Special Edition Podcast
Show Notes
Conor Kilpatrick, Paul Montgomery, and Chris Neseman break down the latest DC Universe Animated Original film: Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths! When Lex Luthor shows up on the Justice League’s orbiting watchtower claiming to be the last surviving member of an alternate Earth’s JLA, will anyone believe him? Does the League have any chance against the nefarious Crime Syndicate? Does Ultraman wear Queens pants in his off time? Plus, the new short film Showcase: The Spectre! How does it all stack up against the other projects produced under Bruce Timm, and what does the future have in store for animated comic book adaptations? More importantly, does Conor have a sinister plan to exterminate humanity?
Running Time: 00:30:00
Music:
“It Takes Two”
Donny & Marie Osmond
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Nonstop slugfesting. Very little plot or substance for adults. Buy the disc for your son/nephew. They’ll love it.
Well to me, next to the Wonder Woman animated feature every other animated feature is retarded. But I enjoyed this in it’s considered context.
@fnord – We cover this in the podcast, but I have to strongly disagree with that. Yes, kids will like it, but for such a short feature they also cover some fairly cerebral, heady concepts. Sure, it’s not Watchmen, but it certainly surpasses mindless action. Adult fans of animation will find a lot to like here.
Getting this in the mail today, ohhhhh I can’t wait. I’ve either liked or loved all of these films. From the movies themselves to the docs and behind the scene stuff they put on these DVDs, so awesome.
And Paul, you did it, 30 minutes exactly. Well done.
I think fnord is talking about Planet Hulk. He can’t be talking about this movie.
I’m really annoyed (trying my best to use civil language here) that they don’t release these movies in the UK. Still waiting on the last two Batman Animated Series box sets.
Okay, lets rank!
1. New Frontier 2. Crisis on 2 Earths 3. Wonder Woman 4. Superman/Batman 5. Gotham Knight 6. Green Lantern 7. Superman Doomsday
My top 3 are pretty close. My last spot is so far back from the rest. 4-6 are "good, not great."
Oh, and YES!
I’ll spend 4 bucks more to get a fantastic short every time.
Liked the movie, LOVED the short! They’d better have a Question one on the Under The Hood DVD.
@CaseyJustice – I think Jonah Hex is the Showcase short paired with Under the Red Hood, but The Question seems like a no brainer for the format.
@CaseyJustice @Paul: Jonah Hex is definitely the next short.
Netflix (at least my distribution center) apparently isn’t getting any copies until March 23. And the wait begins…
@Slockhart-Mine is the same way. Says it won’t be released until March 23. That’s whack! I might just rent it from the video store this weekend since I really want to watch this
@Paul & @Conor: Wow. Dare I say that sounds even better?
It doesn’t need to be Watchmen, but why can’t these DC and Marvel animated movies have something for adults when Pixar has no problem doing that. Downey’s Iron Man had no problem satisfying both demographics. When watching with my son, I prefer not to watch something dumbed down.
@fnord: These movies have a lot for adults. Lots of great character work and story. These movies are no where near dumbed down. They are quite smart.
I don’t consider Multi-Verse concepts and existential philosophies as being "dumbed down". Maybe I’m just a simple man.
You can thank Warner Brothers for the Netflix delay. WB and Netflix signed an agreement to release WB movies on Netflix a month after they hit the street.
Wow. Jersey Shore Superman.
Nice podcast, guys, and i definitely agree — this one was one of the most enjoyable animated films in quite awhile. As a fan of the JL animated series, I could see where this could have fit into that series, but I think they did a nice job of separating it out. If anything, I would say a few JL members got short shrift, which is no big deal in a running series, but perhaps hurt it slightly here. That said, I think they did a great job of defining the characters through their actions, and while I’d like these to be a tad longer, I do feel as though the storytelling was nice and clean.
To fnord’s point, I did feel as if there was a certain point in the flm where we began to see one battle after another. However, this didn’t really bother me much, as I quickly I realized that the skirmishes really established the deadlocked nature of the conflict. When you’ve got JLA vs. Evil JLA, you really need to show them fighting to a stand still. And then I thought they gave Owlman a proper amount of time to get philosophical, etc., so i didn’t feel it was at the expense of anything else. A totally entertaining action movie.
But damn, more than anything else, I LOVED that Spectre short. That was awesome. I hope we get too see a lot of these! Someone mentioned The Question, but how about Deadman? The Demon? The Phantom Stranger?
Agh… Now I just wish they could do an anthology made up of short films of all the great obscure DC characters!
Great ‘cast guys! I really enjoyed this. Well paced, structured and suitably complex for a cartoon. James Woods and Gina Torres were so well cast. Owlman was by far my favorite character, and the cool, monotone delivery worked so well. I really liked the voice acting for Hal, Barry and Martian Manhunter. The cameos were fun (Aquaman had a great moment. Jason Rausch got a nice little spotlight, too. Cedric Yearbourough!) This was probably my favorite of the films produced by DC so far, with New Frontier coming in Second. I will say, the MM/Rose relation ship could have stood a little more fleshing out (Or some reason for him to care about her sooner in the plot?) but I really didn’t like Mark Harmon as Superman. It felt out of place. Maybe if Superman had been drawn a little less young looking?
The Spectre short was great. Gary Cole!
I’m really excited for Under the Red Hood. The little snippet sold me! One thing that made me chuckle were Winnick and Timm both repeating "We knew what needed to be changed to make it work." Which seemed to be speaking to some of the plot problems inherent to the original storyline.
@PraxJarvin: Wally, not Barry. 🙂
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was Wally too.
I agree about Mark Harmon’s Superman. I’d been excited about that casting, but they didn’t get a great performance out of him. Part of it was that he was really stiff with his line delivery and, yeah, that character model was way too young looking for that voice.
Just a suggestion for further DC animated podcasts, if you have time, can you discuss the bonus features (i.e. the documentaries on the 2nd disc)? Those are one of the things I look forward to the most when I buy an animated DC dvd, but felt pretty burned by the GL:First Flight one, and to a lesser extant, Superman/Batman.
Great podcast guys. I’m watching it for the third time already. I agree with a lot of what you guys said. The Spectre showcase was a very pleasant surprise. Jealous of Conor because he got to see it on a big screen.
And @conor: I must also urge you to get on JLU. I look forward to your thoughts about it one day.
Haven’t heard the podcast yet, but have watched the feature with my 7 yr old, who really loved it, more than New Frontier which we watched last month. I think that once again Timm and co do an admirable job of giving us the best of both worlds. There’s a lot that caters to my own inner (i)fanboy, but there’s action and the kind of cool concepts that fire a child’s imagination as well. My boy and I are avid fans of Brave and the Bold and it was fun for him and I to compare this feature with the episodes of that series which featured parallel earths and characters. It’s a great thing, talking comics and characters with your offspring! I have to say that it’s features like these, and the TV series’, that might be the gateway that kids need to turn them on to the comics themselves.
I really enjoyed the feature, but I have to say I would have preferred more character moments–a little more of an examination of the fact that these villains are crack’d mirror versions of the heroes. The contrast would’ve made for some good character beats. Sure, the action was great and the multi-versal ideas are there but I still felt like there were some opportunities lost.
On the other hand, I positively LOVED the Spectre short. So very, very cool. Note perfect, really.
Also, I loved the fact that Mirror-verse Martian Manhunter was named J’Ars J’arkas and had four arms.
Over at the CBR message boards, Dwayne McDuffie was actually commenting on who the CSA analogues are. Turns out Superwoman is neither Diana or Lois Lane (as Chris said). She’s actually Mary Marvel. Those 3 ‘made men’ that are summoned to fight? Her Lt. Marvel’s. It’s why they have similar costumes. Just a fun piece of trivia. 🙂
Here’s the original post: http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=308181&highlight=superwoman&page=2
I loved this movie. Definitely my favourite of the DCUAOM (is that the proper acronym for these?).
@JohnnyStooge – That makes a lot of sense. There was definitely a Black Adam/Captain Marvel thing going on with the Made Men. There was already a team of alternate reality JLA dopplegangers in JLU, so developing a team that was more than a simple mirror image of the originals was a cool idea.
I have the Heroclix LE of Superwoman, and her name is Lois Lane.
That is geeky on a whole different level…
watching it now….damn batman is bloddy awesome!!!!! it’s not smoke….lol
the animation on this is wicked sick! so fluid. WONDER WOMEN DOES A NECK BREAKER SUPLEX! damn!
i’m loving owl man
Really loved the fight sequences in this. They seemed to be of a much higher standard than the usual animated fare. Combined with the big ideas in the movie it had something for everyone. Only New Frontier was a better animated movie imho.
Just watched this on Surf the Channel. It was fantastic!!!
@vadamowens
Admitting piracy here: not cool.
@miya I’m not very concerned with your convictions on the subject.
@anyone I don’t think Earth Prime was ‘our’ earth as was said in the podcast. Wasn’t the movie implying that ‘our’ earth was an alternate to the original as well? (If I missed the correction, I apologize in advance)
I saw this at the screening in L.A. and generally enjoyed it. Didn’t love the Batman or Superman voices, but I eventually got over them and everyone else was great.
This is one of the few times I could listen to the podcast as soon as it came out. Usually I save Special Edition podcasts until I can see the movie (or I just listen to them straight away if I’m reasonably sure I’ll never see the movie in a reasonable amount of time).
@fnord: While it isn’t going to give Faulkner or Doestovsky a run for their money, it is in no way "dumbed down". I was surprised at how much they actually managed to sneak in. "You gazed into the abyss and you blinked…" was, relatively speaking, kinda smart.
Haven’t listened to the poscast yet, because the audio is very very low for my very very little monitor speakers.
I thought James Wood would just phone it in, but he did a very good job.
Just watched this last night. Very enjoyable! If DC keeps making them, I’ll keep watching them!
i really wished i saw the spectre short before i read the baclest night. would have cleared up a whole lot
Finally saw this and really enjoyed it. SUPERMAN/BATMAN didn’t really do much for me, but this hit the spot. Only problem was that my library got the rental version of the DVD that didn’t include the Spectre short. That bummed me out a bit, but that’s okay.
Quick (SPOILER) question: When Owlman shows up on Earth Prime with the QED he’s going to detonate, he and Batman have a discussion about the infinite worlds where every decision that anyone has ever had as been made. Many worlds would be indistinguishable from each other if the decision was a small one made by someone who’s not very important. By this logic, there should be a large number of Bruce Wayne Batmen and a large number of Owlmen who think just like this one.
So, doesn’t this mean that there are an infinite number of other Owlmen who have had the exact same plan as this Owlman? Shouldn’t there be tons of Owlmen fighting tons of Batmen on this world? And by the logic that each decision makes a new world, shouldn’t some of those Owlmen succeed if his respective Batman makes a wrong decision, allowing Owlman to win? So, shouldn’t the universe have been destroyed by one of these other Owlmen?
But, I’m overthinking this whole thing. All I know is that I enjoyed it and that I can’t go wake up my wife to discussion the mental gymnastics that I just put myself through.
I just watched this too and really enjoyed it. Still so far Wonder Woman is my favorite of the animated movies but this was fun. Also I hear some complaints people are having about all the action but it’s a JLA story. That’s kind of what I want to see in these kind of stories especially with such great animation.
Just wished I could have seen this great Spectre Short everyone is talking about 🙁