After taking in Batman Ninja not long ago, I must say that a palette cleanser is in order – one which looks like it’ll arrive soon enough in the form of The Death of Superman. Having made that bold statement, you may wonder how I can have nearly blind confidence in something, but the folks who put together the films making up the standard DC Universe animated line have very rarely let me down.
Solid track record aside, the first trailer to be released supporting the movie (seen above) does wonders to increase my level of anticipation. Granted, this is the second time this material has been adapted to an animated flick (Superman: Doomsday first took a stab at it back in 2007), but now the story has much more room to breathe because it’ll be split into two movies: The Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen.
At the risk of getting too ahead of ourselves, we’ll focus on the first chapter making up the two-part epic. Judging by what the footage has to offer, we’re seemingly in for as much action as we are emotion and intrigue. Really, I’m interested to see how the filmmakers address what the Man of Steel means to those surrounding him and the world at large, the latter of which may get somewhat meta-textual.
Still, it’s obvious this won’t be a strict adaptation of the classic graphic novel, because we have the A-listers of the Justice League going toe-to-toe with Doomsday, for starters. If you’ll recall, the brute mopped the floor with a bunch of C-listers in the comic, so it makes sense the creative minds behind this project utilize characters more familiar to general audiences like Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, etc.
Currently, The Death of Superman lacks a release date, but a July or August debut is most likely. Its followup, Reign of the Supermen, won’t drop until 2019.