Out this week is Batman Ninja, an anime-styled superhero adventure in which Batman and his enemies are sent back in time and around the world. Here’s the official plot description and trailer. Gorilla Grodd’s time displacement machine transports many of Batman’s worst enemies to feudal Japan — along with the Dark Knight and a few of his allies. The villains take over the forms of the feudal lords that rule the divided land, with the Joker taking the lead among […]

Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay demonstrates how strong the movies in the DC Original Animated line can be when they’re not tied to the best-known characters or repeating widely read storylines. It’s a road trip/object chase movie with a ton of villains chasing after a magical MacGuffin. It’s rated R for “strong bloody violence throughout, sexual content, brief graphic nudity and some drug material”. And they mean it. The opening segment, a mission with Deadshot (Christian Slater, doing an excellent […]

We knew, from the announcement of the extras on the out-soon Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay animated movie, that the next film would be The Death of Superman, based on the 1992 event storyline. Now, TV Insider has more information from the Wonder Con just past. First is the news that there will be a sequel, Reign of the Supermen, coming in early 2019. That follows the pattern of the original story, written by Dan Jurgens, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern, […]

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight is my new favorite of the DCU original animated films. It takes the original source and changes it to make for a better cartoon movie, emphasizing atmosphere over plot (although the story is full of twists, keeping my attention throughout). I previously posted the trailer and plot description, but the high concept is simple: Steampunk Batman fights Jack the Ripper. However, there are a number of deviations from the original comic (which was retroactively called the […]

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has announced the next original animated DC universe movie. Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay will be available on April 10 on Blu-ray Combo Pack, 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack, and DVD with an earlier digital release on March 27. The Suicide Squad have previously been animated in Batman: Assault on Arkham, but that was set in the videogame universe and had a different voice cast. This won’t be your typical cartoon, as Warner warns “Suicide […]

Watching the sneak peek for Batman: Gotham by Gaslight on the Batman and Harley Quinn disc made me anticipate it more than I have any of the original DC universe animated films in a while. Comic fans know the story, originally told as an Elseworlds by Brian Augustyn and‎ the well-chosen Mike Mignola: a steampunk Batman chases Jack the Ripper. Here’s the plot description provided by the studio: Batman: Gotham By Gaslight takes place at the turn of the century […]