[...] to be personal and easily identifiable. Originally, it was the Parasite, but he’d been used in a recent previous film, so it became the Atomic Skull. I really thought the Atomic Skull came out very cool. He worked [...]

[...] sneak peeks at All-Star Superman and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies are similar, but for the previously released movies. As [...]

[...] peeks at previous releases All-Star Superman and Superman/Batman: Public [...]

[...] which consistently entertained fans. From his early writing career to adapting the popular work of All-Star Superman, this is the story of Dwayne McDuffie, as told by his family and friends. • Featurette [...]

[...] Lauren Montgomery (Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, many other DCU cartoons) and Sam Liu (All-Star Superman), writer Tab Murphy (Superman/Batman: Apocalypse), executive producer Bruce Timm — but [...]

[...] a similar look at All-Star Superman, the previous animated DC DVD, plus two cartoon excerpts from Batman: The Brave and the Bold (the [...]

[...] behind-the-scenes look at All-Star Superman, the previous animated DC [...]

[...] of in this set, other than a couple of trailers for other Warner animation projects. The one for All-Star Superman seems really out-of-place here, due to the differences in content and style. Remember, Batman: The Brave and the Bold [...]

[...] All-Star Superman came out in February, starring James Denton as Superman, Anthony LaPaglia as Lex Luthor, and Christina Hendricks as Lois Lane. The following material was provided by Warner Home Video to promote the DVD release. [...]

[...] promote the recently released All-Star Superman, Warner Home Video has provided this pre-written interview with Grant Morrison, writer of the [...]

And, as Thom alluded, since when has Superman ever been out of mercy (that has to be the line)? And why the new ending? That’s…not even slightly romantic, Leo.

I wanted to react the way Charlie Jane did at io9, but I’m firmly, sadly in agreement with your assessment, Johanna. This was a seriously missed opportunity, and one that mostly derives from the decision to cram 320 pages of Morrison/Quitely content into 76 minutes.

Ed Asner and (would you believe Delaware-born) Alexis Denisof were also my favorite voice actors, but the prison sequence gave both LaPaglia and Morrison’s dialogue a real chance to shine, and I’m so very glad at least that bit made it in, otherwise the entire exercise of watching the film would’ve been a loss for me.

I remember when certain comics fans griped about Morrison in the same company of Millar, Ennis and Ellis…believing he hated Superheroes…but I don’t think you could ever believe that true if you read All Star Superman. Morrison is one of the few modern writers to really see the esence of what sets Superman apart. And Dwayne McDuffie worked valiantly to make a twelve issue mini-series fit in one hour and fifteen minutes. But it just doesn’t come close to the emotional impact. They also left out the Jimmy Centric issue.

I think the art was vaguely Quitely-esque. However, it lacked the roughness that is such an effective part of Frank’s work. They smoothed the lines, making everything more angular… so the Quitely aspects are harder to see.

I can’t wait to put the Blu Ray in my player tomorrow, and see it in beautiful colors and see the extras.

But yeah, watching the movie and then re-reading the comics makes me wish all the more that each issue got its due in the form of a 12 minute short. Missed opportunities…

Greg, weird you should mention Bizarro — Morrison talks about that in the special features, but it’s not in the movie. And yes, I found myself wondering why Quintum was included, other than to deliver the bad news.

On the bright side, hearing people talking about what was left out is making me more eager to read the comics again.

Too right…all told I think I could spot four issues that were omitted from the feature when I watched it:

1) Superman discovering Black Kryptonite
2) Bizarro World emerging from the Underverse
3) Superman escaping from Bizarro World with Zibarro’s help
4) Superman placing Kandor on Mars with Quintum’s help, saving the suicidal teenager and curing cancer with the aid of the Kandorian super-doctors.

It also kind of defeats the purpose of Leo Quintum’s presence as a character in the story, in that there’s no implication that he could possibly be a future version of Lex Luthor. I imagine that would’ve been a difficult thing to place into the subtext of this adaptation but I think it would’ve been worth attempting.

This is disappointing to hear. I was figuring that they would pare the story down to maybe the first 2.5-3 and last 2 issues of the comic and focus on the Superman dying/saying goodbye to Lois/final confrontation with Luthor. It’s a fairly simple story arc, but a potentially powerful one and one that Morrison did very well I think (and also one I’d like to see live-action film directors take seriously). It sounds like they tried to cram even more into the movie instead.

There was enough story in that 12 issue series to make a trilogy of movies (the whole flashback to Pa Kent’s death issue could probably be fleshed out into an entire movie all by itself) – trying to cram even most of it into a single movie is setting yourself up for failure, I’d think.

“the art isn’t particularly Quitely-esque. It’s more generic than that in style”

I agree. As you said, they capture the panel layout, but not the style of the art. I think the only recent DC toon that had animation that I could easily identify as trying to capture a certain look was Superman/Shazam, which looked quite a bit like Ordways art from his “Power Of Shazam” GN.

How would you rate this next to something like Superman/Batman:Apocolypse or Wonder Woman?