BEFORE: I've got a whole week planned of DC Comics-based films, riffing off from "Joker" and ending next Monday (?) with "Shazam!". And it's extremely helpful that the five animated films I've had on my list for a couple of years form a very neat little chain that gets me from one to the other. I usually find that similar animated films use the same voice actors over and over, so once I get on an animation kick, it makes sense to stay there. But what are the odds against those five films forming a chain that links to ONE live-action DC film and ends with another? I can't even calculate it.
Problem is, I've been adding to the January chain pretty freely, "Stand Up Guys" and "Once Upon a Time in America" weren't part of the original plan, and now I also see a way to add TWO MORE animated DC superhero films to the mix, so it looks like a series of double-features this week until I get myself back on track. I know what film kicks off the romance chain on February 1, but I have to double-up now if I want to get there right on time. Thankfully these Superman/Batman films are pretty short, none of them are over three hours like "The Irishman" was, most of them run about 75 to 90 minutes, so I think I can handle this.
Frances Conroy carries over from "Joker", where she played the Joker's mother - today she's the voice of Martha Kent (does this mean that Superman and the Joker are half-brothers?)
THE PLOT: After being poisoned by sun radiation, a dying Superman decides to fulfill his lifelong dreams while Lex Luthor has his own agenda.
AFTER: I remember reading the comics that this animated film is based on, it was a 12-issue series written by Grant Morrison that ran outside of Superman's regular continuity - this was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it gave the writer creative freedom, he could tell whatever Superman story he wanted, and didn't have to worry about whether these events fit between Superman's battle with General Zod taking place in Action Comics or his fight against terrorists in the middle east taking place in the Superman title. But that's also bad, because regular monthly readers of those titles are trying to keep his ongoing narrative straight, plus keeping track of little things, like whether Lois knows that Superman and Clark Kent are the same person, or whether they're currently dating, engaged, married or what. (It's something of a cycle, thanks to constant re-boots of the DC Universe.)
And this series wasn't a re-boot, it was more like a re-vamp, the author was trying to make Superman stories that were "timeless" and not rooted to one time period in his life, something that was universal and enjoyable, that didn't require reading a lot of other issues to get the proper background to set the stories up. Another good/bad situation - good for new readers, bad for long-time ones. Since the film follows (essentially) the same story arc as the 12-issue series, there are a lot of those "big surprise" moments that were designed to come on the last page of issue 3, to make sure that you also then bought issue #4. It's almost like there are six little stories here Frankensteined together to make a big one, but then characters sort of come and go, plotlines are introduced and then dispatched (or forgotten about) and the whole thing ends up with a lot of plot holes, and if you ask me, it's fairly incoherent if you're looking for a story that starts at point A (Issue 1) and ends at point B (issue 12).
Actually, I take that back, because the story does sort of manage to circle around to where it began, or at least an echo of where it began appears at the end. It's the loose threads in-between that drive me bonkers, like two other Kryptonians that are introduced in the middle of the story and then their fate is settled shortly thereafter, and they're never spoken of again. Superman thought he was the LAST survivor of Krypton, meeting two other Kryptonians should have been a bigger deal (they were off-planet on assignment when Krypton was destroyed, apparently.) But, wouldn't you know it, they're kind of dicks and they want to re-make Earth into New Krypton, so as soon as they get a very convenient form of Kryptonite poisoning, into the Phantom Zone they go, and we're on to the next non-connecting plot point.
The first episode has Lex Luthor commanding some kind of remote monster creature that's aboard a space mission to explore the sun. What's really weird is that for once, a sci-fi plot acknowledges that the sun is 8 light-minutes away from the Earth, so there's an 8-minute delay if Lex wants to get the creature to DO anything. But this is handled all wrong, if you ask me - it seems like Lex then has to do something 8 minutes before it has to be done, to counter-act this delay - only, how does he know what to do, 8 minutes in advance? NITPICK POINT - the real way this would work would be that the remote-controlled creature would just be incredibly slow to react to anything (it would take 8 minutes for the sensory data to go from the creature to Lex, and another 8 minutes for his command on how to react to reach the creature - so the creature would always be 16 minutes too late for every action. That's just not very efficient!)
So Luthor's plan to sabotage the space mission gets ruined when Superman saves the day - but in the process, he gets too close to the sun and absorbs too much solar energy. Remember, Superman gets his super-powers from Earth's yellow sun, because he was born under Krypton's red (weaker) sun. So here some writer wanted to make a statement - some energy from the sun is good, but too much will kill him? I don't know, this sounds like N.P. #2 to me - I'm trying to think of a good human equivalent, like Vitamin C is good, but too much vitamin C is lethal? No, that doesn't work. Maybe water - the human body needs water, but if you drink excessive amounts, it can be lethal. OK, so the sun's energy is like water to Superman - he needs it to survive, but too much will kill him. Still, WTF? Luthor's plan succeeds in the end, and Superman is dying.
But this prompts him to do what he's always wanted to do, bring Lois Lane to his Fortress of Solitude for a night of romance. Sure, because a terminal illness is so very sexy... First he finally (although he's done it before in the regular comics) reveals to her that Superman and Clark Kent are the same person. It's funny, she's an investigative reporter, so therefore smart, but in the early part of the Superman/Lois cycle, why is she do dumb about this? Here, in this storyline, after he reveals his identity to her and they spend a wonderful night together, she still, on some level, doesn't believe it's true. WHAT? Did she just forget, or is she that dumb? Neither of those options work for me because again, she's supposed to be a smart person.
On their night out sharing super-powers, Superman and Lois encounter two time-traveling "heroes", Samson and Atlas, who I've never seen before in another DC comic, nor have I seen them since. I wonder if the writer created these heroes just for this story, because he needed a couple of meat-heads that would flirt with Lois to make Superman jealous. It's totally in character for Lois Lane to lead them on, but it's NOT in character for Superman to act like an even BIGGER meat-head just to win his woman back. Can we please stick to the script? Somehow this leads to another character, the Ultra-Sphinx, showing up to ask Superman an important riddle, which in the end doesn't feel very important at all.
Superman also gives her abilities based on his super-powers for 24 hours, she just has to drink a serum derived from his DNA. Ewww, if somebody offers you a drink containing their DNA, please don't drink that! But for some reason she does, and she gets to fly with him and have x-ray vision, and...well, the author sort of leaves the rest to our imagination. But the story casually mentions that though they're in love and potentially have a future together (umm, except for the whole terminal illness thing!) they can't have a child together because they're not genetically compatible. Oh, but drinking his DNA gives her his super-powers, but a super-baby is out of the question? Seems like somebody can't really commit here.
Anyway, the storyline shifts AGAIN and Clark Kent goes to visit Luthor in prison, where Lex gloats about giving Superman a terminal illness and then just berates Clark the whole time for being not as good as Superman (oh, if only he knew, right? Lex is another "genius" who also never seems smart enough to realize that Clark Kent, minus glasses equals Superman...). Before long the Parasite, conveniently located in the same max-security prison, attacks and starts absorbing energy from inmates and guards, and Clark has to find a way to defeat the Parasite without revealing his super-powers to Lex. So he uses his freeze-breath whenever Lex is looking the other way, and creates a convenient "earthquake" that buries the Parasite under rubble. Then Lex reveals that he can escape from prison any time he wants to, because he's had a robot using a sonic wave to create a tunnel under the prison that looks like it took about 20 years to dig. Another huge NITPICK POINT here, because wouldn't someone have heard the high-pitched sonic wave? And how did he dig such a big tunnel in a short period of time? Did the robot start on it years before he was imprisoned? And why doesn't Clark turn Lex in for having a secret exit from his prison cell that leads to an underground river? Something's just not adding up here.
Plus, if Lex has a way out of jail, why doesn't he take it? He actually WANTS to face the electric chair for crimes against humanity, and it's enough that he'll die, only Superman's going to die first? That still sounds like a terrible plan, certainly not one worthy of an evil genius. But maybe he's just blowing smoke up Clark's ass here, because it turns out that Lex isn't really going to go to his execution willingly, he's got another plan, he reprogrammed one of Superman's fortress robots to steal that Superman DNA serum, to give him super-powers for 24 hours. Which is bound to work, it's not like Superman can speed up time or anything and find a way to defeat him in the end...
Before the final showdown, Superman takes a long trip into space to deliver the bottled city of Kandor to its new planet. Gotta call NITPICK POINT #4 here, because Superman knows that he's dying, only he doesn't know when. So is this the BEST time to take a 2-month trip into space, to make sure that the last viable part of Krypton gets a new home? What if he dies along the way, then Kandor isn't going to get where it needs to get. Terrible plan. Plus, he leaves Metropolis un-guarded for 2 months, just when they need a hero more than ever - this is when those 2 new Kryptonians, Bar-El and Lilo, come into the picture. Couldn't Superman have arranged for another hero to city-sit for him while he was gone? Wouldn't Wonder Woman or Flash or Green Lantern have heard the news about the new Kryptonians in Metropolis, and wouldn't they have dropped by to check them out? Instead all the other heroes were thinking, "Ah, Metropolis is Superman's turf, he'll be back in a month or so, and he can deal with it then, I've got my own problems here in Star City." No, that's not how superheroes WORK!
Hold on, because I'm just getting started here with the N.P.'s. How does Superman get from Earth to wherever it is that he's bringing Kandor? Is he taking a spaceship or just flying there through space - and if it's the latter, how does he know which direction to go? Also, remember, he gets his powers and energy from Earth's yellow sun, so what happens when he flies out of the solar system - does he run out of energy like three weeks later? If so, this mission to the other planet is doomed to fail. And what happens if he flies through another solar system that has a red sun, does he just run out of gas and get stranded near that star? If feels like I'm the only one thinking this trip through. OK, maybe he's still powered by that does of super-yellow-sun radiation from the beginning of the film, but how far across the galaxy is that energy going to get him? And if he uses up that bad energy on the trip, how come when he gets back to Earth, he's still DYING? Why can't using the bad energy to deliver Kandor to the other planet also be the thing that cures his illness?
Finally it's time for the end-game, Luthor has a version of Superman's powers and avoids his execution, and he reveals his secret partner, Solaris, who tampers with the sun and turns it blue. Umm, so what are the ramifications of this, is it deadly to humans, explain, please! Superman conveniently has a pet "sun-eater" in his Fortress of Solitude that he can unleash on Solaris, but getting the sun back to its original yellow state is going to require more of a sacrifice. If only we knew somebody who was full of the sun's energy that would also do ANYTHING to save the world...
So yeah, the story eventually loops back to the sun and a satisfying, if depressing, conclusion. But it took SO long to get there, with so many dead-ends and dangling plot-lines that it makes me wonder if the journey was at all necessary in the first place. It feels like the writer was easily distracted and firing plot points in all directions at once - then he bent the story over backwards to create a scenario under which Superman and Lois could potentially have a chid together, and then never got around to writing a follow-up story - and it's been 15 years now! So after a lot of traveling around, the story ultimately goes nowhere. But thank God this took place outside of all regular Superman continuity and it didn't screw anything (permanently) up!
Also starring the voices of James Denton, Christina Hendricks (last seen in "Dark Places"), Anthony LaPaglia (last seen in "He Said, She Said"), Edward Asner (last seen in "The Bachelor"), Linda Cardellini (last seen in "Daddy's Home 2"), Cathy Cavadini, Steve Blum, Obba Babatunde (last seen in "The Notebook"), Chris Cox, Alexis Denisof (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy"), John DiMaggio (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), Robin Atkin Downes, Michael Gough (last heard in "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies"), Matthew Gray Gubler (last seen in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip"), Finola Hughes (last heard in "Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World"), Arnold Vosloo, Kevin Michael Richardson, Fred Tatasciore (last heard in "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature").
RATING: 3 out of 10 lizard men
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