Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Justice League Tuesday (NOT a review)




Justice League Tuesday!  I stopped by Target to get their exclusive JLA Adventures DVD earlier in the day and when I got home and was about to start watching it, I saw that they also released Justice League War for digital download.  I purchased War from the Google Play store and got ready for some back to back DC fun.

I was surprised to hear about JLA Adventures a few weeks ago.  The cover image reminded me of the young reader line of DC books that you could usually find at Target or the junior section of Barnes and Nobles.
The "movie" started off like an episode of Challenge of the Super Friends with the heroes and villains running at each other before the title splash started the show.  The animation was on a Saturday morning cartoon level...not bad but not the level of the DC Direct DVDs we've seen lately.  The story revolved around the Justice League battling the Legion of Doom before Luthor and a villain named the Time Trapper sent Solomon Grundy, Toy Man, Bizzaro and the Cheetah back in time to eliminate Superman and thus prevent the Justice League from forming.

Diedrich Bader voiced Batman bringing back memories of Batman the Brave and the Bold for me.  I wasn't too familiar with the rest of the cast...but then again, it's Batman.    I enjoyed it and all the little "Super Friends" references in the show.  The ending was left wide open for a follow up movie.  I wouldn't mind if DC/WB put this out from time to time.

Justice League War on the other hand was a love it/hate it movie for me.  I thought the animation was great, the voices were pretty good and the story/action was enjoyable though understandably different from the source material.  The problem I had wasn't really with the movie but the fact that I'm not a big fan of the New 52.  Three years after DC rebooted the universe, I'm still not used to the fact that the characters themselves are different...not just modernized but almost different people (but that's for another post).  Following the first arc of the New 52 Justice League story line, DC's big 7 (minus Aquaman add Captai....errr...Shazam...) must put aside their differences and work together for the first time to stop Darkseid from taking over the Earth.

I enjoyed both, will be picking up Justice League War when it does come out on DVD/Blu-Ray in a couple of weeks to add to the collection.