Sunday, March 29, 2026

My Review of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (2009)

 


Written by Stan Berkowitz
Directed by Sam Liu

Superman: "Why is it that good villains never die?"
Batman: "Clark, what the hell are good villains?"

A while ago, I watched the Superman/Batman animated movies based on the comic of the same name. I went back to see them again just to review them for this blog. These are good movies.

Focusing a lot on Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown), this film saw the guy not only becoming president but he also seemed to have several superheroes under his thumb. Except for Superman (Tim Daly) and Batman (Kevin Conroy) but Lex had a plan for that.

With a meteor set to hit the Earth, Lex didn't want Superman saving the day and he also didn't take kindly to Amanda Waller (CCG Pounder) giving advice on using the superheroes he did have under his control. In fact, Lex was behaving erratically until it was revealed that he was injecting himself with Kryptonite.

Anyways Superman was made to look like he was responsible for the death of Metallo (John C. McGinley) but it was really Major Force (Ricardo Chavira) who did the deed. That reveal did manage to get the likes of Power Girl (Allison Mack), Captain Atom (Xander Berkeley), Starfire (Jennifer Hale) and Black Lightning (LeVar Burton) back on the good guys side.

Actually there's a lot of heroes and villains flying about the place as Lex put a billion dollar bounty on Superman. We even got both Hawkman (Michael Gough) and Shazam (Corey Burton) in fights with Superman and Batman before the tables were turned on Lex. Toyman (Calvin Tran) even tried to be a force for good before Led almost ruined everything.

There's a pretty big fight between Superman and Lex Luthor with the former having lost ant patience towards the latter while Batman nearly sacrificed himself to stop the meteor. As for Lex, well it's safe to say that his presidency came to an abrupt ending by the end of this movie.

- Villains that popped up included Killer Frost, Silver Banshee, Gorilla Grodd, Solomon Grundy, Mongul, Deadshot, Nightshade, Lady Shiva, Giganta and Captain Cold. There's a lot more in the mix.
- Both Lois Lane and Katana had brief appearances as well and Superman referenced already having a funeral.
- There's a follow up movie titled Superman/Batman: Apocalypse that'll be reviewed tomorrow.
- Chronology: Present day during a severe economic depression. Citizens were looting at one point in the movie.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies turned out to be a strong adaptation of the source with a few changes that worked in its favour. A strong team up with the title characters and a pretty despicable Lex Luthor to boot.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

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