You really can’t ask much more from an animated superhero movie than to have Batman and Superman in it plus a host of other heroes and villains all gunning for the World’s Finest team. Enter Superman/Batman: Public Enemies the new DC film ripped from the pages of the Jeph Loeb/Ed McGuiness story arc.

DC has been pretty consistent in the quality of their animated DVDs but Public Enemies is the most well rounded of the DC DVDs so far as well as the most “comic book”. It also marks the return of Kevin Conroy, Tim Daly and Clancy Brown as the voices of Batman, Superman, and Lex Luthor, the first time the three have worked together since the end of the Superman TV series in 2000. 

The plot of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is a simple one. Newly elected president Lex Luthor has framed Superman for the death of Metallo in an attempt to destroy his longtime nemesis. Meanwhile a giant meteor of pure kryptonite is rocketing towards the Earth with little standing between it and certain destruction.

The Dark Knight decides to join forces with the Man Of Steel to bring down Luthor and clear his good name and the two must face super villains looking for a reward, a superhero team working for a Luthor they think honest as well as figure out who killed Metallo and save Superman who’s been shot with a Kryptonite bullet. It’s a pretty jam packed sixty-seven minutes.

I say that Public Enemies is the most comic book like of the animated DVDs mainly because this movie has a much lighter tone than Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, JLA New Frontier or even Superman Doomsday. It’s not that the tone isn’t serious but having the original Jeph Loeb blueprint to work off of the feel of the movie is much more of a comic book come to life than an animated film.