Cosmic Book News

On February 14th, at the Paley Center in New York City, Warner Bros. and DC Comics premiered their latest original animated feature, “All Star Superman,” directed by Sam Liu with Bruce Timm as executive producer.

Actor James Denton voiced the part of Superman with Christine Hendricks as Lois Lane and Anthony LaPaglia as Lex Luthor.

“All Star Superman” written by Dwayne McDuffie, and adapted from Grant Morrison’s comic book series of the same name, sees the Man of Steel rescue a doomed space craft from crashing into the Sun. Superman finds out that as a result of having absorbed too much of the Sun’s radiation – that he is dying.

Superman spends the next several months putting his affairs in order, while still saving the world from the usual intergalactic terrors, the machinations of Lex Luthor and finally confronting his feelings for Lois Lane.

The 75-minute feature was screened for an audience of 200 and was highlighted by a question and answer discussion with Hendricks, McDuffie, and voice director Andrea Romano.

“All Star Superman” producer, Alan Burnett, told Cosmic Book News he thought it was maybe the “best DVD we’ve done in the DC Universe.”

After decades of stories featuring Superman, McDuffie, speaking to Cosmic Book News, said many writers have left their mark on the iconic character. When asked about the challenge of writing the Man of Steel, McDuffie said it takes a level of gravitas to write him.

McDuffie said, during the panel, the challenge was to figure out what to adapt from Morrison’s series.

“I am a huge fan of the book and when I heard that [Warner Bros. was making a movie based on the comic book series], I basically begged them to let me do it,” said McDuffie. “[But] what we did was [we] chose Superman’s conflict with Luthor as the center of it and we tried to keep the themes that supported it.”

McDuffie goes on to state the hardest part was not including a scene where Superman, as he is dying, helps prevent a teenager from committing suicide. 

“[That scene] was the heart of Superman and there was no place in the arc of the story, as we told it, that [it] would make sense. I tried and tried and tried and there was no place to put it.”

Despite that, Burnett praised McDuffie’s take on Superman.

“It’s a great story and Dwayne McDuffie…my hats off to him,” said Burnett to Cosmic Book News.

Christine Hendricks said that it was her appreciation for the character that drew her to the series.

“I had not read [the ‘All Star Superman’ series], and I was not familiar with it,” she said. “I just read ‘Superman and Lois Lane’ and said, ‘Where do I go?’.”

Hendricks said that upon reading the “All Star Superman” series, she was able to see Lois Lane in a different light. She praised Lois’s depiction as being more than just the damsel-in-distress but having her own adventures.

“The character was amazing and exciting,” Hendricks added.

Upon seeing the movie with an audience, Andrea Romano told Cosmic Book News she was pleased with the audience reaction, “It was wonderful to hear the response from the crowd.” Romano said that much of the time when creating, she is unsure how it will be received, but was pleased to hear the cheers and the enjoyment from the crowd. 

Burnett agreed, “It was just a great pleasure to see it on screen with an audience.

“All Star Superman” is available from Warner Bros. on DVD February 22nd, 2011.

Cosmic Book News would like to extend a special thanks to Don Smith for the above article. Don is a Freelance Comic Book Writer, Journalist and Author that can be reached at Donsmith74.wordpress.com.