The DCAU Sucks You In

Last Tuesday was the day that everybody here at school left for break. Me, being the unfortunate soul whose ride was coming to pick him up Wednesday morning, was left all alone with nothing to do. So, trapped in my room, I did when any college student does when theres nothing to do, bum around on Netflix looking for things to watch. I wasn't really looking for a big commitment for the night, I wanted something that I could sink my teeth into for about an hour and then switch to watching 30 Rock or play video games. With this mindset, I found a DC Comics animated short about Captain Marvel and Superman fighting Black Adam. It was pretty awesome, the short went through how Billy Battson becomes Captain Marvel, Superman gets a lot of screentime to kick ass, and Black Adam is well, Black Adam. The best part was that what I thought was one short turned out to be a compilation of DC Comics shorts which included shorts for other characters like Green Arrow, The Spectre, and Jonah Hex. Mostly, these shorts are just to establish the title hero, their powers, their enemies, their personality. They're meant to suck you in, come back for more and too be honest, it works. DC really has cornered the market in terms of this kind of media.

I guess my obsession with this kind of thing goes all the way back to the 90's when DC really figured out how to make an animated series. The proof of this was Batman: The Animated Series, which cut the ties of Batman away from his campy 60's self and established him in the mainstream as the dark and gritty character he really is. The show still holds up today and is the gold standard of what not a just a superhero animated series should be like but what a mature animated series should be like. The series was later followed up with Superman: The Animated Series which deserves special notice because it replicated the same animation style of it's predecessor. These shows were unique because they found ways to incorporate other famous DC heroes into their storylines despite the show's being about Batman or Superman. There were other things going in the universe around them. Batman would occasionally drop in on Superman, Green Lantern and Sinestro showed up as well. It nailed the feeling of reading different comic books and replicated it in animated form. These shows were revolutionary for their time and were faithful to the comics with none of the camp of shows such as The Superfriends. The animated universe has been adapted and rebooted several times. One of the main show's of my childhood was Justice League, based off of DC's superhero team of the same name. This was the show that really got me into superheroes and comics (the main reason why John Stewart is my favorite Green Lantern...and no, not THAT John Stewart). It took the idea of a shared DC universe and put it on steroids with almost every DC character making an appearance on the show, in addition to it's already expansive cast. It's sequel series Justice League Unlimited was even bigger. Shows like this and Teen Titans can be cited as the source of the love for lesser known characters such as Deathstroke or Starfire. More recent shows like Young Justice have also been greeted with great acclaim which is just further proof that DC really knows what it's doing when it comes to animation. Not mention that there's loads of fantastic movies out there to watch. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm remains one of the best Batman works ever, not to mention various Justice League and Superman movies have also been successful.

Oh hey, Green Lantern, just dropping in on your show, no big deal

Animated shows are the best medium for superheroes, not films. After all, these are characters that are supposed to be leaping off the pages. These characters are meant to be drawn. Superheroes are hard to capture on film mostly because comic books are loud and campy, something which doesn't always translate well to film. This isn't to say that superheroes can't be successful on film, The Dark Knight Trilogy is a prime example of how a superhero can be placed into a realistic context. Man of Steel was also a pretty good depiction of how Superman would fit into modern society. Nowadays, creating live action superhero movies is a much more feasible task because of advancements in CGI technology which always finds a way to make a guy prancing around in red underwear less ridiculous. That being said, I think I'll always prefer the animated escapades of DC heroes to their films (Dark Knight being a big exception to this). In any animated form, DC always finds a way to perfectly portray each of their characters and their relationship to one another. After watching those animated shorts last Tuesday, it was nice to see that the originators of the original animated universe haven't lost their touch.