18 February 2008

Superman: Doomsday

It's been a long time since I watched anything related to the animated realm of superheroes. The new wave of live-action films has sort of reduced the splendor of those seemingly childish things. However, this 2007 direct-to-video film is nothing to scoff at at which to scoff.

I didn't even know about this until yesterday when I was looking up information on Adam Baldwin, better known to most people (at least around here) as Jayne Cobb of Firefly. The reason I was looking him up was because I was going through Half-Life 2: Episode 2 again to listen to the commentary, and noticed a familiar voice coming from one the resistance fighters. Sure enough, Jayne's in the game. I also saw this film under his filmography, so good ol' Wikipedia led me to this gem.

Anyway. I remember way way back in the Warsaw NY library one day, I found this comic book called The Death of Superman. I've never been up-to-date with any comic books, and I'm pretty sure my mom wouldn't have let me borrow it. I read through a bunch of it crouching next to the comic box. It looked really cool then, and I've always remembered one of the opening panels, where a be-goggled Doomsday crushes a little bird in one gargantuan hand. That scene isn't present in the film sadly, but there are similar moments.

I was worried that the second half that deals with the rebirth of Superman wouldn't be as entertaining as the somewhat-ultimate battle between the red-caped behemoth and his spiky bane. My worry was for naught; it was quite entertaining. The semi-evil Superman clone was more bad-ass than the genuine article.

Altogether, Superman: Doomsday was a much better experience than what I remember of the animated series. Although it wasn't nearly as graphic as it could have been, there was actually blood and a small amount of watered-down swearing, making it much more believable. The ever-present cheese factor did make a few appearances. I really enjoyed it though. Adam Baldwin did a great job voicing the man of steel.

They should really consider doing this storyline for the next live-action incarnation. It would seriously own.

UPDATE

I just read through the comic book I remembered; it's actually a collection of comics in series. It was awesome; so much more intense than the movie. Doomsday is the embodiment of metal. Apparently Superman's rebirth is part of a different story arc not covered in The Death of Superman. Superman: Doomsday is quite a simplification of the original story, but I think they did a good job of it anyway.

1 comment:

The Horns and the Hawk said...

good to hear it's good. i've been eyeballing it for awhile. my uncle bought all of his nieces and nephews (i included, what with him being my uncle and all) that big honkin' graphic novel one year for christmas. i didn't read it forever because i thought (and still do) that superman was gay, but when i finally did, i was relatively blown away. it was pretty badass.

netflix'd.