I’ve had the three-part Crisis on Infinite Earths animated feature on my list for a while but had thought it would be a good idea to perhaps start at the beginning of what I guess is known as the DC Animated Movie Universe and then work my way through Crisis. So I went to Wikipedia and began with Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox then thought out whatever was available on HBO Max.

I figured this would be easy; after all, HBO and DC are both owned by Warner Bros., so they should automatically have everything available. But they … don’t? It’s really odd and I didn’t have the money nor patience to rent or buy what I couldn’t find.

So here was my path through the first “phase” of the DCAMU, fifteen movies that make up the “New 52” storyline:

• Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox
• Justice League: War
• Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
• Justice League vs. Teen Titans
• Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (well, this one wasn’t avaiable but I have seen it before)
• The Death of Superman
• Reign of the Supermen
• Justice League Dark: Apokolips War

Those are, more or less, the core storyline–with the exception of Justice League Dark–and I have to admit that I was skeptical going in. id on’t ahve the best memories of the New 52 and had been so used to the classic DC Animated Universe that the animation for these films took a little while to get used to. Once I did, I enjoyed the movies.

The movies were bookended by Barry Allen resetting the timeline. First, it’s via the Flashpoint storyline, where he saves his mother from being murdered and it messes things up so badly that he has to go back and fix it again. Justice League War introduces Darkseid, Justice League vs. Teen Titans gives us Trigon, the Death and Reign of the Supermen give us Doomsday, and Justice League Dark: Apokolips War wraps things up with another timeline reset.

It’s tempting to thoroughly nitpick every moive and whether or not I find them worthy of what I consider to be the DC Super Heroes, but that’s selfish fanboy crap, especially since the first film sets up the characters and tone, so I thought it would be more appropriate to consider whether the movies stick to what they set out to do in their own continuity. Do the characters perform how someone would expect them to? Do the villains? Do the plots, big reveals, and big moments work?

Overall, I can say yes, and that made the movies fun to watch. In fact, I don’t think there was a weak one in the bunch, and the finale–Apokolips War–was both very dark (lots of Final Crisis without the Grant Morrison pretense) and had an amazing ending.

I’d probably watch them again, although I don’t know if I would be any of them. I’m just too forward right now on getting rid of things. So I’ll just keep them in rotation or streaming.

Next up will be what Wikipedia calls “The Tomorrow Verse” and it looks like the movies I really want to see aren’t on HBO Max (again, wtf?). And since I’m invested in Crisis, I’m going to have to see this through via rentals.

Stream or Skip?

Stream.