Reign of the Supermen animated movie, your thoughts (Spoilers welcome)

[Robotman]

I thought it was a pretty solid movie but it definitely had some issues.

I thought all the Supermen had a good showing. Steel was awesome (though they never mentioned his also being inspired by John Henry the steel driving man), Superboy was funny and charming, Eradicator was an emotionless force of destruction, and Cyborg Superman was a pretty intimidating villain.

They had to crame two worlds together and it hurts the movie a bit. The filmmakers not only had to tell the story of Reign but they had to include the Justice League animated world that they have already created. I liked how they took the League off the table but I found the sequence a little silly as the team just happen to assemble in a clump for no reason.

I loved seeing Lois and Diana form a bond. Superman using the Seinfeld worlds colliding reference was funny. Lots a nice little references and winks to the audience. Superboy using 90s slang from watching too many old sitcoms. Rain Wilson’s Lex has become one of my favorite interpretations of the character. A perfect mix of arrogant nerd, brilliant super villain, and all around jerk. His “Make Metropolis Safe Again” slogan made me laugh.

One of my biggest complaints was that they used that god awful Darkseid design again. Easily the ugliest version of Darkseid ever. It’s like Thanos’ costume vomited all over him.

[Vordan]

Good movie. Suffered from having to compact so much story into 83 minutes. Probably would've been better if we had gotten three movies, Death, Reign, and Return, but then we couldn't have had another Batman movie and DC wouldn't have stood for that. The breakout character was Kon who was fantastic. Steel and Eradicator were good but didn't have much to do unfortunately. We finally got the Black Suit Superman with a mullet and guns which is all I really wanted. We got the Reborn suit.

All in all I'd give it a 8/10.

[Yoda]

I loved it. It was a great follow up to Death of Superman and did a pretty good job of adapting the storyline within the confines of a short film. It also works as a pretty solid transition away from the New 52 dependent continuity they were working with.

Most importantly for me, it's probably the best version of Lois Lane we've seen in years. Really great showcase for her as a character and just an all around great performance.

Add in the mullett, black suit, and then the Rebirth suit and it's a 9/10 from me.

[JAK]

Good movie. Suffered from having to compact so much story into 83 minutes. Probably would've been better if we had gotten three movies, Death, Reign, and Return, but then we couldn't have had another Batman movie and DC wouldn't have stood for that. The breakout character was Kon who was fantastic. Steel and Eradicator were good but didn't have much to do unfortunately. We finally got the Black Suit Superman with a mullet and guns which is all I really wanted. We got the Reborn suit.

All in all I'd give it a 8/10.

Is the Reborn suit at least a decent blue this time, or are they using that crazy-@$$ navy color from before?

[Vordan]

Is the Reborn suit at least a decent blue this time, or are they using that crazy-@$$ navy color from before?

It’s lighter than the New 52 Suit was, you could probably see what it looks like on YouTube, I think there was a clip with it uploaded there.

[13th Superman]

Definitely a solid movie. Once you realize that this will not be a one to one adaptation it can stand on it's own merits. I just wish this was a trilogy.

[Robotman]

Loved the Christopher Reeve-like fly by at the end. Also the air whooshing sound of Supes flying was reminiscent of the Steve Reeves Superman show.

As for the after credits scene, Lex will no doubt be rejected by the League. The fact that he was wearing his Super Friends costume leads me to believe that he’ll form his own Legion of Doom or Injustice Gang as retaliation.

I was a little confused about some aspect of Cyborg Superman. Was Henshaw actually on Apokolips and the Cyborg Superman just an avatar? Or was the Henshaw seen with Darkseid just an aspect of his psyche? They seemed to be in two places at once then suddenly the Henshaw on Apokolips was just gone.

Also, Henshaw’s motivation for hating Superman was weak since he knew that Darkseid had sent Doomsday, which was the real cause of his wife’s death. Yeah Superman wasn’t there to save them but the actual person responsible was Darkseid. There was some insinuation that Darkseid had fed him the Ant-Life Equation, filling him with hate. But he still seemed to be cognizant of his actions.

[JAK]

It’s lighter than the New 52 Suit was, you could probably see what it looks like on YouTube, I think there was a clip with it uploaded there.

Thanks!

Wow, they like their crappy muted colors, don't they? But it IS still a big improvement, so that's good.

[SuperiorIronman]

I thought it was a pretty solid movie but it definitely had some issues.

I thought all the Supermen had a good showing. Steel was awesome (though they never mentioned his also being inspired by John Henry the steel driving man), Superboy was funny and charming, Eradicator was an emotionless force of destruction, and Cyborg Superman was a pretty intimidating villain.

They had to crame two worlds together and it hurts the movie a bit. The filmmakers not only had to tell the story of Reign but they had to include the Justice League animated world that they have already created. I liked how they took the League off the table but I found the sequence a little silly as the team just happen to assemble in a clump for no reason.

I loved seeing Lois and Diana form a bond. Superman using the Seinfeld worlds colliding reference was funny. Lots a nice little references and winks to the audience. Superboy using 90s slang from watching too many old sitcoms. Rain Wilson’s Lex has become one of my favorite interpretations of the character. A perfect mix of arrogant nerd, brilliant super villain, and all around jerk. His “Make Metropolis Safe Again” slogan made me laugh.

One of my biggest complaints was that they used that god awful Darkseid design again. Easily the ugliest version of Darkseid ever. It’s like Thanos’ costume vomited all over him.

I don't hate that I've seen it but I do think it could've been better. Granted I didn't watch Death of Superman and knew it was a sequel going in, but I just don't feel like it can easily stand on its own. I don't mean like it has to tell a story disjointed from the prior, I mean that it gives all the relevant information in this entry. Outside of a couple of lines (and I do mean two) that's all I get on Hank Henshaw. Maybe there was more in Death of Superman but outside of a motivation we don't really get anything here. Maybe I just missed it in the prior entry but it would've been helpful for a recap here.

Also the Super-minions had no business being here and are pretty much there to keep the other supers from facing the Cyborg. The supers could pretty much be replaced with members of the Justice League and you'd pretty much miss nothing. I'm sure that if a cut of this didn't include them it wouldn't be that bad. Basically Darkseid kind of derails the film when the main conflict should be around Hank Henshaw and Superman. Hank even just goes rogue as soon as he gets the chance and we don't see Darkseid again so other than an explanation for his powers what was the point? It could've been Lexcorp making a cyborg Superman for all the good it did. The needlessly mean-spirited Lex scene where he has the Doctor killed by the failed Supers could've been replaced with Superboy discovering Lex's role to play in all this. Also wasted opportunity for a Bizzaro cameo.

Other than that it's fine but with a few animation flaws. I don't hate that I've seen it or paying the money to do so if it means DC does better than anything like Justice League War and the like because this is pretty good. It's just that this is a frustratingly flawed picture.
I give it B-

[Soldy]

I enjoyed it. A solid follow up, but i liked Death of Superman more. This one felt a bit rushed. Lois was the star for me in this movie. I'm glad they paired her with Supes, cause Sup x Diana always felt bland and boring to me. And Lois has great personality. We finally got a new suit for big man and it's time to redesign Wonder Woman and Darkseid. Darky looks especially awful, too 90s. All in all, good movie, here's hoping this shared animated universe will be more like these 2 last movies and never will spawn again an abomination like JL vs TT.

[DochaDocha]

First, I'm going to give some retroactive praise to Death of Superman in its feat of capturing the main elements of the comic story within the constraints of DTV. Sure, it changes certain details, but some of the changes (e.g. using the relevant JL team that people actually care about) are for the better. I'm pretty loathe to the repetitive use of this particular story in other media, especially since the whole DTV line was kicked off by 2007's Superman: Doomsday (more on that in a bit), but give credit where it's due.

Speaking of Superman: Doomsday, Reign has a certain thematic comp to the 2007 flick in that it's mostly entertaining, but also it feels like a movie that only captures some of the essence of the source material and goes off on its own path. There are pros and cons to that, and I leave it up to the viewer to decide if and when that's the right move.

Certainly, the task of trying to tell the story of four Superman wannabes/frauds/what have you was really ambitious, and it wasn't realistic to think the movie was going to reframe each of those character's story in depth. I feel the movie does best with Conner (do they call him something other than "Superboy" in this movie?), and it does try to condense years of his comic development into something like 15 minutes. In the end, though, my attachment to any of those characters (positive or negative) is pretty low. It's just too much to ask to put that much story into that little amount of runtime.

Back when MoS was being reviewed, a common complaint was that Lois was being injected into the action pieces. I didn't think it was particularly bad; in fact, I felt as long as you assumed that Zod and the Phantom Zoners could analyze Earth press releases concerning Kal-El, then they'd see that most of the accessible data about the guy came from her expose. Furthermore, when it was time to counterattack the terraforming, your best bet is to recruit the only person who got instructions from Jor-freakin-El on what to do and how to do it. In this movie, though? I could've done less with her. I think the narrative sets her presence in the action sets properly, but I don't think the utilization was all that great. Going back to the 2007 film, Lois was, in my estimation, also the main protagonist, and it largely worked for me. However, in this movie, I don't think it was the right decision, largely because how underdeveloped the Supermen are. I think a counterargument for that would be that because there was no way you could sufficiently develop the Supermen, then run with a character who can assume the camera time and get the story going. I think that's fair, but I still feel like the movie was hurt.

As for the climactic action sequence, it was largely a miss for me. I've been harping on DC animation for years that they always dumb down the power set of the metahumans and amp up the regular humans, and sadly this movie kind of fails for me in this regard. Look, every DC animation has some nitpickable details that should largely be ignored, but for some reason they were just jumping out at me. Like, when the gun gets flung Lois', way, I thought it was goofy AF that when the breach in the Watchtower started sweeping Lois off her feet, the gun waited like 2 minutes to be moved, and moved just conveniently enough to land in her hands. I also thought it was incredibly stupid that the gun, while fired in Zero G, would send her recoiling, and yet she seemed to be able to aim it better than Cyborg Superman. Look, I've shot many guns before, and my aim sucks, but I shot them with feet firmly planted on terra firma. Recoil makes those things hard to aim, and if your entire body recoils and goes drifting off on firing, and you seemingly hit your target better than the guy who can defy gravity, eh. Chalk it up as another lackluster animated action sequence... it happens.

But action wise, the biggest nitpick I had was that Superman recovered his power after like four seconds of direct sunlight. How utterly underwhelming. It's like, why didn't they just rocket him into space to get a little more sun exposure before sending him to battle? They took the climax of Return of Superman and completely watered it down.

Now, as far as the timeline goes, I thought there's some sensibility in making the movie take place six months after Death of Superman compared to something like the four weeks of comic time (and one year of real time) for Superman to die and come back. As far as logistics of plotting goes, six months is a bit more reasonable to introduce four different Supermen, but of course then it makes the sudden "discovery" of Clark Kent being trapped in the rubble even sillier, as the four weeks in the comics seemed ridiculous as it was. More relevant to the movie, it didn't feel like six months had passed. The way people talked and acted, Superman could've died five days ago.

Random thought on Superboy: I felt that made him kind of young. Maybe my memory of Superboy from 1993 is a little off and he really was closer to 13 than 15, but he seemed so young, and small. I think he's even kind of petite in Young Justice, FWIW, but here he looks a bit too young.

Okay, enough rambling. It's an entertaining film, but it's essentially to the comic source material as the 2007 animated film was to Death of Superman in the comics. Just don't get your hopes up for a faithful adaptation and you'll be okay.

[Kon93]

First, I'm going to give some retroactive praise to Death of Superman in its feat of capturing the main elements of the comic story within the constraints of DTV. Sure, it changes certain details, but some of the changes (e.g. using the relevant JL team that people actually care about) are for the better. I'm pretty loathe to the repetitive use of this particular story in other media, especially since the whole DTV line was kicked off by 2007's Superman: Doomsday (more on that in a bit), but give credit where it's due.

Speaking of Superman: Doomsday, Reign has a certain thematic comp to the 2007 flick in that it's mostly entertaining, but also it feels like a movie that only captures some of the essence of the source material and goes off on its own path. There are pros and cons to that, and I leave it up to the viewer to decide if and when that's the right move.

Certainly, the task of trying to tell the story of four Superman wannabes/frauds/what have you was really ambitious, and it wasn't realistic to think the movie was going to reframe each of those character's story in depth. I feel the movie does best with Conner (do they call him something other than "Superboy" in this movie?), and it does try to condense years of his comic development into something like 15 minutes. In the end, though, my attachment to any of those characters (positive or negative) is pretty low. It's just too much to ask to put that much story into that little amount of runtime.

Back when MoS was being reviewed, a common complaint was that Lois was being injected into the action pieces. I didn't think it was particularly bad; in fact, I felt as long as you assumed that Zod and the Phantom Zoners could analyze Earth press releases concerning Kal-El, then they'd see that most of the accessible data about the guy came from her expose. Furthermore, when it was time to counterattack the terraforming, your best bet is to recruit the only person who got instructions from Jor-freakin-El on what to do and how to do it. In this movie, though? I could've done less with her. I think the narrative sets her presence in the action sets properly, but I don't think the utilization was all that great. Going back to the 2007 film, Lois was, in my estimation, also the main protagonist, and it largely worked for me. However, in this movie, I don't think it was the right decision, largely because how underdeveloped the Supermen are. I think a counterargument for that would be that because there was no way you could sufficiently develop the Supermen, then run with a character who can assume the camera time and get the story going. I think that's fair, but I still feel like the movie was hurt.

As for the climactic action sequence, it was largely a miss for me. I've been harping on DC animation for years that they always dumb down the power set of the metahumans and amp up the regular humans, and sadly this movie kind of fails for me in this regard. Look, every DC animation has some nitpickable details that should largely be ignored, but for some reason they were just jumping out at me. Like, when the gun gets flung Lois', way, I thought it was goofy AF that when the breach in the Watchtower started sweeping Lois off her feet, the gun waited like 2 minutes to be moved, and moved just conveniently enough to land in her hands. I also thought it was incredibly stupid that the gun, while fired in Zero G, would send her recoiling, and yet she seemed to be able to aim it better than Cyborg Superman. Look, I've shot many guns before, and my aim sucks, but I shot them with feet firmly planted on terra firma. Recoil makes those things hard to aim, and if your entire body recoils and goes drifting off on firing, and you seemingly hit your target better than the guy who can defy gravity, eh. Chalk it up as another lackluster animated action sequence... it happens.

But action wise, the biggest nitpick I had was that Superman recovered his power after like four seconds of direct sunlight. How utterly underwhelming. It's like, why didn't they just rocket him into space to get a little more sun exposure before sending him to battle? They took the climax of Return of Superman and completely watered it down.

Now, as far as the timeline goes, I thought there's some sensibility in making the movie take place six months after Death of Superman compared to something like the four weeks of comic time (and one year of real time) for Superman to die and come back. As far as logistics of plotting goes, six months is a bit more reasonable to introduce four different Supermen, but of course then it makes the sudden "discovery" of Clark Kent being trapped in the rubble even sillier, as the four weeks in the comics seemed ridiculous as it was. More relevant to the movie, it didn't feel like six months had passed. The way people talked and acted, Superman could've died five days ago.

Random thought on Superboy: I felt that made him kind of young. Maybe my memory of Superboy from 1993 is a little off and he really was closer to 13 than 15, but he seemed so young, and small. I think he's even kind of petite in Young Justice, FWIW, but here he looks a bit too young.

Okay, enough rambling. It's an entertaining film, but it's essentially to the comic source material as the 2007 animated film was to Death of Superman in the comics. Just don't get your hopes up for a faithful adaptation and you'll be okay.

Yes SB is way to small,he was small compared to the other Supers, but not to other kids around his age

[OpaqueGiraffe17]

Finally saw it and really liked it, a worthy follow up to Death of Superman. Superman and his world translated a lot better into this animated movie universe than it’s lackluster take on Batman and his family. Lois, Lex and Conner were the highlights. Darkseid and the Justice League were pulled the movie down though, so it’s not as good as the first one.