DC Animated Movies

[BanzaiCat]

The past three days I've been out in the country spaces of Oklahoma working on some training stuff and haven't had any time for anything other than a little Netflix.

I watched a couple of DC animated movies - Justice League: War and Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. It took me almost three days to get through them since I had long days out in the yard, but they were well worth my time.

Justice League: War was something of a reboot (maybe you know more if you read DC, which I don't) with the heroes meeting for the first time. This isn't the usual family-friendly entertainment - there's plenty of violence and action. Also, there's more than a few WTF moments in the movie, some I'd love to mention but if you want to check it out, I'll leave them as a surprise.

The other one, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, was even more epic. Despite the name, it was pretty much a Flash movie, and again I know nothing about the DC comic storylines, so maybe this description follows some of it. I have watched the first season of the live-action Flash series, and was surprised that there were a lot of elements from that storyline in this animated film. Opposite Flash essentially tricks Flash into messing up the past, causing a wild shift in the present day.

I think LB would get super-excited to see 'his' Aquaman as a supreme evil overlord that floods half of Western Europe and kills millions, while Wonder Woman leads the Amazons to conquering the UK. Plenty of cameos from DC heroes that look really familiar to me but that I couldn't name. LOTS and LOTS of death. I can't find a trailer for it but this gives a few points away from the movie (Aquaman and WW forming an alliance to conquer the world, then it falls apart; Batman is actually Thomas Wayne because the mugger killed Bruce and his mother went insane (it's sort of hinted that she became the Joker); and a few other very interesting things).

[JasonPratt]

Strictly speaking "War" is the sequel to "Flashpoint". In the comics, Flashpoint was an event that kicked off the first true continuity reboot since the mid 80s Crisis on Infinite Earths. "War" is based on the first issues introducing the League to each other afterward. One of the annoying / cool things about the Flashpoint movie is that Kevin Conroy reprised his Batman role briefly as a way of, ostensibly, handing off the previous generation of DCAU properties (which the movies basically weren't part of anyway, being mostly just adaptations of comic story arcs) to the new generation.

Originally the DC Animated film department was going to stick with making a true film continuity of the New52 universe, but I think that may have taken a dump. It's hard to tell because one of the insane things in the New52 continuity is that Batman comics continuity was hardly affected (nor Green Lantern), and the recent DCAU films have been more-or-less connected Batman-heir stories.  I know fan reaction when they announced the plan was ultra-negative; but then what the fans generally want (myself included) is a proper continuation of the DCAU canon established with the Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond, and Justice League (and Static Shock) animated series. And DC editorial has mandated that that is absolutely one thousand percent neeevvvvaaarrrr going to happen. (The main fan reactionary theory to that, is that the DCAU series were succeeding much better at establishing a solid story canon respectful of DC history than the comics themselves, so DC forced the animated wing to pull the plug and start working on adapting comic stories more directly.)


I think in current continuity there was a recent continuity reshuffle again, as a way for the editors to keep what seemed the most popular parts of the New52 and the previous post-Crisis continuity. So who the hell knows anymore; I don't. 

[BanzaiCat]

Interesting. Thanks, JP. I've read Justice League America Vol 1 back in the late 80s/early 90s, but otherwise I've stayed away from DC stuff. I might try the New 52 to see how things are with that (and maybe the All-New Marvel stuff too).

[JasonPratt]

The good writers are still writing good (from what I've heard), despite whatever new continuity snarls keep being foisted on them. I just lost the ability to care about keeping up with them. 

Flashpoint's Aquaman, in case you're curious, is loosely based on Peter David's hugely epic run in the late 80s / 90s. If you can track down those collected volumes, you'll probably enjoy them -- Aquaman had been serious for years already since the 70s, sometimes grimdark serious, but David really pulled everything together. The writers since then have been trying to live up to that standard.


For another recent animated Justice League movie that's pretty decent, under the circumstances, I kind of recommend finding a compilation of the cut scenes (with some bridging fighting scenes) from Injustice: Gods Among Us. A ton of the old animated series voice actors returned, for a version of the animated series' "Justice Lords" story with the League on an alternate Earth turning despotic in order to fight crime. (Not to be confused with a "Crime Syndicate" story where the League is just straight up evil.)

[mirth]

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/batman-killing-joke-animated-movie-205408475.html

[JasonPratt]

I've heard this was coming; don't think I'd heard that Conroy and Hamill would be reprising roles (with Tara Strong).

That's good news, although a guy has been doing very passable Hamill impressions as the Joker recently in games and some other media. I forget his name; he's been a voice actor in Western animation for a while, and he did a perfectly fine job in the two Arkham Origins games.

[JasonPratt]

That being said, I'm not the world's biggest fan of this specific story, even though I acknowledge its importance in shaping the canon.