Justice League: Gods & Monsters -- A Pre-Review

Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman ... but not Diana, Kal-El, or Bruce!

In what has become a tradition for Dangrdafne and me, Friday night at SDCC was spent watching the world premiere of a direct-to-video film from DC Comics. We have previously seen Batman: Year One (2011), The Flashpoint Paradox (2013), and Batman: Assault on Arkham (2014). This year, we were treated to Justice League: Gods and Monsters which features the return of Bruce Timm to the animated universe he launched with Batman: The Animated Series in the 90s.

But this Justice League -- and, indeed, the world surround them -- are much different than what we've seen from previous Timm productions. It would be easy to say that this grayer version of the Justice League is simply in keeping with DC's current trend of seemingly trying to make their heroes darker and edgier. And there is plenty of evidence to support that claim: This animated film is more violent than previous DC fare, the main characters run full bore across the line to anti-hero, and there is almost a nihilistic tone that can be pulled from parts of the story. However, I would like to offer that there is much more to this film than can be gleaned from the surface.

And I'll post those thoughts in a more complete review at a later date. It's quite late on the West coast now, and I need to get some sleep so I can attack the con once again in the morning. (I did say this post was a pre-review).


But, before I go, here is a quote from tonight's movie and two bits of news came that out in the panel following the movie presentation:

• "Go! Make the universe feel your might!" ~Zod
• DC and Bruce Timm's team are planning a web series to follow the Gods and Monsters movie.
• Next year's DC movie offering will be an animated adaptation of -- wait for it -- THE KILLING JOKE!