DTDVD Animated Superhero movies

I'm going to hang out at a friend's house tonight, and he's been bugging me to watch some of the DC animated movies that have been arriving in recent years, so we'll probably watch a few of them.

Anyone know what I'm in for? Which ones I should ask to see? I've been completely disinterested in these, partly because of tepid reviews and partly because they seem to keep going back to the Superman/Batman/Justice League well, which is something I have very little interest in at this point. I can work up at least a little enthusiasm for the Wonder Woman and Green Lantern movies, because those characters haven't had solo adventures, but even they had plenty of exposure in Justice League Unlimited.

I get that DC wants to rely on their heavy hitters, but I just heard their latest movie is yet another JLA story (with yet another voice cast--why the hell do they keep shuffling those around?) Surely they could have at least branched out to, say, adapting the Jeff Smith Shazam story from a while back, or the Giffen/DeMattheis Justice League, or something remotely fresh from their vast library of characters. I realize that my dream of a Grant Morrison-era Doom Patrol rendered via stop-motion animation is pretty farfetched, but surely there's more than enough justification for something at least a little quirkier. I mean, the New Gods are a natural for animation, they have a fanbase, and they worked really well on JLU. Is it really that big a gamble to do an animated movie with them?

Well, we watched Green Lantern and Woner Woman (because I'm sure you were dying to know). GL was pretty decent; it seemed weird at the time, but in retrospect I liked that they took care of his origin so quickly (and I guess they were sick of fighter plane sequences?) and the rest was some decent Star Wars riffing. It was kind of hilarious that all the aliens spoke English with a modern idiom, though. And GL still has the problem of a bad guy named SINESTRO whose betrayal is supposed to be a shocking twist.

Wonder Woman was more problematic. Superficially, it was well done, good action sequences, the occasional stiffness to the animation but nicely designed. The story was well structured--the basic setup of Steve Trevor being downed on the Amazon island and being the catalyst that brings Wonder Woman back to America seems to be the kind of thing that just naturally works, story-wise, like Superman's origin. Their use of Greek mythology was good; I don't know the comics at all, but Ares is a good choice of villain. And of course, Nathan Fillion improves everything he's in. (Keri Russell was a little too girly as WW, but not bad).

Unfortunately, it crystalized my main concern about adapting this character to film. The problem isn't any of the weirdness surrounding her origins or powers or anything, all of which is pretty simple; the problem is her attitude. No one wants her to be a shrill, man-hating bitch, but the whole premise sort of leans that way, and indeed, the "society of women vs. our world" concept is easily the most interesting aspect of the character. You have to walk a tightrope, which the producers did mostly by having Steve be right about everything, which...kind of undercuts the whole premise. (Though the bit where he sticks his foot in the lasso by accident and pours his heart out was well done.) And I'm pretty sure there were a lot of things here that would make my feminist friends cringe, like Evil Girl's "We're not just warriors...we're WOMEN" as an explanation for why she fell in love with an evil god and betrayed her people. Yeah, deny cock to a woman for long enough and she'll totally turn traitor! Also, Hippolyta kept talking about how, apparently, communication between the sexes hinged on the Amazons opening diplomatic relationships with the US. So...apparently she's the queen of all women everywhere, and the US is the boss of all men. Natch!

Anyway. I realize it's a tough balancing act, but Wonder Woman is one of the few superhero characters that actually has some potentially challenging thematic heft built in to her, I think it's important to get this stuff right.