Superman/Batman: Public Enemies – Lex Luthor is POTUS, with this power he recruits some super beings and seems to be running the country fine, his ego is fed which means he’s not really a villain. A kryptonite meteor threatens the Earth, Lex knows Superman can’t deal with it so arranges for the pair to meet. Then, through a series of events, Batman and Superman end up being hunted by both villains and heroes as they have been declared public enemies. With help from a certain female hero the boys end up dealing with all their problems in a way that shows how much Batman means to Superman and shows the lengths Batman would go to to protect people. It’s not fantastic, it could have done with being longer to further display the public enemy idea, but the story was interesting and different with this one.

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse – Supergirl falls to Earth where Batman discovers her. Together Batman and Superman do their best with what’s treated as their new teenage child, but it takes extra help so Wonder Woman gets involved. Darkseid wants a powerful woman as leader of his honour guard so kidnaps and mind controls Supergirl. Our three heroes get help and go to Apokolips to get her back, this lets us see Granny Goodness and the Furies plus a bit more of Darkseid’s forces. There’re some elements of the story that I don’t like, and it’s impressive that Batman earned Darkseid’s respect by defeating him in an intelligent way. I also wasn’t a fan of the two Supers fighting Darkseid as even sun charged with two of them they couldn’t beat him. The story wasn’t bad, but how weak Supergirl was sometimes but not others didn’t fit well. Enjoyable enough but for a good Darkseid battle I preferred Justice League: War.

Extra

• These two films are definitely connected but they work as stand-alone as there’s not too many important connections.
• Shazam was still called Captain Marvel in these films, I just find it interesting to hear that name for him.
• Films like Public Enemies are quite nice ‘what if’ ideas.