When I was growing up there was a golden rule of sorts: "if it's DC and it's animated, you're in for a treat!" This rule has held true for most of my life. From classics like Batman: Mask of Phantasm to newer additions like Justice Leauge: Flashpoint Paradox, DC had set the universal gold standard of the animated adaptation. This held true until around 2011 when they introdued us to a new animated universe designed to emulate DC's failed New 52 relaunch. Starting with Justice League: War these films began to dip in quality from decent to okay, okay to mediocre, and in some cases like Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, just plain abysmal. It had gotten to a point for me personally where I had lost any enthusiasm I had for these features, which finally brins us to the topic of this piece. Last week DC released their latest animated feature: Death of Superman.
Now when the first advertisements of this were released, I was pessimistic to put it lightly. Due to a very disappointing track record of late, I was convinced this film would be garbage. The only evidence I really even needed to vindicate these feelings was that rather than adapting the story straight from the 1980s iconic storyline by Dan Jurgens, they would instead remodel the story to fit in their New52 AU. However, there were two things that convinced me to give this film a chance, first was that a facebook group called the DC Comic Nerds (a page that I have a good deal of respect for) gave it a glowing review, but more importantly they brought to my attention that the screenplay of this feature was written by Peter Tomasi.
For those of you who aren't big comic readers, and haven't followed me since I was with moviepilot, Peter Tomasi was the writer of the Rebirth title of Superman. Now this run has a bit of a personal significance for me. When I was a writer for moviepilot, I wrote a review of the second issue of this run lauding it for it's ability to show Superman struggle with the role of fatherhood. This piece is, to date, probably my favorite piece I have ever written, and apparently I wasn't the only one who liked it as moviepilot found the piece good enough to edit and publish directly to their facebook page (it got over 7,000 reads). It was the first piece I recieved any acclaim for and is the reason I got heavily involved into blogging. The point is, that if it weren't for Peter Tomasi and his run on Superman, I might not have this blog right now, and you wouldn't be here reading, so at the very least I owed the film a watch for his sake. What's more is that I loved it.
Leave it to Peter J. Tomasi, the man who rejuvinated Superman after his New 52 slump, to bring life back to the animated films of DC. Tomasi constructs a story that keeps the general feel of the iconic storyline while simultaneously improving uopn it at times. The film's action is intense and the emotions are all over the place as you watch the man of steel struggle with his most deadly foe we've ever seen in both books and cinema. Doomsday's build up throughout the film is akin to a horror movie monster, and his power is enhanced even more by taking on an A tier Justice League as opposed to the B squad from the book. While Clark's dynamic with Lois is different as well, the way Tomasi handles their story is beautiful and brilliant. It really just shows how much this guy loves writing Superman and the universe around him.
I honestly would give the film a solid 9 out of 10. The movie does a great job of not only telling this story, but providing the set up for the follow up: Reign of the Superman by using cameos to establish and show the pertinent characters that are going to be the centerpiece of the next film. It's good to be able to recommend a DC animated feature again!
I hope you enjoy the movie, and I hope you enjoyed this edition of Comic Relief!
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