Sunday, March 14, 2021

Animated World of DC Comics: Reign of The Supermen (2019)

 In the wake of "The Death of Superman", there are four new players all looking to fill the void. "Reign of The Supermen" adapts the follow-up storyline from the comics and compresses it into a 90 minute movie when it certainly deserved more time.

While all of Metropolis is recovering from the apparent demise of the Man of Tomorrow (Jerry O'Connell), another man presumed dead, Hank Henshaw (Patrick Fabian) returns to earth, now a cyborg, and claiming to be Superman. O'Connell takes over when Henshaw uses voice modulation to impersonate Superman. Dr. John Henry Irons (Cress Williams, Black Lightning) creates his own Superman-inspired suit of armor, which looks like they either used or improved upon Jon Bogdanove's design in the books. Not only that, but with the movie now set nearly 25 years after the original story, Irons' armor works the same way that Tony Stark's Iron Man armor does over at Marvel. In a way, Steel was designed as DC's answer to the Armored Avenger back in 1994, anyway.

A Kryptonian Eradicator, a hologram come to life, tries to fill the void, absent Superman's moral code. That's trouble. Finally, there is a clone with the DNA of both Superman and Lex Luthor (Rainn Wilson), the latter of whom is Superboy's patron, which doesn't sit well with the lad (Cameron Monaghan, Gotham, Shameless). Nearly a year's worth of story arc is compacted into a more palatable package for viewer consumption.

The most shocking part? Luthor joining forces with Lois Lane (Rebecca Romjin), realizing that the honor of ending Superman should be his and his alone, kind of like the Joker vs. Batman.

Check the trailer:


Darkseid (Tony Todd) likely will return.

Rating: A.

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