Midway through high school, DC Comics decided to embark on a mission not heard of in comics:  a “reboot” of the entire DC Universe.  Over the years leading up to the mid-80’s, the creative minds kept coming up with new things and alternate universes, but after a while things got messy and fans got tired of trying to figure out what was taking place when and where.

Enter Crisis on Multiple Earths…

This series allowed for a logical way to merge everything and do away with certain storylines and characters.  What resulted was the birth of the major story arc for DC.  Of course Marvel was upset because they had done something similar with Secret Wars 2 years earlier…

After sales evened out and DC was back to one earth and one set of storylines, DC was now faced with major anniversaries approaching for Superman and Batman and no ideas as to what to do.  Then someone asked the simple question:

What if we killed Superman?

That one little question launched what would become known as the Doomsday story and would send the entire world rushing to a store they hardly visited: The comic book shop.  The Death of Superman was such a hot commodity that it was selling for over $100 an issue for at least a year after its release.

So, Matt, why are you talking about print media when this is about movies and DVDs?

Simply put, to set the stage….

After successful runs on TV with Batman, Superman, and the Justice League, Warner Bros. decided to greenlight an animated version of the Doomsday story.  Too bad they did not go with the original story.

One of the problems of adapting books, even comic books, is that stuff has to change and be left out.  The only things that remained the same were:

• the last half of the fight scene between Superman and Doomsday
• the funeral
• the showdown between the real Superman and a clone

Everything else was different — is this a bad thing?  Not necessarily.  The story shown is a good streamlined alternative, but I prefer the original.  The voice casting was good and the visuals were great.

The DVD had the usual features plus a couple of documentaries and a sneak peek at Justice League: The New Frontier.

My advice: check this out if you like cartoons and superheros — very enjoyable….