Superman: Doomsday
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| DC Universe Original Animated Movies: |
| Superman: Doomsday | Justice League: The New Frontier | Batman: Gotham Knight | Wonder Woman | Theen Titans: The Judas Contrect |
| Superman: Doomsday
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Superman: Doomsday is a direct-to-dvd animated film written by Dwayne Capize alongside with Bruce Timm. It will be a rough adaptation of the landmark Death and Return of Superman story from the 90's.
The film belongs to a line of three releases by Warner Bros. Animation scheduled for release in late 2007 and early 2008, the other two being Justice League: New Frontier and Teen Titans: The Judas Contract.[1]
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[edit] Setting
Unlike previous DC Universe animated works done by Bruce W. Timm, Superman: Doomsday has both a more realistic setting and drawing style. Unlike the version from Timm's DC animated universe, the Metropolis of this film is not a futuristic utopia and is similar to real world metropolis in the sense that its architecture does not keep the same language in all the buildings, being a collection of different stiles and shapes.
The character design keeps the same tone as the setting, being more realistic in drawing style and in touch with the real world than the utopic, uniform and stylish DC animated universe. However, from what it can be apreciated by comparing graphics and design, it seems not like a complete antithesis, but more like a synthesis of both the drawing style of the DC animated universe and the early 90s DC Universe. In fact, some characters look physically similar: Superman almost only different because of some bone lines in his face that makes him look somewhat older, Luthor is a slimmer version, and Jimmy Olsen and Doomsday are very similar.
Whether it is an intentional reference or not, those were also characteristic of the early 90s, which is also the period in which the Death of Superman story-arc was originally published. Other time setting notable characteristics are:
- The clothing fashion: which look closer to what was worn in the early 90s. Some instances are Jimmy's earring, Clark and Jimmy's slacker style with their hair barely combed and their shirt out, Lois skirt and tight clothes, Mercy's casual dressing, and the Toy-man's emo, dark or gothic look.
- The grim themes: Death, murder, a dark Toyman, unethical cloning.
- The violence: Superman, Toyman, Mercy and Doomsday die. Doomsday kill every person (and animal) on his way.
- The realistic personal lives: Jimmy's job choice and greed, the sexual life of Lois and Superman.
- Cloning: Cloning was a common theme in the comics of the early 90s (some examples of characters that got involved with cloning back then are Spider-man, Lex Luthor, Superman, Cyclops and Jean Gray).
[edit] Characters
- Superman
- Lex Luthor
- Lois Lane
- Doomsday
- Dark Superman
- Fortress Robot
- Jimmy Olsen
- Mercy Graves
- Toyman
- Perry White
- Martha Kent
- Officer Tucker
- Newscaster
- Kevin Smith
[edit] Plot
Lexcorp's researchers discover an alien ship in their excavation, and before Lex Luthor's eyes end up killed by Doomsday, the creature inside, who turned out to be a war weapon being that turns out to be incontrollable and is put to sleep and sent to earth.
Doomsday kills everything in his path until he is stopped by Superman, at the cost of his life. After the funeral Lois, who has been his couple and sexual partner for six months, notices Clark’s absence and Martha Kent's presence at the funeral, so she seeks her and reveals her she has realized his identity and tells her she loved him. Jimmy Olsen decides to leave his job in professional journalism to a more profitable one within the field, and Perry resumes drinking.
When the Toyman kidnaps a children's bus, Superman apparently comes out of his grave and rescue them. But he turns out to be a clone made by Lex Luthor, that he controls thanks to a piece of kryptonite within a lead case he placed in the clone's brain. When he hears Toyman killed a girl, the clone snaps and decides to kill him, then he decides to take control of the city. Meanwhile, the body of the original Superman, which is kept by Luthor, is stolen, as it turns out, by his Fortress of Solitude Robot.
Lois decides to face Luthor and seduces him to inject him a sedative as soon as it is possible to her in order to check his files along with Jimmy. They discover Luthor has developed an army of clones of Superman and get in deep trouble as Luthor wakes up and threatens to kill them, just to be stopped by the original clon, who has gotten rid of the kryptonite implant. Luthor escapes to a room that emits red sun radiation, but the clone locks him in and throws its entire structure through the building leaving him for death.
After the city and the President of the United States declare war on the false Superman, as the army faces the clone unable to effectively attack him, the real Superman returns and fights him with the aid of Lois, who retrieves a kryptonite gun for him.
At the end, Superman officially reveals Lois his identity and Luthor survives.
[edit] Critical reception
(This section was originally taken from Wikipedia[2])
Following the original screening at Comic Con, and its release on DVD, the movie got mostly positive reviews:
- Some reviewers at www.ugo.com commented it was a marked improvement to other recent DC animated adaptations, with some commenting it raised the bar for the follow-up to the live-action Superman Returns which had been released the previous summer.[3]
- Many newsrama.com reviewers agreed it was also better in comparison to the recent animated films Marvel Studios had released based on their characters (such as Ultimate Avengers), in part due to the more adult and action-packed story in keeping with its PG-13 rating.[4]
- dvd.ign.com reviews spoke highly of James Marsters' and Adam Baldwin's voice acting as Lex Luthor and Superman, while reviews of Anne Heche's portrayal of Lois Lane were mixed.[5]
- DVDTalk.com, praised the film's look and its technical presentation[6].
- The Top 100 DVD sales chart for 9/18/07-9/23/07 revealed that the film was placed at #4, and was two spots ahead of the season six release of Smallville, a Superman related television show.[7]
- Variety made a report three months after the DVD's release, on DTV movies becoming very popular, and revealed that the DVD sold 600,000 copies, 30% more than what the studio predicted.[8]
Among the negative comments, DVDTalk.com also called the film "a massive disappointment" and disliked the film's short running time and its lack of adherence to the storyline of The Death of Superman comics.[6]
[edit] References
- ↑ Superman, DC Comics headed for series (24 July 2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-11.
- ↑ en.wikipedia - Superman:_Doomsday
- ↑ Superman Doomsday Review
- ↑ SDCC '07: SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY REVIEW - NEWSARAMA
- ↑ IGN: Superman Doomsday Review
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 DVD Talk Review: Superman - Doomsday
- ↑ Touchdown for Marshall on DVD charts | Entertainment | Film | Reuters
- ↑ Direct-to-DVD movies growing in popularity - Entertainment News, Weekly TV, Media - Variety
