James Marsters

I remember the day very clearly. I was only seven years old and it was a cold November day. My dad got home from Larry’s Comics, and sat my older brother Scott and I on the couch and read to us "Superman #75", the issue where Superman died! I remember being sad and thinking "They can’t kill Superman. They just can’t!" My thoughts were later proven right, and now the Warner Brothers Animation Studio can add another masterpiece to their resume with "Superman Doomsday".

"Superman Doomsday" is the animated adaptation of the classic Superman storylines "the Death of Superman" and "the Return of Superman". Superman (voiced by "Firefly’s" Adam Baldwin) fights Doomsday in a battle in Metropolis, and gets killed. Then Lex Luthor (voiced by "Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s" James Marsters, who coincidently played Brainiac for one season on "Smallville") makes a clone of Superman, passes him off as the real thing and has the clone do his bidding. But Lois Lane (voiced by screen actress Anne Heche) suspects there is something up with "Superman" and tries to get to the bottom of the story.

This is not a faithful adaptation to the comic version of the story, and it is quite understandable. There are no appearances from key characters from the storyline in the comics- Steel, Cyborg, Superboy (hope I don’t get sued for using that name), and the Eradicator. If they included each of their storylines, then the movie would be over three hours long. And if you ask me, I do not think a kid can hold his concentration on anything for over three hours.

The animation is great. It is fluid, and very eye catching. It actually looks like it improved from the animation from the "Justice League Unlimited" series from a few years ago. The battle scenes were spectacular and looked like some panels were straight from the comics. In the commentary, co-director and co-writer Bruce Timm ("Batman the Animated Series", "Superman the Animated Series") said that this movie is supposed to be a start over, so it is not linked to the previous DC animated series. That is the reason why everyone in this movie looks a little different compared to the last time we saw them on TV.

The voice acting is superb. Baldwin did a great job as Superman and Clark Kent, and Heche did a faithful job for Lois Lane. But I have to say that Marsters stole the show with his version of Lex Luthor. He was very menacing, and evil, and very entertaining to listen to.

Another note is that this is the first PG-13 rated animated Superman movie, and it earned it. There is a lot more violence than previously seen in Superman cartoons. Lex shoots someone on screen, and Doomsday kills people brutally. Also there are a few swears here and there, but not to the point where it sounds like Quintin Tarantino wrote it.

The retrospect "Requiem and Rebirth: Superman Lives!" on the actual comic story itself is very informative. It has interviews with everyone who was involved with the actual storyline in the book. They talk about why they decided to kill Superman and how it caught America’s attention. They talk about how they came up with some of the characters in the story, and what they remember most about working on the Man of Steel’s perish.

One cameo fans should look for is a cameo by movie writer/director/actor Kevin Smith. I will not spoil it but his one line is a direct reference to what one of his "requirements" was from movie producer John Peters when Smith was hired to write a movie that was never made called "Sueprman Lives". It is very clever.