In the last fifteen years of comic books it's hard to pick out an event that made more impact and garnered more media attention than DC Comics 'The Death of Superman' storyline. Stuck for ideas on how to take the character, the creative team behind the four Superman books being published monthly decided it was time to shake up the comic Universe - and what a way to do it. As one of the best-selling series and subsequent graphic novels in comic book history (which gave us such iconic images as this) it only makes sense that when DC and Warner Brothers decided to make a series of original animated features this would be the first one. Admittedly, huge fans of the series and storyline are apt to find a whole bunch of stuff to complain about, but for people (like me) who are just fans of animated superhero fare you'll get quite a bit of enjoyment out of Superman: Doomsday.

The first thing they did right in bringing this story to life was to hire on Bruce Timm as the producer and co-director. Garnering respect of fans and an Emmy award, Timm was one of the people responsible for the smartly written and engaging Batman: The Animated Series that premiered in 1992. Since then he's also overseen most of the other DC animated shows that have aired and he's also responsible for bringing a distinct art style to them all. There's no doubt that when you think of quality superhero animation Timm's name will be mentioned.

Superman: Doomsday gets its introductions over quickly. It assumes you know the back-story of the characters and doesn't attempt to throw out a glossed-over origin story like the recent Marvel/Lionsgate animated features (such as the miserable The Invincible Iron Man) did. Superman (Adam Baldwin) is the defender of Metropolis and the World; his alter ego is the nerdy reporter Clark Kent. Our hero also happens to be seeing fellow reporter Lois Lane (Anne Heche). Lex Luthor (James Marsters) is a money hungry millionaire who has the ability to cure such diseases as HIV but chooses not to as he can make more money on the treatments.

However, things are about to get crazy in Metropolis when one of Luthor's dig sites searching for radiation power instead unearths an alien spaceship. Seems said ship contains the a merciless "super solider" type alien called Doomsday who gets free from his metal prison and proceeds to run rampant over Luthor's workers before he heads off to the big city to reek even more havoc.

This leads to a high-octane face-off between Doomsday and Superman that gives the movie it's most exciting moments (it's possibly the best action sequence in any animated cartoon I've seen recently) and results in enough destruction to leave Metropolis in ruins. It also ends with Superman sacrificing his own life to stop the seemingly unstoppable Doomsday.

With Superman dead, the crime rate goes up, but the script by Duane Capizzi (a veteran animated series writer who also penned the fairly decent The Batman Vs. Dracula feature) decides to take a more mature angle than expected by showing how various characters deal with the aftershock of Superman's death. It's a refreshing thing to see in this type of movie, and also adds to the fact that coupled with the previous fight scene this is not for young kids at all, but it's sadly not explored enough as the makers felt the need to accelerate the story to fit it into the 78 minute running time.

The last third of the story has Superman coming back from the dead (he's different though and isn't above eliminating the criminal element) who it turns out is a clone created by Luthor who's been scheming to rule Metropolis by using the image of his biggest enemy. However, Luthor's plan hits a bump when the real Superman ends up not quite being dead. This leads to a final showdown that doesn't reach the level of the Doomsday fight but is still a decent scene.

With more focus on the adult audience than making things more kid friendly the makers of Superman: Doomsday have delivered an entertaining effort that despite compacting a lot of material into what's on screen. It might've been better expanding this into a trilogy of movies but what's here is still pleasing enough. The animation is fairly solid and the voice work (with the exception of Heche who frankly sounds bored) works well enough, but it's the face-off between the two title characters that makes this worthwhile. Sure, it comes early, but at least what follows is interesting enough to keep you watching. (Chris Hartley, 9/20/07)

Directed By: Bruce Timm, Lauren Montgomery, Brandon Vietti.
Written By: Duane Capizzi.

Voices: Adam Baldwin, Anne Heche, James Marsters, John DiMaggio.

Picture Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: The problem with this sort of animation is that its thick outlines tend to show-up jagged on most televisions. Superman: Doomsday has this problem pop-up from time-to-time but it's not distracting enough to matter and the transfer does handle the constant movement of the animation fine without the "blurr lines" some of this type also suffer from. It's solid looking, if not the best that Warner has come up in the past.

Extras: There's an alright batch of extras here for viewers to dig into with the main drawing card being the four-part featurette, "Requiem & Rebirth: The Death of Superman". It's a look back at how the storyline was concieved and the impact it had featuring all of the people who were involved in bringing the idea to life. It's an enjoyable and informative look at this big, in the comic book world anyway, event.

There's also a busy commentary track with co-directors Timm, Montgomery and Vietti, writer Capizzi, voice director Andrea Romano, and executive producer Gregory Noveck. With the amount of people talking at once things can get a little messy at times but this is a generally breezy and fun listen.

Rounding out the extras are trailers for other Warner DVD releases, a sneak peek at the upcoming feature Justice League: The New Frontier, a quick look behind-the-scenes at the voice actors, and the throw-away interactive game "Superman's Last Stand" which you'll look at once and hit the "Menu" button right away.