Superman: Doomsday Review

(I am not a comic otaku, I’m a manga otaku. But to appease the fans, I will try to reflect on the movie’s connection to the comic canon itself so as to demonstrate I do appreciate how it began. And there will be spoilers, since this is Direct to DVD anyway)

I’ve recently been interested in the DC Direct to DVD animated films, my first being the Wonder Woman film indicated in the Gotham Knight special features. I watched that, but that review will be next. For the moment, I thought I’d get the Superman: Doomsday review out of my hair, since Superman is not my favorite superhero in DC. Doomsday, on the other hand, is always an interesting villain, even in passing, along with Lex Luthor (because bald is sexy to women apparently). So without further ado, here we go.

The plot is not the most believable and not exactly what you’d expect with Doomsday in the title. Less than 30 minutes into the film, Doomsday’s gone and we never hear from him again. This contrasts with Justice League Unlimited where he was lobotomized by Justice Lord Superman and then came back to fight again even stronger. His primary power, among others, is regeneration, albeit in this case he had to regrow his frontal lobe. In this film, the primary antagonists are Lex Luthor, (which is okay) and a conglomeration of three of the 4 Superman following in the Man of Steel’s footsteps after his untimely death fighting Doomsday in the comics. These are Superboy (since the bad guy is a clone), Eradicator (since he kills people) and Cyborg Superman (since he tried to make people think he was the real thing come back to life). There is the involvement of Toyman from the comics, but he’s been modernized. Not that it’s a problem; it just becomes awkward when he’s abruptly removed from the plot after being dropped from 100 stories in the air onto a car. The fight between Superman and Doomsday is not even the big event of the film which has both their names in it. Our story begins with Lex Luthor, who is involved with a tunneling project that unearths Doomsday sealed in what I assume is his Calatonian prison ship (a comic storyline thing that’s not really investigated at all). He then escapes and wreaks havoc, and Superman stops him, but at the cost of his own life. It’s certainly an epic finish to the battle when Superman flies himself and Doomsday into space and then slams them down into Metropolis, leaving a huge crater in the aftermath. Afterwards, everyone’s sad; people start changing personality and jobs and otherwise get depressed. But then, Superman returns. Or does he? Turns out it’s a clone and Lex Luthor is behind it. He’s trying to make an army of them, but of course fails. Eventually the real Superman (who never really died, since the yellow sun radiation revived him like Jesus) fights the clone and then saves the day. Overall, it’s good, but I will say it makes for an unnecessarily complex idea when we start confusing between two Supermen in the final fight, not to mention the disappointment on my part when I find that the main focus of the film is not the fight between Doomsday, but the aftermath. And it would’ve been especially cool to make a reference to Doomsday’s appearance in the comics, which involves, among other things, Doomsday beating off the entire Justice League (with one hand tied behind his back no less).

The characterizations are excellent, making the jump to modernize the characters to new fans of Superman. Doomsday isn’t changed drastically, but he does seem to be more like an android with his Terminator display screen. And he has no speaking lines, which disappoints me in contrast to Doomsday’s appearance in JLU. He’s not as much of an organic entity as you’d think, but they don’t really get into that, so his character suffers anyway. Superman has a distinctly chiseled square face, but he’s certainly recognizable in any depiction throughout the film (red and blue, black, Clark Kent, etc). Lois Lane takes on a new image as well, with her hair framing her face differently, but the wit and the feminine appeal come through. And you don’t feel like she’s been completely destroyed; though I would accuse her of being a Lana Lang clone in some regards. There’s not much to say on Jimmy Olsen or Perry White; they keep their characters pretty well as the impressionable young adult and stubborn old man. Mercy Graves is a short lived character who isn’t nearly as cool as she was in Superman: The Animated Series. Not to mention she gets shot in the face not 5 minutes after the Superman Doomsday fight. Lex Luthor is probably the most changed, at least in appearances. He’s slimmer and generally more of a coward than any other version in the animated series. He hardly confronts Superman just as he is, he always needs his technology and gadgets and such. Even Batman can talk on an even ground with Superman in virtually every depiction, but this Lex Luthor is a freaking pussy half the time, even if the film does a good job of making him Superman’s true nemesis, as opposed to Doomsday or the Superman Clone. But I really would’ve liked the film to have Doomsday and Lex team up in some twisted fashion, even if it involved Lex turning him into some sort of slave. It would’ve worked better in some respect. Though it also would’ve taken away from the connection you can make to the Death of Superman arc, where people need a new Superman, and yet they’re shocked when the new Superman is not what they expected, which is what the film excels at in the plot. They did, however, make the Superman Doomsday fight rushed and seemed to use Doomsday as an excuse to make more sales for the film. I guess it would’ve been boring to call it something like “Superman: Identity Crisis” which could’ve worked, but that idea wasn’t evident until at least 40 minutes into the film.

The most interesting of the themes throughout the film is the investigation of Superman’s god- complex that might occur when he takes the law into his own hands. This is not unlike the Justice Lords storyline in Justice League Unlimited, though that extended to the entire Justice League. There’s also the involvement of the Lois/Superman/Clark Kent relationship and how Lois knows Superman is Clark Kent, but she wants Superman to admit it, which I don’t get (female thing that I don’t understand well). And there’s Lex Luthor’s general love-hate relationship with Superman. This comes in the form of a scene that takes the movie down to a maximum of 4. He has gloves with Kryptonite crystals on the knuckles and a red sun radiation room that weakens Superman as he walks in. Lex proceeds to note that they are Christmas colors and that Superman has been a naughty boy. I’m not kidding, he says that, and pummels Superman’s lights out in the process. But the overall narrative works, even if they spread out the antagonists a bit too thin and don’t really confront Doomsday’s potential resurrection and Superman fighting him a second time with reduced powers. The themes are there, but the method of bringing them out leaves much to be improved, not to mention the general Superman feel isn’t there, since it suffers from Spiderman 3 syndrome in having more than 2 villains in the same film, which inevitably makes for a convoluted and confusing film.

Overall, I’d have to give the film a 4, but a low 4, at 40-50% recommendation. There’s a lot of awkwardness and general confusion that ruins your expectations, even if they’re admittedly naïve to begin with. But it does present a compelling Superman story to look into his psyche and his relationship with Lois Lane, as well as showing his determination to protect the people even in a situation where he’d otherwise lose. So I’d recommend it, but probably just as a rental. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.