Superman: Doomsday
Justice League: The New Frontier
Batman: Gotham Knight
Wonder Woman
The Green Lantern: First Flight
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse
Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam
All-Star Superman
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights
Batman: Year One
Justice League: Doom
Superman vs. The Elite
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Deluxe Edition)
Superman: Unbound
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
Justice League: War
Son of Batman
JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time (I think this one was specifically a younger kids movie, not positive)
Batman: Assault on Arkham
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Batman vs Robin
Justice League: Gods and Monsters
I think that’s pretty much every animated film they’ve done since Superman: Doomsday, so there’s some stuff in there I already own, and I know at least a couple of these aren’t really worth owning on their own, but I’m still tempted to pick it up. I know frequently iTunes movie bargains aren’t Apple-exclusive and you can find the same titles on sale at Amazon, but if they have anything like this bundle I couldn’t find it. Apologies, because I know iTunes is a non-starter for some of you, but thought at least a couple people might like a heads up.
I’ve seen Batman: Assault on Arkham and I recommend it. It’s the best villain oriented superhero movie, live action or cartoon, I’ve seen. If the Suicide Squad movie simply does what this movie does, but flesh out the story a bit, it’ll be great. The Gods and Monsters clips I’ve seen are pretty good, although very different.
I’ve been meaning to try out some of these animated super hero movies as I love animation in general.
Can anyone recommend which ones are the best to start with?
I’m not a comic fan and I’m a bit super hero clueless.
It’s a little hard for me to know what to recommend from this list. It has stories they’ve made up just for movies, it has stories they’ve loosely adapted from events in the comics, and it has stories they’ve very carefully adapted from specific comics, down to the art styles.
These are the ones I already own or have seen:
Justice League: The New Frontier
Batman: Gotham Knight
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Batman: Year One
Justice League: Doom
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Deluxe Edition)
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
Son of Batman
Of those, Batman: Year One and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns are the two in the third category, attempts at translating very famous comics as directly as possible into films (or cartoons). All-Star Superman also falls into this category, though I haven’t actually watched the movie of that one. In all three cases, you’ll find opinions all over the map. The comics are held in such high regard some people will (rightly) praise their exposure to a broader audience in any form. Other people hold the comics in such high regard they will (also rightly) be very critical of even slight changes or omissions in the adaptations. Hard to decide for someone else which concerns are more important. But I say hey, go for it.
Of the rest, Batman: Under the Red Hood and JL: Flashpoint Paradox are both very good. A couple of the others I don’t remember well (I think Doom was pretty good?). Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is definitely skippable. Batman: Gotham Knight is a peculiar one, it’s a series of shorts done by Japanese studios (like The Animatrix but for Batman), which are overall not very good, but also very fascinating as novelties.
And then beyond the titles in this bundle, there were several Batman, Superman, and Justice League movies that were more directly in continuity with the older cartoons (Batman: The Animated Series, the Superman series, Batman Beyond, and the two Justice League series that spun out of that). I’d definitely recommend checking out Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (that was actually released in theaters at the time). A few of the titles in this bundle feel like they fit into that continuity based on animation style or common voice actors, but I believe officially they aren’t in that same “DC Animated Universe” of the old cartoons. Not all of the titles in this bundle are really linked to each other either, they certainly don’t need to be watched in any order if you want to pick and choose.
Batman: Assault on Arkham (I went in expecting a game tie in that would suck. What I got was Ocean’s Eleven with psychos. Freakin’ love this one.)
Justice League: The New Frontier
Wonder Woman
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Deluxe Edition)
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (their version of the [albeit briefly shown] Joker and Superman made my jaw drop)
Justice League: Doom
Good:
The Green Lantern: First Flight
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths
Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam
All-Star Superman
Superman vs. The Elite
Batman vs Robin
Justice League: Gods and Monsters
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
Just okay:
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse
Batman: Year One
Superman: Unbound
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Batman: Son of Batman (although Weird Al Yankovich as a psychotic Dollmaker was worth the price of admission alone)
Won’t watch again:
Justice League: War
JLA Adventures: Trapped In Time
Absolutely hated:
Batman: Gotham Knight
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights
I’ve seen a little over half of these, and largely agree with Hepcat’s rankings. The only change I would make is to bump Superman vs the Elite to the top shelf. I loved that movie’s version of “I’ll show you why you don’t want a Superman who kills”.
I just learned about the movie version of Justice League: The New Frontier yesterday. The book is great. The trailer on Youtube makes it look a little like one of those Flash motion comics. Is it really a top shelf product?
New Frontiers was one of my first experiences with DC’s animated movies department (or cartoons, or animated graphic novels, or kinescope…whatever), so I may be overly fond of it. But I do remember loving it for making the characters fresh without changing them to any great degree. And how can you not love a Martian Manhunter learning about humans from Bugs Bunny…er…animated graphic novels?
As for quality, it’s not a bottom shelf production by any means.
I’ve seen them all.
Dark Knight Returns
Red Hood
All-Star Superman are my favorites, but I’m a sucker for superhero stuff, so if any of them are on, I watch them.
Justice League: Gods and Monsters was also good. Not quite required viewing, but it manages to justify yet another alternate take on the Justice League with something more different and nuanced than “what if they were bad?”
On your recommendations, I watched Justice League: The New Frontier. I think it must be one of the first of these DC animated movies. At 75 minutes, they chopped a great deal out of the 450-ish page graphic novel. They retained my all-time favorite Batman line though: “I paid $70,000 for a radioactive splinter to stop the one in Metropolis. For you, all I need is a penny to buy a book of matches.” The book shows you what’s going on with the island ahead of its appearance, and goes into a great deal more depth on the superheroes overcoming 50s-era paranoia theme.
So, to anyone who enjoyed the movie version, I highly recommend the graphic novel. It’s a masterpiece.
On the flip side, New Gods/Apokolips stuff never excites me in the least. I’ve never read the old stuff that I guess is good (Kirby, right?), and whenever that stuff showed up in more recent comics it all just felt very very silly to me. But the story here for Wonder Woman was actually quite effective despite my disinterest in the setting; they quickly gave her a tragic origin that landed effectively despite barely being familiar with all those other characters.
I can understand that. Kirby’s New Gods are the product of a simpler time and they do come across as a little one dimensional and uninteresting in their original incarnations. But I like what others have done with them over time.
