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DC Collectibles- DC Icons: Wonder Woman
Continuing my quest to re-watch all the DC Animated features to date and give some thoughts regarding 3 key touchpoints: Animation Style, Voice Acting & Story. These are really just rough notes as I watched the movie and might not make a whole lot of sense unless you have recently watched it. See 290-2, 303-2, 318-2, 331-2, 344-2, 358-2, 369-2, 371-2 & 385-2 for my previous instalments.
All Star Superman:
Animation Style- Looks like it could have been a slight return to a more realistic animated style that doesn’t match any particle artists style, it works for this feature, but I do not care for the design of Superman- A short cape that he wears like a cloak? No thank you.
Voice Acting- - It’s a bit of a unique cast with some new actors providing voices mixed in with old pros. Superman’s voice is pretty good provided by James Denton (Mike from Desperate Housewives), Lois is played by Christina Hendricks (of Mad Men fame) and Lex Luthor’s voice is brought to life by Anthony LaPaglia who is a character with an impressive body of work going back for years. There are a number of other notable VO actors that are easily recognizable including John DiMaggio (Bender), Steve Blum (Zeb from SW Rebels) and Keven Michael Richardson (Joker from The Batman, Bulkhead from TF Prime) but two crazy credits that caught my eye was Linda Cardellini playing the role of Lex’s niece who would be best known to us geeks as Hawkeye’s wife in the MCU and Arnold Vosloo who was the Kryptonian astronaut that Superman met on earth and has played Imhotep in the Mummy movies and Zartan in the Gi Joe movies; How fun!
Story- So there is a whole lot of story packed into one short movie. I feel like the producers took all the high points of the comic series and tried to smush them together with a weak overarching story about saving the world. Here are all the “acts'' as I see them: Act one: Superman saves the sun researchers, gains additional powers and learns that he is going to die. Act Two: Lois learns about Clark’s secret… again. He takes her on a tour of the Fortress of Solitude (which was super cool) but is soon sidelined when Lois tries to kill Superman. THEN he gifted her with super powers. Act Three: While gallivanting around Metropolis they ran into 2 super hero time travellers (that I have never heard about until now) Sampson and Atlas and fought to win Lois’s affection? They then meet the sub terrain dinosaur people and the frick’in UltraSphinx (whoever that is) and have to solve a riddle in order to save Lois. Finally they cap this off with an arm wrestle challenge to again try to win the Lois, which Superman wins? Forth Act- Lex Luthor interviewed in jail when Parasite goes after Clark due to all of his new powers. Fifth Act- Superman then takes Kandor (Krypton City shrunken down by Brainiac) to a distant planet to keep it safe, then doesn’t show anything about that adventure and comes back to Metropolis being changed to New Krypton by 2 new Kryptonian Astronauts that were put in the Phantom zone as quick as they came? Sixth Act- Back to Luthor and the attempted execution with him getting Super Powers from a drink? I don’t even know when Solaris (a sun eater) was introduced, but apparently Superman is fighting him in a fun white suit. Then you have Lex’s niece terrorizing the city? Final Act- Lex and Superman’s final fight, I enjoyed how he defeated Lex. And then Superman DIES after turning into pure energy and combines with the Sun. WHAT THE HELL. Easily the most disjointed DC animated feature to date, but had some fun moments that should have been expanded on.
Pros: Overall this is a fantastic representation of Wonder Woman and looks to be maybe a combo of the modern comic and movie versions? The figure itself is beautifully sculpted and really showcases DC Collectables abilities when it comes to producing female figures; I wish that Hasbro would take notice. Accessory-wise she is well equipped with her sword, 2 truth lassos (one loose and one wrapped) , a shield/arm band to hold it with and some different hands. Kudos to DC Collectables for including enough spaces for her to store everything. I also am impressed with her overall stability with the wedged shoes. Really nice figure.
Cons: Unfortunately her face sculpt changed from the initial pictures and not really for the better. Also, due to her flowing hair, she can;t really hold her shield on her back very well. I’m really not sure how this made it past design if I’m being honest.
