Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Superman / Doomsday - the video

Anyone get a copy of the new animated movie that came out last week?

I'm dying to see it.

I have a copy on hold and I hope to grab it tomorrow.

According to Newsarama, don't expect anything resembling a faithful adaptation.

It covered the death of Superman (minus the Justice League bits) much like the comics did. The return was nothing like the comic books.

I don't know if I'm too close to the comics, but I wasn't impressed.

I seen it a couple of times, now. There are some wonderful things about it, and some not wonderful things, from my perspective.

The best stuff is the arc of the Superman/Lois relationship. It manages to be adult without being gratuitous, and makes Lois seem really smart, which I always like. The voice work by Ann Heche is phenominal, and I am not even a huge fan of hers (does have huge fans)? Baldwin's performance is also great.

I also liked that they placed Luthor at the center of the story. This Luthor is much more like the Birthright Luthor--younger, much smarter, even more ruthless, etc. It's a little unbelievable that Lex does what he does, seemingly so quickly. On the other hand, he's so wicked smart that you could believe he had the whole thing set up and waiting to go, pending the procurement of the sample (I'm trying not to spoil too much).

The main problem to me is that the source material was SO epic, spread over so many comics, and this movie in comparison feels really SMALL. Here, Doomsday comes across more as a random serial killer, and Superman's death is a sudden shock, almost like a drive-by shooting rather than the conclusion to a titanic struggle. In the comics, the presence of the other heroes, and their inability to stop Doomsday, made Superman and his sacrifice all the more grand, I think. In the movie, the death HAS to happen really fast (or the movie will be too long). That suddenness of death, it's unexpected quality, is interesting, especially since Superman is a character who would be surprised to have a bloody nose, let alone major internal bleeding. I wish they could have done MORE with that surprise, though--found some way during the battle for Supes, Lois, Jimmy or Luthor to express surprise and shock. Superman is supposed to be invulnerable, but here's this hairy monster knocking his guts out.

Having said that, everything AFTER the death is really good. The filmmakers focus on Lois, Martha, Jimmy, Perry and Luthor, and that really makes sense to me. It's quality storytelling, with a depth of emotion rarely seen in earlier Timm work. Also, the final conflict between the real Superman and the "imposter" is creepy, kind of cool, and more psychologically interesting than the sprawling story from the comics.

The Death of Superman was a sprawling, unprecedented event in comics. Superman: Doomsday is a pretty good (but not great) self-contained Superman story.

i thought it was an excellent adaption, i didnt really feel like going through the exact story if you could just tweak it.
I thought the movie itself though, very violent, different then what i expected but well within the realm of the way the story went, but for something like a cartoon, just a little surprising.
I listened to part of the commentary and basically they had to widdle the movie down, they could not present the whole story.

I hope they do more DVD movies of stuff I might be more interested in...

I don't think I can get too excited about a movie adaptation of the comic fiasco that was pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the near-collapse of the comic industry and the bankrupting/closing of numerous comic stores across the country. I worked in a comic store at the time and the whole death of Superman thing was so overhyped and ridiculous. With it's pre-bagged multi-cover horsesh**t. I remember almost feeling sorry for all those sucker non-comic readers who bought into the whole manufactured collectible thing. It was like the Franklin Mint took over DC comics. Unforgivable.
-Sorry, had to rant, I guess I'm still not over it after all these years.

yes and of course DC invented the whole trend of bagged, multi covered, embossed, holographic comics.
The comic stores are just as guilty, i didnt own a comic store but i had a nice little empire at the local flea market,lol, i know. But compared to comic stores i was making a killing. Comics like the Valiant line of books was where it really started with investing in comics hoping they go up, but there was a limited run on the issues, it did have value, but try to explain the lack of value in a comic that have 3 million printed whether it be death of superman, x men 1, or spawn, no value in mass production but people still bought it, the comic goes up in value and then eventually you find that anyone whoever wanted the comic has now got it, and there are 2.4 million copies available for sale.

I just saw this tonight and I was kinda suprised by how violent it was! The body count was pretty high! And I agree with Doublechinner, they did a realy good job with Supes and Lois' relationship but I felt it fell short of the "epic" feel I thought it would have. Overall though it was a very enjoyable watch.. totally off topic but on the DVD there is a preview for the new frontier, that looks awesome! I'm digging these straight to dvd movies, I say bring them on!

Uranus lad said this:

"I don't think I can get too excited about a movie adaptation of the comic fiasco that was pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the near-collapse of the comic industry and the bankrupting/closing of numerous comic stores across the country. I worked in a comic store at the time and the whole death of Superman thing was so overhyped and ridiculous. With it's pre-bagged multi-cover horsesh**t. I remember almost feeling sorry for all those sucker non-comic readers who bought into the whole manufactured collectible thing. It was like the Franklin Mint took over DC comics. Unforgivable.
-Sorry, had to rant, I guess I'm still not over it after all these years."

Given your name, i think we all understand.

New Frontier? Darwyn Cooke's story chock-full of Silver-agey characters? THAT sounds more my speed. I'll likely buy that one.