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The Batman/Superman Movie: World's Finest
399 Plays3 years ago
Mike Blanchard of the GeekCast Radio Network is the show's latest guest, here to discuss what is certainly the best Batman/Superman movie ever made—the three-part team-up that originally aired as part of Superman: The Animated Series. Perry and Mike talk about how the film nails the relationship between Superman and Batman, as well as the DCAU and its legacy.
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Transcript
Discovering Audiobooks with Audible
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:00:19
Speaker
Read up on the history of superheroes in comics and movies with Grant Morrison's Supergods. You can also check out Vanguard, my original superhero novel series, or try The Vrilagenda or The Adventures of Fortune McCall, both of which were written by our duly departed host emeritus, Derek Ferguson.
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Speaker
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All you have to do is go to audibletrial.com slash SuperCinemapod and with your free trial you get one free audiobook and two free Audible Originals. In fact, you get to keep those titles even if you cancel before the trial is over. So what are you waiting for? Head on over to audibletrial.com slash SuperCinemapod and start your free trial today.
00:01:32
Speaker
Where's the Joker? Who knows? Makin' haha with Harley Quinn. I don't know, honest! I never went back after he muscled in. I don't want nothing to do with that clown. That's enough. I think you got your answer.
Meet the Hosts: Perry Constantine & Mike Blanchard
00:02:05
Speaker
I heard you were crazy. I didn't think you were stupid. Bruce Wayne? You peaked. I won't have vigilantism in my town. You'll be rid of me. As soon as I find the Joker. That may not be soon enough.
00:02:29
Speaker
It doesn't take much, does it? The Joker has 20 pounds more where this came from. Thought you might like to know. Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I am your host, Perry Constantine, and I'm here today with another new guest host, a longtime fan of the show, longtime listener, and that's Mike Blanchard. Mike, how you doing today?
00:02:56
Speaker
Hello, I am doing as well as can be expected. I'd rather Vax on than Vax off. Yeah, we don't have that option here yet. They're doing a very slow rollout out here in Japan. Jeez. You would think it would be fast rollout everywhere, but anyway. You would think, but the way it works in the ruling Japanese government is you fail up.
00:03:27
Speaker
Well, we did that for the past four years. Anyway, first thing I want to do is have you tell the people a little bit about yourself.
00:03:38
Speaker
Oh Lord, about me.
Mike's Health Journey and Geek Culture Passion
00:03:42
Speaker
Well, I have been podcasting as of December 8th or 12th or whatever date it'll be later this year. It'll be podcasting 13 years. My podcasting network celebrates its 12th anniversary on June 1st. That is the Geekcast Radio Network of podcasts. So I've been doing that for, it's probably the longest time that I've been doing anything.
00:04:04
Speaker
uh born and raised in Massachusetts no it does not matter if it's Tom Brady at QB New England Patriots you know it's it's
00:04:14
Speaker
Fly or die, pretty much. It doesn't matter who is in the position. It's the team that matters. Same thing with the Red Sox and the Celtics and the Bruins and all that. I lived in Kentucky for 25 years and lived other places and things like that. Just found out two years ago that apparently I have. Well, I
00:04:38
Speaker
that I have enlarged ventricles in my brain that I had hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus is quite literally a week after I had my brain surgery two years ago is what killed Tim Conway. Oh, wow.
00:04:54
Speaker
And I'm like, how did they not catch this before? How did nobody in my entire life know about this? My mom had passed away about six years ago and I had asked, I'd been asking her my whole adult life, you know, what's going on? Why, you know, what, what is all this? And she never could give me any answers and anything like that, but it took, uh,
00:05:17
Speaker
It took one day and I do not, I always go by the recommended what you're supposed to take. But if I'm in as much pain as I was in, then I took one day and I took throughout a 12, almost 18 hour day, I took 15 ibuprofen because I could not get the pain to go away. The next day I went in for a CAT scan. They're like,
00:05:37
Speaker
yep, you need to have a drain put in your head so we can drain all this stuff out of you. Oh, wow. Like, okay, good. They put the drain in. It's been fine for two years. About a month and a half ago, two months ago, the headache started up again. And I'm like, oh, got to go in for a CAT scan to make sure. And now it's just, oh, I got to get the records from the other states because I had the surgery in Illinois. We now live in Washington state. So
00:06:03
Speaker
it sucks that the medical community state doesn't talk to others. You know, one state doesn't talk to other States and all that. So now I'm just waiting on the comparisons to see if it's gotten worse or better. And for a while there, I thought it was better because I hadn't had any kind of headaches or anything like that for the longest time since, since the original brain drain two years ago. So yeah, that's, that's me. I'm your,
00:06:31
Speaker
I don't want to say average geek, but you know, 80s, 90s, Transformers, He-Man, Thundercats, Batman the Animated Series, Justice League, Superman, all that stuff.
Skepticism and Excitement Over Upcoming Series
00:06:42
Speaker
So speaking of which, what do you think of the new Master of the Universe revival images that have been coming out?
00:06:50
Speaker
Until I see like the toys look really cool. I won't collect any of them because I'm just not the only collection I have right now is Funko. But the toys look great. What we've seen of
00:07:05
Speaker
whichever cartoons they are, it looks interesting. But until Netflix says, hey, this is coming July, whatever the date, I think it's supposed to be July 23rd, until I see an actual trailer, I'm very skeptical that Kevin Smith is involved because Kevin Smith is, hello, Kevin Smith. He is Mr. 37.
00:07:32
Speaker
And it just, I don't know, it just feels like they are doing so much at one time. Like they have all their eggs in all these baskets. And I know the saying is don't always have your eggs in one basket, but you can also spread yourself thin to a point where you're like, hey, there's nothing here left. So I'm like, come on Mattel, slow down just a little bit.
00:08:00
Speaker
All right. Now there's some other news that you brought up to me right before we started recording. So since you brought it up, do you want to go ahead and tell people about this? I am looking. Yeah, absolutely. I am looking at the world's finest online, the world's finest. I've known
00:08:19
Speaker
These people for years now, one of the guys that runs that is called James, his name, James Harvey. And it's two articles. One is my adventures with Superman animated series gets two season order by Cartoon Network and HBO max.
00:08:33
Speaker
Warner Media has announced that the new animated series, My Adventures with Superman has been given a two season commitment from HBO Max and Cartoon Network. The new animated series, a premiere date is expected to be announced soon. Sam Register serves as executive producer. Superman will be voiced by Jack McQuaid.
00:09:01
Speaker
It looks like it's going to be a fun thing for your kids to get into for people. Yeah. Like when Superman, the animated series came out and when that came out in 97, 90.
00:09:16
Speaker
No, 96. Yeah, the 90s. It was 1996 with Superman. I was 16 at the time and I wasn't really paying any attention to it, but I was 12 when BTAS came out and I was like, ooh, what's this? My then stepmother at the time saw a Batman punch a guy and she's like, yeah, you're not watching that. I'm like, oh, you bitch.
00:09:38
Speaker
But eventually I came to my senses and watched the DCAU on my own. I'm not sure what to think about this one because it, again, it looks like it's aimed more to recapture what Superman the Animated Series was supposed to capture with us when we were kids kind of thing. Yeah, it's got
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, all we have is the description and the one image of Lois Clark and Jimmy. And I like it. I like that they do these things that are more for kids, especially after the long
00:10:18
Speaker
the long, long period when we only had, you know, the dark Superman who breaks people's necks. So I love the idea and especially, you know, now that I've got a daughter, I'm looking forward to watching some of the stuff with her. So I think it's great. It looks really interesting from what we see here. Jack Quaid, who's on The Boys, he's really good on that show. So I'm looking forward to seeing where Coe's
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, me too. It's gonna be interesting. And again, you know, people our age will always say,
00:10:49
Speaker
Why does it have to be another origin story? Well, it's not for us. It's for the kids that were our age now kind of thing. Like I just read, I just kind of scanned part of the part of the plot description about how it's, you know, Clark Kent, you know, you know, shaping his secret heroic identity of Superman and how Lois is this up and coming investigative reporter. So, okay, it's going to be an origin. Fine.
Exploring New DC Animated Projects
00:11:16
Speaker
It also seems like it's going to have more involvement of Lois and Jimmy than Superman, the animated series had, which I think is also an interesting thing to add into. Yeah. And then the other piece of news coming from world's finest again, Batman, Caped Crusader animated series ordered by Cartoon Network and HBO Max. The biggest news coming out of this is Bruce Timm returns along with Matt Reeves and
00:11:43
Speaker
Mr. Felicity himself, the exploding Mission Impossible bomb maker, JJ Abrams. The whole Bruce Timms involvement after the killing joke, that's the one that makes me a little bit nervous actually, just because I don't know what he was thinking with that. And I just hope Batgirl's not in it, because he's got some weird obsession with Batman and Batgirl. Yeah.
00:12:09
Speaker
I know everyone is all up in arms about JJ because everybody's like, oh my God, he ruined Star Trek. Oh my God, he ruined Star Wars. Oh my God. Again, this isn't for us. I mean, this could be for us. I don't know. I don't see an actual, see the thing about Batman Caped Crusader, when I was doing research on this before we started the record, the first thing that popped up was a 1988 video game.
00:12:39
Speaker
I literally had to do deep dive of Batman, Caped Crusader, 2021 news, or whatever it was that I searched to even find this, even though I already had this article pulled up. But there's no plot description here. There's not even a voice cast announced yet. I'm hoping against hope. It's Conroy. But if it isn't... I really doubt it. I don't know. I mean, maybe this is the original...
00:13:08
Speaker
I mean this is more of the original design that Bruce Timm had in mind or somebody else had in mind at the time when BTAS was was happening 30 years ago because I remember when they did the 75th anniversary. Yeah, the short. It's from like the his first appearance, Kyle.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that looks cool. I think that looks great. I think it's interesting. I think it's going to be fun. I don't know. Again, until I see a trailer or until I see an interview with whomever it is, whether it's Bruce Timm, whether it's Matt Reeves, whether it's JJ Abrams, until I hear them talk about it and say what their vision of it is, I'm reserving judgment right now based on the information, based on the little poster that we have here.
00:13:53
Speaker
It looks cool, but who knows? Yeah. Speaking of Abrams, he actually made an announcement in a recent interview saying that even though he's got this deal with Warner Brothers in DC, he doesn't plan to do any directing of projects based on existing IPs in the near future, which I think is a good thing.
00:14:16
Speaker
I like it better that he's just kind of like acting in a producer capacity and just finding the right talent for these things. Like, I mean, he's got Ta-Nehisi Coates doing Superman. He's got Bruce Timbak on Batman, which, you know, we'll see how that goes. But I think that's, and he's, I think he's responsible for finding
00:14:36
Speaker
What's his name for Last Jedi? So I'm all for him taking more of a backseat and putting talent together as opposed to doing the directing himself. That's the thing. And I'm not saying the man has peaked. You look at his career and what he's done. The main things I know, Felicity, Alias, the Mission Impossible movies he directed, obviously the Star Wars stuff that he did and the Star Trek stuff that he did.
00:15:03
Speaker
That's great because he got a chance to put his stamp, his ideas on whatever he wanted to either create or work on.
00:15:14
Speaker
JJ Abrams to me is kind of the same as Michael Bay. You need to have him as an executive producer, a kind of, Hey, what do you think of this? Like not really, I don't want to say a guiding hand because that just, you don't want to follow that, but you know, it's one of those things where.
00:15:38
Speaker
he's there, like you said, to either bring talent together or he's there in case you need him and he gets his executive producer or whatever credit you need to, you know, that's kind of like the whole Marvel model now of showrunner becoming head writer thing.
00:16:00
Speaker
And another it seems like it's only DC news this week. But another thing is it looks like the the back row movie is moving forward. They've got the directors who they directed its
00:16:14
Speaker
I hope I pronounced this correctly. Adil El-Arby and Bilal Fallah, who directed Bad Boys for Life, which I haven't seen, but, and then- Oh, that could be good. I haven't seen Bad Boys for Life. But what I'm more interested in is it's written by Christina Hodson. She wrote the Birds of Prey movie and she wrote the Flash, the upcoming Flash movie. So, I mean, I enjoyed Birds of Prey for what it was, even though I don't think it should have been called Birds of Prey, but it was a fun movie nonetheless.
00:16:44
Speaker
So yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing where they go with this. Yeah, I did see, actually, Bad Boys for Life was the final film I saw in theaters. And I used to be a huge theater buff from the time I could go to theaters on my own when I was 14, 15 years old up until about two or three years ago. Always loved seeing like, regardless of how bad the movies may be, I'm a Transformers fan. I've seen,
00:17:14
Speaker
at least the first four in theaters, Fast and the Furious, same thing. And I know that that kind of ties into the late great man that was your co-host, co-host, Mr. Derek Ferguson. I've seen all of those with the exception of Tokyo Drift in theaters. So I used to be a big theater guy. I used to go, I used to, I always used to go by myself. I would always pick like the earliest morning time I could go because I'm like, I don't want anyone in here.
00:17:42
Speaker
And this was before COVID, obviously. This is the last 30, 20 years of my life. It's like, I don't want anybody around me. No kids, no teenagers, no nothing. I just want me and the giant screen. And now I'm more like, I can wait for it to hit media release.
Adapting Games and Rediscovering Classics
00:18:02
Speaker
And the other thing that came out is, again, just like all DC stuff this week, but did you ever play the Injustice video game?
00:18:13
Speaker
know what I've seen people play it. Okay, so, you know, they also did a comic book based off it, which was actually pretty good by Tom Taylor, but it looks like that it's getting an animated movie. The Blu-ray and digital special features of part two of Batman the Long Halloween is going to include a sneak peek at the Injustice animated movie, but
00:18:39
Speaker
That's really all we have on it. The special features are also going to include DC Showcase Blue Beetle, which is going to star, obviously, Blue Beetle, as well as Captain Adam, The Question, and Nightshade as they battle Dr. Spectro. And then some movie flashbacks of The Dark Knight Returns, Hush, and Batman the Animated Series from the two-face episodes.
00:19:07
Speaker
Very cool. But yeah, the injustice, it's a perfect thing to do for an animated movie because I like it when the animated movies do these adaptations of these comic stories that you'll never, well, that shouldn't be like the tentpole franchise anyway. So I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out. Absolutely.
00:19:31
Speaker
Okay, all right. So that's the end of the news for this week. So that means it's time to move into the movie. So we're talking the Batman Superman movie, World's Finest, which was the, this was the Batman's introduction into the kid's WB because Batman in the animated series started out on Fox.
00:19:55
Speaker
And while it was on Fox, they had a lot of issues dealing with the Fox sensors and all sorts of things like that. I remember one example, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini said in an interview, was they had always wanted to do Firefly, but Fox would not let them use Firefly for whatever reason. The sensors just said no. I don't know why.
00:20:16
Speaker
And then when they went, when they had done Superman on Kids WB, and so then they were able to move Batman over and have him join Superman. So they had done an hour long block, which was, you know, the Batman Superman adventures, and like one episode of Batman, one episode of Superman.
00:20:32
Speaker
And I think Superman had already done one season on the kids WB by this point. And this was a three-part episode originally aired. It was part of Superman season two and it featured Batman in his new kids WB redesign and also the Joker and Harley Quinn, but all the same voice actors. So still had Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker.
00:21:01
Speaker
And I wanted to because, number one, I listened to, let's see, the tribute you did to Derek. I listened to the episode with you and Tom DJ.
00:21:17
Speaker
And I wanted to listen to the new format that you have kind of going forward to make sure I was on the same page and to make sure things so I listened to yours. And is it Adam? I'm sorry. Okay. Uh, I listened to that episode and I'm like, okay, I kind of get the gist of where they're going with this. This is interesting. This is good. We go from the bad justice league, no matter what cut you're watching to the good one.
00:21:49
Speaker
I, go ahead. I was just gonna say, so I know you came to the DCAU later in life. Me, I was watching this stuff as it was airing. Like, because Batman Returns came out in 92 and I was like at the perfect age for that. I was like eight or nine years old at the time. And so, so I was Batman everything at that point. And Batman, the animated series came out right after that. Like, I think it was,
00:22:15
Speaker
Bambin Returns came out the summer, and then I think the animated series came out in the following fall. October 5th, 1992. Yeah, so it was just like every, like that and X-Men like defined my elementary school life, plus Power Rangers too, but mostly. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I just kind of fell off in the middle, like when I went 15, 16, 17, but yeah, I was, I'm right there with you. And then the interesting story for me is
00:22:43
Speaker
is that even though I fell off of it for a while, I came back in 99 just after I graduated high school. That's a long story. I was held back a year because of health and whatever. So I had seen Batman Beyond and I'm like, wait a minute, what is this?
00:23:06
Speaker
Why is Bruce? Why is Batman old? What's going on? I was so shocked because I hadn't seen Superman. I hadn't really finished Batman in the animated series at that time. Then from that point forward to now, from 1999 to now, it's like, oh,
00:23:24
Speaker
This is what they're doing. I watched Justice League as it aired when you could actually catch an airing of it because Carter Network doesn't like to air anything unless it's adventures of gumball or adventure time or Rick and whatever.
00:23:39
Speaker
So I had kind of been up with it, but I wasn't like I really had to catch up with it. And I was like, oh, interesting. And so I never saw this as it aired, but I knew about it. And once the DVDs hit, once the Superman animated series, the original standard DVDs, because now it's in high def on HBO Max.
00:24:02
Speaker
or whatever you wanna call it. I was like, oh, interesting. And then I saw news of, this was a while ago, obviously. Oh, we're gonna do a straight to DVD release and we're going to compile the whole thing into one thing. And I'm like, that could be interesting.
00:24:21
Speaker
And that's the version that I like watching. It's not that I have anything against the individual episodes. I love the opening and closing credits of the animated series. However, I just feel that the movie, because it's so easy to see where they cut it for the episodes, putting it together for the movie was so seamless. And it's like, oh, I know where part one and part two break.
00:24:51
Speaker
I would have to go back through it again to be able to sit there and tell you where part two and part three break because I don't remember.
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I watched it because it's on HBO Max just as part of the individual episode format. But because it's got the autoplay next, it's like there's no real break in the action. So it's really well put together. It flows very well from one episode to the next. And you can see it was really written as like one long movie and then they just found good spots to divide it up.
00:25:28
Speaker
Now, some of the things about this, now it's interesting for me because I love the animated Batman. That's like the distillation of who Batman is. It's like the perfect distillation of who Batman is.
00:25:42
Speaker
less so on the animated Superman, the DCAU Superman, because this Superman takes a lot of cues from John Byrne's reboot, which I did not like. I don't like the idea of Clark Kent and Superman having almost no differentiation in their personalities. I didn't like that Superman's much more depowered and all that kind of stuff. Those are things that I don't like about it. And I always felt that the John Byrne Superman
Superman's Power: A Delicate Balance?
00:26:11
Speaker
Right, his Clark Kent was a football star and now he's like an ace reporter and he's got like, his life is too perfect, I think. And I know people, a lot of people say that they found him more relatable, but I actually found him less relatable because, you know, he's Superman and he's also Clark Kent and he's a football star and all this great stuff. And there's a lot of, there's that lack of like the
00:26:37
Speaker
the the tragedy aspect like with Superman the movie which is one of my favorite scenes when um when Jonathan Kent dies or in um or just like in some of the incarnations where he's like the this wallflower type who he's got to keep you know he's got to put on this mask in order to to kind of so people don't really know who he is so I that whole thing about having to to wear these different masks and everything and just
00:27:01
Speaker
and the things he's had to go through, and just like having those lessons in humility, I felt that the John Byrne Superman lacked a lot of that stuff. Okay, I'll be perfectly honest with you. 1996, I was not reading comics at all. I remember from 92 to 99, I read maybe four comics, and those four comics were because of watching Spider-Man the Animated Series over on Fox. So
00:27:27
Speaker
I knew nothing of Burns Run. So going into this. Same here. I was the same way because I didn't start reading comics until probably about the late 90s. And it wasn't until a few years after that that I'd actually started getting into Superman really big. But so I'm with you there. Like I wasn't reading comics at the time. But looking back on it now, those are the problems I see with with this Superman. Yeah, I.
00:27:52
Speaker
I think what they did with Superman was probably better than even though they were taking cues from Burn and they were, you know, homaging certain things. Some of the stories in Superman the Animated Series are so well done. Oh yeah, absolutely. This aside, I mean, this is, this to me, like, I can sit here and literally, okay, so when I watched this, I watched this as of this recording the night before we recorded.
00:28:22
Speaker
I'm one of those people that I'm an audio file. If I'm doing something for a podcast, whether it's my own stuff or somebody else's stuff, I will sit there and record the audio for the entire thing.
00:28:34
Speaker
And then I will cut through and find my favorite lines or what I think, I basically have 33 clips plus the full audio of this entire thing now. And it's like, I can sit there and go through and say what they're saying as they're, I know this thing so well. You know, it's like,
00:28:54
Speaker
Are you sure you don't want to see this, mister? Your plots. That's not exactly what she says, but she does say your plots. You know, so it's like this in Transformers, the movie, I have committed to memory, you know, like, like step out of it, Kent, you know, that, you know, that whole thing. And Superman in this
00:29:18
Speaker
surprises me it didn't it doesn't really surprise me but it surprises me on this viewing because you know you go through the entirety of the DCA you pass this and you get to destroyer at the end of justice league and he's like
00:29:36
Speaker
But you can take it, can't you, big man? No, Darkseid. What we have here is a chance for me to just let loose. In this movie, you see how the restraint hurts him a little because like in the very one of the very last scenes of World's Finest, when he's fighting the giant robots, Mercy is tied to one of them.
00:29:59
Speaker
Well, obviously Superman's not gonna hit a woman. He's not going at least 30, 40, I don't know what he does now, but you know, so the restraint of them, the animator animating his arm being held back from throwing that, I was like, oh, that is so, so good to just show how hard it is and how difficult it is for him to just not go full force all the time.
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I noticed that too. I thought that was a really good touch they did. And that's one of the things that I do have a criticism about is that the Superman in, not so much in this episode, but in some of the, especially when you get to some of the Justice League stuff, is this Superman, it's less of a concern with
00:30:50
Speaker
with the saving people aspect of it, right? This is more of the punchy Superman. But so I did, I really liked that they threw that in, like he's about to go all out on this robot and then, you know, then Mercy swings into view and he can't hit it. Yeah, exactly.
00:31:06
Speaker
And the only reason why they made him a wimp in Justice League season one is because they thought they needed to depower him. Right, which I think is also why they took cues from Burns run with this super with the Superman the animated series and depowered him as well as this because like there are things when like you know.
00:31:22
Speaker
you know, like when the exploding gumballs start coming out and he's like flinching, stuff like that. And so that's the kind of stuff, like that's not my Superman, but that aside, like you said, the stories in the animated series, all that aside are really good. And one of the things they did take from Burns Run, which was the only, there are only two things I like from Burns Run. One was that he wasn't Superboy, I always thought that was,
00:31:48
Speaker
always kind of a weird thing. The whole idea of like, you know, Clark Kenton and Superman both come from Smallville and they both moved to the Metropolis at the same time. It always felt very weird to me. That kind of stretched the suspension of disbelief a little too much. It was one of those problems I had with Smallville when I'm like, well, by the time
00:32:07
Speaker
he becomes Superman, everybody in the world knows who he is. So it's- Yeah, pretty much. Well, secret identity doesn't really work then. No. Then again, you know, Welling didn't want to wear the tights because he was so afraid of the curse, but- Yeah, yeah, it was a weird thing too. Even when he came back in crisis, he didn't want to put on a suit, so- And you know what? Honestly, in crisis, I get it, because in crisis, it seems like
00:32:31
Speaker
it's so far ahead of where Smallville, like, okay, at the end of Smallville, and again, as we're recording this, I think a few days ago or whatever, it's been like 10 years since the finale of Smallville or something.
Redesigns and Rivalries in DCAU
00:32:46
Speaker
He put on the shirt at least, I don't know what else he had on underneath, but in that open closing scene with the, when the Williams- Well, that was actually CGI'd onto him.
00:32:57
Speaker
Oh, okay. Of course, of course it was because, you know, heaven forbid, but still that regardless of how it was done, regardless of what he felt about it, us as Superman fans, watching that final scene and hearing that music, hearing the Williams music and seeing the shirt rip and whatever, and you flash forward to crisis in the CW stuff.
00:33:21
Speaker
To me, it's like a decade or two has passed. He's like, oh, Lex, the president, like, really? What's he what's he doing? You know, so I'm OK with him in crisis, not. Yeah, well, when we get a crisis episode, Derek and I talked about that scene and.
00:33:37
Speaker
And one of the things I liked about that cameo is that I felt like it was a better ending to Smallville than the actual series finale was. Absolutely. The only good thing about the series finale for Smallville was using the Williams score at the very, very end. Well, I like seeing Michael Rosenbaum back as well.
00:33:56
Speaker
Well, true. That was good, too. But like the whole giving him amnesia thing was just weird. But anyway, that's that's another story. But going back to this movie, when they redesigned when they redesigned when they redesigned the characters for when Batman came over to to the kids of UB,
00:34:17
Speaker
It's really weird because there are some redesigns that are really awesome. Like I love the new look they have for Batman with getting rid of all the blue and just going with the silhouette and the pouch belt. That's like the perfect Batman design. So I love that. But then you look at and also what they did with Bruce Wayne because I don't know why they put him in that ugly brown tan suit in the animated series.
00:34:40
Speaker
The frumpy brown coat and yellow shirt. It was ugly. Every time, I have to look away when I've been rewatching it in batches on HBO Max. And whenever he comes on as Bruce Wayne in that suit, I got to look away because it's just so ugly. The one time that I can forgive it is the episode, The Forgotten.
00:35:03
Speaker
when he ends up with amnesia and he ends up being in the in the camp with the dude and the the music swells and this is the episode where Alfred has to pilot the bat listen to me you stupid whatever Alfred says to the bat wing i that's the only time i can forgive the frumpy brown suit with yellow shirt and i guess at the time they were trying to like the way of i've always seen it is
00:35:29
Speaker
Bruce Wayne is the mask. Batman is the man. When it comes to the DC animated universe, when it comes to Bruce Timm and James Tucker and Radomski and all them.
00:35:45
Speaker
You don't want to necessarily show off that Batman has a six pack. You don't want to necessarily show off that he's got a beer gut like Bullock or anything, but at least it hid enough of stuff so I can kind of forgive it. But I understand where you're coming from. Yeah. The thing about me, like I've always viewed part of the Bruce Wayne mask is the fact that he's this playboy type. And so I think with that, you got to have like a sense of style.
00:36:11
Speaker
And like he's got no style and and so that's why I really like what they did here because now you know he's got his hair neatly combed he's wearing the black power suit with the with the red tie and it's it's much more it much more suits Bruce Wayne than it does the the front be looked at.
00:36:31
Speaker
This movie is set up perfectly and this is how all team-up movies should be and I need to give credit to, I believe it's Michael David Sims and James Doe over at World's Finest Podcast over at Earth-2.net. They had said this years ago when they were doing the DCAU reviews that they did.
00:36:49
Speaker
This is the way the most crossover movies should start. You start with the villains. You have the villains either getting along or not getting along. You have and then you have the heroes where the heroes are reluctant. They're they're unsure of each other. They don't know. I mean Lois says it perfectly like
00:37:10
Speaker
you know, what, that nut from Gotham City, you know, I mean, it's just one of those, you know, he's not like your Batman, but it's one of those things where and then they get to a point where they're like, oh, hey, maybe we're on the same side. And right at that point, when when Clark goes into investigative mode and he's revealing his his ideas of why
00:37:35
Speaker
they can't find the Joker and what Lex is doing. And Bruce is like, well, maybe I should just ask him. And that is the best, one of the best scenes in this is finally seeing Lex Luthor thrown off his rocker by Batman. Yeah, I love that. And that was something that stood out to me as well. The fact that Lex Luthor is not scared of Superman at all, but Batman scares the crap out of him because he doesn't know what Batman will do.
00:38:04
Speaker
I'm going back to the design too. Another thing I wanted to mention is, like I said, some of the designs are really good. The Batman, the Bruce Wayne designs, and a lot of the other characters, they got these updated designs as well. But one of them that I did not like was the Joker. I don't know, getting rid of the red lips and the black eyes thing, it doesn't really work for the Joker for me. That was one thing that I...
00:38:27
Speaker
I never liked watching those episodes with the Joker because of that. And I liked when he did appear again in Justice League, they went, they did like a mix of those two styles again. Yeah, it's one of those things where
00:38:43
Speaker
I know they needed to redesign them. And I understand why they get rid of the red lips because again, which is weird that they did because you're going from Fox who at the time, like as long as nobody shoots anybody, you know, basically GI Joe, every, every, every shot misses that they're shooting at people, but you don't actually see people getting shut and going from kids from that to kids WB, which kids WB just basically let them do anything. I mean,
00:39:12
Speaker
Look at growing pains, the new Batman and Superman adventure episode growing pains. This is the one with Tim Drake and Clayface, and it's this little girl named Annie who Tim kind of has crush on. Well, she's just a piece of Clayface, but it's like, ooh, Clayface, like, I don't know how they're going to get away with this, but again, kids WB, they can get away with it. Yeah.
00:39:40
Speaker
And in this, yeah, the redesigns, Joker redesigned it. It's okay. I think it works when he's being menacing. When he's being funny, it doesn't necessarily work. But when he's like, like the scene where Lex is like, oh, he's just some mere mortal in a Halloween costume and Joker turns to him and looks at him like, there's nothing mere about that mortal.
00:40:06
Speaker
Like, you know, when he's doing all of that, I think it works when he's being the sinister part of the Hamill Joker, when he's trying to be the Jekyll the Clown comedy version of him, it doesn't really work. Yeah. And that's why I think that's what I really like what they did with him when he came on Justice League, because he's got the more expressive eyes back. He's got the he's got the red lips back. But it's a but it's they're using those darker tones, too. So it's it's a really good look for for the Joker. I thought they did there. Absolutely.
00:40:36
Speaker
Another thing I mentioned is going back to what you said about the team up aspect too, is I really, I think one of the best things about this is the whole dynamic between Bruce and Clark. And I love how right at the start they get the, they explain how they each know each other's secret identity, because it kind of happens in Batman v Superman, but we never find out how they know who each other is. But here, like we see like Superman, you know, he uses X-ray vision right on Batman's mask.
00:41:05
Speaker
you peaked yeah and then um and then you know and in true batman form he tracked he slips a tracker on him and follows him back like i love that that was the ending of the the first part and that's such a perfect that's a such a perfect ending where he uses vision to look across the city sees batman there with binoculars and just gives him the thumbs up
00:41:25
Speaker
Okay, so there has been long standing with me, my friends, with everybody I know, like, what is he actually, like, I know he's trying to salute
Voices of the DCAU: Iconic Performances
00:41:35
Speaker
him. Like, he's trying to say, hey, by the way, ha ha, I know who you are now. And that's why at the end of that episode, the end of that part of the film,
00:41:45
Speaker
Superman crushes the thing and he's like, touche. Well, I've taken screenshots of Batman in that moment so many times over the years. I think it's just two fingers on his head. It's not even a thumbs up. It's just two fingers that he just kind of pushes off of his forehead. And I'm like, okay, so he's kind of giving him the middle finger.
00:42:07
Speaker
Really? Because, I don't know, maybe there's a different version in the movie because... No, there isn't. I screen-capped it from both things and it just looks like he has his index and middle finger to his head as some sort of salute, like little mini salute thing. I thought it was just like down here by his side. That's why I always thought it was a thumbs up. I don't think so, but anyway.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure. But I always took it as a thumbs up and just like a little, it's just whatever it is, it's just like a little gesture like, you know, you got me, I got you back. And it's just that little back and forth thing. And I thought, and it was also his way of communicating that, look, there are things I can do that you don't even know about. Exactly. Yeah.
00:43:00
Speaker
And, and I do like, but, and I like that they didn't go too much into the rivalry route, right? They, they've got, there's this mutual respect they both have for each other, even if they don't agree with each other's methods. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing, like they go a little bit, and I think the closest thing we have to the rivalry is where.
00:43:26
Speaker
you know, Batman's, you know, hey Binko, it's been a long time. That's enough. And then Batman just flips him. He's like, oh crap. Okay then. Like I think that's the closest this needed to be with the rival. The rivalry does not need to expand upon the entire film because you need to have that point of where they come together and realize they're working to the same end goal.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, they did a they had a really good job and also and.
00:44:02
Speaker
Batman's the one who, he starts it and he ends it. Like I did kind of like that where he, like Superman's not really, he's not antagonizing him really. He's just saying, hey, look, you're going too far. And then Batman's the one who gets antagonistic, flips him over. And then he pulls out the piece of kryptonite and- It doesn't take much, does it? Right, yeah. And he holds Superman at bay, but then he tosses it into the water and he says, like, just thought you'd know. And then he goes, and I thought that was a,
00:44:29
Speaker
It was like his way of saying that like, look, this is what's happening. I'm actually here to help, even though I may be an asshole sometimes. Yeah, pretty much. Another thing I like is this. I mean, the casting in this is amazing, especially on the Batman side, right? Kevin Conroy, obviously. Mark Hamill, obviously. But also, you know, Clancy Brown is Lex Luthor. He's just such a...
00:44:59
Speaker
He's probably my, it's weird, like I go back and forth between him and Rosenbaum because Rosenbaum, I liked his portrayal, but the stories weren't always, he wasn't given as good material to work with as Brown was. Yeah. Yeah, no, the casting here is amazing. It really, really is.
00:45:26
Speaker
You know, this is the first time you have Kevin Conroy and Tim Daly together as Batman and Superman. You have Dana Delaney is by far the single greatest voice of Lois Lane ever. Yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
Uh, and it's so funny at some point. Um, I don't know when I saw this, but look up a movie. It's called not now, but later it's called exit to Eden. And she stars in that. And I'm like, Oh my God, Lois is hedonistic. Yikes. Oh, wow. It's, it's a really fun, interesting, silly.
00:46:06
Speaker
Silly, silly movie. And also, I think this is actually one of the few times because Tim Daly didn't reprise the Superman role in the Justice League shows. No, it went to George Newburn. George Newburn, yeah. Yeah. And the funny thing about that is, is that before he was the voice of Superman, there was only one role I knew him from.
00:46:27
Speaker
He was one of the kids, not the kids' kids, but he was the boyfriend of Elizabeth Shue in Adventures in Babysitting. Oh, okay. And I'm checking out a few other ones, because I know they did those two Superman Batman animated movies based on the comic book. And Tim Daly came back as Superman in, I think he came back in both of them, just double checking. Yeah, he came back as Superman in both of those.
00:46:54
Speaker
We also had a reunion of the four of them. It was Conroy, Delaney, Daily, and Brown in the Batman Superman story, which was season five episode something of the Batman. Oh, okay. Yeah, that was always it. Like I remember actually watching that on Cartoon Network when it aired. I'm like, Kevin Conroy, Dana Delaney, and the fact that
00:47:24
Speaker
The fact that this film, this three episode arc shows that it's not Clark and Lois, it's Bruce and Lois, like, oh, it's that serious. You don't know what you're getting into, lady.
00:47:41
Speaker
Because I've only seen a few episodes of the Batman. I haven't seen that one, you know. Yeah. Season five of of is it the Batman or yeah, I think it is the season five of the Batman was the team up season. Yeah. So it was after their big epic that they did in season three and season four, because by season three, season four of that show, they added in Robin and Batgirl and did other things. And season four was their big arc thing. By season five, they were doing team up episodes.
00:48:10
Speaker
Right, yeah. Kevin Comer was that? Who did he play? I'm just looking at the cast list. I don't see. I thought he was. I could have sworn. No, it's Newborn is in it. He's playing Superman. Oh, that's right. It's just the Superman cast that returns. Okay. Yeah, sorry. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, so I'll check that out then because seeing those three come back then.
00:48:34
Speaker
Yeah, I get that confused with Batman of Zurnar from Brave and the Bold. That's where Conroy comes back. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So this movie, this, this three part thing, oh, it's just, it's so fun. And it's,
00:48:56
Speaker
got everything for every bat fan you could bat or Superman fan that you could really want, really. And sadly, some most of the sad thing is most of the voice cast isn't with us anymore. Most of the like Commissioner Gordon, Bob Hastings, Robert Costanzo, Detective Harvey Bullock, I think both of them have passed. Oh, really? I think so. Yes, I'm pretty sure Hastings died because I remember seeing that news years ago.
00:49:33
Speaker
But it's one of those things where the cast is just so well done. There are two scenes that really jumped out to me the last time. One of them is when Lex and Joker are having the meeting and in the background you've got Harley Quinn and Mercy just going at it.
00:49:51
Speaker
I love that scene that that scene is by far the best sidekick scene in anything because and it's the way it's done because you have Joker and Lex talking you have the music and then because I listened to it.
00:50:11
Speaker
as I was watching it and I listened to it after with just listening to the audio without looking at the visual. And I could hear each of them through in stereo through my headphones. And I'm like, hey, they're on the other side of the room. Or, you know, that that that is that and what they did in Batman Beyond's episode, the shriek, the sound design episode.
00:50:35
Speaker
were they won the award for that? That is some of the best sound design in animation that has ever happened. And another thing that I like too is the unpredictability of the Joker in this, right? The way he's, and it's just like Batman says to Superman when Joker throws the marble is he's like, you know, you always gotta expect the unexpected. And this also has that recurring motif where like the Joker always seems to die in this show, but he always comes back.
00:51:08
Speaker
And you think about it, Joker, Batman has one of the most sinister lines in this entire thing at the very end, like you're talking about.
Character Dynamics in World's Finest
00:51:24
Speaker
Is he dead? Is he not dead? And Batman saves Harley, and she's like,
00:51:30
Speaker
Put in. Well, at this point, he probably is. Yeah. I'm like, damn, Batman, that's cut deep, man. Yeah, that turns out to me. It's like, oh, OK, that's it's pretty dark there. Pretty dark for a kid show, too. Yep.
00:51:48
Speaker
And again, you know, I don't even think, even though we were kids at the time or teenagers or whatever you want to say, these creators were not making a show for kids. They were making a show for, it's the same thing with all the 80s cartoon, GI Joe. That's not for Transformers. It's not, I mean, we were kids then we watched it fine.
00:52:11
Speaker
The Looney Tunes stuff, none of the Looney Tunes stuff, Chuck Jones was not making those cartoons for kids. He was making them for himself. And that's, you know, the same thing, like with podcasting, with whatever, with writing, you do it for yourself. You hope it gets, you know, noticed and praised and all of that. But like you had, like, that's the thing, back then you didn't,
00:52:36
Speaker
You know, I've heard Bruce Tim and interviews on the DVD sets and everything else where he's like, Oh, well, this influenced me. So I wanted to put this into this thing that I'm working on. And here's hoping people will enjoy it. We'll get like, you know, the reference or get what I'm trying to go for here. And if we enjoy it, we enjoy it, but he never actively targeted. Like everybody back then was like, Oh, you have a,
00:53:02
Speaker
an ages 5-9 demographic, an ages 10-13 demographic. Having the demographics is great. Having people try to write stories for those demographics, that's just dumb because you need to write a story for yourself.
00:53:21
Speaker
and figure it out and if there are things that standards boards and practices won't let you do. That's fine you find a workaround with it, and you can still get you know you only can make so many compromises but you still make some to the point of.
00:53:36
Speaker
Oh, well, I can live with it. The story being told this way, as long as the main part of the story gets told. Oh, if we can't shoot anybody in Batman, the animated series, fine. It's not about that. As long as, you know, Mr. Freeze gets more than the weekly bank robbery.
00:53:52
Speaker
Well, it was a mix. There were some that were definitely like that, but then there were some other TV shows that were much more written. I think it was when the 90s really started to see a shift, because that's when you had the much more mature storytelling like Batman or X-Men. But I think about some of the other stuff that I grew up with in the late 80s, like
00:54:11
Speaker
Like, the, the original Ninja Turtles cartoon which is looking back on that that is cheesy as hell, and it's just, it's very much written for for a younger audience, or.
00:54:24
Speaker
I recently just rewatched a few episodes of Brave Star, which I hadn't watched in years, but it was also the same kind of thing. You could see some elements in there, you could tell they got some, but mostly it's got a tone that's much more directed towards kids. So you had a mix of things, I think.
00:54:43
Speaker
Which, and now you do too. It's still that way. And that's fine. I think there's nothing wrong with doing these shows that are just for kids as well. I remember one of Derek's thing was he loved the Batman and the Brave and the Bold thing. And I've watched a few episodes of that and it's really hard for me to get into just because it's so much of that. I'm waiting for my daughter to get older so that she can enjoy it and then maybe I might be able to get into it.
00:55:10
Speaker
with her. There are three or four episodes of Brave and the Bold that I absolutely love. Like I mentioned earlier, Batman of Ziranar, where they go to the alternate time, the alternate planet or alternate timeline or whatever, where, you know, Kevin Conroy voices this multicolored Batman character. Oh, the Ziranar? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and then the I love the Batmite episodes because it's friggin Pee Wee Herman is Batmite. It's amazing.
00:55:42
Speaker
But yeah, no, world's finest. This is, it hits everything that you wanted to hit with these two characters, even with the villains. Lex is, you know,
00:55:55
Speaker
Lex is like, what is this going to cost me? And that's his bottom line. That's what always in the DCIU, that's always Clancy Brown, Lex Luther's bottom line. What is it going to cost me? Whereas jokers like, Oh, no, it's not going to cost you this, it's going to cost you even more because I need to go one step further kind of thing.
00:56:17
Speaker
Yeah. And then there's Harley. And Harley, as much as she has been thrown into the spotlight over the last 20 years, seeing her in this, this time, she really shines in the moments that she has given in this because
00:56:42
Speaker
between boingy, boingy, boingy, coming in with the pogo stick or, you know, doing whatever else, you know, at the end, like, I want a doctor, I want a liar, I want a cheese sandwich. Like, oh, Harley. Yeah, yeah. And I like, I did think it was kind of interesting that,
00:57:10
Speaker
Lois finds out that Batman is really Bruce Wayne, the first time she encounters him, but she goes through the whole series and Justice League, never finding out that Clark Kent is Superman. I always thought that was kind of funny. And I like what they did with it though, because
00:57:29
Speaker
It's so subtle. It's because so she's in danger. Batman's in there trying to rescue her, trying to save her. And his, I'm going to call it a printing press, but it wasn't a printing press. It looked like a printing press, but his cape gets caught in some of the machinery and his mask is pulled off. And yeah.
00:57:51
Speaker
So he's like, Bruce Wayne, you're Batman. When were you going to tell me the honeymoon? And you know, he was never going to tell her. Yeah. No matter how far, if they actually, if there was an alternate version of this thing and they let that relationship go, you know, he would have never, ever told her. I don't want to say that they would have, and I don't think they would have turned her into an Aunt Harriet, but she would have never, ever known kind of thing. I like that she did.
00:58:19
Speaker
because of the scenes that happened afterwards, because of she has sympathy for him and she has this thing of, I'm a reporter, I'm sitting on the greatest story in the world, Batman unmasked, and there's not a blessed thing I can do about it. And then later when she's helping him heal, she's like, I'll be back. I'm going to go get some burning, stinging, yay or die. And I'm like, oh, I love you, Lois Lane.
00:58:44
Speaker
There's also that great moment when Superman comes in and Batman says, you know, it's ironic. She likes Bruce Wayne and she likes Superman, but it's the other two guys she's not too crazy about. And Superman says, well, it's too bad we can't just mix and match. Mix and match, yep. Well, this is one of the things I really like about Kevin Conroy's Batman because
00:59:09
Speaker
Like he's, you know, he's a dark Batman. He's not the Adam West Batman, but he's not grim dark Batman, right? He's still got these, he's still got this personality. He's still got these moments of levity. And I really liked that they have that side of his personality here. Yeah. And it's not, it's throughout the entire, yes, it isn't here. And it is in parts of the animated series once it became the new adventures.
00:59:36
Speaker
But it's throughout the rest of the DCAU, if you look at any like, I swear to God, I have more pictures on my Facebook that I've uploaded over the years of Batman smiling. I've like, there's so many times that he smiles that you don't notice it until you see it. And it's like, Hey, and you're right. It's not.
00:59:56
Speaker
It's not Dark Knight Returns. It's not Frank Miller. It's not Tim Burton, even though that Batman wasn't that dark, to be honest. I mean, Michael Keaton's Batman wasn't that dark. No, we talked about that. He had moments of levity as well. Yeah. But especially this, the Conroy Batman, it's very much in the Neil Adams, Denny O'Neill vein of Batman.
01:00:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, he's got this wry humor, right? He's not just incessantly dark all the time. Yeah. And one of the
01:00:31
Speaker
One of the best parts is in, in Justice League in only a dream, the only a dream to part of this is with Dr. Destiny. And he's, he's singing for a shock he's humming for a shock, and he's like, What's that song, what are you singing.
01:00:50
Speaker
Don't stop doing that. I can't read your thoughts. That's the idea, Johnny. It's to keep you out of my head, because he's falling asleep as he's driving the Batmobile, stops into a coffee shop, basically cuts everybody in line, throws some cash, give me a triple. And I'm like, oh, that is so good. Because again, it's Conroy. And I had never, ever, up until Batman, the animated series, I didn't know who Kevin Conroy was. I had no clue.
01:01:19
Speaker
that was my introduction. And I'm like, yeah, that's that's Batman. Because again, like you were mentioning earlier, we were at a time where any night it happened, Batman Returns had happened, and they wanted to go off of that and create something. And they did. They created Batman, the animated series Superman, Justice League, Batman Beyond, all that stuff. And it's
01:01:47
Speaker
outside of Adam West, which Adam West is a whole other, 66 Batman is a whole other thing. But outside of that, that universe has got the staying power. Personally, I don't think there are any other Batman universes on television, on film that have really stuck
01:02:12
Speaker
to people as much like can can one of the animated movies the direct DVD animated movies reach like I'm not gonna say hush because I actually have never read hush I have no interest but whatever uh it was an okay story I have no opinion because I've never you know whatever but it's one of those things where uh like
01:02:36
Speaker
of Justice League Doom. I'll bring that up because that again is Conroy. That may have left people feeling things about Batman and about Conroy or whatever, but is that something that is going to last you 25, 30, 40, 50,
01:02:59
Speaker
The DCAU was a thing of beauty, is a thing of beauty, and it is a thing that is going to outlast all the people in the future. They always want to say, oh, 2015, we should have flying cars by now. Well, we're at 2021. We still don't have flying cars. By 2039, when Batman Beyond is supposed to start, I guarantee you, if any of us are still here, hopefully we are. Hopefully nobody, nothing happens. You know what I mean?
01:03:27
Speaker
Like if I croak tomorrow, I know that the universe that I grew up with for DC for animation can be found.
01:03:37
Speaker
30, 40, 50 years in the future at some point. Like, oh, they'll probably dust off some old library. Oh, this old DVD format. What is this kind of thing? You know what I mean? Well, it's like, I think it's, it's, I think it's, um, it's hard to say really, because I, I do notice some things like I see, um, I remember John Stewart had this when he was doing the daily show when he had George Lucas on and, uh, and he was talking to George Lucas about the prequels versus the original trilogy.
01:04:07
Speaker
And he said, you know, my son tells me that The Phantom Menace is his favorite Star Wars movie. And I always tell him, no, it's not. And it's that thing where it's like for it depends on the like the generation that's coming up now, you know, 20, 30 years, they might be looking at, you know, Caped Crusader and, you know, my Adventures of the Superman as their DC universe. So I mean, I think it will be it'll be important. But I
01:04:34
Speaker
I think it's too premature to say that the other stuff will or won't be. I like taking a wait and see attitude with that stuff. And I do tentatively agree with you. What I'm saying, though, is as a universe of animated property, this is the only
01:04:55
Speaker
full-on cohesive connective one that we have. Yes, certain ones of the DC animated films connect to each other and they created a universe within that, but these were whole cartoon series on their own. It wasn't as expansive as that was. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's basically what I'm saying is the expanse of the DCAU is far reaching. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right.
01:05:26
Speaker
Any other things you wanna touch on with this movie? Well, I mean, Superman, like you said, like Batman said, expect the unexpected. And I think Joker is, you know, people wanna say the Joker is not as smart as he used to be or something like that. He's pretty smart in this because
01:05:56
Speaker
Superman shows up with the lead suit, obviously. And he's like, you know, he shows the kryptonite to him and he's like, whatever. Joker walks away, Superman lowers his guard because he's going to get Lois. And Joker turned like,
01:06:15
Speaker
Silly me, I forgot the acid. And he shoots him with the acid and throws the kryptonite at him and it's just like you don't underestimate the Joker. The Joker is the ultimate version of Big Brother. Expect the unexpected like Batman said.
01:06:33
Speaker
And it's just, it's so funny and interesting to see this movie now versus when the multiple other times I've seen it. Cause I haven't watched these and I haven't watched this in a long time and I just snap right back into it. Yeah. Yeah. So good.
01:06:52
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, yeah, there's not a whole lot more to say about it. It's just, you know, it I don't know anybody who doesn't like this movie. I don't know how you can't like it. It's not about whether people should or shouldn't like it. I don't know how someone can't even if it's just someone who knows nothing about it, knows nothing about super like just my mom, I haven't, you know, rest her soul, all that. My mom's been gone six years.
01:07:19
Speaker
If I showed this to her and she only knew like Christopher Reeve and Adam West, she could probably come away with this laughing in a few of the moments or having some reaction to some of the moments. And it's not about showing people like whether they have 30, 40, 50, 75 year history with these characters, it's getting them to see how awesome these characters actually are.
Joker's Menace and Conroy's Legacy
01:07:49
Speaker
I don't know of anybody that I interact with that actually actively dislikes this because there really is nothing to dislike. I know if I showed it to my mom, she would not like it. Just based on the fact that it's animated and it's superheroes, I know she would not like it. She would not even give it a chance. But other than that, yeah.
01:08:12
Speaker
It's a perfect representation of what the relationship between these two characters should be. And it also does a good job of showing like the different types of threats that both Batman and Superman are up against. And cause you see it's, you've got Lex Luthor who's a threat. Yeah, but he's not, he's not as, like even he's terrified by what the jokers will, how far the jokers willing to go.
01:08:39
Speaker
And I like it. And it reminds me of going back to something in the comic books, you know, back in the, I think it was the mid 90s. Mark Way did this limited series called Underworld Unleashed, where all these these villains made deals with, can't remember the name of it, Necron, I think it was, like one of the one of the satanic characters.
01:09:01
Speaker
And they're showing like he's, and Necron's brought out all these villains who, and it's all narrated from the trickster's point of view. He's narrated the story. And he's got this round table of all these big name villains who have made deals with Necron, like there's Lex Luthor. And then one of them is the Joker. And then the trickster's narration says, oh, good job. Bring the guy that everybody hates to be in a room with. He's like, when villains get together and they want to scare each other, they tell Joker stories.
01:09:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's they do a good job of capturing that in in this and also in the in the Justice League episode when Joker appears to because he shows up with the injustice gang and nobody wants to work with them. Nope.
01:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's another one of the images I have captured on Facebook shows up every couple of years or so. Like it's it's the Joker with the popcorn and Batman is tied up next to him. He's like and I'm like movies with superheroes. Here you go, folks.
01:10:05
Speaker
I actually had a chance. Oh, man, it's been next year market decades since I did this. 2012, I had a chance to interview Kevin Conroy. And that was by far one of the single greatest interviews I have ever done. And in that interview, he tells a
01:10:26
Speaker
He tells a September 11th story that is just so, so good. It's, I'm not gonna, I'll have you direct your listeners to it if they'd like to, because I don't know if I can truly capture what he said, but basically he was going down to help and he was asking where he could help and he ended up helping in this kitchen. And he was just with some other guy and he's like, you know, what do you do? And, you know, and the guy asked him back, what do you do?
01:10:56
Speaker
uh you know i'm a voice actor and the guy kind of the way kevin tell the guy kind of smiles at him he's like yeah but is there like i hear something in your voice is there a specific care oh yeah i'm like and the character of you know i've voiced the character of batman and and the guy goes out to the to the to the cafeteria the room that they're that they're serving food to
01:11:21
Speaker
Hey guys, Batman is cooking your dinner. Somebody in the back says, bullshit, make him prove it.
01:11:30
Speaker
I am vengeance. I am the night. I am, you know, it's much better if your listeners go to, I'll send you the link to that and you hear him say the story because it's much better than me trying to imitate it. But it was like, I've heard a lot of September 11th stories. That by far was one of the coolest stories because
01:11:54
Speaker
Again, we at a time where America needed to come together. And it didn't matter who you were, even though the guy was like, Oh, yeah, but don't you voice a specific care. It really didn't matter because everybody needs to lend a hand when they can. Yeah, yeah, kind of thing.
01:12:13
Speaker
That was so fun. It's kind of funny when you think about Conroy because I've been re-listening to old episodes to prepare like compilation stuff for Derek and some of the great things he said in the show over the years. And I was just re-listening to the crisis episode and in that we were talking about Kevin Conroy when he appeared as Batman.
01:12:40
Speaker
and how jarring it was to hear that voice coming out of that face because you do not associate them together. And I had a feeling you were gonna bring this up because again, it's all things Kevin Conroy here inside Superhero Cinephiles. I remember him doing an interview about it and saying something like, I'm very happy. I finally got to play him on screen. It's my face. It's my voice. It's Bruce Wayne.
01:13:10
Speaker
But it's not really the Bruce Wayne and bat, but, but again, it's not the Bruce Wayne and Batman. He thought they were going to have him play at the same, like, I know everybody was like, Oh my God, Batman is the kingdom come version or whatever. Like he's the evil Batman. And I'm like,
01:13:25
Speaker
I don't care. It could be, you know, sparkly Batman with vampire teeth. I don't care. It's Kevin Conroy in the role. Finally, after how many years that he is portrayed as a voice actor. That is amazing. Yeah. Did I did I ever expect crisis?
01:13:46
Speaker
Was it? Yeah. I was thinking of Earth-X, but anyway, did I ever expect Kevin Conrad to suit up in a Batman suit and do flips and dips? No. As long as he shows up and does the work and does the material, I'm fine.
01:14:07
Speaker
85 episodes of Kevin Conroy's voice with the character doing all of the action. Plus, you know, going beyond that, you know, you got the video games, you've got everything, you've got the other movies, he's the other animated movies he's done. Yeah. So so yeah, there's lots of stuff out him where he's been doing the act. No, I like the fact that
01:14:26
Speaker
We got to see him just as Bruce Wayne. I did like the different versions of Batman. They kind of mix in, because you get some of Kingdom come in there. You get some of Dark Knight Returns. You get some of Batman v Superman even. So I thought that was a really interesting choice they did, which they also did with Brandon Routh's Superman, because they got a little bit of injustice mixed in with him, plus even Superman 3. So I thought they did. It was really cool to see how they fit all those things together. Yeah, it was so good. So, so good.
01:14:53
Speaker
OK, so that about does it for now. Mike, where would you like people to find you? I'm on social media. Twitter is at TFG1. So TFG, the number one mic. I'm on Facebook. I think it's TFG2Mike
Remembering Derek Ferguson
01:15:12
Speaker
from my fan page, Geekcast Radio Network. Geekcastradio.com is the website where all the podcasts are.
01:15:20
Speaker
I've been doing this a long time, folks, and things are interesting, I'll say, because podcasting has, in just the 13 years I've been doing, there have been so many different advancements with Zoom and Skype and all this other stuff and everything else. It's like, oh, I can't keep up anymore.
01:15:42
Speaker
But my main show that I do on the regular that I usually plan out pretty much a year in advance is called The Pullbag. I've been doing this for eight of the 13 years that I've been podcasting. We've got over 400 episodes. We do comic reviews and discussions.
01:16:03
Speaker
Generally how I like to do the comic reviews is I don't like to necessarily go page by page but we kind of go through the story in that order because I love using the Comixology guided view because with the way my vision is I kind of have to use that. I also have this thing on there called Origins where now it wasn't so much a couple years ago as of I think
01:16:28
Speaker
2020 pretty much since last year. I have a 25 question format that I asked guests about how they got into or out of reading comics. Okay. And I was hoping
01:16:43
Speaker
hoping to have gotten Derek on there, but I never, I never reached out at the time. Cause I didn't know what I had stuff going on. I'm sure he had stuff going on. And this was a couple of years ago. This was like end of 2019 when we were about to move from Illinois out here to Washington state. So that man, he is so missed. Yeah. Yeah.
01:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's surreal now when I'm going back and listening to these old episodes, just knowing that he's not around anymore. For people who've listened to the end of the last episode, I got a clip of him with his sign off. So we end every episode now with his sign off, both on the video and on the audio feed. That's very awesome.
01:17:30
Speaker
So yeah, well, Mike, thanks so much for coming on. It was nice to finally get you on after talking about it for over a year or so now.
01:17:43
Speaker
Now, gotta get you on the pool bag to do your comic stuff, so. Yeah. Yeah, we'll have to find a time to do that. Yes, yes, we will. Okay, well, thanks so much for listening. Thanks so much for watching. Superherocinephiles.com is the website, SuperCinemapod on Twitter and Instagram, and we've got the Superhero Cinephiles group on Facebook. Feel free to follow us on any one of those.
01:18:05
Speaker
drop us some money through Patreon or PayPal or buy me a coffee. All those links can be found on the superiorcinephiles.com website. And we'll be back soon with another guest in another movie. Don't know what yet. We're still working it out with them and trying to figure out what we're going to talk about. But we'll see what happens. Until then, I'm Perry Constantine. And as always, want to pay tribute to our forever host emeritus, Derek Ferguson, who sadly passed away last month.
01:18:35
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening and we will see you next time.
01:19:00
Speaker
If you buy or rent any movies through the Amazon links at our site, it helps support the show. Please be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. And as always,
01:19:30
Speaker
Good night. Good evening. God bless.