Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (2012-13)

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (2012-13)

Dir. Jay Oliva (both parts)

A two-part animation adapted from the 1986 book of the same name by Frank Miller. 

I enjoyed much of Miller's comic work in my younger years, but his dialogue is very much of that particular medium and as such isn't really suitable for film. That meant I wasn't overly concerned that Batman's inner-monologue was removed in the movie version. I thought it would be compensated for through more visual means, but it wasn't.

01. Regarding Part One, what remained was the slow pacing and the deconstruction of the typical superhero genre through various TV broadcasts, offering up conflicting views of the action and the possible motivations of the very different kinds of sociopaths.

Justice League: Doom (2012)

Justice League: Doom (2012)

Dir. Lauren Montgomery

Batman is a notable and valued part of the Justice League collective, but he's never really been what one would call a 'team player'. He'd much rather be alone, doing things his way, accountable to no one but his his own (troubled) conscience.

But it's while alone that each member is most vulnerable. Ergo, if a megalomaniac with strategic knowledge and the proper resources was to target each of the individuals while they were divided…

JL: Doom is an exciting animation that's loosely based on author Mark Waid's four-issue Tower of Babel story that ran in the JLA comics in 2000.

The pacing is excellent, the action is plentiful, and there's a decent level of subtext in play. It's so well assembled that you might not even notice until afterwards that the villains are mostly blank slates who exist to facilitate the main antagonist, himself a character who gets some back-story but doesn't actually do very much. A more devastating threat comes from a less obvious place, and isn't as straightforward as it might sound.

Superman vs. The Elite (2012)

Superman vs. The Elite (2012) 

Dir. Michael Chang

A rather strange work in which a small group of new 'heroes' arrive in Metropolis and help cut down the Big Blue's workload, but their methods aren't sympathetic with his impossible ideals.

It's based on Joe Kelly's What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way? (2001) storyline. I've not read the source text, but after watching the film, I definitely want to, which is not my usual response to DC's adaptations.

It doesn't just use the medium as allegory, it includes real world concerns in a fictional setting. It initially distances the origins of the unfavourable actions from American soil so that it can use them as a critique of home, but by the end shrewd viewers will be in no doubt as to what the message is, while at the same time being left with a shaky moral platform from which to soapbox.