ANI-MOVIES, *DC Showcase: A Death In The Family

For the second time in a decade, a collection of DC Showcase shorts is collected into a single edition. This brings together four different segments originally featured in full-length animated releases like Superman: Red Son. However, in order to pad out the product as a complete package, instead of coming up with another team-up like Superman/Shazam: The Return Of Black Adam, Warner Bros. decided to take their blockbuster Batman: Under The Red Hood movie and give it the Choose Your Own Adventure technique. This upset quite a few people as you can't make any of the divergent paths in the streaming release, and is only on Blu-Ray or DVD.

The Batman: A Death In The Family segment shows how things might have gone different during the Under The Red Hood movie from the beginning where Jason Todd, the former 2nd Robin, instead took on the identity similar to later Batman villain Hush, or Red Robin. There are numerous choices, like deciding if Jason for survives his ordeal with the Joker, but becomes broken, or if Batman was the one who died in the explosion, with Jason taking up Batman's job. Some of these have different turnout like runins with Talia, Two-Face, or an unmasked final confrontation with the Joker. The story fits well into the original movie similar to Marvel's old What If? comics. But if you don't have the home video release, you're just getting a clip show of the genuine film.

The first of the regular DC Showcase shorts is Sgt. Rock, DC's equivelant of G.I. Joe. Set during WWII, Rock(voiced fantastically by Karl Urban)looses his entire troop in battle. The tough soldier now gets tasked with leading the Allied Forces monster army known as The Creature Commandos to raid a secret Nazi base making its own nightmare brigade. Normally, Sgt. Rock's character isn't involved in "weird war stories", but this feature balances out the horrors of war as well as the supernatural.

Next is Death, the younger sister of Dream from Neil Gaiman's Sandman Vertigo comic, who regularly doesn't meet up with the general DC Universe characters. Taking place in Gotham City, an unemployed artist is struggling to find something to inspire his creativity, while being brought down by his own personal demons. Death here looks like a cute gothic girl who poses for him, although the main reason she shows up was to bring him into the afterlife. It's a very steady-paced story, having less to do with the actual fantastic realm of The Dreaming, and more about how a single person's place in the world can be shoved aside by everyday minutia.

The Phantom Stranger is another look into the mystical side of DC Comics. Stranger himself is probably the most enigmatic character in comics altogether since he's almost never really gotten a proper origin, or exactly who/what he represents, but ususally acts as an oberver of the mortal realm. Here, he acts as a defender of humanity as he tries to persuade a young woman from getting involved in a demon's scheme to steal her soul, after already sucked the life out of a group of teens right out of Scooby-Doo. If you were to compare this to other DC attempts at horror like in their previous Showcase spot of The Spectre, than this one takes a second place, although it still makes for an interesting watch. Plus, DC regular Michael Rosenbaum as the devious demon is a real treat.

Finally, Adam Strange gets his own solo adventure. Traditionally, Strange was the Flash Gordon of the DC Universe, as he's an Earthman who regularly gets teleported from his homeworld to the distant but advanced planet of Rann. There, he married the resident Alanna, and the two of them had a daughter. Rann eventually gets invaded by the Hawkpeople from Thannagar, who cause Alanna's death, and Adam being beamed to an unknown snow world currently being mined by alien humans. After years of being stuck on this planet, Adam gives up all hope of being able to go back to Rann and find his daughter. Strange however gets to show why he was a true space adventurerer with his jetpack and raygun as he barbecues big bugs rampaging through the space station, Starship Troopers style.

Each of these chapters are largely acceptable on their own, although it might depend on your taste in comics as most of the aren't geared toward costumed crimefighters. The original DC Showcase installments are mainly done to hightlight the more obscure parts of the DC Universe, and this collection does its job of making the wider world of comics not be all capes and cowls.