DENVER – November 9, 2018 – Superman’s greatest adventure – his death and rebirth – will be unveiled in a special two-day exclusive theatrical event as Warner Bros. and DC join forces with Fathom Events for a double feature presentation of the previously released The Death of Superman and the first in-theater screening of the all-new Reign of the Supermen nationwide on January 13 and 14, 2019.
As the second half of the double feature, Reign of the Supermen will be seen nationally in theaters ahead of its Warner Bros. Home Entertainment release on Digital starting January 15, 2019, and on Ultra HD™ Blu-ray Combo Pack and Blu-ray™ Combo Pack on January 29, 2019.
The Man of Steel meets his ultimate match when the monstrous, unstoppable creature Doomsday comes to Earth – hell bent on destroying everything and everyone in his path, including the Justice League – in the action-packed The Death of Superman. In the second half of this two-part landmark tale, Reign of the Supermen finds Earth’s citizens – and the Man of Steel’s heroic contemporaries – dealing with a world without Superman. But the aftermath of Superman’s death, and the subsequent disappearance of his body, leads to a new mystery – is Superman still alive? The question is further complicated when four new super-powered individuals – Steel, Cyborg Superman, Superboy and the Eradicator – emerge to claim themselves as the ultimate hero. In the end, will any of them prove to be the real Man of Steel?
Fathom Events, Warner Bros. and DC present The Death of Superman / Reign of the Supermen Double Feature in more than 500 select movie theaters on Sunday, January 13 at 12:55 p.m. and Monday, January 14 at 8:00 p.m. (all local times), through Fathom’s Digital Broadcast Network (DBN). For a complete list of theater locations, visit the Fathom Events website (theaters and participants are subject to change).
The two-part film is an animated adaptation of “The Death Of Superman,” DC’s’ landmark 1992-93 comic phenomenon, and features an all-star voice cast led by Jerry O’Connell (Carter, Bravo’s Play by Play, Stand By Me), Rebecca Romijn (X-Men, The Librarians) and Rainn Wilson (The Office, The Meg) as the voices of Superman, Lois Lane and Lex Luthor, respectively. The trio is joined by Jason O’Mara (The Man in the High Castle, Terra Nova) as Batman, Rosario Dawson (Sin City, Rent, Daredevil) as Wonder Woman, Shemar Moore (S.W.A.T., Criminal Minds) as Cyborg, Nathan Fillion (Castle, The Rookie) as Green Lantern/Hal Jordan, Matt Lanter (Timeless, 90210) as Aquaman, Christopher Gorham (Covert Affairs, Insatiable) as The Flash, and Nyambi Nyambi (Mike & Molly, The Good Fight) as Martian Manhunter, as well as Cress Williams (Black Lightning) as Steel, Cameron Monaghan (Gotham) as Superboy, Patrick Fabian (Better Call Saul) as Hank Henshaw & Cyborg Superman, Charles Halford (Constantine) as Bibbo Bibbowski and The Eradicator, and Tony Todd (Candyman) as Darkseid.
“Superman is one of the most iconic Super Heroes of all time, and this double feature event will give fans an opportunity to come together to celebrate the franchise,” Fathom Events VP of Studio Relations Tom Lucas said. “We are excited to partner with Warner Bros. again to bring back The Death of Superman and introduce fans to Reign of the Supermen.”
“Warner Bros. is proud to join forces with Fathom Events to culminate the year-long celebration of Superman’s 80th anniversary with a double-feature big screen presentation of The Man of Steel’s most heralded adventure,” said Mary Ellen Thomas, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Vice President, Family & Animation Marketing. “’The Death of Superman’ was a monumental moment in comics history, and these films – expertly produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC – capture the enormity of that story in terms of both action and emotion. Seeing both films, on the big screen, gives the fans another vehicle to unite and celebrate this beloved Super Hero and this landmark tale.”
The Los Angeles neighborhood of Westwood is home to The University of Southern California, better known as U.C.L.A. It’s a trendy area filled with upscale shops and expensive restaurants.
I’ve never been a fan of Westwood U.C.L.A or trendy, expensive restaurants. I doubt if I ever will be. But because God gets a kick out of such things my new Viacom offices were in Westwood, the reference library I was compelled to use was at U.C.LA, and a trendy, expensive restaurant was where I was on my way to have lunch with Stan Lee.
Stan was kind enough to bring with him Jack Kirby… and the Black Panther.
Together the three may have saved my ass.
Showtime Networks and Marvel Productions were both housed in the same Westwood high-rise. I was just moving into my new offices at Showtime; helping me do so was Adah Glenn.
Adah is a fantastic artist I met some years before. She used her considerable wits to land herself a gig at Motown Animation when I was not hiring. That I assure you is no easy feat.
Adah was placing a box on my desk with one small problem. She missed the casually.
Crash!!! The unmistakable sound of breaking glass when the box hit the floor filled the room.
“I hope that wasn’t my Tiffany lamp,” I said.
“I think I just saw Stan Lee in the lobby” she said, not hearing or not caring about my statement. I gazed over to the box then to her. I did that repeatedly knowing she would get the hint and pick up the box.
She didn’t get the hint.
Instead, she looked at me with no indication whatsoever she’d dropped the box.
“I wish I’d thought of something to say to him. Do you know Stan Lee?” she asked.
Flipping my eyes back and forth as fast as I could I told her; “Yep.”
Nothing. It was like the girl was in a trance, and I’d had enough.
“Adah!!”
“What?”
“Ya wanna pick up that box you dropped?”
She looked down and was surprised to see the box at her feet.
“I do that? My bad.” She bent down to pick up the box and said; “Mike, do you know Stan Lee?”
“I know Stan pretty well…”
Crash!!!
When later that month I was sitting down with Stan over lunch I recounted that story. He has a hard time believing anyone would react that way. I had a hard time believing Stan didn’t know how he rolled.
I’d met Stan as a fan in the 80s. Although it was a while before we became friends, it was memorable when it happened. I saw Stan walking across the San Diego Comic Con Convention floor in 1993, the first year Milestone had a booth.
“Hey Stan Lee! come on over; you’re the first contestant on The Price Is Right!” I yelled. Why? I meant just to say “hey Stan Lee come on over” but the rest just came out.
Stan, much to my surprise, came over. “What do I win?” He said with a huge smile. The Milestone partners all scampered over and said hello to Stan who gave Denys Cowan a “There he is.” When shaking Denys’ hand acknowledging to all there he and Denys knew each other. That made Denys BMOC (big man on campus) and HNIC (ask a black person) for a bit.
That is until Derek Dingle asked Stan “How do you know Michael?” Before he answered I chimed in with “Stan and I were in the Crips together.” Stan co-signed with; “Those were the days.”
Those were the days indeed.
Stan and I had just done a drive by when we decided to ditch the car and ran into the woods. It was dark as such we were taking care not to make any noise less so we were not discovered. At one point Stan whispered “Something just landed on me.”
It took my eyes a second to adjust to the darkness, but once it did I saw what it was and informed Stan; “It’s a spider…man.”
That’s when I created Spider-Man, but Stan will never acknowledge that or his illegitimate son Spike.
That’s how I opened the Stan Lee Roast at a 1994 convention event. By that time Stan and I were on a friendly basis. In 1995 Stan was kind enough to come by the Motown Animation booth at SDCC to wish me well and take some photos.
“You drive that thing on the street?” Stan asked as we stood in front of the Motown / Image Comics Van. The way he asked the question was so funny I couldn’t answer from laughing so much.
Stan and I talked about our history among a great many things over lunch, but mostly we talked about my new venture at Viacom. Since the deal closed the feeling I had made a major blunder was growing. “I gave up my golden parachute to follow a dream, and I’m beginning to think it was a mistake.” I said to Stan.
I told Stan about the comic book reading program.
“That’s a good idea but a hard sell.” He said.
“It’s sold, but now I’m not so sure it’s a good idea,” I responded.
“It’s a great idea. I should know because I did it when I was in the army,” Stan said. Then he told me how he produced the line of instructional comic books for the armed forces. Years later when at Marvel he tried to get comics in the school system but couldn’t crack that market.
Stan Lee couldn’t crack a market? I’m thinking gethefuckoutofhere!
I was convinced he told me that to make me feel better. He assured me he was serious and explained how it was a big deal to get into the schools.
He told me following a dream is rare for most people and said my dream was a noble one because it involved making something to benefit others namely kids with problems reading.
“You unquestionably helped a million kids with a problem reading I’m sure. You certainly helped me.” I told Stan that and how in the fourth grade he and Jack Kirby almost made me kill Ronnie Williams when I slammed a metal backed chair over his head.
“Why on earth did you do that?” Stan inquired through his huge grin. I explained how Ronnie took my copy of Fantastic Four # 73 and I wanted it back. Jack Kirby and he (and some advice from my mother) gave me the strength to get it back.
“Don’t forget the chair.” Stan deadpanned.
I realized this was a good a time as any to tell Stan something else he helped me with, my self-esteem. “Thank you for creating the Black Panther. How much flak did you get back in the day?”
He looked at me for a sec and then said; “Some, but it was the right thing do we thought.”
That may have been the understatement of my comics career. The Black Panther was all my comic book buddies, and I could talk about when we discovered him. Then it was the Falcon, Luke Cage, the Prowler and on and on.
It goes without saying Stan and Jack paved the way for Brotherman and Static, inspiring black creators of today with black heroes from our yesterday. I don’t know any creators of color from my generation who would not give those Lee and Kirby creations at least a nod.
Stan and I made lunch a pretty regular thing while we were both at that Westwood high-rise. Stan moved on launching Stan Lee Media where I almost ended up heading “Stan Lee Kids,” but that’s another story. I moved on not long after Stan left the building.
Stan was right. Comics in the schools were a good idea. My Action Files over twenty years later is still in schools. Some time back they started selling on Amazon (without the Teacher’s Guide), and to my knowledge, the program is still the only curriculum based comic book reading program sold in American schools.
In my mind, Stan has a real place in the history of current black comic characters. Those who don’t think so are welcome to that opinion.
The sheer guts it took to create the Black Panther during the time Jack Kirby, and he did so is enough for me.
They didn’t have to, but they did because ‘it was the right thing to do.’
The last time I saw Stan, it was bittersweet. He was the same old Stan holding court in the lobby of the Marriott. But when I shook his hand and looked into his eyes it was evident my Stan was gone. He didn’t remember me.
“Stan is pushing 100. He can’t remember everything and everybody” I was told this by one of Stan’s entourage who meant well but dropped me even to a deeper sadness. As I started to turn and walk away, this young lady must have seen the grief on my face and touched my arm stopping me.
She said; ” With age, God wipes away many things to lessen our burden. His long life may soon be over that’s not a bad thing he must be exhausted. He may leave us, but he will be at peace.”
Stan “The Man” Lee has died at the age of 95, according to news reports.
If you need biographical information about his life and his achievements, we strongly recommend his autobiographies Excelsior!: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee and Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir, because no one could tell Stan’s story better than he could himself. (We presume if you read ComicMix, you already know how important he was to comics. ‘Nuff said.)
There have been few films as edited, re-edited, and repackaged as Superman the Movie. It has been resurrected and represented to a few generations of fans for good reason. Prior to 1978, any attempt at a super-hero movie was usually done on the cheap and/or with tongue firmly in cheek.
The tag line, “You will believe a man can fly”, and the S-shield was all you needed to whet your appetite back then. The first pictures released to the media certainly got us interested but until you sat in the theater and heard John William’s opening march, you had no idea what you were getting.
And what we got was, arguably, the first super-hero film to treat the genre with dignity and respect. Visually, it was stunning, and you could not ask for a more pitch-perfect lead than Christopher Reeve. He was Curt Swan’s Man of Steel made flesh and the world conceived by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster rarely looked better.
Director Richard Donner had a falling out with producer Ilya Salkind and the Mario Puzo script was a challenging mess requiring rewriting by Robert Benton and David & Leslie Newman. Once Donner was fired and Richard Lester brought in to replace him, the film and its sequel, Superman II, suffered.
What endures and remains the measuring stick for all other heroic films is the first half from Krypton’s destruction through Superman’s first night in Metropolis. Once we meet Otis (Ned Beatty), the tone shifts to something lighter, a massive disconnect more jarring today than back then, when we were so eager for a good Superman movie that we forgave its flaws including its illogical mind-warping time travel denouement.
Much was cut from the theatrical version to fit a hefty running time of 0:00 so missing pieces were added when ABC first ran the film. Since then, various cuts have been released but now, Warner Home Entertainment has delivered a 4K release of that theatrical version (and it’ll be in movie theaters for three nights this season).
The scan was taken from the camera negative, color-corrected and upgraded for this release in a 4K, Blu-ray and Digital HD combo pack. The Blu-ray is the same from the 2011 Superman Anthology box set with extras from that and the original DVD release. The sole bonus on the 4K disc is the audio commentary.
So, is it worth the extra bucks? Visually, the 2160p, HEVC/H.265-encoded UHD transfer is lovely. Given the way special effects were shot back then, the Krypton scenes tend to have a lot of grain, which may mar your enjoyment of the early minutes. The new, sharper definition also means you see more of the flaws, the matting, and occasional cheap props or sets, which also may spoil the fun. On the other hand, the color correction keeps Superman’s uniform a consistent set of colors. Geoffrey Unsworth’s photography, especially the Kansas scenes, is gorgeous.
Superior, though, is the newly remixed Dolby Atmos track, which is accompanied by the more traditional Dolby Digital 5.1 track. We have an upgraded version of the original score without any of the 2000 additions from Donner.
The movie still stands tall and is a joy to watch once better but this edition is only for those with the most current audio and visual players.
HELEN PARR (voice of Holly Hunter), known in the Super world as Elastigirl, hung up her supersuit to raise the family with husband Bob, leaving their crime-fighting days behind them. But when she’s tapped to lead a campaign to bring the Supers back into the spotlight, she finds she can still bend, stretch and twist herself into any shape needed to solve the trickiest of mysteries. In short, she’s still got it. That’s good news, too, because a new villain is emerging—unlike any they’ve ever seen before.
Bonus Clip: Elastigirl Theme Song
Concept art features design work by Bob Pauly and Tony Fucile, highlighting the Elasticycle and Elastigirl’s costume.
There can be only one, after all. In Season 4 of The Librarians, Flynn Carsen (Noah Wyle) receives a dire warning from the past that there can only be one Librarian lest a civil war break out among the Librarians once again. This pushes Flynn to make a dire decision of his own and Eve Baird (Rebecca Romijn) to make a choice she doesn’t want to make. Her hesitancy causes the Library to put the team on trial to decide which one will finally take on the mantle of the one and true Librarian. The trial, however, leads to unexpected consequences that threaten the very existence of the Library itself.
A direct spin-off from The Librarian film series, the TV series features fan-favorite characters and continuity of plot lines with the films.
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
Six Writer & Director Episode Vlogs
Audio Commentaries on every episode
CAST
Rebecca RomijnThe X-Men franchise, Femme Fatale
Noah Wyle TV’s ER, Donnie Darko, A Few Good Men
Christian Kane Angel, Leverage”, Just Married
John Larroquette Night Court, Stripes, The Practice
Lindy Booth Dawn of the Dead (2004), Wrong Turn, Cry Wolf
and John Harlan Kim Neighbours, The Pacific
PROGRAM INFORMATION
Type: TV-on-DVD
Rating: TV-14
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Comedy, TV-on-DVD
Closed-Captioned: N/A
Subtitles: French, Spanish, English SDH
Feature Run Time: 504 Minutes
DVD Format: 16×9 (1.78:1) Presentation
DVD Audio: English 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio
I do like titles that end with “by {insert author};” they save me time and space on my post titles. Perhaps I should do a year where I only read books like that.
(I rely on you readers to talk me out of patently stupid ideas like that one.)
I have a feeling Liz Prince has a more interesting and full cartooning career than I’ve managed to keep up with: I can be obtuse like that. I have read and liked her books Tomboy and Alone Forever
, but I bet there’s more out there. I should probably take a look.
But right now I’m here to tell you about Look Back and Laugh, a collection of her journal comics from 2016. If I have this right, Prince started a Patreon sometime around then, and one of the rewards was a monthly printed collection of daily diary strips. (I’m not clear why she didn’t just put them online daily and password-protect them for backers, but I bet the reason has something to do with the romance of ‘zines.) She also seems to have at least sometimes gotten behind on “daily” comics and had to catch up by doing a week at a time, which is totally endearing and something I’d be likely to do if I was in a similar circumstance.
(Assuming a world in which I could actually draw, obviously. Which is not this world.)
Look Back collects those 366 comics, along with a new comic-strip introduction by Prince, and they’re very much journal comics — mostly done in a quiet moment at the end of the day, sometimes about one big thing that happened that day, sometimes about two or four little things that happened, and sometimes about how she can’t think of anything particularly notable that happened. This was a pretty eventful year for Prince and her partner Kyle (I didn’t see a last name for him in the comics; I presume Prince’s audience already knows who he is): they got married, they bought a house, and they moved from outside Boston up to Portland, Maine. (Those latter two are obviously related.)
But, mostly, it’s about what she did that day. That’s the joy of journal comics: they’re about the everyday and the mundane. Some days are sitting and drawing, some are frenzied cleaning the new house and trying to find that one random thing in a sea of packed boxes. This turned out to be a good year for Prince to start making journal comics about, but the hidden secret is that they’re all good years.
Prince is working on a small canvas here, and trying to fit in enough words to explain what’s going on. But even with those constraints, she has a bouncy, cartoony style and a good eye to lock in how she draws the people in her life. You may not be interested in anyone’s journal comics, and that’s fine — but, if you are, Liz Prince does them really well.
AHOY Comics is on a tear. The second issue of their debut series, The Wrong Earth, sold out and went back for a second printing. Comic shops increased their orders for issue #3. The quantities ordered were more than those for the first issue, which ‘never happens’ with new series in today’s comics market.
After reading The Wrong Earth #3, It’s easy to see why.
The main story picks up the pace in this adventure. This issue brings secondary characters to the forefront and, surprisingly, shuffles other characters offstage. The premise of this story is both traditional and cutting edge at the same time: the adventures of the gritty Dragonfly and the campy Dragonflyman as they switch places. Each character must navigate the absurdity of their doppelganger’s setting. Conventions are skewered on both sides of the narrative.
The Wrong Earth is a judgement-free zone. Readers aren’t scolded or lectured. For every “the old days were better”, bit, there’s a counterpoint example of how today’s fiction makes the vintage stuff look dated. Instead, readers are invited on an adventurous romp that highlights the absurdity of it all.
The series also embraces a sense of urgency and surprise. Just when you think you know what’s going to happen, writer Tom Peyer pulls the rug out. Peyer is a master of zigging when you thought the only option was zagging.
Jamal Igle’s artistic talent pushes the story along at a frantic pace. His solid artwork is almost humble. There are no showy, “look at me” scenes. But at the same time, his thoughtful page layout, unexpected camera angles and detailed backgrounds leave the reader wanting more.
As with every AHOY series, there’s more to the comic than just the main story. Paul Constant and Frank Cammuso offer up another fun Stinger “Golden Age adventure”. This time, the young hero investigates mysterious hijinks at the Sidekick Museum.
As with all AHOY Comics, this issue is rounded out with clever short text pieces. The real magic of them, for me, is how they prolong the reader’s time with the comic. Like the signature articles in a Brubaker/Phillips crime comic, these short stories ensure every fan feels as if they are getting their money’s worth.
It’s all fresh and fun. Longtime comic fans seldom have that “I can’t wait to find out what happens next” feeling, but that’s exactly where The Wrong Earth #3 will leave them.
First number: the number of pages. Right now, your monthly comic book is 22 pages long. Let’s say you’ve been asked to do a fill-in story or a complete in one story for a given book. There are certain space limitations you need to take into account.
How many panels are in a page? Well, your first page is usually the splash page which means one big panel. This page also usually has the title of the story and the credits box for the creators. Here’s some rules of thumb for the other pages: when there’s a lot of action, you use fewer panels per page. If it’s a talk scene, you can have more. I generally figure that it will average out to five panels a page. The splash page is one panel so you have 21 pages times five panels. We do the match and the whole thing totals 106 panels in which to tell your story.
That’s not a lot of room to work. And as we said earlier, every panel must convey an action. You have to be able to tell your entire chunk of story under those constraints, which means you’re going to have to make every shot count. Mark Waid explains:
In a 22-page comic, figuring an average of four to five panels a page and a couple of full-page shots, a writer has maybe a hundred panels at most to tell a story, so every panel he wastes conveying (a) something I already know, (b) something that’s a cute gag but does nothing to reveal plot or character, or (c) something I don’t need to know is a demonstration of lousy craft. Comics are expensive. Don’t make me resent the money I spend buying yours. Every single moment in your script must either move the story along or demonstrate something important about the characters—preferably both—and every panel that does neither is a sloppy waste of space.
The good news is that if you’re doing your own graphic novel, you can write to any length you need– but you still can’t waste any panels. So you have to figure out what actions tell your story, and that means that you need to make an outline… and that’s the next part.
I will admit that I skipped Teen Titans Go! since I was far beyond their target audience, I was happy to see a scaled down, entry-level animated series succeed so well on cable. It honored its Marv Wolfman/George Pérez roots and had a nice run. What I never expected was to see it make the leap to the big screen and succeed as well as it did.
Back in the spring, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies was among the least anticipated summer films by theater owners at Movie Con but then arrived to superlative reviews (91% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes) and stronger than anticipated box office with $51.8 million earned worldwide against a $10 million budget.
On the five season series, the young heroes were seen having ordinary every day adventures, focusing more on pizza than the Fearsome Five. One recurring theme seems to be that the adult heroes looked down on them as being far from ready. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, out on disc now from Warner Home Entertainment, goes meta as the kids worry about their shot at a feature film. They’re told they’re just too goofy to be taken seriously enough for a film so Robin (Scott Menville) leads the team — Cyborg (Khary Payton), Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), Raven (Tara Strong), and Starfire (Hynden Walch) — to Hollywood to prove them all wrong. Hilarity ensures for the next 84 minutes.
Taking a cue more from 20th Century Fox’s Deadpool than any heroic film Warner has released, the movie is a rapid-fire collection of wit, comical asides, and recurring gags including, yes, mistaking Deathstroke (called Slade here given the target audience) as Deadpool. Writers Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath clearly had a lot of fun with this and were well-served by director Aaron Horvath. For knowing adults in the room, you can appreciate that Superman is voiced by Nicholas Cage (fulfilling his dream). There is additional fine voice work from Will Arnett and the ubiquitous Kristen Bell. Nothing is sacred, notably the flawed DCEU films.
The transfer to Blu-ray is just fine, with strong visuals and audio. The simple style is deceptive and the colors pop here. Being a kids film, the special features appear more geared to them than the parents buying the disc. There’s a Lil Yachty Music Video (2:09) and three Sing-A-Long songs — Rap (1:56), Inspirational Song (2:41), My Super Hero Movie (2:23) — featuring Starfire’s pet Silkie, who was left out of the film proper. WB Lot Shenanigans (3:56) features costumed adults as the Titans making noise around the film studio. Red Carpet Mayhem (2:10) has some of the cast have fun at the premiere. We also have a DC Super Hero Girls Short: The Late Batsby (4:14). Interestingly, Teen Titans GO!: Translated (2:18) shows scenes translated for international audiences. We have two Storyboard Animatics: Time Cycles (1:07) and The Final Battle (1:34). Finally, there’s a one-minute deleted scene.
DENVER – November 9, 2018 – Superman’s greatest adventure – his death and rebirth – will be unveiled in a special two-day exclusive theatrical event as Warner Bros. and DC join forces with Fathom Events for a double feature presentation of the previously released The Death of Superman and the first in-theater screening of the all-new Reign of the Supermen nationwide on January 13 and 14, 2019.
