Warner Bros Home Video, out January 28

It’s six months since Superman was killed while protecting Gotham from alien destructor Doomsday, and four new pretenders to the throne are on the scene, each claiming to be the rightful successor to the Man of Steel.

This animated DC Universe Movie is a sequel to their 2018 animated movie The Death of Superman, and for one night only at cinemas around the (Daily?) planet, both movies were shown at cinemas ahead of Reign’s home entertainment release on 28 January. It’s a great way to get up to speed and to enjoy the conclusion, based on the 1993 comic book series.

The new Superman replacements are The Eradicator (a stern Kryptonian), Superboy (a youthful Smallville version of our hero), Steel (a fully robotic version) and Cyborg Superman (the name says it all). During the movie’s runtime we follow journalist Lois Lane (X-Men’s Rebecca Romijn) as she discovers the truth about the quartet of new models, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Lex Luthor (Star Trek: Discovery’s Rainn Wilson) has a role to play.

In the same way that Batman vs Superman was a live-action The Death of Superman, Justice League was their version of Reign of the Supermen, albeit focusing on the formation of the JLA. This animated version benefits from a sleeker running time, none of the excesses or awful CGI (villain and Cavill’s moustache removal) that plagued Justice League, and gives its large cast plenty to do.

The Bluray extras include a couple of archive DC cartoons.

Verdict: Fairly basic animation does not detract from what feels like a multi-segment Saturday morning cartoon with a Hollywood cast. DC continues to provide its most consistent moving image content in these adaptations of its most popular stories, and there’s still plenty left in the chest to adapt. 8/10

Nick Joy

REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN IS AVAILABLE NOW ON DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, BLU-RAY™ AND DVD