Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
I liked a couple of things about this. Particularly, Owlman and his last line of, "It doesn't matter".
However, while it was better than the other dvd cartoons we've had, it wasn't very good.
First of all, there were too many characters, such as the President and his daughter Rose, who had almost no need to be in the story.
I felt that the parallel Earth was far too 'nice', and should've been a much darker world (more like in the comic).
But what really aggravated me is the "City of Heroes" fight scenes. I hate it when we have these fantastic superheroes with these incredible physical skills and powers, and their big climactic fight takes place in an abandoned warehouse. These sparse, dull, lifeless settings in which all we can see is base-level fisticuffs. For example, when the Justice League first arrive in the parallel Earth and have to fight their way out of Luthor's floating castle... the entire fight takes place inside a big open computer room. That's it. It's not until the fight is over do we discover the base is floating in the air. Then, once outside, the fight continues in the fast open space of the sky. The only interesting altercation is between Owlman and Wonder Woman who fight on his plane.
Consider how much more exciting it would've been if the fight had taken place on top of Luthor's floating castle as the power went out and it went plummeting into the Earth. The heroes would not only have to fight in order to defeat the villains, but somehow prevent the castle from crushing the city beneath. Consider how the evil Marvel family actually had the ability to use the weather as a weapon.
The final fight takes place on the Crime Syndicate's moon base which is just a large hall (again). And when Batman and Owlman have their climactic fight, it's in in a big open space (again).
Why not use the setting to create conflict and heighten the drama? In THE MATRIX RELOADED, an otherwise terrible film, the freeway sequence is uncompromisingly brilliant. At no point do the Wachowski Brothers fail to take full advantage of the fact that the fight is taking place on a freeway and construct an elaborate chain of events that take advantage of the setting: the characters drive against traffic at high speed, the have a duel on a fast-moving truck, they fight the ghost inside a car using seatbelts as weapons, and so on. How about in REVENGE OF THE SITH, which has its final fight between two brothers take place on what is, essentially, an exploding volcano? It didn't take full advantage of the lava, but by setting it in such an elaborate and dramatic backdrop, it heightened the drama.
Compare these to most superhero fight scenes, and the result is a pathetic spectacle where these outrageously physical characters proceed to trade punches in a vast open space as they take it in turns to knock a wall down.
For the final fight, since the Crime Syndicate is a mirror of the Justice League, instead of their base being on the moon or in orbit, it's underwater. They don't protect from above, the rule from below. Not only is it underwater, but the base is a labyrinthine fortress (which is why only nukes would hurt it) of security measures, and during the final fight, each member of the League is involved in a different way. The Flash is running through the facility trying to find the bomb, while Johnny Quick is blocking off his access. Hell, the damn fortress rotates and moves, making it impossible to navigate. So you've got Batman and Lex guiding Flash through the tunnels while Owlman reconfigures it to keep Flash lost. Green Lantern uses his ring to literally tear the base apart or hold it in place, as Power Ring rebuilds the fortress or movies it or creates new parts to it. Superman and Ultraman have a fight that plunges them to the bottom of the barrier reef, and Superman has to stop the resultant tsunami. Wonder Woman and Superwoman have a wet t-shirt competition.
When it boils down to Owlman and Batman duel at Earth-Prime, we can solve a problem, which is, "why was Owlman just waiting for Batman to show up? Why didn't he just detonate it?" Well, because the bomb needs to be placed at the planet's core. Since this was all about duality and the true nature of a person, having the duel take place at a planet's core kinda made sense. So when Batman arrives on Earth-Prime, there's a tunnel being burrowed by the bomb to the centre of the Earth's core and Owlman and Batman have this duel over the scaffolding of a bomb descending into the planet's core. Which would be all the greater contrast when he teleports it all to the frozen Earth.
Finally, my last problem was the Owlman's view of the infinite Earths is logically flawed, and I'm amazed neither Batman nor he pointed this out. While the nihilism of Owlman is pretty cool, the core premise of the tale, Good Earth vs Evil Earth, is kinda lost when there's an infinite number of alien Earths out there. But if, as Owlman says, for every action another universe is made, when he arrives on Earth-Prime, there should be an infinite number of Owlmen on the planet. And each of them should have a bomb. And each of them should be fighting a Batman. For if Owlman chooses to go to Earth-Prime, and talk to Batman, another Owlman goes there and doesn't. For every Owlman who built the bomb but didn't tell the Crime Syndicate, another did. And for every Crime Syndicate that said "no", another said "yes" and so on. So there should be an infinite number of Owlmen on the planet. What's more, Batman has to lose one. This is the law of reality (apparently). So... it doesn't make sense. And I was waiting for Batman to point out that Owlman is wrong on his theory that choice creates universes and that, therefore, there is no such thing as "Earth-Prime" since the parallel dimension don't 'branch off' one another. So he can say, "destroy this dead world - it won't matter". Owlman would appreciate the irony.
As it is, his last words of "It doesn't matter" would even seem to indicate this kind of thinking, but I don't think Dwayne McDuffie noticed this plot hole.
Wasn't bad. Just a bit lazy.
I thought it was cool.
