Warner Bros Home Entertainment, out now on digital download and Bluray/DVD from September 7

The emergence of a new superhero on Earth is noticed out among the stars.

Yes, it’s yet another rehash of the story of Superman’s origins, but there’s quite a few twists that come from the involvement of J’onn J’onnz and Lobo. Sure, we’ve got young Clark at the Daily Planet, meeting Lois, rockets going out of control, Lex Luthor up to various nefarious things, parents in Smallville from whom Clark can get sage advice (this is a timeline with Jonathan Kent surviving)… all the ingredients are there but they get mixed up because Lobo notices Clark’s pre-Superman activities, and the Martian Manhunter encourages Clark to stay under the radar. There’s plenty of plotting and counterplotting before we reach the inevitable conclusion.

There’s a different animation style debuted in this feature, which is apparently going to be the standard going forward. It removes some of the disconnect between characters and backgrounds that was apparent in some of the previous batch of movies, and there’s definitely more fluidity. The new voice cast acquit themselves okay – Zachary Quinto adds to his roster of bad guys with his take on Lex Luthor, while Darren Criss and Alexandria Daddario are fine, if nothing exceptional, in their takes on Kal-El and Lois.

As far as extras go, there’s short pieces on Lobo and the Martian Manhunter, two archive cartoons, and a “sneak peek”.

Verdict: The action takes second place to the character beats at times, but this is a solid start to the new DC animated universe. 7/10

Paul Simpson

SUPERMAN: MAN OF TOMORROW AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL NOW AND ON DVD, BLU-RAY™ & LIMITED-EDITION BLU-RAY™ WITH MINI-FIGURE SEPTEMBER 7TH