Saturday Evening Cartoons: Reign of the Supermen (Fat Tuesday Special #1)

     When I reviewed The Death of Superman last year I was pretty enthusiastic. Finally, we had a decent adaptation of this story. I was excited (but also trepidatious) to see what they would do with the second part of the story, Reign of the Supermen. It's a very long, complicated story, one which is, I think, impossible to do justice in a 90 minute film. With that said, it should not be surprising that this film is a serious step-down from its predecessor.

     I should point out, however, that The Death of Superman was far from a perfect setup for this. For one thing, though it does an admirable job of giving the film emotional stakes, all things considered it was a mistake to adapt this story when this version of Superman has barely been established on screen (The Death of Superman was the first solo Superman film in the new DC animated universe). This is a story that explores the emotional toll of Superman's passing and it worked a lot better in the comics when there were 10 years of post-crisis Superman stories to build on.

     Beyond that though, the focus just wasn't always in the right place. The film, like the comic, should have ended with Superman's death (or perhaps his funeral) instead, they writers decided to end it by teasing his return (both literally and figuratively) in this film. This undermines a lot of the emotional weight that his death brought to that film. It also means that Reign of the Supermen starts off on the wrong foot. Instead of feeling triumphant, Superman's return in this film comes across as perfunctory.

     A big part of the problem, as I hinted earlier, is that there simply isn't enough screen time to do this story justice. In retrospect, it should have been a three part story. This way you could end the first film immediately after Superman dies in his battle with Doomsday. Then you would use the second film to explore the emotional impact of his death and also to establish the four new supermen. Finally, in the third film you could have the conflict between Superboy, Steel, Eradicator and Cyborg Superman come to a head before the real Superman returns to set things right. As it is, everything is rushed and under-cooked.

    With all that said, the film isn't terrible. There is a lot of good action, the four Supermen have well established personalities, even if their motivations are barely explored, and the plot is surprisingly coherent given how condensed the story is. Rainn Wilson's take on Lex Luthor even grew on me a little.

     In the end, Reign of the Supermen is a largely disappointing conclusion to this story. In retrospect, I'm not sure it really could have turned out better without delaying the story until later on and expanding it to three films. It's not a bad film exactly, but it's largely forgettable. I'd recommend mostly because it serves as a functional conclusion to the superior first part.

Score: 7/10