My Review of Reign Of The Supermen (2019)

Written by Tim Sheridan & Jim Krieg
Directed by Sam Liu

Lex Luthor: "We are going to start again. It's a relaunch. Superman Two point O... point One. That's awful, but we'll let marketing sort it all out."

Six months has passed since Doomsday took out Superman and Metropolis has been mostly grieving for his loss while at the same time, coming to terms with the four replacements that have also appeared overnight to pick up from where the Man of Steel had left off.

First of all, there's Superboy (Cameron Monaghan), who is a cocky little so and so, enjoying the newfound fame while also dealing with the fact that he's a clone stemming from both Superman and Lex Luthor. Still though, he's not particularly angsty and seems more than happy to get acquainted when his other father returns towards the final act of this movie.

While Lex might have one replacement in his pocket, Darkseid (Tony Todd) had the other one with an embittered Hank Henshaw (Patrick Fabian) becoming Cyborg Superman and dropping the heroic act when the real Superman emerged and Henshaw's desire for revenge won out in the end. Granted despite getting close to killing the Man of Steel yet again and Lois Lane, this movie did not end things well for Cyborg Superman.

Our third replacement then was the Eradicator (Charles Halford), who definitely had the more militant approach to keeping the peace in Metropolis, including a near successful hit on Lex Luthor before the other Supermen had intervened. He didn't get quite as much focus as the other three replacements on offer but his scenes were still rather good.

The only Superman though who seemed to be acting on their own bat though happened to be Steel (Cress Williams) as he managed to save Jimmy Olsen from getting ran over by a truck when Lois didn't easily uncover his secret identity. He was pretty decent in the third act and I did like his team up with Superboy when both of them witnessed Clark coming back into the mix.

As for the Justice League themselves - they were largely kept out of the action when Darkseid had set his Parademons on the planet and it was up to Lex of all people to rescue them, which made the post credit sequence all the more interesting as well. As for Darkseid, he had some interesting moments with Henshaw but other than that, it seemed like he was biding his time until the next movie.

- I liked the budding friendship that the movie set up with Lois and Wonder Woman here. Conner also got sent to the Kents by the end of this one.
- Post Credit Sequence saw Lex inviting himself onto the Justice League. Someone really should watch the door on the Watchtower.
- So, it's safe to assume this might be a trilogy of sorts with the Justice League and Lex going up against Darkseid in the next one?
- Chronology: Six months since the events of The Death Of Superman and the same length between releases of both movies.

Reign Of The Supermen was a strong continuation from the previous movie and I did like the twists and turns with both Lex and the replacements themselves. The grief of Superman's death was nicely touched on as well as the joy of his return as well. I can't wait to see what the next movie will bring though.

Rating: 8 out of 10