Justice League: Warworld Review

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This is a DynaMic Network podcast.

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Hi and welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Marvelous Joe. And I'm his twin brother Johnny DC. And in this episode we are going to review the latest DC animated release, Justice League War World. It's the latest movie in the Tomorrowverse series of animated films. And you know what? I did not like it.

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but Jonathan says that if you watch it three times, it becomes good. So we're gonna learn all about his thoughts on the movie later on this episode. I mean, not great, but not the worst either. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting at the very least. Before we talk about the film, we're gonna go into the latest comic book movie news that came out from the past week, of which there's only one news item, and that is the Loki season two official trailer. As always, we list our segment times in our episode description.

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so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. And as our listeners may know, our Dual Simulator is so advanced that it's gained sentience and has named itself the Artificial Lifeform for Running Extensive Duels, just a rather very intelligent Simulator 9000, or Alfred Jarvis 9000. He has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up.

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Thanks AJ9K, and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast. Be sure to tune in to the Max Destruction Podcast on August 9th, that's tomorrow.

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to see who would win between Indiana Jones versus Jack Sparrow. This is a big one, guys. I'm really excited about it. I'm really pulling for Jack Sparrow on this one. You know what would have been a good matchup? Jack Sparrow versus Mera from Aquaman. No, I feel like that match would have shit the bed. Ha ha ha ha. Also, anime fans should check out the DynaMic Network's newest show, Senjoh World, a battle podcast featuring your favorite anime characters.

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Yeah, debuted last week with three episodes including Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho vs Tanjirou from Demon Slayer, Natsu from Fairy Tail vs Suna from Hitman Reborn, and Ken Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul vs Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan. Yeah, this Thursday, host Zack is going to pit Escanor from The Seven Deadly Sins against Black Clover's Marieliona Vermillion. Make sure to tune in. Yeah, to listen to any of the Dynamike Network shows, click on the link in our show notes or...

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visit dynamicpodcast.com to see all the shows in our network. But with that out of the way, quick to the no prize! The no prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Duel No Prize, is a digital award that we post on Instagram and in our email newsletter for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week's question was, who is your favorite Spider-Man or woman across the comics multiverse and why?

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And that was coming off the news regarding Sony's indefinite delay of the Across the Spider-Verse sequel, Beyond the Spider-Verse. We got a lot of great answers here, so let's go ahead and break down our three honorable mentions as well as the no-prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Colby Hentges, who said, Hey boys, Colby Hentges. My favorite Spider-Man Across the entire multiverse is in the 616, the original recipe Peter Parker body but brain controlled by Otto Octavius.

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The Superior Spider-Man was such a good run. The Goblin Army versus Spider Army, just the way he pissed off the rest of the Avengers, it was great. Yeah, the Superior Spider-Man was a great arc in the Spider-Man comic books, largely because I think in some ways, Otto Octavius was a better Spider-Man, not like morally or anything, or as a hero, but the ideas that he brought to the character of the Spider-Man mythos, all the technology and upgrading Peter Parker to the head of his own corporation and everything.

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All that stuff I thought was really cool. Yeah, it's Spider-Man as I've always wanted Spider-Man to be. He just looked super cool. I've always had problems with Spider-Man's costume, and I thought the superior Spider-Man costume is the most superior Spider-Man costume probably ever. It did a good job of kind of showing Peter Parker's weakness as like a science guy, you know, because after he invented the web shooters, for as smart as he is, he should have gone on to invent a lot of other cool shit for himself that he just never did that.

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Otto really introduced to the character. So great answer Colby, our next honorable mention goes to Christopher Minotti who said, Hi guys Christopher Minotti. My favorite Spider-Man is probably Spider-Man Noir. I love this character, I think he's great. His whole demeanor is really cool and his, I think his world is really interesting. I know this isn't comics but I really liked him in the first Spider-Verse movie as well. He was very funny and an interesting character.

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Not to mention he does remind me of Batman and Rorschach. And I love those characters, too. Yeah, Abner O'Terry gave the same answer. And I have to agree, if you want to make Spider-Man cooler, make him more like DC characters. You can't deny it. Better, but I would say, you know, unique and different and interesting. Spider-Man Noir is cool. The comics version of the character is not like the into the Spiderverse version voiced by Nicolas Cage, but the character itself is a lot of fun.

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making Spider-Man more of a pulpy hero and setting it during the early 20th century, I think is a really cool sandbox that they've come up with a lot of awesome stories for. Great answer! Our final honorable mention goes to Travis Herndon, who said, Hey guys, it's Travis. My favorite Spider-Man related character would definitely have to be Silk. I think she's a very underrated character, especially nowadays, since everybody kind of

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that she kind of gets the short end of the stick for fans. So for me, I definitely say Silk. Silk is my favorite and hope they do more with her in the later future, either in Sony or in the MCU. Yes, Silk is Cindy Moon. She's the Korean American Spider Woman who was bit by the same radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker after it had bit him. It fell to the ground to put her on the ankle. And then she was kind of locked away for a decade by Ezekiel, it's a whole story there.

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but she is a fantastic character, Silk. And yeah, it would be really cool to see her get her due in the same way that Miles and Spider-Gwen have. Yeah, I don't know much about the character, but she does have a cool look from what I've seen. She has a great costume, yeah. One of these days we'll do a duel with her, although it took us a long time to get to Spider-Woman eventually, which we did within the past couple months, but we'll get to Silk eventually. We wanna give a quick shout out to everyone who took the time to visit our website and record an answer, including Matt Estes, Connor Pierce,

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and Alex Wong. But the winner of this week's no prize is Anson Millard who said, Hey, what's up? This is Anson Millard. My favorite Spider-Man from the Spider-verse is the Spider-Man that appears in the 90s animated cartoon. The voice actor in my mind is the voice of Spider-Man. That cartoon was really awesome and it was in large part because of the character. He was a Spider-Man that could balance the humor.

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but then also the more serious moments you need to have as Spider-Man, so I think he's the best. And purely for nostalgic reasons, I'm giving this answer the no prize win because like Anson said, it was a great version of the character. To this day, when I read Spider-Man comic books and I read that dialogue, I still hear it in the 90s animated Spider-Man's voice. It was iconic for me in the same way that like Kevin Conroy's voice will always and forever be Batman. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know the actor's name for the 90s cartoon, but he absolutely pulled off.

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the humor and fun of the character. Yeah, nailing the emotional beats as well, and like the hopefulness, I think, that should be behind Peter Parker's voice. I really hope they bring him back for like Beyond the Spider-Verse, just as like a cameo, that'd be really cool. That would be everything, that would be incredible. That needs to happen. But great answer, Anson, you win this week's No Prize. If you, the listener, want a shot at winning your own No Prize, stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another Question of the Week. And now that that's done.

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Lots of the news!

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Alright, this past week we got the official trailer for Marvel Studios' Loki Season 2, which will be debuting on Disney Plus in a few months. Loki is definitely one of the better Marvel Disney Plus television shows. Season 1 was really good, so I'm really glad that we're getting a Season 2. And the production quality that was all over Season 1 seems to be even more incredible here. The look and feel of the Loki television series is just incredible, and I'm so glad that that's staying consistent.

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Oh, yeah, just the color palette of the show, like the orange and green with a little bit of splash and purple whenever Kang is involved. It's just really well done. The color palette, the sets, the cinematography, the special effects. It all just looks so incredible, better than a lot of movies, honestly. I think we've said that on the show before. That was my first impression watching this trailer was, damn, everything still looks good. I would say this is probably Marvel's best.

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television series not only because you know Tom Hiddleston is great and and the show is just really well written But I also really felt like it moved the narrative of the MCU forward in a way that a lot of MCU Movies and shows don't really feel like they're doing great now Yeah because Loki season one kicked off the whole multiverse thing that wasn't really revisited again until The recent Ant-Man and the Wasp quantumania movie where we got to get our introduction to King the Conqueror And we're gonna see him again in Loki season 2

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It should definitely shepherd along the whole multiversal saga and bring us closer to the next Avengers movie, which is going to be The Kang Dynasty. But the trailer starts off with Mobius, played by Owen Wilson, and Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, going to visit, and I'm going to butcher his name, Kehui Kuan, the recent actor who won Best Supporting Actor for Everything Everywhere All at Once. It's so cool to see him here playing a member of the TVA who witnesses Loki.

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time-slipping which is supposed to be impossible in the TVA. The chemistry between these three characters, you can already tell, it's just, it's gonna be fascinating. I think Owen Wilson is probably underrated in terms of the balance and laid-back feel that he brings to the proceedings. I'm really excited to see him show up in the Deadpool movie, which is rumored to happen. I think confirmed to happen, but either way, that'll be really cool. Loki explains how he's getting pulled through time, through the present and the past. We see

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come back in this season. She has a really dumb haircut. I wonder what's going on with her character because we see her like all over the place too. Like in one universe she's like in a record store and the other one she's like behind the register at a fast food place. Eventually we do see her kick ass in a few shots so we know that whatever happens she returns to form from season one but she gives a pretty good line exchange with Loki.

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in the trailer where she says we can't play God and he's like we are gods. You know, the problem is choosing who lives and dies, you know. I think it's a great concept for this upcoming season. Yeah, Sylvie was one of my favorite characters in season one. So, it's great that they found a way to have the actress return, if not that specific version of the character. I think one of the other main things I took away from this trailer was that the action looks pretty good. Tom Hiddleston kind of seems like a badass, you know, between like the cool suits that he wears. His wardrobe is fantastic.

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but he also just carries himself really well as Loki. He has this greater confidence, it seems, about him within this season, now that he's kind of become more accustomed to this TVA time spy role. The season looks incredible. It looks amazing. I hope it lives up to the hype that I feel from watching this trailer, but I guess we'll know starting October 6th on Disney+. We'll probably get another trailer before then, but speaking of season two of Loki, that brings us to our question of the week.

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Besides Loki, what other Disney Plus Marvel television series that has come out do you most hope gets a season 2? Yeah, Disney Plus has had quite a few other Marvel television series come out. Loki is the only one that's gotten a season 2. There's not really been any word on any other series getting a season 2, but if you could pick one to get another season, which one would it be? Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

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which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to Instagram and our email newsletter. Be sure to answer before August 12th.

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But I think that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and get into our main event, where we review the latest DC animated film to come out, Justice League War World.

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Alright, Justice League Warworld is DC's latest direct-to-video animated film set in the same animated universe established by the film Superman Man of Tomorrow, known as the Tomorrowverse. Warworld is the seventh film set in the Tomorrowverse after prior films set up Superman, Batman, the Justice League, the Legion of Superheroes and the Future, and an alternate history slash dimension with a version of Wonder Woman in the Justice Society,

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during World War II. Justice League Warworld, like every single other film in the Tomorrowverse, has an incredible premise, though only half of those films, in my opinion, have been able to stick the landing well enough that I would recommend them to others. The Tomorrowverse is pretty hit or miss in terms of storytelling. So how did Justice League Warworld fare? Regrettably, I'd call it a miss, because while the idea of the film is fantastic, the execution, not so much.

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If you, the listener, do plan on checking the film out, maybe when it's on Max or something, stop listening now because there is an overarching mystery across the film and we will be getting into spoilers. Yeah, if you're not going to watch this film, why are you even listening to this review? You know, I guess if you want to know like what the movie is about, listening to this review is probably a more understandable, coherent experience in watching the film itself. So if you want to stick around for that, yeah, keep listening.

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I imagine a majority of the people who watch the movie are going to be amongst the most diehard DC fans, which is good, because anyone else I think is going to be considerably lost due to the film's fairly experimental nature. You know, it doesn't have your standard three act structure, and it plays out initially more like a series of anthological Elseworld shorts, which is what I wish this actually ended up being in the end.

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are essentially DC's version of what if, though like Elseworlds are a lot better. Like I'm almost embarrassed for Marvel. I'm not, and that's surprising that you're saying that, considering the quality of this DC film. I'm embarrassed for DC. No, I'm saying that the- Why are you trying to talk shit about Marvel when this movie sucked? Is what I wanna know. It didn't suck that hard, I mean, come on. Elseworlds are a way for DC to tell stories within new genres and time periods.

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and it's a chance to re-explore and re-examine characters that are familiar to us, such as Superman being raised in the Soviet Union, or Batman in a Tale of Lovecraftian Horror. Elseworlds are some of my favorite DC stories, so I was pretty excited when the trailers for Justice League Warworld showed us that DC's trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman would inhabit these alternative worlds. And exploring those worlds were the best parts of the movie.

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Wonder Woman as this nameless, gun-toting badass cowgirl in a western worked surprisingly well, Batman as a Conan the Barbarian analog in a swords and sorcery fantasy adventure was cool as hell, and Superman as a government agent dealing with a potential alien threat in a Twilight Zone-esque sci-fi horror was pretty crazy. Each of the different genres we encountered contained an interesting premise and a fair bit of action.

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Though if audiences weren't expecting something of an anthology in this film, they were probably really confused. Yeah, also because there were no real transitions between each act as well. Yeah, you're right, no transition whatsoever. Now, you and I are no stranger to DC's animated anthological shorts. We've reviewed several collections of them on this podcast, including Superman Shazam, The Return of Black Adam, Batman Death in the Family, and Constantine the House of Mystery. They're interesting.

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I enjoy most of DC shorts, as I did here in Justice League Warworld, even though they weren't technically shorts. It was the connective tissue between the individual tales that made things a little confusing for me in this film, and by the time we learned that, oh, it was all a dream, it was all an illusion, it wasn't quite the satisfying or clever reveal that I think the filmmakers intended. Yeah, the answer is that we did.

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ultimately end up getting weren't quite satisfying given that for a vast majority of this film, like two thirds of this film, we're stuck in this mystery that employs a lot of dream logic as it were. There's a lot of things that happen here that don't actually matter, that are confusing. And then once you realize what's actually going on, it's like, well, that was like a waste of time. It kind of felt like, you know? Yeah. 100% I agree with you.

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I think the most confusing and frustrating aspect of the conclusion to me was just how rushed and vague it was. Like, so much of the Tomorrowverse happens off-screen, like the formation of the Justice League or how Mongol captured Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to begin with. We don't know how or why Warworld established a telepathic link with Mongol, and it's super unclear to me as to whether or not the Lobo and Martian Manhunter in this film

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are the same ones from Superman Man of Tomorrow or if they're from another universe within the multiverse. Now, I kind of got the impression that Warworld was able to traverse multiple dimensions. Right, exactly. Now, we know Superman and Batman have met each other in the Tomorrowverse, but again, we're not entirely clear as to whether this version of Superman and Batman have met before. And Wonder Woman was really confusing because in the Tomorrowverse, Wonder Woman...

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was part of the Justice Society. We hadn't even seen her in the modern times yet, but she was talking to Clark like she knew him. Well, Superman was in the final battle of Justice Society. That's right. It was a different version of Superman though. Yeah, one that manifested during World War II, as opposed to the Superman that was in Man of Tomorrow who debuted in modern times. Yeah, that's why Wonder Woman in this movie said that he looked so much younger. I see, yeah. I felt like the whole film was really

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not only a setup for Crisis on Infinite Earths, but a way to get Wonder Woman into the same universe as Superman and Batman. But it just was a really stupid way to do that. I'm like, couldn't you just use DC's animated film for next year, Crisis on Infinite Earths, to introduce the World War II Wonder Woman to the main timeline? Like, was Justice League War World even necessary? Or was it just an idea that no one said no to? Because that's what it feels like.

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Absolutely. I think you're spot on right there. They're like, dudes, what if like Wonder Woman used her lasso like a cowboy? And the other person was like, yeah, man, I'm so fucking high right now. And what if like Batman was like Conan? Whoa. And what if like we're all aliens? Oh, that's an idea for a Superman story. There you go. Yeah. It's not a great way to develop a story for sure.

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And I'm absolutely convinced that's how this movie happened. It was cool that we got to see these obscure characters, but almost all of them, except for Warlord, were arguably handled somewhat disrespectfully. Jonah Hex was made a villain, Batlash was killed, Mashiest was killed, Snapper Car and the Langs were aliens, King Faraday was a hostile maniac, and even the White Martians were essentially laser d***.

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gun-toting fodder for the heroes to punch, which should have been a huge red flag for the filmmakers. Like, why do white Martians need to carry laser guns? They're fucking white Martians. Right? They have Martian vision. I mean, would any fans of these characters appreciate the way any of them were handled in this movie? I would argue probably not. The one good thing I could say about this film and all Tomorrowverse films is that the animation and character designs are a sight to behold.

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I think Diana definitely wins the award for best dressed in this film. Whether it's as a star-spangled cowgirl, a fierce damsel in a fierce bikini, or a spectacled and modest secretary, she looked great. It was cool seeing the three characters and how they exist within these three separate worlds. Visually, the film does have a lot going for it. Yeah, yeah. With Bruce in his story, I thought the Conan look was a little on the nose, but the bat helmet was cool. If not short-lived.

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I do wish he got to keep that bat cape a little bit longer. That would have been awesome. Yeah, yeah. Mongul's design was the only one I was iffy on. Like, it wasn't terrible. I think they may have been trying to differentiate him a bit from like a yellow dark side, but I wish he looked a little less shriveled. Yeah, he looks kind of scrawny here. I think he's usually more bulked up than that. But I might just be used to like Ed McGinnis's style of drawing the character and Ed McGinnis draws everybody really poofy.

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Yeah, no, that's how the character normally is depicted. Okay, okay. Now we've talked a little bit about some characters' appearances, but let's dive a little bit more into them in our character breakdown. Now Diana Prince, AKA Wonder Woman, was voiced by Stana Kanick, who lends a strong and exotic presence to Diana's character. And she did back in the first film she appeared in, Justice Society World War II. For sure, she's incredible. I thought she did an even better job in this movie.

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than she did in her debut voice appearance, and that was amazing too. Martian Manhunter at the end of the film revealed what he learned from each of the protagonists. From Diana he said he learned not to give up. Dedication, as it were, as we see Diana dedicated to the townsfolk despite the fact that they had broken the law because they were the ones in need of physical protection. It's often said that Wonder Woman is a tough character to tackle because she's a

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Warrior of Peace, which is contradictory, but I thought this was a great showcase of the caring and loving nature of the character and how she will defend those she cares about without hesitation or limits. Yeah, the movie was definitely rated R. I definitely remember being blown away by the level of violence in her Wild West story. In a Western film, you tend to see people get shot in the head. Moving on to Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, he was voiced by Jensen Ackles,

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to ever voice the character. He does a fantastic job. What he lacks in like, Kevin Conroy's deep, gruff perfection, I think he adds in character. I agree with you. Jensen Ackles, I think, has been the second best. I really like his Batman performance. Now from Batman, Martian Manhunter said he learned courage, which I think everyone displayed on the world of Skartaris. It's a dangerous place, but Bruce's true courage was tested

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when he made the decision to stand up to Deimos by refusing to kill Diana and Moriah, especially after revealing earlier that he felt, essentially, that everyone was evil and that evil was unstoppable. Warlord responded that while that may be true, good men stand up to the darkness within them and fight evil for those who can't, regardless of whether they can win or not. Bruce would have died for defying Deimos,

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But his courage to stand up for what he felt was right in the end was rewarded by Warlord when he saved Bruce from Deimos' bullet. Speaking of that, I thought it was weird that Deimos was firing a gun to begin with. He was a sorcerer. There's some weird choices made through that. That's in keeping with Skartaris, though. Skartaris is like the center of the world. It's like world at the core of the planet. But things from like the Bermuda Triangle get sucked into there. So Warlord uses a gun quite frequently. Really?

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That I did not know. OK, we'll have to do like a duel episode with Warlord at some point. But yeah, it just seemed like a weird hodgepodge of elements going on within this. What I thought was a swords and sorcery type world and actually turns out to be quite a myriad of things. Yeah, that's kind of what makes Scartaris unique from other swords and sorcery worlds, isn't the fact that the sorcerer can find a fucking gun and be like, I'm going to use this as like a magic wand.

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But like, why shoot a gun when you can turn into a giant snake though, am I right? Or do both, why not? Hahaha Moving on to Clark Kent, aka Superman, he was voiced by Darren Criss, who did a great job voicing the character in Superman Man of Tomorrow, and here as well. I don't know what it is, but he just sounds like a good, optimistic man. I think he might actually be the second best Superman voice after Tim Daly, from the new Superman Adventures. I buy it.

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Yeah, now from Superman, Martian Manhunter said he learned faith. I thought for a character that's an alien, Superman was perfect to do a 1950s sci-fi story with, as those often revolve around paranoia of the other. This was during the time of the McCarthy hearings and general public mistrust of anyone different or foreign, which in the melting pot of America, was hard to tell visually. But Superman represents

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the very best of American values, and in spite of everyone's mistrust, Clark refused to kill out of fear because he had faith that those people, no matter what they looked like or said, were good. And not just Bruce or Diana, but even Martian Manhunter, an alien that Clark didn't recognize. The movie proved and reinforced that Clark and Bruce are opposites in that sense, because Clark believes that everyone's good, and Bruce believes that everyone's evil.

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But if you're a white Martian, though, he won't hesitate to kill your ass. I mean, they attacked him first. Sort of. One of the guys was reaching for his gun. Right, right, right. So those were the three protagonists of the movie. There's some other characters that I want to touch on, including Martian Manhunter. We last saw him during a cameo in Green Lantern. Beware my power. Apparently, perhaps sometime after that, he was kidnapped by Lobo and imprisoned on Warworld.

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We have no idea if Superman or Batman were kidnapped at the same time or when Wonder Robin was taken from her universe, particularly because Martian Manhunter said it took him lifetimes to psychically reach them. Now he could mean like animated short lifetimes or he could be a Martian Manhunter from a completely different universe who's been trapped a very, very long time. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter because he seemingly sacrifices himself in the end.

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to destroy Warworld after he merges with a white Martian. If this was the main tomorrow vs Martian Manhunter, at least he went out like a boss though, because he was mentally manipulating everyone, not just the Trinity during the illusions, but also Lobo, Mongul, and some random white Martian in the end. Yeah, it was quite the telepathic feat they had going on. I think if he is gone, that's kind of a waste because he's such a quintessential part of the League. Or at least should be.

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Right, exactly, I think that's one of the reasons why I think he might be a multiversal Martian manhunter. Again, not 100% sure on that though. I guess we'll have to see how Crisis on Infinite Earths plays out next year. I also wanted to touch on Mungo. He was the biggest disappointment for me in the movie. I was looking forward to him because he hasn't made too many appearances in the cartoons or anywhere outside the comics really, but he's a pretty powerful badass villain.

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enslaving their citizens and pitting their best warriors in gladiatorial matches. That was nowhere to be seen here. Instead the writers made it so that Mongol and the planet were empowered by negative emotions, which was a weird decision. I thought that was really weird. I feel like we never got a great sense for the power of Warworld as a weapon. It's a planet covered in planet destroying energy cannons.

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And we never got a good look at it. Like the whole concept of war world was super vague, which I feel was like a super mistake on behalf of the filmmakers. Like what were the stakes? We were told that war world was the ultimate weapon in the universe, but it was never shown. And in a film, you should always show, not tell. Yeah, the only time we got a good, like perspective of the entire planet and the scale of it was when it blew up. And at that point, who gave a shit? Exactly.

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Even after watching this movie, I don't even really know what Mongol does. I know he has an energy staff that he can threaten people with. But I don't know if it's just a glow stick, if it even fucking works. What can he do? He didn't do anything in this movie. I mean, he's kind of like dark side light. You know, he's strong, he's fast, he's pretty much invulnerable. He could teleport and he could like shoot out energy beams. He's also really smart. But yeah, I don't think you got a sense for really any of that in this movie.

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He was just a guy who couldn't follow through on his threats, got his ass beat by Lobo, and then got blown up. Weak ass villain. And it was really unclear too as to whether or not, like, he was the one in control of Warworld, or Warworld was the one in control of him. He kept referring to Warworld as a she, which was kind of confusing. That's not from the comics? I don't believe so, not that I know of. Hmm. But let's get into the story highlights.

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The first act is a western. It follows Wonderoman, a nameless cowgirl who wanders via horseback, into a town whose citizens are holed up in a run-down church by hired law enforcement led by Jonah Hex. After an altercation at the local saloon between Wonderoman and one of Hex's men, Wonderoman learns from Hex that the entire townsfolk had their land repossessed after failing to make payments while searching for gold. The townsfolk together

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then robbed the bank to get back the gold they used to pay for their stakes. As Hex asks Wonder Woman to join his team, other members brutally murder a young girl's parents as they attempt to flee. Wonder Woman saves the girl and joins the side of the townsfolk, defending them from Hex and his men. When she learns via her lasso of truth that Hex plans on blowing the rest of the church up with the people inside, Wonder Woman hijacks the train carrying the explosives

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while the townsfolk evacuate. Despite Wonder Woman blowing up the church and the gold stashed inside, ridding both sides of it, Hex still kills one of the townsfolk's other defenders, a man named Batlash. Wonder Woman nearly beats Hex to death before writing off on her own. I thought this was a pretty cool act, actually. I think it was the best out of the three stories, largely because the action, Wonder Woman was really badass with her lasso and she was a great shot.

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Yeah, I thought this was a great story, too. I'm really torn as to which of the three is my favorite. I actually think the Batman one is my favorite just because it does so much justice to the character of Warlord, whereas I really didn't care for what they did with Jonah Hex in this story. Like, they never told his backstory in this movie, maybe because it's so tragic and it would have made him sympathetic and they just needed him to be the bad guy here. I'm not sure.

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I thought it was weird how Wonder Woman had to divert the train in order to hit the church when the train was initially supposed to hit the church anyway according to Jonah Hex's plan. I don't think it was supposed to hit the church. I think they were just going to blow it up when it got near the church. Probably like light the fuse and then jump off the train or something like that. But it's fucking Wonder Woman. She has a better way. I thought that was actually cool for you because there really was no good side here. There was just one side that was oppressive and one that was not.

35:07
Moving on to Act 2, that's a fantasy adventure in the world of Skartaris. It follows Batman, a sword wielding mercenary, who is part of a failed attack on the kingdom of Shambhala, which is led by the king known as Warlord. When Batman offers to take Warlord and his men to the evil sorcerer who hired the mercenaries, Deimos, in exchange for his freedom, Warlord accepts the offer.

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The group is attacked by dangerous Skartarin wildlife on their journey to Deimos' castle and suffers several casualties. Batman and Warlord are the only two to make it inside the castle where they have to outsmart booby traps and outrun a Minotaur. After Batman tricks Warlord into freeing him from his chains, he abandons Warlord to be killed by the Minotaur and makes his way to Deimos alone, where he finds Moriah, Warlord's ally who was lost during the journey to the castle, and a confused Wonder Woman.

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Deimos reveals that he hired Batman to bring Warlord to him before ordering Batman to kill Moriah and Wonder Roman. When Batman refuses, Deimos attacks him, but Batman is saved by Warlord, who managed to kill the Minotaur. They all gang up on Deimos, who flees. Warlord asks them to join his cause against Deimos, but Batman and Wonder Roman decline and depart via a portal. Like I said, this is probably my favorite of the three stories.

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Not just for Batman, although Batman is cool in it, but primarily for Warlord. The world of Skartaris is just intense and I thought they did a good job of capturing that. I thought it was really out of character when Batman abandoned Warlord to be killed by the Minotaur. And, you know, it turns out later that he was hired to let Warlord die, but then at the end he ended up fighting alongside him, so it felt kind of flippy floppy in that regard. I'm surprised actually that Warlord didn't just straight up murder Batman.

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for betraying him like that earlier in the story. Well, I think it's because he saw that he wasn't gonna kill Mariah and Wonder Woman, that he realized this guy has some good in him. And I agree, Batman is definitely out of character in this story. I don't even almost see it as Batman, it's pretty much Conan. But I'm just a sucker for good fantasy action, I guess. Act 3 is a paranoid sci-fi thriller that follows Agent Clark Kent of the Central Bureau of

37:29
interrogate a group of six people being held at a 1950s diner after they witnessed a UFO sighting. While asking the people questions, Clark uncovers their fears that one of them may be an alien in disguise controlling their thoughts, with the Foreign Secretary Diana Prince and the Highway Patrol Officer Bruce Wayne being among the chief suspects. As tensions rise, Clark begins to hear music. When Bruce and Diana

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privately reveal to Clark that they also hear the music, they accidentally touch, flooding each other's minds with strange visions. In the chaos, Faraday pulls his gun on Bruce and Diana, accusing them of being the aliens, and when one of the people, a trucker named Potter, reaches for Clark's gun, Clark shoves him away to defend Bruce and Diana, accidentally sending Potter flying into a jukebox and breaking his neck.

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are white Martians, who attack Faraday and chase Clark, Bruce, and Diana. As the three flee in a car and fend off attacking white Martians, they eventually reach a barn with a large spaceship crashed on top of it. Upon entering the ship, they find a green Martian, as does Faraday shortly after when he catches up with them. After Clark knocks Faraday out when Faraday shoots him because he thought he was an alien too, the spaceship fades away to reveal

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Warworld, which also looks like the inside of a spaceship. It was kind of interesting watching this after our review of Secret Invasion, which was supposed to be a paranoid sci fi. But I think this short did a much better job of making the viewer feel the paranoia of like, who's an alien, who's not, then Secret Invasion did. For sure. Yeah, I thought it was a great twist when we see the guy with the broken neck.

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say, oh, I guess I'm the alien. And then all of a sudden, everybody was the alien. I was like, oh, oh, shit. I thought this third story was OK. I think it was largely hampered by its need to actually progress the story into World and transition into that last act. Whereas the previous two acts were largely standalone. Right. Yeah, that's fair. I did enjoy seeing Clark, Diana and Bruce just like as civilians taking on these Martians, though.

39:53
That was pretty cool. Like Bruce with the whole knocking off the cap of the fuel truck and Clark firing the flare gun. That was cool. It's like I need to remember that for the zombie apocalypse. I also thought it was interesting that the reason they justified the black and white coloring of the story was so that Warworld could keep Superman away from light and therefore his powers. Yellow light, yeah.

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In Act 4, we learn from the Green Martian, revealed to be the hero Martian Manhunter, that they're all currently on Warworld, and that Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have been living telepathic illusions forcibly cast by Martian Manhunter as a result of torture in order to stir negative emotions that energize Warworld. Martian Manhunter's plan to call out to the Trinity to save him worked, though the bounty hunter Lobo finds and subdues the heroes before they can escape.

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Just when I thought we had gotten all the answers, the whole mystery aspect of the movie keeps going with Lobo's introduction. Cause like literally he comes out of nowhere and he's really vague by saying like, oh, aren't you the cutest or something like that. And then like they wake up elsewhere on the war world planet and stuff and you have no idea what happened. You're still not getting all the answers you need. It's quite the frustrating film I found. Even after we thought we were getting a grasp on what was going on.

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movie still kept up the confusion but not like in an interesting way. It was, I just remember being really frustrated. Yeah it was definitely frustrating, definitely not intriguing in any way. Lobo was a surprise, I don't actually remember him from the trailers although he may have been. The Trinity awakens alone on Warworld and discovers that the people they interacted with in their visions were clones of people that had been captured by Warworld. They find their superhero costumes and decide to rescue Marshal Manhunter.

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who's been taken to Lobo to Warworld's leader, Mongul. I kind of wonder how each of them knew which costume belonged to them. I wonder if Diana reached for Batman's costume first or something like that. It would have been interesting for sure to see Batman wear Wonder Woman's costume. Ha ha ha. Mongul reveals to Martian Manhunter that millennia ago, Warworld established a telepathic link with him, promising him power. After killing its former inhabitants, the Largus,

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Mongol found he was unable to activate Warworld's weapon systems, though Warworld told him the key lied within the Martian race. Mongol and Warworld traveled the multiverse in search of Martians. They found white Martians, though they needed Lobo's help to find the last green one. Still unable to find the key, Mongol used Martian Manhunter's telepathic powers to fuel more negativity for Warworld, though he decides in the moment to kill Martian Manhunter to instill planet-wide despair.

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I don't know, Mungle's motivations are just kind of weird here. It doesn't make sense to really kill your most powerful fuel source for this weapon that you're trying to activate, as well as, you know, kill the one being that may be able to unlock the power of the weapon you're holding. Just a lot of weird motivational stuff. It was really weird that he would decide to do that. He needs Martian Manhunter. So why would he kill him? Just, it's just bad writing. Before Mungle can kill Martian Manhunter, Loba disables his bonds.

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so that Martian Manhunter can kill Mongol instead and Lobo can take over Warworld. As Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman reach them and begin fighting off White Martians, Martian Manhunter disables Mongol and reveals that the key to Warworld is a merged green and white Martian because those races have been at war with each other forever and the Largus believed that they would never work together. After merging with the White Martian, Martian Manhunter activates Warworld and turns its weapons on itself.

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Before Warworld explodes, a mysterious harbinger arrives and teleports the Trinity to safety, telling them that the lives lost on Warworld is nothing compared to the threat of an upcoming crisis. Now talk about Deus Ex Machina. Absolutely. So dumb. There was no reason why they couldn't get to a Zeta Beam transporter and get themselves to safety. It was all just so rushed and unnecessary.

44:07
I absolutely hated the fourth act of this film. None of it was good, in my opinion. No, I mean, I thought the last few minutes of Secret Invasion were bad. This one was even more abrupt and just out of the blue. I just remember thinking like, is that it? Like, there's got to be some kind of like after credit scene or something like that. But there wasn't. No, no, there's no resolution. And I really hate when films do this. They'll end the film just to set up the next film and not have a resolution.

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It's not a good way to do your film. Like audiences need that story resolution. It's fine if you set up another one, but make sure that you at least see the bad guy die or something like that, you know? Right. Exactly. And who is Harbinger? Can you tell me? Because I've never read Crisis. She was like a messenger for Pariah in Crisis on Infinite Earth. Like she's the one who helped him rally all the heroes together to face the oncoming threat. Hmm. Although she looks way different.

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than they depicted her in this movie. Talk about character design. Besides Mongol, this has to be the worst adaptation from the comics that I've ever seen. It looks more like Nova from Marvel. That's what I thought. Yeah, I was like total ripoff. The final act did have some decent action on behalf of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. It was cool to see them kick ass and stuff. I did think that.

45:29
Lobo turning on Mongol was a little bit convenient until I realized that he was actually being manipulated by a martial man hunter And then it's kind of seemed to make more sense But I mean even that played largely into like my frustration with the story Like a lot of it on first viewing feels very empty and and strange motivation wise until you get more information But you know the answers all come in piecemeal and they're not satisfying I guess the action at the end was good again the whole time. I was just wondering like

45:58
Why aren't the white Martians bigger threats for a Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman? They should be. Absolutely. Well, Batman had fire. True. That actually was cool how he used that. But I don't know, the whole end just felt so cheap because it just felt like I was watching a really bad trailer for the next movie and not even a trailer, just, you know, like as a setup for for something else that I'm not going to be able to watch for another year. It was a commercial. It was an advertisement. And I feel like robbed.

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Like this whole thing was just a gimmick to plug the next movie. Yeah, I think that Tomorrowverse could definitely have gone without this film. It seems like the most inconsequential DC animated movie ever. As I mentioned earlier, I would have been much happier if this was just an anthology collection featuring Elseworld shorts. Overall, the film's anthological approach to story structure and genre is interesting, but ultimately the film's disappointing and convoluted final act

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diminishes the film's overall appeal. It's hard to knock the film too much because I would say three out of its four acts were fairly good, but the final act just really ruins it. And because of that, I'm giving this two and a half stars out of five, a rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah, I think if the movie had done a better job of setting up early on some foreshadowing or hints as to what exactly was going on here.

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kind of clued audiences in better along the way as we go through these other interesting stories, I think it would have been much more successful. I also think, you know, they could have done a much better job with Mongol in the ending, of course, but the individual anthology stories, I think, mostly hit the mark they were trying to. So I agree. Two and a half stars. It was an interesting idea at the very least, and maybe worthwhile to explore. Hopefully next time, though, they do a better job if they do something like this again.

47:56
Right, right. But that does it for this review. Let us know what you thought about the movie by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast at gmail.com or by visiting us on Instagram or Twitter X. I don't know what the name of it is now. You can find links to all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website at dynamicduel.com. And on our website, you can also find a link to our Patreon page where you can join our dynamic to OTR and chat with us and fellow listeners.

48:24
our Fantastic Four tier, which gets you bonus content each month, our X-Force tier that makes you an executive producer of this podcast, or our newest tier that lets you join our Dynamike Podcast Network. If you can't join Patreon, you can still support this podcast by signing up for our e-newsletter also at dynamicduel.com. Or you can also rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, or on our website. Our next episode is going to be dual episode that is leading up to our

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team duel for episode 350 where we're gonna pit the Doom Patrol against the Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeah, next week we're gonna learn who will win in a fight between Dorothy Spinner, the Chief's daughter, against Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Yeah, that should be interesting. You know, Dorothy Spinner has the power of imagination. She creates all these monsters to fight on her behalf, essentially. And Moon Girl has her own monster in Devil Dinosaur. So I think this is gonna be a fun matchup. Yeah, for sure. I'm looking forward to it.

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I loved Dorothy in season 2 of Doom Patrol. But that does it for this episode, we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers Ken Johnson, John Sturowski, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Belcombe, Miggy Matten-Geehan, Brandon Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Nick Obanto, Austin Wazilowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, and Adam Spies for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers.

49:50
War, world, good god y'all, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.