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Reviewed by Jamie Coville
This is a DVD documentary going through the history of DC comics, it's founding, bits about the creation of the big 3 characters, some of the key players, it's merchandising and adaption into other media. They go through the history of DC with a mix of Ryan Reynolds narration and interviews with notable comic creators. Among those they talk to are Neal Adams, Mark Waid, Mike Carlin, Paul Levitz, Len Wein, Walt and Louise Simonson (more Louise than Walt), Gerald Jones, Dwayne McDuffie, Geoff Johns, Dan Didio, Jim Lee, Denny O'Neil, Marv Wolfman, Irving Hansen, Neil Gaiman and they also have clips from previous interviews with Alan Moore, Julius Schwartz and others. Sprinkled throughout the documentary are these funky 3D animations of famous comic book scenes and covers and TV, movie, and cartoon clips featuring DC characters.
In telling the history they break it down to standard comic book ages (Gold/Silver, etc..). What I found interesting is what info they decided to leave out or gloss over. They do talk about DC's founder Major Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson (and got many great pictures of him) but very much gloss over his being forced out of the company. They mention DC's long time Co-Owner Harry Donnenfeld being friendly with New York's underworld, but neglect to mention co-owner Jack Liebowitz being a godson of Frank Costello, the big mob boss at the time. They also didn't talk very much about Max/Charlie Gaines, who co-founded All American Comics. They do talk about Captain Marvel but don't talk about the lawsuit between DC and Fawcett (or any other lawsuits). In terms of creators the only focus on the big 3. A highly incomplete and edited version of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster creating Superman (likely due to the ongoing legal dispute). They talk about Bob Kane and Bill Finger but are careful to not call Finger Batman's co-creator. I found it odd that they didn't get Jerry Robinson to speak on camera about his involvement with Batman & Robin. Wonder Woman's creator William Moulton Marston was talked about, including him having a wife and mistress living together. No mention of artist Harry G. Peter who drew her tales for a long time at the insistence of Marston.
They do talk about Superheroes not selling very well after the war and talk about 50s crime and horror comics getting criticized. They show the actual footage of Gaines testifying before the government Senate Hearings on comic books and Juvenile Delinquency and the big key moment of being shown the cover of Crime Suspenstories #22 and him saying it was in good taste for a horror comic. They talk about the code and it's censorship of comics. They throw out this odd fact that I had not heard before about comic sales dropping 75% after the code's introduction. I'm curious where and how they came up with that number and if that is for whole comic industry or just DC Comics. Considering how DC had their own distribution and were relatively unscathed by the comics code I'd be real curious to see how their sales were affected after the code and the distribution problems. Superman Editor Mort Weisinger gets talked about in an unflattering fashion.
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