Reign of the Supermen - Why DC, Why?

I watched the latest animated DC movie Reign of the Supermen the other night and the movie left be dumbfounded.

Why does DC insist on cherry picking story elements to create watered down adaptations of comic stories?

Both The Death of Superman and Reign of Supermen stories were the launching pad of a decade worth of great events. For those who don’t know or don’t remember, in the comic Cyborg Superman is working with Mongul not Darkseid. They blow up Coast City which leads into Hal Jordan losing his mind and the introduction of Paralex and Kyle Radner. This would be an excellent springboard to all of those great GL stories that follow. But instead they got with Darkseid, again.

How many people would prefer that when DC does a movie based on an actual comic that they stick to the story and not dumb it down.

3 Likes

Because if the stuck to the actual story would be way too long. Also having just recently read the comic there are elements to it that wouldn’t make sense in a one-shot movie. Comics have the advantage of having established histories to play off of, movies just have sell you the idea in an hour and a half to two hours. Also I think it did a great job of honoring the comic as much as it did. I did have a problem with them using Darksied originally, but after watching the after credits scene I felt much better about it.

2 Likes

As @jayco86 said, the story may work great for a comic, but the movies are not adapting the entire DC comics run. This animated version is based on the New 52 version of the Justice League, but it’s pulling from older comics to make these one-off movies, that sometime loosely interconnect. This is the first time they’ve actually made a animated movie that’s an official direct sequel to a previous one. They’re trying to tell their own story, not the comics’.

1 Like

I understand that the greater story is much longer than a 90 minute movie, but they could have destroyed Coast City and then in the closing credits introduce Parallax.

As far as basing this on the New 52, what a huge mistake that was.

Didn’t anyone tell the people making this movie that the New 52 was a failure and DC has already abandoned it (from the return of the modern age Superman and Lois, Batman wearing his old custom).

I will say this though, at least the cartoon movies do not take as many creative license than the DC movies (Doomsday in BvS and Bane in Dark Knight Rises) .

One of lamest posts I’ve seen so far.

7 Likes

I think Reign was better than the original material precisely because it cut out all the fat of the original comics.

Also, Darkseid >>> Mongol.

6 Likes

Turning Hal into Parallax was one of the things that caused me to quit buying comics for 20 years. I have no desire to see that mess brought up again.

2 Likes

That movie would be like 6 hours long… therefore a bad strategy for movie making.

Plus that’s what pretty much happens every time a long form story is then adapted for another medium. Stuff gets cut. What works well on the page doesn’t always work well on the screen. It’s not just dc comics is pretty much most page-to-screen adaptations.

3 Likes

I did notice the changes, or most of them, it has been a long time since I read the comics version of the story. I thought both The Death of Superman and The Reign of Supermen was well done.

As for the destruction of Coast City, that leads to Parallax, I am more that okay with that. I was not at all fond of the Parallax event. It was a rotten idea and story arc, in my opinion. It was one of those events that may have lead to me ending my collecting comics for a time. I did start collecting again later, but then quit again, but mostly because it was just getting too expensive to keep up with all the massive mega event stories crossing all the titles, and costing a royal fortune for someone on a tight budget. I just could not keep up, and eat too. So I quite them all.

Sorry, I do tend to run on sometimes. :wink:

MACJR

1 Like

Going to go right along with Old ManJonah on this topic… What you described was what happened with the comic books… But that would take either one horribly long movie to try to create or about 2, 3 or MORE shorter ones. With KalEl , the real Superman, dead for ??? a couple years? Reign was supposed to be the Sequel that wrapped up the story of Superman giving his life battling Doomsday and then returning to continue saving the day and romancing Lois Lane. Personally I liked both it and the Death of Superman which came before it.

Now let’s be serious here okay… the comic books are the comic books and this is by no means the first time a movie , Animated or Live Action or a TV show strayed from doing things different that what was in the comic it may have been based on. If its a good story and well acted out… who c ares?

Because they are fitting it into the timeline they have created in the Animated Universe. None of the animated films have been direct adaptions. They’ve all been modified, some more than others.

@Jmcmonkey not totally. Rebirth has been a combination of New 52 and events that happened prior to. That’s kind of what they are doing with the animated films as well.

@Markhb I wouldn’t be surprised to see them do an animated film of that and Sinestro Corp War at some point.

While I understand the disappointment of not having Mongul destroy Coast City and usher in Hal Jordan becoming Parallax, it’s a shame the movie didn’t include all those Bloodlines story arcs that aren’t relevant anymore. What, is DC afraid of inevitably making a Blood Pack movie? Or even better, a Hitman movie?

1 Like