Episode 110 - The Reign of the Supermen (Animated) with JD Martin

Superman is dead! Yet four beings claiming to be Superman have risen to take his place! JD Martin is back to talk with Case and Jmike about the 2019 animated adaptation to the classic tale!

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Transcription

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00:00
Case
Hey, that's jazz. This is actually a la Land podcast. No, we're not gonna get into that. This is not a pasak and Paul podcast, nor is this jazz with JD and J Mike.

00:12
JD Martin
Dang it, J Mike.

00:13
Case
We have another Superman podcast. Damn it.

00:15
JD Martin
Start. Damn it.

00:17
Case
Let's start the show. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm Kay Saiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, J Mike Falson.

00:52
Jmike
Oh, my gosh. I'm so happy to be here.

00:54
Case
I know we had to hold us off on this one because of stuff, and I've been waiting to get to this one because we just stopped in the middle of our coverage of the death and return of Superman. Yeah, well, we got through a lot and now we are back. And I'm excited for this episode because today we are talking about the animated adaptation of the reign of the Superman. And for that conversation, we are joined by JD Martin.

01:25
JD Martin
I'm backfuckers, still the reigning champion of most guest spots. You can't take it away from me. You can't take it away from me.

01:39
Case
Tide. Thank you. We figured that out with Duke. And as a result, I've been making sure to pair you guys or have you matched in counts, which is why Duke did the death and you're doing the return.

01:51
JD Martin
No, Duke can't take this away from me. I will come back. I have ideas.

01:55
Jmike
There's going to be a SmackDown. Man of Steel, raw.

02:01
JD Martin
Oh, God.

02:03
Case
Well, JD, thank you for coming on. Regardless of any of that, it's great to have you here for this conversation because I was really excited to come to this video. Eventually when it was announced, I was like, oh, that's cool. They're actually doing the four Superman. That's a pretty cool thing that they're actually putting in animated movie because we've gotten so many versions of the death that just didn't bother. And the characters people really care about, honestly can be agnostic to the actual death cycle. Like Superboy and Steel both work fine if you don't have a death and return cycle for Superman. Like Superboy worked just fine in young justice as a clone that was sort of spawned. And steel, I mean, hell, steel doesn't even really require Superman. Like, he can be just a standalone character sometimes, or at least people think so.

02:51
Case
Shaquille O'Neill thinks so. But this was exciting because when I actually watched the death part, I was blown away at how good it was. And I was extremely enthusiastic to see how this side of it lived up to it, because I was like, wow, they really nailed all the things that I had. Like, minor complaints about the comic version of the death, because I think it's a better story than people often give it credit for, and the animated adaptation just blew it away. And so I was really excited to look at this and then really excited to chat with the two of you about it. So my question before we get into anything about the actual movie itself, is, JD, what is your association with the death and return of Superman's cycle, the comics versions, and then these animated ones?

03:31
Case
Where are you coming in terms of your feel for this particular story and how it's been told?

03:37
JD Martin
So I have a feeling that at one point on this show, I might have said I did read the comic, but that is actually a fib. I don't know. I guess I just got caught up or something, or I probably misremembered, but I haven't actually read the comic. I've just never really been drawn to the death of Superman, just because my first introduction to the story at all was the Superman Doomsday animated movie, which I think is, for a lot of people my age, is probably the introduction we all got. And I remember watching that movie a lot when it came out on DVD. I watched it quite often. I rewatched it for the first time after many years last year, and even though it's not particularly a good movie, it still made me cry because I'm still watching Superman die.

04:29
JD Martin
It's still hard to watch. So I don't know. I never really wanted to go toward the comic just because there was always this kind of mixed reaction that people always had surrounding that comic. And also just the idea of, at this point in time now, the death of comics are kind of old hat, I guess. There are so many different death of comics. It wasn't even the first. There was the death of Captain Marvel over a decade before. And since then, there's just been so many more. I mean, I think just last year we had the death of Dr. Strange, so it never totally fully appealed to me as the comic. And honestly, I rewatched Doomsday last year kind of on a whim, just because all the animated DC movies are on HBO, Max. And after watching that, I decided, what the hell?

05:19
JD Martin
Why not watch the death of and Reign of Superman movies? And I honestly really love them.

05:28
Case
Nice. I mean, the comics are definitely caught up in the sort of reputation of big events, of the lot of the grim, dark stuff, and it becomes associated just as much as Bane breaking Batman. And they all get kind of seen as, like, here was kind of a thing to drive sales in an era of comics that were still coming to grips with just what comics could do. As the comics code authority was being relaxed and as the medium was changing to embrace things like creator own properties, things like Ninja Turtles or the big rise of image, which happened right after this. But you could already start to see the shifts in terms of what kinds of stories people were telling in comics. Shortly after this, we get things like the rise of vertigo and all those kinds of comics.

06:13
Case
I mean, you are covering Sandman over on fables and reflections. And so this is all part of similar conversations that are happening in terms of what can comics do, what kinds of stories can you tell, what people are working on? What. And while I think that the strengths of the death and return of Superman's cycle are that they are a commentary on the comics of their era by the creative staff, it's certainly still an event of that era. It still has limitations. And Doomsday is a plot device that gets, like, six issues just to beat people up. And it is difficult to make that really interesting. And so the things that they're doing that are kind of creative are format stuff, like the reduction of panels versus then the movie. I was blown away by just having really good choreography.

06:59
Case
I was like, all right, movies can do a thing that make it interesting to watch that has nothing to do with what a comic can do, because while you can have cool panel layouts and you can have very interesting fight scenes, the actual movement itself is still being implied. And so that was like, oh, hey, this is a fantastic thing that we're doing. And then you get the return. And what is the commentary in 2019 about an event that was now, like, literally, while we're talking about this in the midst of its 30 year anniversary.

07:28
Jmike
Has it really been 30 years?

07:30
Case
Yeah, it started in December of 92 with the first appearance of Doomsday and then ran into 1993.

07:36
JD Martin
I turned 25 in April.

07:40
Case
Yeah. So it's an event that's five years before your birth.

07:44
JD Martin
Yes.

07:45
Case
For me, this is like talking about the original contest of champions or secret wars, like some event from 1979.

07:53
Jmike
Wow.

07:54
Case
It's just such a different time point.

07:56
Jmike
I think I was four. Yeah.

08:02
Case
So I unabashedly think that the death of Superman animated movie is just like a straight upgrade to Superman Doomsday.

08:09
JD Martin
Oh, yes, absolutely.

08:10
Case
With the exception of one shot that is in the Superman Doomsday, which is when you see Doomsday's vision, and it's like a computer readout of a thing. I thought that was really cool. That one shot is the thing that I'm like, oh, man, I really wish that was brought over. But the rest of it was just like, oh, yeah, they did a really good doomsday. He's really scary.

08:27
JD Martin
So even though we are here to talk specifically about Reign of the Superman, having not been on the death of Superman episode, there are still certain things I want to mention from that movie because, of course, I rewatched that one before watching rain this morning. And I remember, like, I do cry or I kind of tear up when Superman does eventually die because it is a very heartfelt moment of Lois saying, I got your note. I love you too. But before that, with the kid on the bridge and, like, you know, go back to your mom's son and the kid giving him a hug. That is a pure Peter J. Tomasi moment right there. He and Patrick Gleason had a wonderful Superman run with, like, big highs, some not so good lows, but those highs were fucking soaring or amazing.

09:19
JD Martin
And it shows in that script that he wrote for that movie.

09:23
Case
Yeah.

09:23
JD Martin
And then you come over to rain and different writers. This time it's Jim Krieg and Tim Sheridan.

09:30
Jmike
Yep.

09:30
JD Martin
Writing this, like, still with that beating heart that Tomasi had. Like, it was still very much brought over from what Tomasi did in death.

09:39
Case
Yeah, but, I mean, they do act as two bookends to a story. Like, it was effectively doing a two part story for what Superman Doomsday was trying to cram all into one. And, like, that room to breathe is appreciated, definitely when looking at this project.

09:54
JD Martin
Yeah, we talked about this when we did the all star Superman movie in that one came out before they started doing the two part movies.

10:02
Case
Right.

10:03
JD Martin
Which, like, all star Superman definitely would have benefited from a two part movie or just a longer movie because after that, we got, like, the dirt of returns got a two part movie. And it's cool that's getting a two part, but why aren't other maybe more fun stories that are larger in scope? Why aren't those getting the two parters? And ultimately, of course, it's in the title, Death of Superman. Like, it is wrapped in sorrow because we are seeing the death of the greatest superhero. But there is still optimism and hope in there because of the rise of Steel by Superboy, defying who he was created to be. And then everyone in the wake of Superman's death, just saying we are going to mourn, but we are going to push on and we are going to live up to the standards that he set.

10:58
JD Martin
And that doesn't just go for the superheroes. That just goes for the everyday people that he inspired and he interacted with daily.

11:06
Case
Yeah, there were great elements in the death. Setting up all of that future, setting up Bibbo, like, to be a stand up guy, setting up all the different. Like, Hank and Shaw's wonderfully established in the death of Superman. Both Superboy and Steel, they do such a good job of being like, yep, this is what's going to be coming in the next movie, guys. Eradicator less.

11:27
Jmike
So.

11:27
Case
Like, they establish him, but he kind of comes out of nowhere in that movie and as a result, is kind of carried over into this movie also without a lot of baggage or a lot of weight. So why don't we actually get into this movie and talking about our thoughts on it? J Mike, so you have been on this journey with me. You had seen this before, right? Like, before we started this whole sequence?

11:48
Jmike
Yeah, but I had watched it once or twice before, but it was always with the first version of Superman, Doomsday, which I didn't really care for because I didn't care for it. Then I watched the newer, updated version of it, like, last time for the episode, and I was like, oh, crap. This is actually really good. This is really freaking good. And I watched this one again yesterday, and I was like, okay, I can see where a lot of this stuff ties in. I don't care for a lot of the reworks they did in this version, like, saying doomsday was a dark side creation. I was like, you were doing so good. Come on, guys.

12:31
JD Martin
Come on. I don't know. I kind of like that.

12:34
Case
I don't hate it. But you know what? All right, cards on the table. I like this movie. I don't love this movie. I love Death of Superman. I cannot get over how good that was. This one. I don't love it. I like it. There's a lot that I think works really well. You know what this movie fucking feels like? Feels like a fucking Power Rangers episode with Darkseid being Rita repulsive, which is fine. That is the role that they can play sometimes in terms of setting up stuff. But the fact that doomsday and the Cyborg Superman are both plots by Darkseid make this all feel, like, very much.

13:09
Jmike
Like, I can't wait.

13:11
Case
Make my monster grow. Oh, I have the putty patrol, which is my Cybermen, that are just kind of floating around everywhere.

13:20
Jmike
Oh, crap. That is true.

13:21
JD Martin
I cannot believe you put that in my head, it's never going to leave my head. I'm honestly not mad about that.

13:29
Case
Which one's the real red Ranger?

13:34
JD Martin
Shit, no.

13:37
Case
Damn it.

13:38
JD Martin
Okay.

13:39
Jmike
I like that.

13:40
Case
It's fine. I'm just saying it's not as strong as the first part was because the first part took a story that honestly I thought was never going to be interesting enough to be a full movie like Doomsday, I don't think. Ever tried Superman? Doomsday. Pardon me? Ever tried to be. The whole story is about the fight with Doomsday because it seemed like they ran out of steam and were like, okay, that's the middle of act two. Or maybe even act one. Like, okay, cool, let's get back to him coming back to life. Okay, that's the main story.

14:04
Jmike
Fuck.

14:06
Case
At least it's paced out that way. The Supermen don't matter enough in this movie to me for it to be really their story or have them feel like a big part of the story.

14:17
JD Martin
Yeah.

14:18
Case
And that, I think, kind of bums.

14:19
JD Martin
This feels more like Lois's story.

14:20
Case
Yeah. Which is fine. It's just not the reign of the Superman at that point. The thing that I really liked about the comics, and we talked in great detail about this on the last two episodes, was that it starts off where we are spending a solid amount of time with each one before the stories start to intertwine with each other and become a singular story. So for the first two issues in each of the books, that's their book, and there's their own supporting cast and their own story arc that's going on, and it only starts to come together after that point. Like, while Superboy cameoed in Steel's story, it was still very much like, this is the adventure that Steele is on with that supporting cast, and there's a cameo by this other hero. Likewise, Guy Gardner showing up to deal with the eradicator.

14:59
Case
That was just cameos, but it was still like their book. And then after you get to that past that two issue mark in each of them, all of a sudden the storylines start to directly impact each other. So, like, events are directly continued in the next issue of a different Superman book that was coming out the following week. So it became a week by week story. And that, I thought was refreshing that we spent that time first with each of them, so we cared about them and had their things. I can't tell you what the fuck the point of the eradicator in this.

15:29
Jmike
Story got so downplayed in this movie.

15:31
Case
And I like a lot of what they did with the eradicator. I like him being a hologram. Spoilers for who cares? He's a hard light.

15:40
JD Martin
We're demon in this episode. It's okay.

15:42
Case
He's a hard light construct. And I thought that was so fucking cool. It was perfect for why he does laser blasts for his main attack. Like, everything about that was like, yeah, no, that makes sense. Kryptonian technology having, like, a Jor el hologram. But honestly, it should have been just like Jor El at that point. Like the hologram mind for Jor El going out there trying to save the day, that would have been really fucking cool. But as it is, it's sort of like, well, why is he so. Yeah, like, why is he doing anything like that? Why isn't he just like, the puppet for Superman to control or anything? Like, what is his deal? Why is he so aggressive?

16:14
Case
I get him being aggressive when steel comes in and being like, I have to protect Superman, but why is he out there behaving the way he does when we have no setup for what that personality is coming from? Because it's not like it's Calyx.

16:26
JD Martin
I think, honestly, the ideal version of Death of Superman and Reign of the Superman is as a miniseries.

16:33
Case
Yeah.

16:34
JD Martin
Because that way you can actually, after the death, do an episode on how the supporting cast is doing, how the league is doing, how Lois is doing, how are his parents or parent, if they decide to know just the one parent, how are the people that he interacted with every day and then have the reveal at the end of that episode know the tomb has been exhumed, someone is in the sky, and then the next four episodes, we follow each of the four Superman and give, like, a full episode to each of them to really follow what they're all about. And then the next two or three episodes, like, following the ending of that story.

17:14
Case
Yeah, I think that's the strength that the comics actually have. I think that the death of Superman was kind of the perfect length for that particular encounter. Like, that story already felt a little too decompressed. Like, it was a little too dragon Ball Z. Like, oh, the planet's going to blow up in five minutes.

17:28
Jmike
Is it five minutes later, was it five minutes? Exactly 30 episodes? Who knows?

17:35
Case
And that was kind of perfect for the death, but we didn't get the world without Superman phase, and we've already jumped fairly far into. All of the imposters are around.

17:43
Jmike
They said six months, right? I think it was six months, right?

17:46
JD Martin
Yes.

17:47
Case
But regardless of the time that they tell us has passed. They are firmly established as out there. They've had their adventures. They already have their respective supporting casts, and they're doing their thing as established characters. So we are never being introduced to them, we're being caught up to them. And likewise, the story kind of jump starts a bit further in because this one, I felt, should have been more. Whereas the first one was like, that's the perfect runtime for the story they're telling. This one was like, oh, this could have been the two parter.

18:16
Jmike
Yeah.

18:16
JD Martin
Honestly, this should have been a three parter.

18:18
Case
Yeah.

18:19
Jmike
I don't know.

18:19
Case
Yeah. And then you actually have the Superman start to show up somewhere in the middle of it, and then you can spend some time with it. So again, eradicator, I feel like, well, what's the point? You could have easily not had him in that story at all, and it would have been mostly fine. Aside from the Macguffin of how do we find the fortress of solitude? Which he would have just come up with some other thing where it's like, we need to figure out a beacon for whatever apocalypse technology is going on. Oh, that's a weird energy signature. That's not apocalyptic, that's Kryptonian. It's in the Arctic. And then they just travel to it and you get the same story. Like, the eradicator is only there because he's part of the original four from the comics and doesn't really do, which is kind of.

18:55
Jmike
He has two fights, I think that's it, right?

18:58
Case
And he's certainly strong, and they get the design down and. Sure. And it's like, yeah, it's cute to have him be the one to destroy Henshaw at the end.

19:06
Jmike
It's like, how do we fight a robot?

19:08
Case
Okay. We use a different robot.

19:11
Jmike
Okay, cool. Eradication, right?

19:15
JD Martin
You sound like a weird eradication.

19:20
Case
Meanwhile, Superboy is already linked up with Lex Luthor and working for Lex Luthor. And it's weird only when you stop to think that he escaped and that there's never a point where it's like, well, why did he come back to Lex? Or why did he get wooed over by Lex to be working for him that way? In the comics, he's on the run from Cadmus and fully trying to avoid them because he doesn't want to become a lab experiment. And in this scenario, he's just completely gone right back to them. But he definitely escaped, because if he wasn't an escaped Superman clone, then they would have grown him up to full age.

19:53
JD Martin
Or like, in the case of young justice where he was broken out and then kept having dealings with Cadmus and then just eventually was like, I have to face them at some point because there's unanswered questions about myself.

20:06
Case
Exactly. And I like some of the design choices for Superboy. I like that his eyes look like Lex Luthor's blue eyes instead of Superman's blue eyes. That's a subtle difference right there. That works by having the light blue.

20:18
JD Martin
Instead of the deep blue.

20:19
Case
Yeah, that's a really nice detail there. We get good use of Ma and Pa Kent still being alive so that he can settle with them as Connor at the end. That's appreciated. I like his design. At the end of the first of death, it looks like he's going to have the new 52 look like the black costume with, like, the red accents, and instead he's wearing much more like his original costume. But I like the black pants. I think that actually works really well on his design.

20:42
Jmike
I missed the boots and the original jacket. It was badass, man.

20:47
Case
While we don't get the big red components of the costume that the classic superboy outfit still got to engage with, I thought it looked pretty good. Like, I immediately clocked the Lex Luthor icon on his jacket. I was like, that's weird that he has that. That's strange. And then it's like, oh, he works for Lex Luthor. Okay, we're already there. Okay, cool. I thought overall, his arc is mostly know him, trying to be like a celebrity and whatnot. It's cool enough. And he's legitimately like a character that we expect to behave that way. I enjoyed that. All the lines he thought were cool are programmed in him by Lex Luthor and Daphne Donovan, who are not cool. And so all the things are like 20 years out of date.

21:27
JD Martin
Yeah, Luther has that throwaway line of Dapney's been letting you watch those 90s sitcoms again.

21:32
Case
Oh, yeah.

21:33
JD Martin
Actually, that's kind of like a nice touch of like, we're adapting a story from the 90s. So we're going to have 90s sitcom lingo here because someone likes the 90s.

21:41
Case
Sitcoms and it allowed us to have the exact moment of when they're all going off to face the Cyborg Superman. And he's, like, slamming and it's like, do people not say that anymore? Because that is exactly what he said in that same scene. So it's like, oh, it's nice that we get to have the same line, but now it's like, man, that line hasn't aged in universe. That we can actually look at it being like that didn't work.

22:03
JD Martin
Yeah. Honestly, I think of all the Supermen, everything going on with Hank Hingshaw is really great just because he has his little setup in death. And then the slow realization, if you haven't read the comic, I have. The slow realization that the Cyborg Superman is Hank is really great. And then steel, like, everything going on.

22:22
Jmike
With steel is great also. Two things. Mercy needs to retire.

22:26
Case
Absolutely.

22:28
JD Martin
She has been through too much shit.

22:32
Jmike
Needs to retire. He's like, thanks for what? This crap? And then how does no one recognize Lois Lane after all these years? Because Daphne was like, hey, Lex has to have posters around the offices. And like, hey, avoid this one.

22:47
Case
At know for a fact.

22:49
Jmike
If you see her, report her immediately.

22:51
JD Martin
But Daphne is such a piece of shit that he doesn't like.

22:56
Jmike
She's like, oh, hi. I'm like, clearly everyone should know it's lois by now.

23:00
JD Martin
Also, we have to answer the very important question.

23:04
Jmike
Did Dabney deserve the, what they call bizarro clones at the end?

23:08
Case
A nice nod, by the way.

23:11
Jmike
Does Dabney deserve it?

23:13
Case
Yes. Dabney always deserves whatever comes to him. Because Dabney is a piece of shit.

23:17
JD Martin
Exactly. Okay. I just want to make sure were on the same page there.

23:21
Case
I want to push back a little bit on saying that Henshaw and Steel are both great, because I have minor issues with both.

23:29
JD Martin
Did I say great? I just meant they were so steel. I got caught up.

23:33
Case
I really like the setup of steel being in the first one. I think that works really well. I don't love that he just has straight up an Iron man set up. Yeah.

23:39
JD Martin
He's like, okay, dude, you've been doing this for six months. You need to kill.

23:44
Case
He's got straight up, like, the Avengers one take apart Iron man sequence there. And I'm like, that's my one bummer. Because what I liked about Steel, and admittedly, he's not doing the same thing of being laying low and building the armor out of scraps, but in a basement, not a cave. So we are losing that element there. And so sure, he's got better tech because he's, like, actively working for LexCorp.

24:07
JD Martin
I like the working man aspect of steel from the comics.

24:11
Case
Right? And I kind of missed.

24:12
JD Martin
It's kind of lost in this movie. It's lost in this movie.

24:15
Case
Why does he have the hammer? We never get into the Henry stuff. Like, sure, if you're smart and you know that John Henry is the hammer guy from folklore. That's all there. But it would be nice to have some moments where we kind of contextualize, like, he is fine, except it's like, oh, man. He's just a little too advanced. I wish that he was putting it all together.

24:34
JD Martin
Just go back to Steel from Superman, the animated series. Like, the way they did that was great.

24:39
Case
I mean, even if it was just pieces that he had to put on, like, the fact that he's got a disassembling machine was just like, this is too much iron man already.

24:47
JD Martin
Yeah.

24:49
Case
Which is just, like, a minor issue on that one. And then he's pretty fine after that. Like, I like that Lois is, like, immediately knows who he is. Yeah.

24:58
Jmike
Also, she's, like, moonlighting his Batman, sneaking people's houses and stuff like that. She's like, oh, you left your window open. I was like, wait a second.

25:04
JD Martin
I mean, Lois Lane is just a.

25:05
Jmike
Better Batman, apparently so.

25:07
Case
I mean, she's the only one that Batman knocks on the door for.

25:11
Jmike
Oh, she saw him in the lab. Mm. Who scares the.

25:16
Case
Yep.

25:16
Jmike
Lois Lane. Yep.

25:18
Case
Meanwhile, Hank Henshaw. I thought they kind of revealed it too fast. Yes.

25:23
Jmike
That was my second major issue with this movie, because she shows up at the gravesite, and she's like, oh, my God, it's Hank Henshaw. I was like, that's a giant leap.

25:32
Case
They reveal it too fast, because then his plot doesn't really start until after that. Like, I think that we should have had little bits of hints, and then, honestly, the people should have all started to be made cyborg putties before that point. And then we find out, oh, no, it's actually not Superman. It's actually Hank Henshaw. They don't really try to sell you. In fact, they flat out don't try to sell you that what he's doing is the right thing, which I think would have been helpful for his story to have more of an arc to it.

25:58
Case
You know, that he is working for Darkseid before you even get to the start of this whole process, I think that a reveal that, oh, my God, it's Hank Henshaw all along and that he is being controlled by Darkseid, and already he's in a position of power that way would have been a bigger twist on that whole thing.

26:15
JD Martin
Yeah. And I think this is where we get into, like, maybe this would have been done better either as the three part movie or a miniseries.

26:23
Case
Yeah. That said, I like Hank Henshaw's power levels. I think it works really well to have him be. He's not quite as powerful as he is in the comics. Like, he's not able to control all machines. He has direct reasons to control the cyber guys, and he has control over his robot body, and he can interface with stuff to control it. It was a good scaling on that power level.

26:45
Jmike
Yeah. To wrap around back to the eradicator thing where he's been going around stealing Lex Corps weapons and things.

26:51
Case
Yeah.

26:51
Jmike
And that didn't really go anywhere, aside.

26:53
Case
From being like, here's the tracer for it. Sure, taking it out of circulation is a perfectly fine choice, but he sets.

27:01
Jmike
It up in the fortress as, like, an armory for Superman.

27:04
Case
Not a terrible idea.

27:05
Jmike
I was like, okay, I guess. But then why did he go around stomping people out just to take their weapons back?

27:12
Case
Yeah, the eradicator is wasted. The cyborg works well as a specific, like, okay, we've got our villain, and he's working for Darkseid. I really like, once he starts to go crazy when Superman comes back at the end, I think that works really well. Him ripping out the parts of Darkseid's programming. That's really good. I like that a lot.

27:32
JD Martin
Yeah. Honestly, watching this, I was also realizing, like, wow, this is getting full anime here, like, how characters are animated, especially Hank, he's going full anime villain here. And I was pretty into it, actually.

27:46
Case
Yeah, that was really good. I get Darkseid being the master planner, but again, like I said, it kind of makes it feel like a Power Rangers episode, and it kind of makes this feel like just a footnote in a larger series about Dark side's war with Earth.

28:01
Jmike
And it's like the whole new 52 thing where he's everywhere.

28:05
Case
I don't love dark side being the sole reason for anything happening in the DCEU. Exactly.

28:12
JD Martin
Yeah. Because I believe this was supposed to lead directly into Apocalypse War, the Justice League Dark movie.

28:19
Jmike
Right.

28:20
Case
Weirdly, if Superman was a new God, I would be more okay with this being a dark side plot as it is, because he's his own thing. Like, they're separate Mumbo jumbo. I kind of wish that there was more types of mumbo jumbo in this. It's all right. Well, not Cyborg Superman. Cyborg. The Justice Leaguer is also apocalypse tech. And so we've got that going on there, and we got to deal with the Justice League, who also could have just been out of action because of doomsday. We didn't need to have this whole, like, we're going to set up a faux invasion that honestly didn't hit the world the way I wanted it. Like, while, yes, it's devastating. Oh, my God. We just lost the Justice League. I kind of feel like the destruction of the Justice League should have been more, like, city.

29:06
Case
Like, I think that we should have had them taken out of action in a way where things are way more desperate. The Justice League all dying is very sad, considering that Superman just died, but there actually isn't that much fanfare to it. It doesn't come across as, like, the whole world is fucked. And that is why the Cyborg Superman needs to step up and make the world safe.

29:25
Jmike
But, like, Batman had already mentioned that there were already other teams out there too, right?

29:29
Case
Like, the text of it says that, but we don't see the world that way. Like, Metropolis looks fine. Where it's like, oh, all the robots are keeping the peace. What fucking peace? Like, the world doesn't look that bad.

29:40
Jmike
Just like another bright, sunny day in kind of.

29:44
Case
Yeah, like, it's, like, a little too, like, if the world was really hit by some kind of dark side invasion that we saw when they save Hillary Clinton and go from there, because that was Hillary. As soon as the first husband, Bill, was there, I was like, all right, guys, I love this inverse. It's so funny because, well, it's not unrealistic to be like, oh, yeah, I guess Hillary Clinton would be the president now. And then look back at the 90s stuff, and it was Bill Clinton, like.

30:17
Jmike
There for all those scenes.

30:18
JD Martin
Yeah, okay.

30:20
Case
Yeah, Bill Clinton literally speaks at his funeral in the comics.

30:25
JD Martin
Okay?

30:26
Case
It's just wild, the difference in time and everything. But if everything was really fucked up by that, and it's the cyborg is like, okay, shit's really bad, but I'm going to make things better. And we thought that he might be Superman. Like, we didn't think he was a pawn of Darkseid at this point. Then he starts making the world ordered and so forth, and then it's like, oh, shit, he's actually Hank Hanshaw, and he is a construct of Darkseid. That would be a different thing. You could have done that. Where he's looking around the city and he sees Darkseid and freaks out for half second, have that be doomsday sell us as it is PTSD, and then find out that doomsday is the conduit for how you create cyborg.

31:06
Case
Yeah, because he is Doomsday crashed into his ship, and that's how you end up with Cyborg Superman. So, like, you could have some trail of logic there, or you just have, like, literally, Hank Henshaw has ptsd. Because Doomsday killed him, which is also what happened. So that would work fine. And sell that he might be Superman to us as an audience. I think that they give up the ghost too quickly, and so we're like, all right, well, I guess they'll find Superman eventually and everything will be fine, which is what happens.

31:35
JD Martin
Also, I got to talk about Rain Wilson as Lex Luthor.

31:38
Jmike
Okay.

31:38
JD Martin
I got to talk about it because I don't like it.

31:45
Case
I kept on thinking, so it's dwight shrut. And, yeah.

31:51
JD Martin
I don't like.

31:53
Case
Yeah. Like, he's okay at the role, but when he tries to come off as smug, it comes off as not quite there. And part of it is he comes off as shrill a little bit.

32:05
Jmike
Yeah.

32:05
Case
And I just heard him so much as Dwight thinking that he was the smartest man in the room and not actually being the smartest man in the room, that nothing really about this movie sold me that he is the smartest man in the.

32:16
Jmike
Yeah.

32:16
JD Martin
Yeah. It honestly made me kind of miss James Marston's from doomsday because I think it's just, it comes down to his voice being a little too high. Not, I am, of course, used to Luthor having a deeper voice. I'm used to that Clancy brown pitch, but you can still go with a higher pitch. He just needs to have more authority and, like, you, like, actually act like I am the smartest person in the room and make everyone believe it. And as much as I enjoy rain Wilson, he just didn't quite sell it.

32:53
Jmike
Yeah.

32:54
Case
And we spent too much time with him. And I get it. It's because he's supposed to be then a bigger player in more stuff going forward and has been a bigger player outside of this. And it's the era of Lex Luthor. Being a little bit more might actually be key to us saving the day kind of character versus other renditions where he's a little bit more background or he is purely a villain kind of thing. It just felt like most of the time when were dealing with Superboy, it was really an excuse for us to deal with Lex. And I get that it is narratively convenient, but again, it feels weird that Superboy immediately sides with the people who created him rather than being afraid of them or trying to avoid them or latched on to some other group.

33:36
JD Martin
I think everything regarding Superboy and Lex in this movie in some form was done better in young justice.

33:44
Case
Yeah, a thousand. Also, like, I realize that I vent about not liking the retcon that occurred to make Superboy, Lex Luthor's biological son. I think it can be done well in some places, and I think young justice does it really well, I think here, because it is fine. But then when he's working for him and it's like, I gave you every advantages plus my intellect, it really felt like just like Thalog from. Yeah, yeah. But not successfully like a villain, which is also kind of a, like, he's dumber than both Superman and Lex Luthor. And as a result, like, oh, that doesn't quite feel like a proper clone of either. And he's not really a clone at that point.

34:23
Jmike
Back to the drawing board.

34:26
JD Martin
Yeah, I feel like we're kind of driving at the point that this movie is good. It's fun. But unlike with Death of Superman, where that was the perfect length for that story, with a perfect structure for that part of the story, this needed more room to breathe. And while ultimately still being fun, we needed more time with certain characters, maybe even dropping other characters to give others room to breathe and also just giving the entire story as a whole room to.

34:55
Case
Yeah, yeah. Because we had the perfect opportunity with the Justice League taken out of action to spend some time with the eradicator actually doing something. And it doesn't do anything in this whole fucking movie. It's wild. Yeah.

35:09
JD Martin
You don't even need to take the Justice League completely out. Just have parts of the movie showing like, oh, the Justice League are off dealing with this thing or that thing. Some of them are off world. Some of them are out of the US doing other things. And only one or two are ever really present in the US anymore. Batman's, of course, always going to be there, like, maybe one or two others. And have that be an explanation of why the league isn't as present. Because as Wonder Woman points out to, like, the league is stretched then, well, show that they're stretched then. And then that then leads us to getting more time with the eradicator, with Superboy, with steel, with Hank.

35:52
Case
Yeah. Also, why are they teleported to just some random dimension where they can breathe?

35:58
JD Martin
Yeah. Why is Batman there without, like, a breathing apparatus and Aquaman is there, what the hell?

36:04
Jmike
If a boom tube falls on you, I feel like you should end it back up at Apocalypse.

36:09
JD Martin
Yeah.

36:10
Case
If they were doing a whole uprising story and that was kind of like this, a plot that we're not even bothering showing. Like, if it was like, escape from House of the mummy, part two, from venture Brothers, where it's like the a plot we just keep cutting back to, and instead it's relegated to like, a d plot in terms of scene length. And then the minor side story, like, well, back at the venture combat, in this case, well, back with the four Superman kind of thing, where this whole time the Justice League is leading an insurrection inside of apocalypse. And at the end of the story, they show up with reinforcements.

36:40
JD Martin
They're all decked out as if they jump straight out of death metal. So, like, Wonder Woman has a chainsaw and shit. That would be really cool. Honestly, I like that better of them. Like, they do go off, but then we do cut back every once in a like. And we're going to cut back for 5 seconds to show you like, hey, they're leading an insurrection here, right?

36:58
Case
Because otherwise, why didn't the boob tube take them to the sun?

37:02
Jmike
Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. It really doesn't make any sense. They just. Oops, it fell. Oh, no. We're trapped in some other dimension where everything is trying to eat us. How did we get here? Oh, my gosh. It seems like you guys just need to get rid of us for 5 seconds to get us out of the way.

37:19
Case
Yeah, and again, like, the fact that they're treated as dead by the media, and that should be a very big deal. And while there are lines about it, the general sense of the world doesn't really matter. And what we haven't talked about yet is the Bibo rebellion. Because what the fuck was that? What did they think they were doing? They gather at his bar and it's like, yeah, all those guys. Well, right now they're just flying around keeping the peace. But eventually they might try to eradicate us. Yeah, eventually things are going to go bad. We got to go fight them. And first of all, what chance do they have? Obviously none.

38:02
JD Martin
I understand that Bibo is normally not the smartest man in the room. However, he is smarter than that.

38:08
Case
He's got a lot of heart, right?

38:12
JD Martin
There's no plan.

38:13
Case
And it's not even like we're going to go hit these guys or attack this place or protest at this location. And I'm all for advocating for protesting against the official peacekeepers. If they are actually not doing their job appropriately, I think that is perfectly fine. You could get into interesting conversations about things like the Black Lives matter protests or stuff like that, but that's not what's going on in this movie. For one thing, it's a little early in terms of the popular zeitgeist, really appreciating all that. And for another, they don't have a fucking plan. Like, what are they goddamn doing?

38:42
Jmike
We're going to go down there and shout rock.

38:47
Case
And even doing that, why does the cyborg care? Like, it's just a bunch of random people on the ground?

38:54
Jmike
He has a flying base, flying death machine. Yes. At first, it makes it seem like they're in, like, a little help. Remember, was it in game where captain's in this self help group thing and he's just sitting there talking? That's what I thought it was going to be.

39:11
JD Martin
Honestly, that would be great. I would have loved to have bebo leading self help groups. That would have been cool.

39:19
Case
They also didn't get the win is the other side of it, because it's like, oh, here they come. It feels like we're assembling our militia to stand against an. Like, the protest could be fine, but they kind of just should have been ignored until things went bad with Darkseid's plan. Like, when the cyborg Superman pushes it and, yes, it's like, oh, and here they come. They're attacking us. Even then, whatever role that they serve should have been like, oh, they knocked out a power grid. They knocked out a thing that's participating in this all. There's some reason why the ire is drawn to them so that the cyborg even gives a shit about them specifically and not just, like, eradicating them from orbit. Why are the cyber squad people flying in there and engaging in a fight?

40:03
Case
Why isn't it just like, oh, we're just going to start mowing down everyone if the tragedy of these people not being able to stand up to super threats. And that's why super buoyant steel have to get in there and start saving the day. Also cool. It's just like, weird tactics, those moments where it's just like, it's all too simple. Why are you standing there fighting when you could just be blasting them from a distance or dropping a car on them from a distance or doing anything when the tactics don't make sense for the reality of it all, it's like, well, why are you doing it this way? This doesn't feel like how this would actually play out. And it just feels uncreative. And that's kind of the bummer about the third act there. Although I do generally like the third act a lot.

40:43
JD Martin
Yeah. There are those small moments that I really love peppered out throughout this movie. One of them being toward the end when Lex brings the Justice League back. And they're like, wait, Lex, you did. He's like, I only did this as an investment. Like, don't get it twisted. I'm not on your, like, yeah, that's the real Lex shining through right there. He'd be the smartest man in the room. Like, he is going to realize, like, shit, we do kind of need them right now. I hate it, but we've got to have them at this moment. But I will give them shit once they get here.

41:11
Jmike
Oh, man. The little banter they had before while they were guarding the motorcade was kind of fun, too. And then superboy shows up.

41:19
JD Martin
You're welcome.

41:21
Jmike
God, Greenland is like, I've got the shot, Batman.

41:28
JD Martin
I'm like, I'm just Batman. Take it and get this movie toward the third act quickly, please.

41:34
Jmike
Cyborg actually did have a good line, unfortunately, where he was like, so all cyborgs supposed to know each other.

41:41
Case
I did appreciate that, mainly because in the 90s, because Victor Stone was kind of taken out of action for comics, it was just the cyborg was the Cyborg Superman? So it was nice to see the juxtaposition there. It is fascinating that cyborg has become like, oh, I can't open a boom tube now. Like, oh, you're the fucking team teleporter now. In addition to all the other stuff. I never think Cyborg should be a justice League.

42:04
Jmike
He's supposed to be a teen titan, and I will never forgive them for doing that switch.

42:11
Case
Or rather, he's okay being on the team. I like superpowers. Like, if he's a new member, but he's young, he should feel like a rookie.

42:18
JD Martin
That's why I like him in Doom patrol. He fucking rules in Doom Patrol because he's the one who's like, I'm a superhero. I know how to be a superhero. And then the doom patrol is like, dude, you don't know the first fucking thing. You're a freak just like us. And you got to embrace that. There are specific versions of Cyborg I love, and I think, like, that or a Teen Titans version are like, my two favorite versions of Cyborg.

42:40
Jmike
Yes. Teen Titan. Cyborg is awesome. Absolutely.

42:45
JD Martin
Booyah.

42:48
Case
Yeah. So ultimately, I like this movie, but exactly what you said, jD. It needs more space to breathe. We didn't really spend much time with the respective Superman. We didn't really spend much time with the world after the JLA is neutralized. And I like that as a device to make it so that Superman has to come back and save the day. But there doesn't seem to be much of a plan. It's too quickly. Like, okay, well, I'm just going to go confront him, and somehow he wins. And it's nice that Lois is part of that. That's all good. The way Hank plays it, I think, are really good moments, like when Hank is trying to be, like, the rule of law must be obeyed and is really trying to sell it that he's like, that's good.

43:25
Case
I didn't get how Darkseid was able to replicate Superman's DNA if he could. We never had a moment in the comics where it's like, it's confirmed all of this genetic material matches. Superman says aura is the same. So I was left wondering, especially once we saw the cyber squad, does he actually have Superman's powers, or is he apocalyptic in tech?

43:43
Jmike
I thought it was apocalypse tech.

43:45
Case
Yeah. So is he flying with, like, antigrav stuff going on that way? Which could be cool if they explain that as well, just for the fun of it, what's going on?

43:56
JD Martin
And that aids in the investigation of them scanning him. And it's like, well, he's not actually using the way Superman usually flies. He's using this technology, and that leads them down the path of this actually isn't Superman who actually is he?

44:11
Case
Right. But at that point, then, they're all basically robots aside from Superboy.

44:16
Jmike
Well, I mean, they didn't really get into Superboy's powers either.

44:19
Case
Yeah, I miss the TK. Like, he definitely just has Superman's powers, but weaker. And they did have some good moments of him using super speed. It's fine. It wouldn't make sense for him to have tactile telekinesis on this Superboy, because he is just a clone of Superman with Lex Luthor's DNA. But he also is more powerful than young justice Superboy, who has the golden Age Superman power set. So I don't like, I miss it. But it also just plays up that Superboy is just, like, less interesting here than he is in some other versions. And eradicator being just a hologram construct, which I like, that part is cool. But then he's also an artificial being.

44:56
Case
And then if Cyborg Superman, which, interestingly, was both robotic stuff, which is what we're getting in different levels from stealing the eradicator and then also replicated DNA just like, that's why Cyborg was so powerful and so scary. And while I said that I like his power at levels in this movie, I am curious if he's supposed to actually have Superman's stuff going on or if it's entirely apocalypse tech. That's cool, but it should be a mystery, like you said, j Mike. Like, it should be, like, part of them figuring out, oh, he's not actually Superman. And if he actually does have Superman stuff, I would like an explanation for how that is. Where is it? Because you're missing a story opportunity one way or the other, she just figures.

45:38
Jmike
It out in, like, two. Not, that's not Lois.

45:45
JD Martin
She's an investigative journalist. She is going to go full sleuth. So there's got to be a full mystery for her to solve.

45:52
Jmike
Right?

45:53
Case
Especially because she says she's the worst at figuring out secret identities and she.

45:56
Jmike
Figures out all of them instantaneously. Come on. To, you. Got to give her something to work with here that, like, oh, my gosh, I met his wife's gravesite. It must be. Do you, how do you know that, Lois? I don't know. I have a hunch. Great. Figure it out, please. Give us something to work.

46:22
Case
Yeah. Although it does make sense once she has steel as an ally, for them to start figuring out things really quickly. Yeah, that's good. But, yeah, one thing I thought was interesting was at the end of the movie, it's an excuse for them to switch over from the new 52 design for Superman to the rebirth era Superman design. And I do like the rebirth era design. This is actually the time where the new 52 costume coming out would have made sense, like, comeback with kryptonian armor kind of design would have been appropriate. And it just speaks to how much I don't like the new 52 design. Unless it's, like the perfect artist on the perfect moment kind of thing. It can work in exactly right spots, but I just didn't really like it in the movie before.

47:04
Case
And here it's like, if there was ever a time for me to like it would have been like, at this moment. And then instead they go with a more classic Superman costume, which I do like, I prefer. It's like, oh, you're going to go less kryptonian in your design after you actually get in touch with your kryptonian heritage?

47:20
JD Martin
I don't know. At the end of the day, just don't do the nifty two costume.

47:24
Jmike
I feel like I'm in the minority here where I like to actually enjoy the nifty two costume.

47:29
Case
It can work, but it just requires very specific artists.

47:32
JD Martin
Instead, do the Mikhail honeymen in the authority costume.

47:36
Case
Oh, well, yes, daddy. Superman would be the way to go.

47:38
Jmike
Exactly. I'm still looking for it. Are we just going to get that outfit somewhere?

47:41
JD Martin
We better get that outfit James Gunn, give us that costume at some point. Put Brandon Ralph in that costume. Damn it.

47:51
Case
Yeah. I mean, like, I always like to see the black costume at the right moments. Obviously, it shouldn't be his default costume, but it works. It's his healing suit. I enjoyed all that. The eradicator story makes more sense in this than it does in the normal comics. I will say that part that is all good because it's like, oh, yeah, the eradicator woke up, and it's, like, regenerating his body and never once thinks he is Superman. Like, eradicator always knows that he's not actually Superman. He always speaks about Superman in the third person because he is not Superman. He is just an avatar for Superman. So I like those elements there, but, yeah, man, just too much crammed in here. That's just what I keep coming back. Just this needed to breathe a little bit.

48:31
Jmike
Oh, the whole thing with martian Manhunter and pretending to be Superman at the end, I found Mr. Kent locked away, far away.

48:41
Case
I like that a lot, actually, because it was like, oh, he's a bad actor. And that part's nice. And also, it makes sense because in the comic, it was Matrix, and Martian Manhunter and Matrix have basically the same powers. So it's like, okay, cool. Logical transition right there.

48:53
Jmike
That worked really well.

48:54
JD Martin
Yeah. It always makes me happy to see how they're going to put, like, how are we going to have Superman and Clark in the same location? How do we figure that?

49:05
Jmike
Man?

49:06
JD Martin
I'm trying to remember which version I remember watching of Lois asking him every situation of like, well, what about this moment? What about this time? What about that time and Clark just, like, shooting back of like, oh, it was Batman, that one. Like, it was a star, but I.

49:25
Case
Forget if it was in the movie or if it was in the, yeah, okay.

49:29
JD Martin
Yeah, you're right. It was all star.

49:30
Case
It's definitely in the comic. I can't remember if that exact scene happens in the movie, but they both, but it's all star Superman where it's like, what about that time? Oh, time display duplicate. Oh, that time. Oh, it's a robot.

49:41
JD Martin
Yeah, of course it was Morrison. Duh. Morrison would have that conversation.

49:46
Jmike
Yeah.

49:46
Case
On that note, I do really like Jerry O'Connell as Superman, and I do really like Rebecca Romaine as Lois. I think they worked really well. The stuff going on there was good. I really liked Rebecca Romaine dealing with Rosario Dawson as Wonder Woman.

49:59
Jmike
Those are some good scenes there. The new 52 shenanigans.

50:03
Case
Oh, thank Hera. I'm not good at this kind of.

50:06
JD Martin
Small talk and them getting ICE cream. Then Wonder Woman gets to do the spin.

50:13
Case
The spin.

50:14
JD Martin
That was so cool. I love that.

50:16
Case
Yeah. And I think when she spun, she didn't have her hair in the ponytail, which is a thing that broke in the death of Superman. And what's nice is that this is being used as a transition from new 52 stuff to not new 52 stuff. Those were good choices in terms of getting away from all that. But again, the dark side plot just kind of overrides this whole movie. And part of the reason why you kind of have to do that is that this universe is not as rich of a series of adventures of Superman. He hasn't made all the foes. The eradicator, Hank Henshaw, and Mongol all are separate threats, and the eradicator and Mongol are tied together but totally separate things that went on in Superman's life.

50:53
Case
So when you get to where it all comes together in the death and return comics, we kept on saying it's a victory lap. It's everything post crisis. We are going to shout out at some point, so the cadmus stuff, we are going to shout out the underworld people, we're going to shout out. We're going to shout out the weird aliens he's encountered and the Fantastic Four parody he's encountered. And really, the only thing we didn't get was, like, Mr. Mixus Spitlic. Everything came from somewhere in that comic, and this had the task of doing all that with fewer MacGuffins to go off of. So it's like, all right, well, we've got Darkseid, and that's fine. Like, Darkseid and Mongol, honestly, are very similar characters. Like, Mongol is a rip off of dark side, so it's cool.

51:37
Case
It did seem weird where it's like, this is my new apocalypse. I'm like, why the fuck does Darkseid care? I get it. The anti life equation, yada, yada.

51:44
JD Martin
He's got one apocalypse already.

51:45
Jmike
Why does he need another one?

51:47
Case
But you just end up with, like, after 10,000 years, I'm free. It's time to conquer earth.

51:53
Jmike
10,000 years can give you such a crook in the nick.

51:58
JD Martin
That's exactly where my mind went.

52:03
Jmike
Instead of whole new 52 thing where they're trying to fit dark side as, like, the big bad lurking in the shadows, just waiting to get his hands.

52:09
Case
On earth, just for him to turn around and be like, finster, make me a doomsday weapon.

52:14
Jmike
They don't even say that the anti life equation is there. I don't think. I never got to the new 52 set that much. But you don't need to conquer Earth for some reason.

52:26
Case
There were some good lines that I liked where he said, like, anger and hatred are part of the equation. I thought that was a really good line in there. There's some design elements I like in.

52:35
Jmike
General, like that hate and sadness lead to the dark.

52:38
Case
Well, like, that was nice to hint at the anti life equation. Obviously, they went with the Donner movie style fortress of solitude. And I liked how the ion bath that they used or had, like, a crystal design that looked like the Donner rocket from Krypton. But then we had the more silver age design for the rocket that he actually used and was in. So it was nice that they were doing these fusion components. And then we had the 90s style, like calyx style, like kryptonian droids. So good fusions of the different eras of superman design stuff. Those were good. Again, I like a lot of the designs for the characters. Like, in general, all the Superman looked pretty good. I think the eradicator was overdesigned, the accent work of the yellow bands on him. But you know what?

53:18
Jmike
He's fine.

53:19
Case
Like, hologram design, it's fine. I didn't get why he had a visor, like, whatever in the comics. Yeah, he had the visor in the comics, but in the comics, his eyes were super sensitive. Why does the eradicator look like the way he does? Shouldn't he look like a hologram of Superman? Maybe like energy form Superman?

53:36
JD Martin
Yeah. Their reasoning might have been like, he is supposed to look like the hologram that you see in Death of Superman. And that hologram that you see in that movie. He is wearing a visor. Yeah, it's very faint. So they're probably like, oh, we're going to have a character here there who is going to be the model for the eradicator. So the very flimsy in universe reasoning for the visor.

54:01
Case
Yeah. Now that I suggested, I can't stop thinking about, like, if it was the Jor El hologram actively out there, that would be really cool. But then no one thinks it's Superman. Or maybe they do because Jorrell looks like Clark, but that would have been kind of a cool detail there as well. But it's not quite there. It's good. It's just, it doesn't have enough room to breathe. They've got some good design work, and that's all. But, like, they have these narrative conveniences to get things really moving. They want to do the Lex Luthor having control over Superboy story. And so he's already under his thumb, even though it's like, how did he get there? You feel that's a story we didn't tell. And we get great moments. Like, here's the exact covers from some of those comics are on the newspapers and whatnot.

54:48
Case
And that's all very fun and good, but again, we just jump to now we're in a police state where there's, like, flying Superman that the cyborg Superman's controlling, and people are like, maybe this is a good thing. And there's no real discussion until you get there. It's just like, very fast sequences of events, like, big time jumps are kind of occurring here. The thread with that couple, the one guy who became a cyber, like, a cyber squad, superhuman samurai cyber squad character, I like that detail. I like the fact that he's dead at the end. I thought that was kind of good from the standpoint of being, like, narrative stakes to this all, like, oh, how tragic is Darkseid's play here?

55:29
Case
But the world is not shown to be fucked up enough at the end for all of, like, again, we kind of needed coast city to be destroyed. We kind of needed things to be in a bad state. We kind of needed Cyborg to really do a lot of damage to earth under the guise of being like, I'm making it all safe and Kryptonian, and it's actually all apocalyptic tech. And he was setting up Darkseid, and now earth is permanently marked by Darkseid. And that's why we go into the Justice League going to war against Darkseid at the end.

56:00
JD Martin
We kind of need a brave new.

56:02
Case
Metropolis, almost kind of. Yeah.

56:06
JD Martin
We keep going back to Superman, the animated series, because that show is just so damn good and did so many good.

56:11
Case
Like, that's where we should have ended with Cyborg's story before they revealed him to not be the real Superman and positioned themselves to battle him. Like, the third act should have been like, oh, my God. It's never been Superman. It's always been Hank Hinshaw, and he's always been controlled by Darkseid. We kind of just know it too well at that point.

56:31
JD Martin
Yeah. Like I kept saying, probably should have been a miniseries.

56:35
Case
Yeah.

56:35
JD Martin
But, hey, that first movie rules.

56:38
Jmike
Death of Superman is awesome.

56:40
JD Martin
That's the wild part.

56:41
Case
Like, I never thought I would be like, man, the death of Superman, that shit's where it's at. Yeah.

56:45
JD Martin
It's like, I watched that. I'm like, I'm going to cry every time. Can't not do it just because it's a wonderfully complete story, which is kind of insane. It's like this is still like the beginning of the story, and yet it feels like a complete story here, peppered with beautiful moments.

57:06
Jmike
Yeah, I don't think we could have fit coast City and all that shenanigans into one movie.

57:13
Case
Not the full scale, but, like, the dark side attack. The launch of the Watchtower should have been more devastating.

57:19
Jmike
Well, he should have actually come through.

57:21
Case
Yeah, it could have been the equivalent of the coast city events or something to that effect.

57:26
Jmike
I feel like they tried to play it off by saying all those people died in quotation marks. Did they really die or they just kind of, like, passed out in the ground?

57:35
Case
Well, they appeared to be.

57:36
JD Martin
Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're all dead.

57:40
Jmike
It's like they were falling from the sky and no one helped them and adjusted. The guys kind of like looking and fall, like, oh, were we supposed to do something?

57:49
JD Martin
I apologize. When you said falling from the sky, my immediate thought went to the movie robots. When Rodney's like, there should be people riding in the streets, and then there's a riot in the streets, and then Bender's like, oh, my God. You're fantastic, my friend. Now say money should be falling from the sky.

58:06
Jmike
Oh, yeah.

58:09
JD Martin
Everyone go rewatch robot movie. It's a good movie.

58:11
Jmike
It's a fun movie.

58:13
Case
Well, yeah, everyone should go rewatch that. I would say watch this movie at least once, maybe twice. I liked it more the second time, frankly. For sure, I watched it. I do like this movie. I know I've been coming as down on it. It's just I was so blown away by. I feel like it's a movie that is fine to good. Like, it's a B minus movie, and there's a solid place for that. I just couldn't get over that death was so good. Like, death was a solid a as far as doing that story. And so I'm a little bummed by that part. But it's still really fun to look at and see how someone could compress all of that stuff down as much as they could and not have to deal with the death part.

58:56
Case
Because having that be its own thing is still useful in terms of how much story you can actually tell. The fact that we do deal with steel and it's a pretty good steel and we do deal with Cyborg and it's a pretty good cyborg and they do deal with Superboy and it's an okay, Superboy. And then they don't do the eradicator, but they felt like they had to reference the eradicator. Whatever. I would have liked a little bit more there would have liked a little bit more of a story for Superboy beyond just being like, I have to get away from my corporate overlords and also my dad. Okay.

59:28
Case
Steel would have been nice if we had a story for him to do that wasn't just like dealing with the other Superman, but it was a perfectly fine steel that was set up pretty well. So that's all good. Lois is a real arc. Yeah, exactly. You have to work to make Steel, not Iron man. And this movie didn't do that work. But it's okay because they're very similar characters. But they just didn't distinguish him just well.

59:51
Jmike
I mean, remember in the comics, he was off doing his own thing most of the time.

59:55
Case
Right. He had, like, a real story.

59:57
Jmike
Yeah, but the bunny lady.

01:00:00
Case
Yeah. White rabbit.

01:00:01
Jmike
Yeah, white rabbit. Yeah. He was off chasing after her the entire time. So he didn't really interact until the end.

01:00:09
Case
Steele was just chasing the white rabbit. Sounds like a code for drugs. Yeah. They gave Steele his own story because it was very clear that he was his own character. And they never dealt with, like, is he possibly Superman? Whatever. Not the point, guys. And Superboy was, like, lighthearted romp stuff, and we don't get any of that either. And then Cyborg and eradicator were both like, are they the real Superman? And that's what this movie kind of wants to deal with. Although we all know that it's not really Superman. They don't really try to fake you out on either the eradicator or the cyborg Superman. And that's kind of the bummer that those comics did try to fake you out. And so that felt like their story. And this one doesn't do it enough.

01:00:53
JD Martin
Yeah, I think ultimately what they should have done was take Cyborg Superman and take it until the last 15 minutes of the movie until you think that he is actually Superman. Because, of course, there are going to be people like case and like many others who have read the comics and know the story and then direct that more toward y'all in that, like, making y'all think, wait, are they not gonna do that? Are they actually gonna make Cyborg Superman the actual Superman and really fake y'all out? Because then that's gonna be hard for everybody.

01:01:31
Case
That, yeah, because the way you could have faked it out is if you made very clearly the eradicator, a kryptonian intelligence that was activated upon Superman's death from the fortress of solitude and from his that you make it so it's very clear that this one's not Superman. And Steel and Superboy are their own things and we don't have to worry about it. And then kind of fake out so that you think you're from the cyborg's perspective, like, you see him kind of wake up as Superman and being like, what happened? And have flashes of. And, like, you think you're in his head. And then it turns out that he's Hank Henshaw, who also died by doomsday.

01:02:05
Case
And then that some of the things that, those moments where the machines are kind of controlling him or whatever, you could believe that's him dealing with the robot body or the kryptonian intelligence stuff because he should be the rocket ship and cyborg should be the, you know, you could make it so that we're really being led to believe that the Cyborg Superman is Superman reborn in this fucked up face in this terrible way. And he's trying to deal with his life and everything. Like, all of his memories are broken because it's a, like, you can do those kind of flashes of his perspective and have it be ambiguous because it could be like programming that Darkseid put in to make him think that he's Superman. So that when Jean Jones meets him, he passes a psychic scan. He certainly believes that he is.

01:02:47
Case
Like, you could go with shit like that. And then you can fake it out and be like, oh, actually, he is not. He is, in fact, a drone created by Darkseid to be in this position. And some of those memories are real because they're from human DNA that was, like, mucked with. And then you get there. Yeah, would have been cool. They don't do enough with it, and it's a bummer, but it's still pretty good. It's definitely worth watching. It's just not as great as the death of Superman. But I would say check it out and then check out the comics because they do actually have a really good time spending energy on those respective characters. And you get some really cool art.

01:03:26
Jmike
Read the comics and avoid those weird miniseries in between with the don't look at the annuals.

01:03:33
Case
They're not worth it at all. Just full stop, not worth it. You're fine without it. Also, read half of the issue of Green Lantern. That ties in, but not the other half. And do whatever you can not to give kickbacks to Gerard Jones and, yeah, it's fine. It's all like, are we ever going to get a perfect version of the Reign of the Superman? I don't know, because the story also was of a particular time in also.

01:04:01
JD Martin
You talking about there are aspects of that story that have already been told. We keep going back to young justice of Superboy and Lex and Cadmus. That story has already been dealt with to death in young justice. At this point. I feel like maybe in another 20 years or so we'll get a new version of Reign of the Superman. I don't think we're going to get.

01:04:20
Jmike
Another one anytime soon. I hope not.

01:04:22
JD Martin
Yeah, we're good for now.

01:04:25
Case
Fine.

01:04:25
JD Martin
Yeah, I think we're good for now.

01:04:26
Case
This is fine. I'm not hurting for it.

01:04:28
Jmike
No. I think one of the things that always got me after reading, actually, after sitting down and reading all the comics for this show, all like the death of Superman, Return of Superman, is that how many storylines left from this story to go across the stuff in the DC Universe? Because directly after this story, you get Emerald Twilight and all, it goes down with Green Lantern.

01:04:53
JD Martin
Oh, yeah.

01:04:53
Jmike
And this causes that. Oh, how did that happen? Oh, well, they blew up Coast City in Return of.

01:05:01
Case
Gold. Losing his future armor happens as a result of doomsday, and so he is stuck basically being an Iron man type character for a while that Ted cord is making the armors for. So that's a big shift in the character. And Emerald Twilight has a direct impact on Guy Gardner, who had already been kicked out of the Green Lantern Corps at the time, but he still had a sinestro ring. And at the time, Sinestro rings were only powered by him fighting Green Lanterns. And so when the Green Lantern Corps is gone, he all of a sudden loses his power source, too. So he's out of action and has to become an alien human hybrid who is able to grow machines out of his body parts for a while called warrior, because it turns out that he is part.

01:05:40
JD Martin
Just, just a little bit. And he's a dick, as always.

01:05:46
Case
And then there are stories that grow out from Superman's return. Like he has this whole story where his powers grow well past his silver age levels and he has to go off into space because he's turning into a weird energy hulk, and he fights massacre, which is doomsday. But like a space doomsday, we eventually.

01:06:02
JD Martin
Get case's favorite, Kyle Rayner, right?

01:06:05
Case
Yes, we do get Kyle Rayner, who is a great Green Lantern and rivals Alan Scott. Like those two go back and forth for which one's my favorite? Green Lantern. But I do love some Kyle Rayner.

01:06:15
JD Martin
Yeah.

01:06:15
Case
JD is showing off a statue of Kyle Rayner right now. Yeah, the animated series version.

01:06:20
JD Martin
I have four. Green Lantern statue funko pops. I have four. You can tell I love Green Lantern.

01:06:29
Case
Well, and Green Lantern directly connected with the story back in the day, but barely in this one while Hal Jordan is present. It's not like there's a big story as a result of Hal Jordan.

01:06:39
JD Martin
Also, even though it's, again, not the movie we're talking about, but can we talk about how great the Justice League meeting is in death of Superman where they mock Batman going to essentially a parent and teacher conference. Just flash you like I am Batman. We need shepherds for prom. Who do I need to PTA? Please tell me you're on the PTA. Just Batman.

01:07:05
Jmike
Like, I hate you guys.

01:07:09
JD Martin
I hate you so much.

01:07:12
Case
Yeah. So I'm glad that we looked at this and I'm glad that this is a very succinct way of doing a lot of the big story beats. I think it's definitely good if someone wants to get caught up to speed sufficiently that they understand the broad strokes. But I would say this is an area where the comics actually get to breathe a bit more. And so those are cool to check out and they're readily available on DC Universe Infinite.

01:07:33
Case
So, like, I think if you like this movie, you probably should go just check it out because it's kind of fun to see Superboy have his own adventure before it's his own book and to see the eradicator be fighting to regain who he is and understand what he is, and the cyborg to have a weird story where he saves Bill Clinton from terrorists from a generic hybrid state of Iran and know they happen in there and there's some fun stuff going on. Steel story is fun and crazy and it's weirdly down to earth and very specific book that feels kind of like a golden age Superman book but with armor and that's cool. There's fun stuff to check out. So if you like this, go check that out.

01:08:13
Case
I think if you read the comics and you're curious how this is also worth checking out. Again, it's like really cool ideas for some stuff and then some stuff feels glossed over. So it's give and take on that one, but it's not the only adaptation of the return of Superman that we're going to be talking about. So, JD, thank you for coming on for this.

01:08:34
Jmike
Absolutely.

01:08:35
JD Martin
I'm so happy to be back. I'll come back for every episode that.

01:08:39
Jmike
You need me for.

01:08:40
JD Martin
Every single one.

01:08:43
Case
I am sure we will have some for you soon. We need to keep you in that competition for number one.

01:08:48
JD Martin
It's not a competition. I am the top.

01:08:52
Jmike
I swear, next time we're going to see JD with, like I said, he's going to have a belt over his shoulder.

01:08:57
JD Martin
I'm going to make a t shirt for myself. Now. I do have a men of steel t shirt. I'll just modify it. I'll just modify it.

01:09:05
Case
Like, here comes Duke in the back with a steel chair.

01:09:09
JD Martin
All of a sudden you just see me and I just have Duke in a like, hey, welcome back to JD. Like, yep, I currently have Duke in a chokehold. This is not us being on the episode together again. This is me showing my dominance.

01:09:24
Case
If his face never gets up to a microphone, he's not technically on the episode. Exactly.

01:09:28
JD Martin
It's technicality.

01:09:30
Case
Well, but again, thank you for coming on for this one. This was a lot of fun to look at. Honestly, if I went into this movie with the expectations I had before I watched death, I would have been perfectly satisfied. This would have been like, great.

01:09:41
JD Martin
It's just the only.

01:09:42
Case
Because death is just so good. It's so good.

01:09:44
JD Martin
Peter Mossy, man. What a fucking great writer.

01:09:47
Case
Yeah. Jay Mike, any closing thoughts, particularly about this adaptation? For you?

01:09:52
Jmike
All cyborgs don't know each other.

01:09:53
Case
That is true.

01:09:54
Jmike
That is all.

01:09:56
Case
They could have done a binary code joke, but they didn't.

01:10:01
Jmike
This was a fine movie. I like it. It's not my favorite, but it's fun to watch. I really like Lois Lane, although she pokes at herself a lot, which is pretty fun. Like I said, it's a good B minus staff of approval. B minus. Hooray.

01:10:17
Case
And I will say that from the standpoint of just quality in its type of medium, this is better than what we're going to be talking about next time. Next time. And that isn't to say that I am not excited for next time. It's just we got to be honest about the level of craft into each thing. Because next time we're going to be continuing our conversation about the death and return of Superman. Specifically because we will be looking at the Super Nintendo game the death and return of Superman with Matt and Jeff. Our former and current editors for the podcast also hosts of the fun and games with Matt and Jeff podcast. So we can be talking about the video game. So that's really exciting.

01:10:56
Case
And actually, we are going to be doing a streaming that will have already happened by this point on their Twitch channel. So check out the recording of that because Twitch lets you go back and look at old streams. So if you want to check it out. We're actually going to watch Matt play through because unfortunately death and return is a single player game. But that'll be happening the Saturday before we record this episode. So we will be dropping that in the cpov discord. And like I said, it's already happened at this point. So we're just saying out loud the things that are yet to happen for us, and then we're going to record an episode the following day. And ideally we will all have played it and at minimum we will all have watched Matt play it.

01:11:34
Case
And it's a fine Super Nintendo beat em up. You keep saying fine, it's fine. It's not top tier. Super Nintendo beat them up. So that's a big part of it, which is that this movie is not top tier DC animated, but it's actually pretty good. I would say in the pantheon of DC animated movies, it's on the upper echelon. I would say that the death and Return of Superman, the game is very dead center in the list of Super Nintendo beat them ups.

01:12:03
Jmike
You're very generous.

01:12:05
Case
I think that there's some really good stuff, and we'll talk about that next time. So like I said, next time we'll be talking about the game. It's going to be an interesting conversation with Matt and Jeff about that. And after that, I think we're finally fucking done with the death and return of Superman.

01:12:20
Jmike
What? We're not going to do a Wonder Woman thing.

01:12:24
Case
I mean, we kind of did. We did a lot of episodes here. So, JD, if people want to find you, follow you, where can they give your plugs?

01:12:36
JD Martin
I'm over on Twitter at underscore Martin. Underscore. Because there's a lot of JD Martins out there. Apparently the podcast comics quest and people's reflections still exist. There's all those episodes right there. Maybe they'll come back. We're working on things. I think right now, the main thing that we're working on is we're working to get our tied to the wonderful podcast busted limes with paratian Armand. We're getting busted dice, hopefully out there at some point. It is a TTRPG play by play podcast that we're doing. I'm a player on the first season and tied to this podcast a bit. I am playing like the Superman analog, almost like there's like a family of super people. I'm like the legacy character of the teen superhero team, so we're working to get that out in the world as soon as possible.

01:13:22
JD Martin
The following season should be one where I will be dming, which is going to be very fun. So look forward to that. Hopefully within the next couple month or so, I hope is when we're going to start launching that.

01:13:34
Case
Fantastic. I mean, everyone should check out all the projects that you've worked on or the ones. I mean, all the stuff that you do is typically speaking evergreen. So certainly worth looking at regardless. Some really great episodes, some really long episodes on things like Watchmen and all.

01:13:48
JD Martin
Kinds of other go back and check out that three hour episode of Watchmen with case and Paresh. I also had to cut an hour out just because I wanted to look up a quote from a guy from a fucking book.

01:14:02
Case
Yeah, that took a while, but it was fun. It was a really great chat and always love chatting with you. J Mike. I also always love chatting with you. If people wanted to chat with you, where can they find you or follow you?

01:14:13
Jmike
Oh man, people want to talk with me. That's great. You can find me on that website that is still around somehow. Twitter at jmike 101. Hurry because I don't think it's going to be around for much longer.

01:14:24
Case
I know, it's miracle, right?

01:14:26
JD Martin
It might implode, who knows?

01:14:28
Case
Like were all making preparations and being like, oh, I guess this is gone. And then quite yet.

01:14:34
Jmike
I think people are just kind of there to see it all burn down from the inside.

01:14:39
Case
It's really surreal. I am currently watching it burn over there at case Aiken and the show can be found at the burning site at Men of Steel Pod. But you can find all this stuff we're working on@certainpov.com. Including links to our YouTube page where I do the Superman analog videos or where you can see animated clips from this show and from my other show, another pass, as well as some of the other projects like sidequests. Again, you can find that@certainpov.com where you can find tons of great shows like JD's shows, like my shows, like all the stuff that we're working on. It's great stuff. You can find a link to our discord server where you can interact with us directly at a place that is not going to just burn down spontaneously. Who would have thought?

01:15:18
Case
So you can check that out there again, there's a link at our website. Come talk. We really enjoy having comics chats and the comics chat channel in general has picked up a lot of speed, particularly since Keith and Jose from we have issues have become regulars on our Discord server and their other show, Jukebox Vertigo joined the podcast network, so that has been a lot of great times. So check all that out. And yeah, until next time, stay super man.

01:15:47
Jmike
Men of steel is a certain POV production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is scored and edited by Jeff Moonin, and our logo and episode art is by case Aiken.

01:16:17
JD Martin
All right, now it's time to record the megamind episode.

01:16:20
Case
Hello, wonderful listener Pat Edwards here, co host of the let's rewatch podcast on this Barry network. For those of you who don't know me, I'm an author and a game designer. Specifically, I work in the tabletop role playing gaming industry. Well, I recently co founded a production studio called Storytellers Forge. Our first big book launch has arrived. The Black Ballad is a brutal and bloody ttrpg adventure that answers the question what happens when the heroes die? Easily adaptable to multiple gaming systems, including fifth Edition D D, the Black Ballad is the perfect campaign to start after.

01:16:51
JD Martin
A total party kill.

01:16:52
Case
We are immensely proud of this epic Tome and have assembled a stellar team of collaborators. The Black ballad features a soundtrack by Diamorte, downloadable NPC audio snippets recorded by Carlos Farrow from Gears of War and Assassin's Creed, and some truly gorgeous illustrations spearheaded by our art director, James Masingo from Borderlands Two and Shadow Run. Our crowdfunding campaign goes live March 7 on backer Kit and I would be grateful beyond measure if you would consider ordering a copy of the Black ballad today. Cpov certainpov.com.

Overview:

●      The meeting on the Men of Steel podcast began with Case Aiken and Jmike Folson discussing the animated adaptation of Superman's reign, joined by JD Martin. They analyzed character developments, plot intricacies, and compared the film to the comic version. JD Martin emphasized his fondness for certain adaptations of Superman and discussed various characters like Superboy, Steel, Cyborg Superman, and Lex Luthor in depth.

●      The conversation highlighted narrative pacing, character depth, and missed opportunities for story expansion. They appreciated humor in some scenes but criticized the lack of development in others. The group delved into character dynamics, thematic choices, and the challenges of condensing complex storylines while staying true to the source material. They also discussed incorporating elements from different Superman eras into the storyline.

●      The participants examined character designs, missed opportunities for deeper exploration, and comparisons with the comic book counterpart. They critiqued pacing issues, rapid transitions between events, and suggested strategic storytelling techniques for enhancing suspense. The movie was assessed as a solid B-minus film, capturing key themes but falling short compared to its iconic predecessor, "Death of Superman."

●      Reflections focused on hopes for future adaptations exploring nuanced narratives within the Superman universe. Plans were outlined for further dissecting aspects of Superman lore across different media formats. The hosts' personal connections underscored their passion for superhero mythos analysis, engaging listeners through insightful discussions.

Notes:

●      🎥 Discussion on Comics and Storytelling

●      JD Martin joins the conversation.

●      Exploring the creativity in comic storytelling.

●      Mention of format innovations like panel reductions.

●      👥 Character Development and Plot

●      Setting up future storylines and character arcs.

●      Transition from individual stories to interconnected narratives.

●      Intertwining storylines to impact each other.

●      📚 Adaptation Analysis

●      Reviewing a specific adaptation's story beats.

●      Quick pace of events with big time jumps.

●      Broad strokes for catching up on the storyline.

●      🎮 Video Game and Future Plans

●      Hinting at discussing a video game in future episodes.

●      Teasing upcoming topics for discussion.

●      Plans for recording future episodes.

●      🌐 Social Media Presence

●      Sharing Twitter handles for JD Martin and J Mike.

●      Promoting projects and interactions on certainpov.com.

●      Invitation to join the discord server for direct interaction.

Action items:

●      JD Martin

●      Investigate why Hank Henshaw was able to replicate Superman's DNA (42:37)

●      Provide an explanation for Cyborg Superman's powers and origin (45:21)

●      Create a mystery surrounding Cyborg Superman's abilities for Lois Lane to solve (46:00)

●      Work on getting busted dice out in the world (01:12:49)

●      Start launching busted dice within the next couple of months (01:13:33)

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Initial Impressions and Storytelling Techniques (00:15 - 03:46)

●      Discussion on the evolution of storytelling in comics and the unique formats used.

●      Exploring the concept of different time points in storytelling.

●      Chapter 2: Character Development and Plot Intersections (14:17 - 16:33)

●      Emphasis on individual character arcs before their stories intertwine.

●      Transition from individual storylines to interconnected plots.

●      Chapter 3: Narrative Impact and Scene Development (34:30 - 36:16)

●      Feedback on the need for more character depth and room for story development.

●      Suggestions for showcasing different storylines within the main plot.

●      Chapter 4: Pace, Narrative Conveniences, and Fast Progression (54:22 - 56:56)

●      Discussion on pacing and narrative conveniences in moving the story forward.

●      Reflections on the speed of events and time jumps in the storytelling.

●      Chapter 5: Adaptation Quality and Broad Strokes Understanding (1:07:12 - 1:09:47)

●      Evaluation of the adaptation's effectiveness in capturing major story beats.

●      Balancing between detailed ideas and glossed-over elements in the adaptation.

●      Chapter 6: Podcast and Future Discussions (1:12:38 - 1:16:17)

●      Mention of ongoing podcast projects and future episodes.

●      Introduction to a TTRPG play-by-play podcast and collaborative works in the gaming industry.