Well, what do you know, it’s San Diego Comic-Con week here in the United States. It will be a weird one for some, but for others, it will be closer to old times. No celebrities and TV writers or promoting films and TV will be a significant shift for people, especially for the news cycle. I’m missing not being there when you can focus more on comics and the people who make them. All the stories of the past you get when you sit in a panel room that isn’t about a movie trailer and a star on stage but just some folks sitting up there talking into mics about making funny books. For me, Superpowered: The DC Story reminds me of that – hearing the people who create these characters and stories or those who knew them about their story. Narrated by Rosario Dawson, the docuseries covers DC from its inception at the beginning of comics in the 1930s until the stuff they are doing today, with the story interspersed with interview moments with the many people who have worked there in the past and currently and on the other media from it. It does give a good holistic view of DC Comics and how they see its characters.
See, for me; I know a lot of this stuff from all the comics I’ve read and interviews and meeting people over the years, along with reading history books on comic books. I found it enjoyable how they told the story and chose to focus on what things as drivers for an episode. The first one is very much the standard beginnings of things and explains how DC came to be and what that meant in the superhero genre and comics, along with the creators. It doesn’t really skirt around some of the ugliness of certain creators not being done well by at the time. It uses old footage of creators well to have the audience hear from them how they felt about the work. The second episode uses the movies and tv shows to tell that period when Marvel came in a changed stuff a lot. Still, they also do well by talking about Jeanette Khan, who became publisher in the 70s and was in charge when DC was putting some of the more groundbreaking superhero stories of all time (my informed opinion here). I liked how the series and people were open about times when they might’ve dropped the ball and when competition bettered them in the marketplace. It’s something I didn’t see in another documentary about a big two publisher this summer.
The last hour uses Milestone, the 90s Black-led comic book company that DC distributed along with Jim Lee and Image Comics, to drive the shift in bringing in new talents and the changing in the industry as we get to what they are trying to do in this current age. Along with Vertigo and Karen Berger, the woman who led it, they show the willingness in DC to adapt and change to new things as time goes on. With DC, in a way, always playing number two to Marvel even with the older characters, and in many ways more known, they’ve learned to use that to their advantage at times, even when the films of late don’t connect with audiences. While I wish it were at least another hour longer, I think this docuseries is something anyone interested in DC Comics should watch, from a well-knowledgable person like myself to someone just casually interested in knowing more. This was a great watch on Max.
Score: B+
RIOTUS 