and bombastic, but it ended up feeling more than a little hallow, especially measured against some of his bolder efforts within the superhero genre. Although time and a few re-reads have softened my perspective quite a bit, I will concede that I don’t measure this as the writer’s best work. It’s epic and smart and fun, but never really becomes anything too much more.

But, then again, they are the Justice League. If I want deep characterisation of philosophical meanderings, I can check out a different book.

It actually looks quite peaceful when you're not saving it...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: aquaman, batman, Comics, dark knight returns, grant morrison, Grantmorrison, Greenlantern, hal jordan, jla, justice league, justice league of america, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Kyle Rayner, morrison, review, superman, Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, the shaggy, ultramarine corps, wally west, wonder woman, world war 3, world war iii | Leave a comment »

Justice League: A Better World

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Darren

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 »

Non-Review Review: Justice League – New Frontier

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Darren

Justice League: New Frontier is probably the best of the animated direct-to-DVD feature produced by Warner Brothers. It’s an adaptation of Darwyn Cooke’s superb New Frontier, a look at the gap between the Golden Age and the Silver Age of comic book superheroes, an attempt to offer an in-universe explanation for the shift in tone and content in the medium between the forties and the sixties. It’s also a damn good exploration of the shift in American public culture and consciousness, exploring the difference in America’s attitude towards the government, the attempt to reach the stars and the fall of McCarthy-ism. It’s also a damn fine bit of animation.

Some sort of League... possibly for Justice...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, batman, brooke shields, Comics, darwyn cooked, dc comics, film, golden age, hal jordan, john heard, justice league, justice league: new frontier, Justice League: The New Frontier, Justiceleague, Korean War, kyle maclachlin, lucy lawless, Martian Manhunter, Movies, neil patrick harris, new frontier, non-review review, review, silver age, wonder woman | 1 Comment »

Is TV the Natural Medium of Comic Book Adaptations?

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Darren

It recently surfaced that David E. Kelley (creator of Ally McBeal and The Practice) is working on a Wonder Woman television show. Presumably it will be somewhat less campy than the Linda Carter version. Last month news broke that there are plans for a television version of Neil Gaiman’s epic story The Sandman. Later this month we’re see the airing of a live action version of Robert Kirkman’s critically acclaimed zombie comic book The Walking Dead. Part of me wonders if this is the logical shift in the market. After all, comic books arguably have more in common with television than they do with movies. So is this the real future of these adaptations?