Legion of Super-Heroes Review

0:22 Hi, and welcome to the Dynamic Dual Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters and stat based battle simulations. I'm Marvelous Joe and I'm his twin brother Johnny DC, and in this episode, we are going to review the latest DC animated film to come direct to video, The Legion of Superheroes, which has very little Legion of Superheroes in it. That is true. I was actually surprised it's mostly a Supergirl film, kind of like how Justice League World War Two was more of like a Flash film, you could say, Wonder Woman film, but the Flash was definitely the main character of This is definitely a Supergirl film. We'll discuss the film in its entirety later on this episode.

1:04 Before that, we're going to break down the latest comic book movie news to come out this past week, of which there wasn't much. There was just a few small news items, the most prominent of which was that Stephen Young has joined Marvel's Thunderbolts movie in a quote significant role, so that's pretty exciting. As always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Don't forget guys to join us on Patreon, where we offer ad free episodes of the show, access to our discord chat community where you can chat with us and fellow listeners, and you can find it all at patreon dot com slash Dynamic Duel, which is linked in our show notes. Our lowest Dynamic two otier is only two bucks a month, and in our fantastic four dollar tier you get all of that plus access to our monthly bonus episodes including blooper Reels and Top ten shows, as well as the visual data from our dual episodes at no extra costs. And finally, our x forced tier, which is ten bucks a month, gets you all that and you get to become an executive producer of this show. Become a part of the Dynamic Duel podcast and help us determine our episode of content. Again, visit patreon dot com slash Dynamic Duel and pickatier that works for you. If you're interested in supporting the show but not able to join Patreon, then stop by our website Dynamic Duel dot com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter where we keep you informed on all things going on with the show, and we want to give a super special happy birthday shout out to Migi Matinian and aj Dunkerley, who both support this show and had birthdays this past week. Yeah, on the same day. They're twins. Migi, if I could get you

2:35 one thing from the DC universe for your birthday, I would get you Starfire's phone number, and I'll get you the phone number of Emma Frost because Starfires a hofa show and Emma Frost is a classy ass lady. Alight Jarey talking about Starfire that way, dare you, Aji Dunkerley, I would give you your very own hit Monkey. It's a pet and an assassin. Well, on the DC side of things, I would get you Wonder Roman's phone number. I think you'll like my gift more, just you know, just having the number doesn't like guarantee a date or anything. You know, Hey, I could only open the door for you, man, You got to go the rest of the way. Have your birthday again. Guys, But with that out of the way, quick to the No Prize. No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out up until the nineties to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Dual. No Prize is a digital award we post on Instagram and in our newsletter for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our Question of the Week. Last week's question we ask if you could be any character from either Marvel or DC, who would you be and why?

3:43 And we got so many fantastic answers here that Jonathan and I have decided to kind of change up how we present these awards. So basically, we always run down our honorable mentions and the No Prize winner, and then, you know, give a special thank you to those who took the time to call in with their answer. But from now on, if you don't make it onto the show, if you don't make one of the honorable mentions or the No Prize winner, we're still going to discuss your answers on our discord server in the Question of the Week channel, So if you are a patron and part of our community, not only will you get to hear all the answers, but also get to discuss them with us, So join up if you're not a member. That being said, our first honorable mention goes to Matt Lamb, who said, hey, guys, Matt Lamb here, So I would definitely be Green Arrow. I do archering myself, so I love the enhanced skill, the athleticism, the handhand combat training, and the trick arrows. My wife her favorite character is Black Canary. We both love the micrawl run and love the fact that they have a floor shop call Sherwood Florist.

4:45 And also the wedding cake top er at our wedding was designed to look like the one from the cover of Green Arrow and Black Canary's Wedding Special. Heck, Matt Lamb, sounds like you're already like eighty percent of the way to being Green Arrow already, right. You know, you just need to take some arts classes and maybe some gymnastics and you're there, buddy. I just need to like spend a couple of years on a deserted island alone, you know, and that's it. Yep. And then I guess your wife can learn how to alter the frequency of her voice to like shattered glass with it or something. I don't know. There's only so far you could get without actual superpowers in terms of Black Canary. But yeah, great answer. Our next honorable mention goes to Lizzie Dyer Arnie, who said, Hey, it's Lizzie. When I grow up, I want to be Big Barta.

5:28 Bart is literally the biggest character in the DC universe. She's a badass warrior wife and in some universe's mother. She's been subverting generals since nineteen seventy one and is never afraid to help others. Barta shows that not just in size, but also in heart and personality, bigger is better. Yeah, Big bart is an amazing character that we have not yet featured on this show. We actually have plans to include her in an episode leading up to the Guardians of the Galaxy three movie review that we're doing, so she's coming up soon. But Yeah, she's a big she's a big girl. She's a big girl. Yeah, she's probably like the most popular hero on DC that we have yet to do a duel with, so I'm really looking forward to that one. Yeah. She's a great fighter, she's a great lover. She's married to Scott Free, I believe. Yeah, mister Miracle in like a true sincere romance, Like definitely one of DC's best couple. So great answer, Lizzie. Our next honorable mention goes to Banjo Cullen, who said, Banjo cullin here, I would personally want to be spine Man. Of course, I'd be sad about my uncle Dionel. But dude, the Spider Man pals is so cool. Best pals set. I mean, Superman's pals will also cool. I can like fly, but it's a bit of a powered and I don't also want to be Batman otherwise I'll just be a sad lphan.

6:42 So Spider Man it's balance and climb wools would be awesome anyway, Banjo out Hell, Yeah, Spider Man has the best power set. You know. You could swing through the city to fight gravity by climbing up walls and ceilings like you mentioned. But I think actually his most practical power is probably his spider sense. If you Spider Man, you could go through much of life without worrying about getting hit by a bus or something. Although Peter Parker's life does kind of suck regardless, right, But the powers is where it's at. Yeah, I mean, here's calling Batman a sad our friend, and I was like, isn't that a spider Man is? I mean, Spider Man's not moby like Batman. You know he still jokes around. Batman's just a sad loser. Yeah, a rich one and like poor ass Spider Man. Well sometimes Peter Parker has money, but yeah he's no Bruce Wayne.

7:26 We'll say that. So great answer, Banjo. We want to give a quick shout out to Luke b Rick McGrew, John Stoski, Eli Moorehouse, Mickey Mathinian Logan Schroeder, Benjamin Ryan, Brandon Estergard and Mitchell for taking the time to visit our website and record an answer. Join us on our discord server by becoming a patron, where we'll post the audio of your answers and discuss them. But the winner of this week's no Prize is Christian Robeto, who said, Hey, this is Christian Robeto. I'm gonna go with Booster Gold. I think he's funny, he's fun loving, He's got all the cool superhuman power is like strength, speed, durability, force field, energy blasts without going through a freak accident. He can also time travel, which is pretty cool. All this without having any of the same pressure that Superman or Batman does because no one knows who he is, so if he does succeed, it's a win, So therefore I'm gonna submit Booster Gold.

8:16 Yeah, Booster Gold is famously touted as the greatest superhero you've never heard of, but I think that would actually come with a lot of benefits. You know, you're not gonna be handed by like the press or the paparazzi or anything like that. And he just has an insanely cool power set. Whether it's a force field or a tractor beam or time travel, it's all awesome. Yeah. I was actually surprised when we got this answer. It was very unexpected actually, but Christian absolutely has a point. There's almost only all upside to being Booster Gold. He is pretty much the everyman of superheroes. So congrats to Christian for winning this week's no Prize. If you the listener, want to shut out winning euro no Prize, stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done, odd to the news, all right. This past week we learned that Stephen Jun is going to start in the Marvel Phase five movie The Thunderbolts in an as yet undisclosed role. Stephen Jun, of course, is a phenomenal actor for those of you who may not know. He was in the Walking Dead television series. He does the voice of Invincible in the Invincible television series on Amazon. He recently got nominated for an oscar for his role in a movie called Minari, and he was also in the recent movie Nope, Right, Yeah, that's where I've seen him last. He's a great up and coming actor, although I feel like he's been up and coming for almost a decade now, so it's really nice to see him finally get his due with a sizeable live action part in a Marvel movie. I think the

9:48 oscar is more a sign than right than getting a Marvel role. I mean, an oscar is one thing that's fine, sure Marvel movie is forever a role in a Marvel movie for sure. According to Deadline, whatever role Stephen Young is going to play the Thunderbolts will likely be a role that he'll carry forward in future films of the MCU. So it seems like he's not going to be a villain, because a lot of Marble villains are kind of one and done. Possibly not now, it is rumored that the villain of the Thunderbolts movie is going to be the Centry, who is a ridiculously overpowered character in Marvel. He's kind of like Superman, but way stronger. The going rumor is that the contest of Valentina Aligra Dafontaine has something to do with creating the Century as part of an effort to recreate the super Soldier program, and it gets out of hand, and so she has to put together the Thunderbolts team to help stop the Centry, which sounds very similar to the original plot of the Suicide Squad movie, where the Suicide Squad was tasked with taking down Black Adam. Well, no, that wasn't the original idea for the first Suicide Squad movie. It was the idea for Doug Lyman's Suicide Squad film specifically.

11:01 Oh all right, either way, it's a pretty solid concept. I would love to see that play out on screen if that happens. Stephen Young would be an interesting choice to play the Century. But if I had to put my money on anyone, I think it would be Amadeus cho Yeah. He's Hulk related, right, I don't know much about him. Yeah, Amadeus Chow is a ally of Bruce Banners. He's another scientist, like the seventh smartest person in the world, and he developed a way to siphon off radiation from the Hulk using nanites in an effort to hear one of the Hulk's afflictions, and he ended up getting bombarded with the Hulk's powers himself, becoming the character known as the Totally Awesome Hulk. We've seen amadeus Cho's mother up here in the MCU in a previous film, Avenger's Age of Ultron. She was the Korean scientist who was an associate of Tony Starks and helped Ultron against her will create the Android vision. Oh no way, that's cool. So Stephen, you would be playing her son, possibly aged up due to the blip or something like that, but yeah, I think you'd be a great addition to the MCU if he ends up being someone who also figures out how to recreate the Hulk's abilities. That's possibly how we might see Harrison Ford get his Red Hulk powers. Since we know that Harrison Ford is playing General Thunderbolt Ross or actually President Thunderbolt Ross in the Thunderbolts film. I'm like really looking forward to this movie as much of a rip off as Sounds of Doug Lyman's suicide Squad. It's still something I'm excited to see. Yeah, it should be a lot of fun. It should be everything that the first Suicide Squad

12:33 movie wasn't. I was going to say that the Suicide Squad should be, but you know, James Gunns, the Suicide Squad film was pretty much that. Yeah, that was fantastic. The Thunderbolts film comes out next year, in the middle of the summer, on July twenty sixth, but we should be getting some kind of report within the next few months of exactly who Steven Jung is playing. Yeah, considering this film is going to have characters like Century and maybe Hulk and Red Hulk and Wicher Soldier and all of those badasses, the film is going to have a ton of action. And that brings us to our question of the week. What has been your favorite fight scene in a Marvel or DC movie and why? Record your answer at Dynamic Duel dot com by clicking on the right microphone button in the bottom right hand corner, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to thirty seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a dynamic duel no prize that will post to Instagram and our email newsletter.

13:31 Be sure to answer before March fourth, and don't forget, guys, we'll be posting all of your answers to our discord channel for discussion, whether you make it on the episode or not. But I think that doesn't for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and get onto our main event, where we discuss the latest DC animated film, Legion of Superheroes. All Right, the Legion of Superheroes is DC's latest direct to video animated film and the sixth film and the Tomorrow Verse DC animated film continuity that began with Superman Man of Tomorrow. This film has direct ties to the second film and the Tomorrow Verse Justice Society World War Two, which briefly deals with Superman and the Flash battling Brainiac. We reviewed that film. It sucked, and honestly, I can't say Legion of Superheroes was much better. Unfortunately, normally we include a spoiler warning at the top of our reviews for films we recommend watching, but with this film, I'm going to say that, like unless you're a big Supergirl or a Legion of Superheroes fan, you could probably skip this film. And even then Supergirl and Legion fans are most likely going to be pretty disappointed. Well maybe not Supergirl fans, but definitely Legion fans.

14:56 Yeah, we haven't done too many duels, actually any duels with any the Legion of superhero characters, and shame on me for that, because there's some really cool characters and I hope to eventually do them down the line and lead up probably to some kind of team dual episode with the Legion team. That would be fun. Yeah. Now, after the success of Batman, DeLong, Halloween, and Green Lantern Be Where My Power, I thought, based on how good the trailers looked for this film that the Tomorrow Verse was on the upswing after it struggled at the gate with Superman, Men of Tomorrow, and Justice Society World War Two. All of the films and the Tomorrow Verse so far have had fantastic premises and setups, though now half of them had failed to deliver on that, including Legion of Superheroes, which is something of a misnomer considering it has very little to do with the Legion of Superheroes.

15:46 Like, I was actually really disheartened by how little the Legion is involved in this film, well at least the primary characters, because we have this like b team of Legionnaires that are semi prominent within the annals of the team. You know, the team is massive. You know, there are literally hundreds of characters on the Legion of Superheroes, but we didn't really get to see the main players here, like Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad. Those founding members really only make a brief appearance. You're right, the Legion of Superheroes like easily has the largest roster of any superhero team ever in comics, Pretty Trude's The X Men. Yeah, exactly. It's massive. So I'm really confused as to why they would want to do or even think of doing a Legion of Superheroes film without its main founders. Well, really, it's because they're setting up their own you know, Tomorrow Verse continuity, and this really focuses on, you know, building the Superman portion of that universe.

16:40 But I think they named this film Legion of Superheroes to throw people off. That's really weird because I figure, if you put Superman or Supergirl or any character with like some brand recognition in the title, a lot more people would be interested in seeing the film. Well, look at Justice Society World War Two. How much cloud does the Justice Society have with general audiences? Certainly not more than Wonder Woman or The Flash, who are the primary characters of that movie. A lot of weird choices here, totally, it's like, yeah, what's going on now? I mentioned that the premises of each of the Tomorrow Worst films has been really good, and this one is no exception. The premise of this film is that Supergirl is struggling to adapt to Earth culture after the destruction of Krypton, so Superman takes her to the thirty first century, where she can train with fellow teen heroes in the Legion of Superheroes in a futuristic society more akin to her life on Krypton. While on the team, she comes into conflict with Brainiac five, a clone of Superman's villain from one thousand years prior now. In certain media, Brainiac is often involved with, if not directly responsible for the destruction of Krypton, such as Superman, the animated series Smallville, Krypton, and, most recently and successfully Injustice too, the ladder of which was shown to be very traumatic for a Supergirl witnessed Brainiac's invasion of her homeworld before the planet was destroyed by him.

18:03 It's established in the Legion of Superheroes film, however, that in the Tomorrow Verse, Krypton was destroyed when its red sun rao went super nova, which is a take on Krypton's destruction that we've also seen in various media, such as the movie Superman Returns. I don't mind that premise, as I think it's probably like the best explanation for why Kryptonite is irradiated. But I think it was a huge mistake in this film to not have Brainiac responsible for Krypton's destruction and have Supergirl be witnessed to it, because it would have been a much better reason for Supergirl's inherent initial distrust of Brainiac, you know, rather than what we got with Superman telling Supergirl offscreen that he once fought a villain named Brainiac, right, because you know, the fight against Brainiac was a really brief scene from Justice Society World War Two where the Flash and Superman teamed up for the first time. That fight was really over in a matter of less than a minute and really didn't feel like it had a large enough bearing to war into this type of reaction from Supergirl. Yeah, if they were planning on using the Justice Society film to set Brainiac up for this film, like, they could not have done a worse job. Like they really set themselves up for failure because Brainiac was taken out so easily in the Justice Society movie. Really it was just the Flash who like threw a Kryptonite bullet at him and it was done right. And in our review of that movie, Ed commented how it seems so quick and easy for the Flash to defeat Brainiac.

19:26 Yeah, so dumb. I really hate how much happens off screen in these Tomorrow vers films, Like in Green Lantern either were like, oh yeah, the Justice League is off world, like battling this huge threat. It's like what is that threat? And here it's like, oh yeah, the Legion of Superheroes are off world fighting this huge threat. It's like, why aren't we seeing that? And we never get to see the introduction between the Legion and Superman was served as a big backdrop to this story. Yeah, I mean screen riders are often told that they should show, not tell, like, instead of having a character say that they're hungry, you like show a character looking down at his stomach as it growls and he's clutching it, you know, something like that. I hate that the tarro versta so much telling and not showing. They really need to fix that in the future going forward. But back to Brainiac destroying Krypton. How did the writers miss that It's way more interesting for Supergirl to fall in love with the descendant of the being that committed genocide on her people and planet than what we got here.

20:26 Like, that's a way more powerful story of forgiveness and overcoming grief, and it practically writes itself absolutely that would have been better. Like the failure to grasp that low hanging fruit is the biggest sin of the filmmakers for this film, but it's not their only one. For DC, story and theme are the absolute key to success, and the writing on Legion of Superheroes is so embarrassingly bad and confusing, from its lackluster mystery and problematic romance to its pointless cameos and too little, too late stakes that I probably would have just turned the movie off if I didn't have to review it, which hurts me to say it hurts me like I love DC. I'm not easily shamed by it, like I'm a total DC apologist. The main reason I didn't turn the movie off, though, was because of how great it looked, from the action and the backgrounds, to the character designs, and most notably, the animated facial performances. My good gosh, it was a sight to behold.

21:26 We've seen Supergirl and the Legionnaire's an animated form before, but this is hands down the best they have ever looked. And as a fan of the comics, it is so cool to see these characters come to life. The animation on this film was much better than previous iterations. I think even better than be Where My Power. I think it was on par with Batman de Long Halloween. Although it wasn't nearly a stylistic it was still a lot of fun to watch. Yeah, the Tomorrow Versus animation just keeps getting better and better and better. It's the character designs, Yeah, they're just very unique and well done. Absolutely now. For as good as the characters looked, I also thought their voice performances were almost equally on points. But let's get more into that. In our character Breakdown. Now. Supergirl aka car Zorelle was voiced by Meg Donnelly, who you're probably only familiar with if you have young daughters like me who are fans of Disney's Zombies film franchise, which is like if Twilight meets high school musical. Meg Donnelly is an admittedly decent actress, and I thought she gave a great performance as Supergirl, so much so that if you told me tomorrow that she was cast as Supergirl for the upcoming movie, like, I wouldn't even be angry at all. James Gunns movie, Yeah, Supergirl, Woman of Tomorrow. Now. Supergirl's ark in this film revolves around coming to terms with the life she lost on Krypton, specifically both the opportunity to make her mother proud and the advanced technology. But when we see her early on confront a guy upset that she destroyed his home in this

22:57 battle with Solomon Grundy about how he should just rebuild it with robots, she comes across as more let them Eat Cake entitled than endearing as a character, like it's really hard to pity her despite her loss, and it was hard to take her trouble seriously when she forgot about them so quickly when she met pretty boy Monelle in the future. Yeah, I mean, between her attitude toward collateral damage and her like immediate infatuation with Monelle and just her real petty attitude to Brainiac five, she came off as kind of a dick and an really unlikable protagonist in this movie for the first half. Yeah, she was kind of like a bully. Yeah. And I know that, you know, leaves space for the protagonist to grow into a better person, but you got to give us some more redeeming qualities up front or in order for us to like enjoy watching this person go on that journey exactly now. She stayed in the future because of Monelle. Yeah, didn't pursue any kind of relationship with him, because she became so obsessed and competitive with Brainiac five. So when I saw her falling for Brainiac five, I couldn't help but feel like it was the most egregious example of negging I've ever seen, and she feel for it. Yeah, Like, even though there's precedence for Brainiac five and Supergirl's romantic relationship in the comics, it just felt weird and wrong in this movie for me, especially after Supergirl essentially chose Brainiac five over her own mother after interfacing with the Miracle Machine at the end of the movie. Well, it was implied that she couldn't bring her mother back without destroying reality. Although

24:32 that's all a little bit unclear. You're right, Yeah, Brainiac was like, like, don't bring back Crypton. You're going to break reality. And I'm like why what, Like, that's not how the Miracle Machine works in the comics. I didn't quite get it. It was nice that Supergirl got one last moment to say goodbye to her mother and let her know that, you know, she's making her proud by doing the protective work they always dreamed of doing together on Crypton. But the climax was so confusing that it was really hard to appreciate that moment. Yeah, they were like astral projections of themselves at one point. It was kind of hard to tell what was real and what was like a dream machine induced fantasy type thing. Yeah, one moment you see like Brainiac five get like dusted. I was like, yeah, what it was like he was there in spirit somehow, but he was also still there physically. It was very bizarre. It was a very bizarre moment. I'm just really curious to see, like how that was scripted, because I guarantee you that like probably made no sense on the page, because it made even less sense on screen. Yeah, the animators were like, wait, wait, am I drawing the Supergirl that's working the dream machine or like this weird astral version of the character that's communicating with other people. The director was just like yes, yeah. Moving on to Brainiac five, he was voiced by Harry Schum, Junior of Glee Fame. I guess I've never seen Glee, but I'm not surprised Schum was on the show because his voice is great, and I thought he gave a convincing brainiac performance, just like very robotic but with a touch of emotion and humanity to it. Yeah,

26:06 he played the part of the outcast really well. In the movie, we learned that Brainiac five hacked his way onto the Legion Academy roster in order to steal the Miracle Machine before other Brainiacs, as they wanted to give it to the mysterious Dark Circle secret criminal organization. Proud of his intellects, yet scorned because of his connection to Superman's adversary, Brainiac five wanted to prove that he was an individual and not doomed to the same fate as other Brainiac clones. He was the only one smart enough to recognize the Dark Circle's existence and mission to hack the Legion Vault, yet he knew no one would believe or trust him until Supergirl did. It's a decent arc, and the character is essentially the antagonist for the first half of the film, as he and Supergirl compete in the Academy. His arrogant and logical characterization is true to the comics, and he's probably the most faithfully adapted main character in the film. So I have very little qualms with him. I thought they did a great job with Brainiac five. I still think it's really surprising how he ended up winning Supergirl's affections without even trying. When they started like growing close to each other, both me and my wife were like, bullshit, if you're like an arrogant nerd, the girls will come. Yeah, girls are really impressed when you fight them. Really well, jeez, what a horrible lesson to like teach kids with these cartoons. Moving on to Brainiac five's namesake, though Brainiac I have a ton of qualms with Brainiac, Like, Yeah, what the hell

27:38 was this? I love Brainiac as a villain, but it's so hard for writers to get him right. Like in this film, Brainiac has a god complex and considers himself the savior of the universe. Well, he believed that he was the only one in the universe smart enough to take on the dangers that are coming in the future. But I'd actually think that the Brainiac from the comics would never believe that, Like, he's more interested in valuable information, he's not trying to save anybody less, like the least interesting take on Brainiac I've ever heard of. I can't say I was surprised that Brainiac ended up being the main villain, but I was very surprised that the writers decided to have him incorporate Brainiacs two through four into his body, Like of course that I was going to go bad, And it went so embarrassingly bad, so embarrassingly fast. I'd be crying if I wasn't laughing at how stupid it was. That shit had me rolling in the aisles when like all of a sudden, his body became like Quatteau from a total recall, right, and started fighting against itself. There was no reason why the filmmakers couldn't just give Brainiac like a robotic body or a fully cloned body, right, and instead chose to make him this weird composite of previous brainiacs, all with apparently their own mind still residing within him, like a thousand years of planning and secretly controlling the Dark Circle, only for it all to be undone in an instant, like when Anac literally tore his body in half, killing himself because he was like suddenly unable to control the clones he attached to his body. It was so anti climactic, an absurd, and deos ex machina. I can

29:11 not believe they released the film. Honestly. Yeah, if I was one of the members of the Black Circle and I witnessed that, I would have been so fucking disappointed in myself for like putting all of my faith and energy into this fucking dumbass. Basically, like, did the heroes really even need to save the day considering that these brainiac characters would have been fighting over this power, likely regardless out of their own arrogance, Right, It's like Brainiac did the work for them. It's so dumb. Moving on to the other villain Monnel Surprise villain Mino's history is so complicated in the comics, I thought making him an admirer of Kryptonian culture in this film was an adequate interpretation of the character, though using the admiration as motivation to betray the Legion didn't quite make sense to me. Like, we get it, Krypton was orderly and advanced, but why would allowing Brainiac to become a god restore the pride of Krypton quote unquote he was wrong and Superhowl like told him that blatantly. Monell is a doximite, deximite, deximite. Yeah, and they're similar to Kryptonians, Is that correct? Yes? Yeah, their planet is very similar to Kryptona orbits a red sun. They are weak to lead though, they're kind of like opposite Kryptonians, and they're actually very xenophobic, Like they very rarely leave their planet so most of the time they're not like absorbing solar radiation to even gain superpowers. Has Monell ever betrayed the team in the history of the Legion, Not that I know of, No, so I think it was

30:42 really lame for Monell fans. Then, Yeah, Yeah, very lame. I mean, like in some iterations of the Legion of Superheroes, Modelo was such a heroic figure that he inspired the formation of the team. Like sometimes it's Superman or Superboy, but even in some iterations it's Monel. He's that integral to the team, he's been their leader. I have no idea why they would choose to make him the villain, like the final villain. Like he survived longer than Brainiac did, right, and when he was defeated, the threat was finally over, right, because it seemed like he was going to carry on the work of the Dark Circle even after Brainiac's death. Right, Yeah, he was trying to get Supergirl to join him. Just bad weird writing throughout the whole film, so much so that like I don't even have too many other characters to go over, Like I just have like quick recaps of all the other Legionnaires. There's don Star, who's one of my favorite Legionnaires in the comics. I liked her inclusion here, though I didn't love the energy wings like in the comics, she has actual wings. Oh interesting, Does she still have like the super tracking ability in the cox?

31:42 Yeah, she could track anyone across the universe. It's pretty cool. I wonder why she didn't do that like earlier. I guess the cadets didn't really know that the legion was missing, But it's kind of strange that the head Legionnaires didn't like ask her for her help earlier. Right, yeah, totally, And that raises a weird issue, like what were the Legionnaires doing? They were off in space, but they were gone for such a long time, and then all of a sudden they just happened to be found in this system and then they came back like lickety split, Like what the hell was going on there? Some offscreen bullshit who's like, oh, we'll only arrive when it's convenient for the story exactly even then barely. We'll only arrive if we're a pointless cameo and that's all you're getting from us. Yeah, and moving gone to triplicate girl. I can't decide if it was cheap or clever that they killed one of her duplicates. Like I thought that like really raised the stakes, like, oh shit, the dark circles like killing members of the academy off. But then I was like, nope, we lied.

32:39 Well. I was super confused during Triplicate Girls fight against them as to why she didn't just replicate herself to aid in the battle, and then it all made sense later when it turned out that it was actually a replicate that died. Arms fall Off Boy was in this movie, and I'm pretty sure he was only included because of the suicide squad. I don't know. He was pretty funny, though. I liked when they were introducing him. That was actually probably my favorite part of the movie was the legionnaire introductions because they all seemed like really fucking lame and they're like, this is arms fall Off Boy and like his arm just falls off, like it doesn't do anything, and he's like and sometimes they even stay on and supergirls like who yep. And then at the end he was like, wait, we can change our names.

33:22 Then I want to be arms fall off man. He was manny better. Yeah, there was Invisible Kid, who I'm pretty sure was just included so they could set up like it is he naked joke, that's the only reason. Well, he did some covert stuff, so although I guess he wasn't really needed when you had Phantom Girl who did more of the heavy lifting in terms of you know, rescuing the captured Legionnaires exactly. Yeah, she was pretty integral to like the whole final battle which Keppy said about bouncing Boy really like he was just in the movie and that's it. Yeah, he bounced a few times there you go. Of course, we also had timber Wolf, Chemical Kink, and Shadow Lass in there for some reason, a sort of replacements for Kasmcboy, sat and Girl and Lightning Glad as we mentioned earlier. Not entirely clear why they decided to go that direction, but it was a mistake. What was the name of the wolverine knockoff, Timberwolf?

34:15 Timberwolf. What a Wolverine knockoff? That guy was, Holy shit, looked just like them, had basically the exact same powers. I think for a while we were considering doing a duel between Timberwolf and Wolf Spain from the New Mutants. Who knows, Maybe we'll still do that down the line, Yeah maybe. I mean, it would be nice to get to some of the Legionnaires, regardless of how lame they are. There's some cool Legionnaires dude, like Kasmic Boy, like Ultra Boy, Starboy, sat and Girl. They're really cool. I'll believe it when I hear it. Someday, someday you will. Moving on to the story highlights, the film begins on Krypton with Kara and her mother Alura, training together. Alura reveals that Kara has been accepted to Krypton's military guild before their Red Sun rap becomes unstable, igniting Krypton's atmosphere and causing planet wide earthquakes. Before Alura can fully explain what's going on, she puts her daughter in one of the working escape pods out of thousands that failed to activate, and Kara is jettisoned from Krypton before it explodes.

35:16 Her ship is knocked off course, and she arrives on Earth decades after her cousin kel L who grew to be Superman. It seems like Alura had a much more selfless plan to save people in lead up to the upcoming destruction of Crypton. Jorrell obviously told Alura about his theories of what was to come, but Jarrell only built a ship for one person, his son, whereas Alura built ships were like the entire city of Argo. Now a lot of them didn't work, but like her plan was much better. I think Jarrell was just probably more practical and knew that he couldn't do that, whereas she, I guess she tried. Yeah, Jorrell didn't even try, and he probably knew about this longer. He probably could have saved a whole lot more people than just his son. If what stop Batman thing, daral them look bad.

36:06 I feel like I was like, holy shit, look at all these other pods that could have gone out, Like Alura seemed like way better at this rescue mission thing than Jorel did. And she's lucky she got one of them to work. Okay, she's no scientist now. Despite struggling to adjust to life on Earth, Kara adopts the mantle of Supergirl and helps her cousin stop Solomon Grundy in Metropolis before noticing suspicious characters members of the Dark Circle in a nearby Ali. She overhears Batman commented to Superman that she's not as trained or as careful as her cousin, and she flies off offended. Now, what did the Dark Circle have anything to do with this whole scene? They were trying to, I guess, get Solomon Grundy to kill Superman for them, so it was easier for them to get to Brainiac. I have no idea. That's a total guest and I could totally be wrong. It seems like they were able to get to Brainiac just fine. I mean it was Batman who stopped them, right, But Superman didn't have anything to do with that anyway, So so I don't understand why they employed Solomon Grundy. Yeah, this was like very uncharacteristic for Solomon Grundy as well, Like even using the Glazer rifle to begin with, it was like, what, what are they like? Good thing we didn't use that in the dual episode against word Wolf Finite. If I would have known that, I would have just been packing in that dual episode. Really, it was just a way to show that the Dark Circle, you know, has been around for a thousand years.

37:30 I think it seemed totally unnecessary to their plot at large. It was, It absolutely was. What's interesting is that we never actually see the Dark Circle get ahold of Brainiac body. You know, we saw an attempt that was stopped by Batman, but you would think that if Batman stopped him it would change the future, so that they never did retrieve his head. Yeah, that made no sense, Like whatsoever that led nowhere. I thought we were going to keep like flashing back to the past and maybe see like the Dark Circle becomes successful. But no, as far as we know, we didn't see them be successful once again. Offscreen bullshit. Yeah. Now, at the Kent Farm in Smallville, Supergirl and Superman have a heart to heart conversation. Superman uses a time bubble given to him by the Legion of Superheroes to open a portal to the future, where he introduces Supergirl to the advanced world of the thirty first century and the Legion of Superheroes. Meanwhile, in the twenty first century, Batman stops the Dark Circle from stealing Brainiac's head or whatever they were trying to do. After meeting Gamonell, Supergirl agrees to stay in the thirty first century and train with the Legion Academy. After meeting her roommate Don Star, Supergirl mistakes fellow Legion cadet Brainiac five for her cousin's villain, and the two fights they are reprimanded by the acting heads of the Legion, Timberwolf, Chemical King, and Shadow Lasts. Before being asked to leave, Brainiac five listens in secret to the Legionnaires in charge talk about how they're not sure how Brainiac five made to enter the Academy and how they're concerned that

39:01 they're unable to communicate with the rest of the Legion off world. I did think that the fight between Brainiac five and Supergirl was pretty cool. It's always kind of neat to see how Brainiac five uses his technology to like go toe to toe with someone as powerful as Supergirl, as Superman. It was pretty interesting how he used his like kinetic force field that would get stronger the more she attacked it, and then Supergirl turned that around on him by solidifying it so much that it stuck into the ground, and then she launched him from the ground, right, It's pretty interesting. It really seemed though that the movie was trying to sew seeds of distrust against Brainiac five, But I wasn't having that from the get go because I was like, Brainiac five is a good guy, you know, right, So I was just waiting for the other shoot to drop to find out, like who we really weren't supposed to trust. To be fair, I didn't know it was Monell until later.

39:53 I knew it was going to be him, honestly, from the artwork that they used on the back cover for this movie. It has Supergirl like holding back Monel from fighting Brainiac five, and this whole movie, I was like waiting for those two characters to come to blows. So I kind of realized that Yamnell is probably going to be the one to betray them. Interesting way to spoil it DC now, Monell introduces Kara to the rest of the Academy cadets Bouncing Boy, Invisible Kid, Triplicate Girl, and Arms fall Off Boy. As Supergirl learns and trains at the Academy, she bitterly competes with Brainiac five, though after a drone their building goes rogue. They eventually begin to grasp that they work better together as a team. After hearing from Don Star how no one likes Brainiac five and feels he doesn't belong, Supergirl begins to pity him. Now. While Triplicate Girl is out at night looking for their class pet prote she's attacked and killed by members of the Dark Circle. Supergirl is also out at night and spots Brainiac five outside the Legion Vault, where she attempts to apologize to him. When they spot Triplicate Girl dead, Brainiac five is immediately attacked and subdued by the three Legionnaires in charge, who reveal that Brainiac five hacked his way into Legion academy and planted a virus that's preventing them from communicating with the rest of the Legion. Accused of killing Triplicate Girl, Brainiac five confesses to the hacking, but not the killing, whom he blames on the Dark Circle before being imprisoned. Now, I noticed he doesn't deny halting communication between the Legion out in space and the Legion headquarters, So

41:28 I'm still in clear as to who was responsible for that. Well, it would have made stealing the machine easier for him, so he had reason to do it, but also would have made like tackling the Dark Circle with the small group that the Legion had more difficult. But he was so arrogant that he probably didn't think that he would need their help. Yeah. Maybe. A Supergirl, having seen glimpses of the Dark Circle in the thirty first century, sneaks to Brainiac five's holding cell, where she learns from him that he cheated his way into the academy to prevent his family from stealing the Miracle Machine from the Legion and Vault. Believing the Dark Circle is already at Legion headquarters, Supergirl frees Brainiac and they head to the Vault, where they meet Manell, who joins them. And this is where I was like, oh, yeah, he's a bad guy. Yeah. Once inside the Vault, Supergirl and Monell help neutralize its security drones as Brainiac five deciphers the code to access the Miracle Machine, at which point Minel reveals himself as a traitor allied with a Dark Circle and stabs Supergirl with the Kryptonite Dagger. With the Vault unlocked, the Dark Circle attacks the Legion headquarters and brings everyone down. At that moment, the original Brainiac fused with the bodies of Brainiac's two through four, reveals himself as the leader of the Dark Circle, who successfully captured and restored him one thousand years ago. Brainiac five manages to escape with Supergirl and heals her of her kryptonite wound. Allegedly, Brainiac five was the only one smart enough to get in, and it turned out all along that they used him in order to break in, right, So you have this instance of where

43:01 the main motivation of one of the primary characters is completely pointless. Like if he didn't have that motivation, there would have been no movie essentially, right, It's true, like Fear is the only one who could open it, and like not even Brainiac apparently could, even though he considers himself to be the smartest being in the universe. Then, yeah, if you would have just like not done anything, the Black Circle's plan would have never come to fruition. Yeah, So it's like this weird circular logic and it doesn't really hold up the plot very well. No, Yeah, like it should have been made clear that, like Brainiac could have unlocked the coat if you wanted to, just that Brainiac five did it before him. Yeah. Phantom Girl helps Brainiac five and Supergirl hide from the Dark Circle and reveals that all of the Cadets are alive, including two duplicates of Triplicate Girl, but are in prison. Phantom Girl rescues the other cadets and together they orchestrate a plan to bring down the Dark Circle and stop Brainiac. While the Cadets fend off the Dark Circle and Monell, Supergirl Brainiac five confront Brainiac at the Miracle Machine, which has been activated, with Supergirl and Brainiac five unable to reach Brainiac.

44:07 Brainiac five instead initiates a rebellion amongst Brainiac's two through four, who begin to emerge from Brainiac's body and try to gain control of the Miracle Machine. To prevent this from happening, Brainiac rips himself apart. Still so dumb, So dumb? Can you tell me more about what was happening? With what energy Brainiac was spreading across the universe. It was like this reality warping energy. Yeah. Yeah, he was essentially just rewriting creation in his own image. I guess you could say the Miracle Machine turns thought into reality. It's sort of like a super green lantern rank. It was made by the Controllers, who were an offshoot of the Guardians on oa In It's like a super green lantern rank that just turns thought into reality. Like I said, But the insinuation here was that in rewriting reality, you're destroying it. She was rewriting it so much that it was going to break or something. I have no idea. Honestly, it makes me wonder if Kara couldn't just rewrite reality to be exactly as it was, but with Crypton or her mom still around, what the issue with that would be Yeah, that's the big question. I have no idea. That left me like dumbfounded. It seemed like if she could have used the machine correctly, everything could have worked out for her, but she chose not to because Brainiac five told her it would break reality.

45:29 Yeah, but then she could just rewrite it, like, I don't get it exactly hell happened exactly? Yeah. Supergirl takes control of the Miracle Machine to undo changes to reality that Brainiac had caused. Realizing she could bring back Crypton and her mother in the process, Brainiac five convinces her to instead restore reality to what it was to prevent it from breaking, and to send the Miracle Machine to a different reality. At least I think that's what happened. I'm not sure why it needed to be sent to a new reality at all. If she sent it to a new reality, did she destroy that reality? And what reality did she send it to? I don't know if any realities were destroyed. I think Brainiac's reality was just like undone. But why she needed to send it to another reality? Does that mean like another Earth like Earth three or something like that. I don't know. What are the consequences to that reality exactly exactly. In the comics, the Miracle Machine was supposed to be like also a precursor to New God Tech, which might have something to do with the post credit scene. I'm not entirely sure. We'll see, I guess now. As the Cadets gained the upper hand against the Dark Circle, Manell attempts to retreat, only to be confronted by Supergirl, who defeats him. Just as the rest of the legion returns. Brainiac five and Supergirl share a kiss and the credits role. In a post credit scene, Supergirl introduces Brainiac five to Superman as her boyfriend through a time bubble.

46:55 When the bubble closes, Superman and Batman wax cryptic about some threat before gazing upon a lava pit in the middle of a city and are zapped by a massive laser from space before vanishing and a lava pit now in their stead. Oh, they're setting up some kind of fight with the apocalypse. Maybe, Like the lava pit was not that big, Like it was the size of like five school buses, and then when they got zapped, that was only as big as like a small sofa. I don't know if that was like a Zada beam that hit them, but they essentially like disintegrated. They weren't Omega beams. No, it was a blue beam from space. Oh. Interesting, Now we've established Zeta beams in this universe already, so that is possibly what happened here. Yeah, it seems unlikely that they would go the route of apocalypse, considering that the battle against dark Side was the main narrative behind the previous DC animated universe, Right, so like, why re tread that old territory. Yeah. Considering the fact that the next Tomorrowver's film is going to be the first Justice League film, and it's going to be called Justice League War World, I imagine they're going a Mongol route rather than a dark Side route. Oh that'll be cool. I've been wanting to do a dual episode between Mongol and a Nihilist for a while, so when that movie comes out, that might be a good time to do that. Oh that's a good matchup. Yeah, not bad at all, But ultimately that does it for this movie, I thought. You know, even though it's visually striking, the poorly written films suffers from numerous story issues that will disappoint fans

48:30 and leave casual viewers scratching their heads. I'm rating two out of five stars, which matches our same rating for Justice Society World War Two. I thought this was equally as bad, and for tomatoes, I'm giving it a rotten tomato. I don't know if I necessarily would have gone that harsh, because I do think that I liked this film a little bit more than Justice Society World War Two. I think the visuals were a little bit better, and the story, while largely nonsensical, held up just a little bit better than that Justice Society movie. Did. This one at least held up a little bit better structurally, so I would give it like two and a half stars. But it's almost like, you know, turds a turd, So either way, I wouldn't recommend it. That's fair. Okay, it looked two and a half stars. You convinced me if I could get away with it, Sure, two and a half. Maybe I just forgotten how bad just As Society World War Two was. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Yeah, Okay, two and a half stars. That's my final offer, and that's what we're gonna go with. I mean, there's a lot to question here, but I also think there are better answers for those questions marginally, So yeah, I think it squeaks by a little bit more so cool.

49:39 Well yeah, that does it for this review. Let us know what you thought about the movie by writing to us at Dynamic Dual Podcast at gmail dot com, or by visiting us on Instagram or Twitter. You can find links to all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website Dynamic Dual dot com. And on our site, you can also find a link to our Patreon page where we can join. Our Dynamic two tier to chat with us and fellow listeners are Fantastic four tier, which gets you bonus content each month, or our x Force Tier that makes you an executive producer of this podcast. If you can't join Patreon, you can still support the show by signing up for our e newsletter also at Dynamic Duel dot com. In our next episode and lead up to our team duel between the Flash Rogues and the Brotherhood of Mutants, we will be pitting Madame Rouge, the Doom Patrol villain, against Mystique, the X Men villain. But that doesn't for this episode, we want to give a big thanks to our Executive producers Ken Johnson, John Stoski, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin, Belcolm Makee, Mattangian, Brandon Estragard, Nathaniel Wagner, leviya In Nikobanto, Austin Whisselowski, A J.

50:43 Ducker, Lee, Scott Camacho and Gil Camacho for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. I'll up and away. True Believers,