It was okay. Better than their prior attempt, which was also not bad but not great. It at least covered all of it but they still kind of mucked it up imo
Based. Best part.
I feel like they got part of the essence down, although it would have probably benefited from another superman movie prior that developed his relationships with the heroes and with his cast to really sell the pathos.
I actually loved that one. I thought it was the most interesting one they made in that continuity, it's probably not particularly a good movie but I thought it kind of had balls to do something so dour for a finale. It had fun throwing action figures together moments too like demon superman and shit.
Trigon fistfighting Darkseid in the end as we, the viewers, contend with the idea that Trigon's the preferable ally to go fight Darkseid because the world's just that fucked.
Also, like, the deaths of the fucking Return of Superman "Supermen" just happened so nonchalantly in the background.
It's funny how that movie kinda cemeted the Constantine being a bisexual thing to normies. Fucking King Shark.
The reason the tomorrowverse ended up like that, is they planned to do and had outlines for almost 30 movies then James Gunn came in and decided to cancel the whole direct to video DC line because he wanted everything under his umbrella and so their plan got cut to like 10 movies total and so they speedran through it. Its actually a shame because I think it would have ended up better quality overall then the prior universe personally, based on the first ~3/4 of them. the director of the crisis movies explained this. They also were gearing up to do Kingdom Come as their next big standalone one and James Gunn and Peter Safran personally told them absolutely not because they're doing aspects of that and possibly adapting it outright eventually in their live action movies.
That makes sense.
It sucks, I'm a big JSA fan. Woulda loved to have seen more. The JSA movie wasn't bad. It did a half-decent Diana. Also liked the whole "Shakespeare" revelation in the end.
I liked the Gods And Monsters movie. It was interesting.
Absolute Universe before the real thing happened. Feels like We have some of its DNA in the DC Absolute universe.
Beyond the DCAU, there is of course plenty of other fun adaptations:
- Teen Titans 2003 - Very different from the comics, and milage may very on whether the changes were better than the source. It definitely leaned more into being a character piece and took heavily from animes of the time. It is usually on par, if not above the DCAU for most people.
- The Batman 2004 - This series is getting a resurgence in recent years, with many even going as far as to say it is better than TAS. Personally, this series has the most well-rounded Batman and depiction of his relationship to Batgirl and Robin. What the series lacks however is that tragedy angle for the villains that BTAS brought.
- Legion of Super Heroes 2006 - The weird and often forgotten child of the DC animated lineup. It is pretty decent, but nothing too special. Most memorable thing is them having a tolerable edgelord Superman. Also, pretty sure the show was supposed to be about Supergirl as a follow up to JLU, but got changed due to Superman Returns, explaining some of its weirdness.
Yeah these three had some vaguely similar-ish artstyles if you squinted. Titans was and still is very beloved. Even with that cancerous TTGo show that's out now. The Batman was solidly enjoyable even without the character driven villains.
The LoSH show was weird. I did think it was at least kinda cool when they got to the second season where we had that Superman X clone and Imperiex. I'm guessing they wound up using Imperiex because they didn't get the options to use any of the real notable universal scale "big bads". Imperiex isn't. . . bad. But he was kinda just used in one event. I only remember the Imperiex event for the weird post 9-11 era it was published in and for the strangely well executed epilogue issue that honored the deceased. The one where the original JSA members went to honor Hippolyta's funeral was sweet (at this point it was written that she was the Golden Age Wonder Woman. Odd plot, but the sweetness and genuineness that they wrote those old guys in this 3-4 page scene was warming. Something something, "we're going to see our gal off")
- Batman Brave & The Bold - Nowadays has been placed up there as one of DC's best. It is a damn good love letter to the Golden and Silver ages of DC, being much lighter than the DCAU, but still retaining the high quality of writing.
It's a wonderful show and I wanted one more season goddamnit. It was just a pure love letter to DC Comics as a whole.
- Young Justice - Season 1 is arguably DC's best product, extremely tight cast and development. Season 2 is also very good, but not nearly as character driven. The series does a good job of balancing out the Teens similar to Titans 2003, but also giving them the thoughtful storytelling of JLU. Seasons 3&4 are fine, but definitely lacking.
Season 3 picks up from some plot threads but tries to introduce too many new characters. I get what they're doing though. Season 4 felt really really lacking. Man, the death of Wally was not something I was expecting of this show. It was neat how they consistently showed the effects of all the heroic sacrifices. Wally's death, Zatara's sacrifice, Aqualad's deep-cover actions, Superboy's death, etc. And we still got to see DC history just exist. The JSA were there, the various super-groups all formed. The Red Tornado and Co. androids were all present too. Hell, they brought in Arrowette and Secret from the original comics young justice and then did nothing.
It was a neat show. Not the best, but I'd say Season 1 is great fun, season 2 is okay, season 3 is kinda sloppy, and season 4 just goes way too sloppy. So much shit to juggle.
- Green Lantern TAS - A great return to form as sort-of an unofficial DCAU show. I hate the Reynolds movie for killing this series as it made the lantern world interesting, had a great cast with two originals, and had a decent over-arching narrative.
IIRC, Razr and the Android girl were original creations for the show that wound up being put in the background of the YJ show come season 3. Don't know if the show had any other effects on anything DC.
- Teen Titans Go! - It is a fun dumb comedy that gets way too much shit. However, it is not an adaptation, just a weird parody series that uses DC every-now-and-again.
It's probably getting shit because it got broadcasted almost 24/7 for a bit. I prefer DC's other little animated shorts from the 2010s.
- Beware The Batman - painfully mediocre. I will give credit to the series for being different in having an overarching story and using lesser known characters, but none of it really comes together all that spectacularly. The animation is also shit.
It's got cool ideas and lesser known characters, but the execution didn't hit.
- DC Superhero Girls (2019) - MLP Friendship is Capeshit. I actually enjoy this one and prefer its character depictions to most other adaptations. It is a basic girl's comedy, but a quality one given Faust's involvement. Also, the designs are peak.
Never saw it, but it's apparently pretty popular.
The show suffered hard from WB mandates. You can tell production was a mess as WB restricted them from using numerous characters: Gordon (till season 3), Robin (till season 4), Scarecrow, Ras, Two-Face and Mad Hatter.
The 00s Bat-embargo was weird as fuck.
For what was there, it was actually pretty good and I do think certain elements ended up surpassing BTAS, hence why some prefer it. As a character, I find this version of Batman to be better. BTAS, especially as one heads into the New Adventures, really made Batman a dick as time went on to justify him being a hermit in Beyond. Any development he had in the DCAU seemed to get uprooted by the presence of Beyond being a factor. By contrast, 2004 Batman retains a decent balance between the dark Batman and the more father/family man we see in the sillier adaptations. I like that he gets to progress and the tone of the series becomes lighter as Batman builds his allies.
I feel like in the DCAU, we just lost a lot of Bruce's soft side since we wound up with only the Justice League shows and, well, they did try to show his soft and human side quite a few times.
"Am I blue"
Beyond being a factor was alright. I feel like the bat-embargo kiboshed exploring his character. The Epilogue of the JLU show was fucking Batman-centric. They really did try to put a proper cap on that.
Robin and Batgirl are easily better adapted in 2004 than BTAS. BTAS had them, but you could tell Timm didn't want Robin around and wanted to make smut of Batman and Batgirl. The 2004 version makes the two cute with a somewhat brother/sister dynamic that really works. If you subscribe to the theory that the 2004 universe is connected to 2003 Titans (somewhat confirmed by comics), it actually makes for a really engaging character growth for Robin.
Agreed.
Some of the villains are also better portrayed. Killer Croc is usually praised as an improvement, and Catwoman is another that seems to have a bit more fun in 04. Personally, I prefer the 04 Penguin, the design is neat, I love his weird Asian assistants.
If The Batman is comparable to anything however, it would be Titans 2003. I think both placed a far greater emphasis on the heroes and more "younger" aspects than the DCAU did. It also has a similar audience these days hence the resurgence.
The 04 Penguin was interesting. Dude was a martial artist.
I didn't mind the 04 Batman's JLA. I think they did a decent job with it, for what they had to work with.
