DC Comics Announces ‘Death of Superman’ and ‘Suicide Squad’ Animated Movies

Given the current (and nonsensical) divide between Marvel and DC movie fans, there must also be a similar divide between fans of the DCEU and Warner Bros. Animation, right? Fans who roll their eyes at the news that Ben Affleck might leave The Batman but who soak up every rumor and tidbit about the next batch of animated movies? If that’s the case, they have to consider themselves as having the upper hand on their opponents these days. Given the ongoing questions about the DCEU franchise, the animated movies are looking like the smoothest of smooth operations.

Case in point: this weekend’s DC announcement about its upcoming slate of animated movies. We’d previously written up the announcement that Gotham by Gaslight would be the next animated movie by Warner Bros. Animation, but DC Comics (via Heroic Hollywood) took the opportunity at Comic-Con this weekend to announce that Death of Superman, the 1992 series featuring the death of Superman at the hands of Doomsday and his subsequent return, will be adapted as two separate animated movies. DC Comics and Warner Bros. Animation will also release Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, the first Suicide Squad movie set within the DC animated universe. The latter will apparently be an original story written for the movie and will feature, as DC Comics puts it, “an amazing, though sadly not-yet-revealed, voice cast.” Nice.

Fans of the animated DC movies will note that Death of Superman is actually the second adaptation of that particular storyline, with 2007’s Superman: Doomsday tackling the same material in a much-shorter runtime. In our ranking of every DC animated movie, we noted that Superman: Doomsday was a solid adaptation of the source material handicapped by its desire to bring the whole affair in at under 90 minutes. Unsurprisingly, then, the DC Comics press release addresses this criticism head on, noting that the original adaptation “greatly condensed and altered the original comic book event to fit within its 75-minute running time” and that Death of Superman would “much less condensed” and “more faithful to the source material.” This looks like good news for fans who wanted Superman’s death and return to be done right.