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Getting Super with Bruce Timm
August 24, 2007

It was “the most brilliant stunt ever pulled in comics,” the three-year “Death of Superman” storyline that

found the Man of Steel being demolished by the alien monster Doomsday, replaced for a time by four new Supermen, and then making a triumphant (and inevitable) return. This story, which spanned hundreds of comic pages, is told in streamline fashion in the new Warner Premiere’s DVD feature Superman: Doomsday, which will land on September 18 and clocks in at a mere 75 minutes.

 

Doomsday’s producer, art director and co-writer Bruce Timm (Teen Titans, Superman: The Animated State) describes the feature as “a kind of Cliff Notes version of the story,” with “The Reign of the Supermen” section removed. “We left out what wasn’t pertinent to Superman dying; the agenda of the ‘Reign’ was to spin off new characters.”

 

Timm and his fellow animators enjoy dealing with, and altering, DC mythology. “There was some fan criticism of the ‘Death of Superman’ storyline because it seemed that Doomsday was created for the sole purpose of killing Superman.” The character has been fleshed out since then, “and now Doomsday has a gravitas he didn’t have back in the day.” Also, the fact that Doomsday was such a “new” threat added another wrinkle to the animators’ version of the event. “The notion that the guy who killed Superman wasn’t worthy of it precipitates Luthor into a crisis.”

 

Timm emphasizes that Doomsday is different from Superman: The Animated Series. “We did whatever we could to rebrand this as its own thing, to make sure it seemed like a standalone movie — we recast the roles, redesigned the city and the characters. One of the motivations for the project has to go a little bit farther than we normally do on TV, to go an age group higher than we’re reaching on TV.” The result is a feature aimed at viewers 13 and above, but younger viewers can watch “depending on the kid,” says Timm. “The level of violence is about what you see on primetime TV. It’s really up to the parents’ discretion, though, whether a kid should watch.”--Ed Grant

Posted by Laurence Lerman on August 24, 2007 | Comments (0)