Author: Robert Greenberger

Bit by bit, the cool, overlooked films of previous decades are finally being spruced up and released on Blu-ray. The most recent example comes from Lionsgate and is Francis Ford Coppla’s terrific Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Starring Jeff Bridges, it tells the story of Preston Thomas Tucker, a man who saw a different, better way to design, build, and sell cars. Many of his inventions attracted attention and were clearly ahead of their time.

Ever see a Tucker Torpedo? Not a surprise the answer is a no since only 50 true Tuckers were ever manufactured. Tucker (1903-1956) was an inventor and engineer, including auto racecars, a combat car and gun turret during World War II, and even aircraft. Once the war ended, he was determined to build cars, dreaming of models, as Detroit’s Big Three were content with the models form 1941.

The 1988 film shows how Tucker was thinking big and as early as 1946, had an idea for new features — disc brakes, seat belts, a pop out windshield, and head lights which swivel when you turn – for the next generation of automobile. The war weary public is fascinated and the Tucker Corporation sells many shares and there’s general excitement.

Under Coppola’s steady hand, we watch how the dream turns to ashes, one disappointment at a time, and his various innovations are discarded by a nervous Board of Directors. Tucker also had to deal with the wrath of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler in addition to Michigan Senator Homer S. Ferguson (Lloyd Bridges) orchestrating government interference.

You admire Tucker and root for him thanks to Bridges’ winning performance. He’s surrounded by a strong supporting cast including Joan Allen as his wife Vera, Christian Slater as their son Preston Jr., Martin Landau as Abe Karatz, his lead financier, Elias Koteas as his engineering partner Alex Tremulis, and Dean Stockwell as Howard Hughes.

The film is a story of American innovation, chasing the American Dream, and a cautionary tale about corporate power. There’s a definite Frank Capra quality to the narrative, which makes sense since the screenplay comes from Capra collaborator Arnold Schulman, who shares the credit with David Seidler.

It’s a fine drama and well worth watching. Interestingly, Coppola initially considered this as a musical, similar to his One from the Heart, and in one extra, we see a shot of him with the legendary Leonard Bernstein, Adolph Green, and Betty Comden discussing the project. Coppola, a better filmmaker than businessman, never got to realize that dream, but got some financial help from George Lucas, to make this movie.

The movie never connected with its audience, despite solid reviews, and Paramount Pictures took a loss on the release. Even Landau being nominated for an Oscar and winning a Golden Globe Award as Best Supporting Actor, didn’t help the film’s home video release.

Tucker: The Man and His Dream gets a loving 1080p transfer in 2.39:1 and in addition to the Blu-ray disc, you get a 4K Digital HD code, which is cool. We can appreciate the work from cinematographer Vittorio Storaro with rich colors that have been well presented. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track is just about a solid match.

We also get Audio Commentary with Director Francis Ford Coppola, a Francis Ford Coppola Introduction (3:39), which goes into the background; a Deleted Scene (4:11) with optional commentary by Coppola; Under the Hood: Making Tucker (10:02), assembles archival material complete with comments from Lucas; Tucker: The Man and the Car 1948 Promotional Film (14:54), a promotional piece that clearly inspired the director, who provides optional commentary.

After a particularly dour third season, fans were promised that the fourth season of The Flash would lighten things up, which was most welcome. On the other hand, the pacing and plotting of the major character and story arcs was uneven and dissatisfying, with lots of highs but too many lows.

The Flash: The Complete Fourth Season is out on Blu-ray and Digital HD combo pack today and across its four discs offers up not only all 23 episodes but the compete “Crisis on Earth-X” crossover event. No doubt, this was necessary considering that Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Iris West (Candace Patton) finally tie in the knot in the crossover’s Legends of the Tomorrow installment.

While he is taking a moment to appreciate his happiness, his season-long antagonist has determined Barry needs to be taught humility and sets about to beat that into him episode after episode.

We start the season six months after Flash sacrificed himself to remain within the Speed Force to maintain its stability. Iris has gone from fledgling reporter to the brains behind Team Flash, more fully integrating her into the stories but defying logic. At best, she is the team’s heart and soul; at worst, it’s a pale imitation of Felicity on Arrow.

Once they free Barry, we learn this and everything that follows has been carefully orchestrated by Clifford DeVoe (Neil Sandilands), a man in search of knowledge (wisdom not so much) who winds up mutated by the same forces that turned Barry into the Fastest Man Alive. Aided by his devoted wife and partner Marlize (Kim Engelbrecht), the Thinker is racing against time, attempting to acquire massive powers before his body fails. These powers are to be derived from the dozen passengers aboard the same bus that also gave Ralph Dibny (Hartley Sawyer) his stretchable powers.

Along the way, the large supporting cast needs to be serviced, so we watch Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) accept her Killer Frost alter ego, lose it, and work to regain it; Cisco (Carlos Valdes) pine for Gypsy (Jessica Camacho) while helping her father, Breacher (Danny Trejo) cope with losing his powers; Wally (Keiynan Lonsdale) feel like a fifth wheel and head off to be a Legend; and Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) prepare to become a father all over again with his new wife Cecile (Danielle Nicolet). Then there’s the flipside to DeVoe, Harrison Wells of Earth-2 (Tom Cavanaugh), who amps up his brain in an effort to match wits with their foe, only to find the price was his intelligence (but also giving us the godawful Council of Wells).

Thankfully, we also have a new foe in Blacksmith (a scenery-chewing Katee Sackhoff) and other distractions. The most wasteful and illogical thread has to be the trumped up charges against Barry, getting him convicted of killing DeVoe and letting his stew in Iron Heights while the Thinker’s plans progress. The Enlightenment, Thinker’s big scheme to ruin mankind’s intelligence so he can reteach them, is too easily dealt with and the conclusion feels rushed and unsatisfying.

Don’t get me wrong, there are strong episodes and terrific moments throughout the series, but too many times I watched and cringed at bad plotting and overly prolonged threads. Even the addition of Sterling Gates to the writing staff couldn’t stop the badly conceived stories. It was gratifying to watch the Elongated Man become a hero, working to save the other bus metas and become fully integrated into the team.

Sprinkled throughout, we see a pretty, young woman (Jessica Parker Kennedy) working at Jitters and encountering various members of the cast until she arrives for the season ending cliffhanger: her revelation as Barry and Iris’ daughter from the future and in need of their help.

The four discs come in a clean high definition transfer at 16×9 1:78:1 with a good DTS-HD 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track.

In addition to a handful of deleted scenes, there are bonuses scattered throughout beginning with a Gag Reel (8:58) on disc one. Disc two brings us the four show runners responsible for the “Crisis” crossover (41:30) which was too self-congratulatory and not revealing enough. Elongated Man (9:44), on disc three, has the producers gush about the fun of bringing the stretchable sleuth to the screen and what the actor brought the cast. Also on the disc is Flash Time on Amunet Black with Katee, Eric, and Sterling (12:52), the most enjoyable as the star chats with Executive Producer Eric Wallace and writer Sterling Gates, looking at her fourth season appearances. Disc four offers up The Fastest Mind Alive: The Thinker (15:20), a look at the comic book origins and adaptation of the villain. Here, the producers talk a good game making me wish more of this was found in the episodes themselves. Finally, there’s The Best of DC TV’s Comic-Con Panels San Diego 2017.

The CW Seed has been the ancillary stomping grounds for animated versions of DC Comics’ Arrowverse characters, a chance to extend the brand with lesser-known heroes. For their third outing (after Vixen and Constantine), they smartly offered up Freedom Fighters: The Ray for two six-episode seasons, which have been edited together into a feature, on disc today from Warner Home Entertainment.

Although the two seasons arrived in December and July, they act as a prequel story to last fall’s “Crisis on Earth-X” crossover extravaganza. Here, we have the birth of the Freedom Fighters with appearances by not only the Ray but also Black Condor (Jason Mitchell), Phantom Lady (Dilshad Vadsaria), Dollman (Matthew Mercer) and Red Tornado (Iddo Goldberg). According to some behind the scenes shenanigans, the animated story was written first and when the four-parter was written for live-action, things weren’t lining up right, so the keen viewer will notice there are inconsistencies between the two.

The biggest headscratcher may be the Ray fighting alongside Green Arrow (Matthew Mercer), the Flash (Scott Whyte) if they didn’t meet until the crossover.

That said, this is a very entertaining short film with pleasant limited animation aided by strong vocal talent. It’s interesting to note that this version of The Ray, originally created by Will Eisner for quality Comics back in the Golden Age, was a 1990s revival from Jack C. Harris, Christopher Priest, and Joe Quesada. As voiced by Russell Torey (a veteran BBC genre star), he is a likeable kid, coming to grips with his powers at a time when things look fairly dark for Earth-X’s population.

Interestingly, Ray Terrill being gay wasn’t overt in the comics but became a main selling point for the transition to mass media. The third episode focuses on Ray as a closeted adult, living with his conservative parents. Seeing him struggle is good, since it establishes his personality and gives people in similar situations a role model. Things go wibbly-wobbly when we realize this has been Earth-1 and the Earth-X Ray, a hero, arrives mortally wounded and passes on his powers to his doppelganger, sending him to a world where the Nazis won World War II and people like him are sent to the camps.

When the Ray fully comes into his powers and responsibilities as a hero, we can thrill to his battle with the New Reichsmen’s Overgirl (Melissa Benoist). She’s aided by Black Arrow and Black Flash so there are a lot of costumes and duplicates in this event. He gets plenty of support from Arrow and Flash in addition to Cisco (Carlos Valdes) and Mr. Terrific (Echo Kellum)

I have no idea why it took Emilio Ortega Aldrich, Lauren Certo, Marc Guggenheim, Sarah Hernandez, Elizabeth Kim, and Sarah Tarkoff to write this, but it also may explain the slightly shifting tone from episode to episode, which is less obvious when spliced together. What IU can’t figure out is why the various uniforms worn by the heroes come from differing seasons of the Arrowverse so you can’t quite tell how far ahead of the crossover was this set.

The edited feature looks terrific on Blu-ray and sounds just fine, letting you appreciate Blake Neely’s score. The movie has been released as a combo pack so you can have Blu-ray, DVD, and a Digital HD code. The sole special feature is a way too short interview with Tovey.

Nothing is as it seems on Fox’s Lucifer. The charming police procedural series is also a horror story and maybe even an allegory for human existence. Loosely based on Vertigo’s Lucifer Morningstar (from Sandman), the show has underperformed on the network despite a strong lead performance from Tom Ellis. As a result, fans never know if the show will be around or not.

With season three’s pickup iffy, Fox held back four episodes — “Mr. And Mrs. Mazikeen Smith,” “City Of Angels,” “Off the Record,” and “Vegas with Some Radish.”– running them as part of the 2017-18 season. Then, when things looked dire for a fourth outing, they decided to hold back on two more. And finally, once the show was officially canceled, they burned off the final two episodes – “Boo Normal” and “Once Upon a Time” — as a block on May 28,

Thankfully, you can have all 26 of them on four discs in the just-released Lucifer the Complete Third Season from Warner Home Entertainment.

We open with the mystery of where Lucifer was and how he got his wings back. That propels things, especially his consternation at the fact no one noticed his two-day absence. There are, though, bigger issues including a new killer in town, dubbed Sinnerman along with a brand new commander at police headquarters: Lieutenant Marcus Pierce (Tom Welling). You can almost being to suspect there’s some connection between the two and it is revealed across the run of the season.

Each week there’s a crime to solve and character arcs to advance, but really, this season is all about the characters coming to grips with their true natures. Lucifer won’t tell Chloe (Lauren German) who he is, something he’s tried to do since the beginning, usually with his fussy brother Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside) stopping him. This time, it’s Pierce who gets in the way, romancing her, bringing her along for his own reasons that make for a nice reveal in the post-hiatus “All about Her”. He’s Cain, the first murderer, and was cursed with immortality and like so many immortals in fiction, is weary of it and wants to die. His plans are all about bringing him death and peace in Heaven.

LUCIFER: L-R: Tom Ellis and Kevin Alejandro in”All Hands on Decker”

But first, others must die, which brings out fine work from Tricia Helfer, as Charlotte, and Woodside. Welling’s Pierce was a wonderful addition, and his work has been quite effective, coming a long way from Smallville.

Lucifer has other ideas as seen in the rather effective finale, “A Devil of my Word”, with terrific visuals and a nicely choreographed fight. Finally, he stands revealed as the devil and Chloe is left to process the news. And as things wrap up, we’re left with a final meditation on free will vs God’s plan.

The series has, fortunately, been picked up by Netflix so we can see what happens next.

The five DVD discs are fine to watch and come with a handful of deleted scenes for 11 of the episodes. Additionally, disc 2 offers up Off Script with Tom & Tom, Part 1 as Ellis and Welling chat in Lucifer’s penthouse. You can find the entertaining part 2 on disc 3 and part 3 on disc 4. On the final disc, you have the cast and crew chat about moving the production to California in Lucifer Returns! Bringing the Hit Show to LA and the obligatory Lucifer: 2017 Comic-Con Panel, and finally a short Gag Reel.

As I made clear with Deadpool, while I love the creators, I have always been lukewarm towards the Merc with a Mouth. I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining the film adaptation was and that Ryan Reynolds was right to stick with the plan to make the character work on film.

Now we have Deadpool 2, out this week on disc from 20th Century Home Entertainment and it cleaned up at the box office, making in excess of $770 million worldwide. I think there’s a place for the character and the cheeky sendup of the oh-so-serious superhero fare. Frankly, better skewer yourself than let someone else do the honors. It’s certainly a proven success for Marvel the last decade.

The super-thin plot basically has a despondent Deadpool, in the wake of his sweet Vanessa’s (Morena Baccarin) death come to the aid of a young mutant, Russell Collins (Julian Dennison), hounded by an orphanage and its nasty headmaster (Eddie Marsan), that has been abusing mutants. This could have been subtitled How Deadpool got his Mojo Back.

Along the way, he gets a wakeup call from Colossus (voice by Stefan Kapicic), forms X-Force, and fights against or with Cable (Josh Brolin) as the prey becomes the prowler as the kid, pushed to the limit, fights back. Cable’s back from the future to kill the kid to protect his own family, creating the usual temporal headaches. X-Force features many familiar mutants including Domino (Zazie Beets), and you either love or hate how they’re used (abused?) in this film.

That’s pretty much it. Along the way, we get the overstuffed meta jokes and Easter Eggs, some of which are utterly brilliant and others are just so much filler. Brolin and Beets sell their new characters well although her Domino looks better in comics, here she looks generic.

Director David Leitch keeps things moving at a fine clip and makes certain the fun supporting players from the first outing, including Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) and Weasel (J.T. Miller) are there for good bits. Less useful was the superfluous use of Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), who is now playing kissy face with newcomer Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna), who smiles and waves a lot.

Really, it’s amusing but not the thrill a minute freshness the first film was. The action set pieces are prolonged, notably the X-Force chase/battle sequence. The climactic battle between everyone at Juggernaut (a CGI amalgam of multiple performers, voiced by Reynolds) was just so much destruction without humor. Better are the post-credits sequences that offer up some of the best meta humor in the entire film and well worth sticking around for.

The film most clearly sets the film and character in the Fox corner of the Marvel universe thanks to a brilliant blink-and-you-miss-it cameo. The question becomes, where do you go from here? The answer may reside more with Kevin Feige than anyone else and it’s still too early to tell.

The Blu-ray comes with two discs, one with the theatrical release and special features while the second disc has the fifteen minute longer Super Duper Cut. The best that can be said of the new cut is that it provides a fascinating study in editing considering line reads and sequences are edited differently as are the musical cues. Basically, the fifteen minutes is merely more. The 4K Ultra HD comes with the theatrical release as both 4K and Blu-ray plus the bonus Blu-ray disc. All versions come with a Digital HD code.

The AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1 is just fine, with good color and detail (pointing out how cheap some of the CGI looks in comparison with other moments). The DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix is excellent.

There are plenty of special features, some fun, some interesting, some utterly superfluous. We start with the Deleted/Extended Scenes (2:36) and Gag Reel (3:11) before we get to the film’s theme explored in Deadpool Family Values: Cast of Characters (15:09). Then we have David Leitch Not Lynch: Directing DP2 (11:39); Deadpool’s Lips Are Sealed: Secrets and Easter Eggs (12:52); Until Your Face Hurts: Alt Takes (9:25); Roll With the Punches: Action and Stunts (6:57); The Deadpool Prison Experiment (11:28); The Most Important X-Force Member (12:21);  Chess With Omega Red (1:16); Swole and Sexy (2:12), which focuses on the red necks (Matt Damon and Alan Tudyck); and, “3 Minute Monologue” (2:14), Brolin riffs during makeup.

There’s an Audio Commentary by Ryan Reynolds, David Leitch, Rhett Reese and Paul Warnick that is occasionally interesting and revealing.

Deadpool’s Fun Sack 2: Videos (35:22) has an amalgam of bits filmed for the film including the hilarious first teaser and Stills (2:23).

People who have stuck with Gotham since its inception will admit it is over-the-top, over-packed, and incredibly messy but they can’t stop watching. Thankfully, an increasing number of people have gotten wise to the nonsense and the ratings dictated that the forthcoming short season five will be its last.

Gotham the Complete Fourth Season, out Tuesday from Warner Home Entertainment, presents all 22 episodes on four Blu-ray discs and you can see for yourself the chaos that masquerades as a prequel to Bruce Wayne becoming Batman (an act we’re promised we’ll prematurely see in 2019 when the series returns).

From the outset, the villains have always been outsized personalities, with grand schemes, unable to spread their criminal behavior to neighboring cities. Something roots them to Gotham even though none never clearly win. They would rather fight with or betray one another, each with some ambitious plan that seems to smack up against someone else’s plan.

Then you have the civilians with the women a collection of off-kilter kooks and the men relatively flat and uninteresting. The titular focal point, Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) spends the season regaining his moral center, setting him and Bruce (David Mazouz) as Gotham’s savior as it descends into No Man’s Land. While producers Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon will tell you, the season was loosely following the Batman Year One and Batman: The Long Halloween storylines, you’d be hard pressed to see how.

I suppose the whole Sofia Falcone (Crystal Reed) power play can be traced to the latter event, but in name only. Her scheme to rule Gotham with Barbara Kean (Erin Richards), Tabitha Jessica Lucas), and Selina (Carmen Bicondova) pits her against the Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) and his Iceberg Lounge, where he doles out permission to commit crimes like a lord. To fight back, he summons Sofia’s dad, Carmine (John Dorman) to handle his scion only to lose his life.

GOTHAM: Camren Bicondova in the “Pax Penguina” season premiere episode of GOTHAM.

Once the pieces are in place after the first half season, we then move things into high gear, tearing the city further apart, creating the finale as Gotham is cut off from America and everyone carves up the streets into fiefdoms. Behind the scenes, the would-be-Joker Jerome (Cameron Monaghan) casts a cackling shadow. His shooting of Selina at the end echoes Killing Joke and takes her off the board for now.

As the chaos descends. Bruce is in a teenage funk, an emo-boy as opposed to a vigilante in training, refusing help from Alfred (Sean Pertwee). Thankfully, he has enough sense also to not kill Ra’s al Ghul (Alexander Siddig), who sees something in the kid none of us do.

Thankfully, the city is large enough so there’s plenty of scenery for every actor to chew. They all get choice moments and good lines now and then, but everything is moving at such a fast clip, you’re riveted to the screen so you don’t miss a twist. And I suppose that’s the mad genius behind this wreck of a series.

The high definition transfer to 16×9 1:78:1 audio with DTS-HD Master Audio are fine for watching the madness on any screen.

The special features are scattered across the four discs starting with deleted scenes for four episodes on the first disc; and one deleted scene on the second disc; and no deleted scenes on the third disc. Disc four, though, has no deleted scenes but you have Solomon Grundy: Born on a Monday, The Sirens Take Gotham, and The Best of DC TV’s Comic-Con Panels San Diego 2017 (58:25).

Although Arrow set the tone and allowed the CW to grow its own integrated television universe, the series itself has been a maddening, uneven affair that always seems to take three steps forward then backslide at least one.

In what could have been a final season, that unevenness was never more frustrating as the show whipsawed characters and situations into increasingly dumb configurations that annoyed rather than entertained.

You can revisit all the nonsense in Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season, out now on Blu-ray and Digital HD from Warner Home Entertainment.

Season Five ended with Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards) finally comfortable with one another, ready to resume their romance. Everyone is manipulated or kidnapped to find themselves on Lian Yu as Adrian Chase John Segara), who is excessively over-prepared, blows it all to hell.

We open the new season with the aftermath, starting with the death of Samantha (Anna Hopkins), who begs Oliver to care for their son William (Jack Moore), who has just learned of his father’s alter ego. As everyone is licking their wounds, we meet the tech savvy Cayden James (Michael Emerson), who is working to subvert Mayor Queen and ruin Star City. Not helping matters is FBI Agent Samanda Watson (Sydelle Noel), looking into the Mayor and the city’s leading vigilante.

Along the way, we have the crossover “Crisis on Earth-X” which ended with Ollie and Felicity finally tying the knot and shifting her from the geeky, fun, and intense hacker to the nurturing surrogate mother, watering her down as a character.

The producers decided their overstuffed Team Arrow needed pairing and contrived to force them into betraying and distrusting one another so they’re split into the Original Team and the New Team, none of which is convincingly handled. Neither is the internal strife between Ollie and John Diggle (David Ramsey), as they feud over which ones gets to play Green Arrow, further splitting the team.

In perhaps the most interesting twist, halfway through the season, James is killed off by the real mastermind behind everything, thuggish Ricardo Diaz (Kirk Acevado) who then is revealed to have somehow put every cop and judge in the city inside his suit pockets. Once more, the antagonist appears to have thought of everything while our heroes stumble into one another, blindly led into trap after trap, never growing wiser or better prepared. Aiding him is Anatoli (David Nykl), who really added little this season and was wasted while Black Siren (Katie Cassidy) seemed to play both sides against the middle with no clear agenda.

Diaz forces his way into The Quadrant, described as the secret cabal running America’s underworld but they come across as boobs, as one by one, Diaz shoots them without consequence. He, sadly, repeatedly survives near death and will remain a threat in the seventh season, commencing in October.

We wind up with Quentin (Paul Blackthorne) dead, Thea (Willa Holland) leaving to find herself, and the team reunited, saved from the FBI by Oliver giving himself up and going to prison so he has failed his city and is paying the price.

The sheer incoherence of the plotting spoils some great performances and the overemphasis on the amazing stunt fighting has long since become boring. Should the seventh be the final season, one hopes new showrunner Beth Schwartz will bring some dramatic coherence and discipline to the series.

The Blu-ray discs are AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.78:1 with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, making for a fine home entertainment experience.

The special features are scattered across the four discs with the first offering up The Split of a Man: Deathstroke (11:48); the second gives us an in-depth Inside the Crossover: Crisis on Earth X (41:59); the third offers up Revenge in Ones and Zeros: The Story of Cayden James (10:52), which just reminds us how wasted Emerson was; and finally The Best of DC’s Comic Con Panels San Diego 2017 (58:27). No deleted scenes or gag reel this time.

Doomsday. The unstoppable engine of destruction also appears to be the unstoppable antagonist having been a regular in the comics since 1992 and brought to the animated and live-action films. The sheer power on display is catnip and allows DC Comics’ most powerful figure to go mano y mano.

The DC Animated Universe of direct-to-video films has been uneven, usually a result of either poor writing, bad directing, or off-putting character design. That they are now linked, building a shared universe is a small pleasure as the producers mine the comics for stories to adapt and weave into their mythos.

The Death of Superman story has been adapted repeatedly but the latest attempt, now available digitally from Warner Bros Home Entertainment, but this may be the most satisfying version. A large part of the credit has to go to writer Peter J. Tomasi, who brings a tremendous amount of humanity to the characters along with some much-needed humor.

Not only does this adapt the classic 1992 story, but also works within the animated universe as it uses their version of the Justice League, nicely uses the Man of Steel’s supporting cast, actively involves Lex Luthor (Rainn Wilson), and sows the seeds for the follow-up Reign of the Superman adaptation, coming later this year.

As Doomsday hurtles to Earth, Superman (Jerry O’Connell) is wrestling with the decision to reveal his secret to Lois Lane (Rebecca Romijn), soliciting advice from his ex, Wonder Woman (Rosario Dawson), and the Flash (Christopher Gorham), who is about to finally marry. Elsewhere, we get glimpses of Lex working on programs despite his house arrest, making him the first to be aware of the danger to humanity.

When Doomsday emerges from the sea, he is making his way across America and the League is summoned to handle the matter but in typical animated style, we see only one member fight the behemoth at a time as opposed to a coordinated group effort, a mistake directors Sam Liu and James Tucker keep repeating. That said, it certainly was nice to see them in action, their personalities clear from Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) to Martian Manhunter (Nyambi Nyambi).

Given the level of devastation, it feels like it takes Superman too much time to get involved, but once he does, he gives it his all as the two battle across Metropolis, including a brutal fight on a bridge that endangers hundreds of civilians.

Of course, Lois and Jimmy Olsen (Max Mitttelman) are on hand for the finale, with Lois risking her life when it appears Superman was down for the count. In fact, having Superman put it all into the killing blow to save her is a great emotional beat.

And then we get the aftermath, the funeral, the tears, and the sense of loss. During the end credits, we cut away repeatedly to tease the coming of the Superboy clone, John Henry Irons (Cress Williams) forging the Steel suit, a floating Eradicator, and the Cyborg Superman entering the atmosphere.

Frederik Wiedmann delivers a strong score to match a well-written, very entertaining film, the best in the series to date. Tomasi and the team sprinkle several winks to readers and long-time fans, adding to the enjoyment. The only design issue I have is that the heroes have bull necks and Superman’s face is just wrong.

Released in the usual assortment of packages, the 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray looks just fine, and the lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio mix is good.

There are just two special features, the obligatory tease for Reign of the Supermen (9:33) and  The Death of Superman: The Brawl That Topped Them All (16:23), a somewhat bloated look at the battle with martial arts expert Christian Medina, along with the usual talking heads, talk about its construction. Sadly, the only participants from the core material was original story editor Mike Carlin and artist Jon Bogdanove.

The two contributions from the DC Comics Vault are Legion of Super-Heroes, Season 2, “Dark Victory” Part 1 (22:54) and Part 2 (22:50), which were the series’ final offerings.

When we first met Archie Andrews, he was the prototypical American teenager when being a teenager was a new concept. The idea of teens having free time was also new and mandatory attendance at high school was just a few decades old. It was a perfect place to explore what it meant to have leisure time to pursue personal interests be it the opposite sex or cars or sports or whatever.

The Archie comics have endured largely through their universality and their gentle humorous antics. Wisely, the company belatedly acknowledged the changing times and revamped the look and feel of the characters with the brilliant Mark Waid/Fiona Staples run which brought national attention and increased sales to the company. (Their digests continued to display the “classic” material.)

The universality and humor was retained but introduced more contemporary themes and issues. This got television interested and the ubiquitous Greg Berlanti convinced the CW that Riverdale was the next great thing. He partnered with Archie’s creator guru Robert Aguirre-Sacasa and they desired that Archie didn’t have to be relatable or funny or anything resembling the comics. Instead, it was propelling the characters and town into uncharted territory: darker in tone, with dollops of premarital sex, illicit affairs, conspiracy and murder.

Purists detested it but you can’t argue with success. The ratings were stellar and the short first season earned a renewal and fans were delighted with a full 22 episode second season. Out Tuesday is Riverdale the Complete Second Season from Warner Home Entertainment. You may judge for yourself if this is how you want to enjoy the characters.

The melodrama has become a guilty pleasure with a rabid audience, skewing mostly to females from 10-35, which may explain why I find this a bad adaptation of the source material and overwrought drama.

While the comics were purely white bread in makeup, the series gets plaudits for being far more multicultural in their casting, more reflective of America today. They also amped up the adult parts so the teens can be contrasted with their parents in addition to a more thorough exploration of the class warfare that was always present in the comics.

That said, the casting is atrocious in that none of the “teens” look like they belong in high school, spoiling the whole feel. Had they changed it from Riverdale High to Riverdale Community College, it might work but then Veronica would have already been sent off to a private college. Archie was always intended to be the everyteen, earnest and klutzy, sincere and unable to control his raging hormones. With newcomer KJ Apa learning to act while playing the part, he’s all hunk and no subtlety. And forget humor, apparently, that was the first thing to go when bringing this from print to screen.

We open the season with the repercussions of Fred Andrews (Luke Perry) being shot and end with Betty’s (Lili Reinhart) dad Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Munro) locked up behind a pane of glass and Archie arrested for murder. In between we see Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) and Betty become a thing while he adjusts to running his father’s biker gang. Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) is dragooned into learning the family business, which backfires when she takes Hiram Lodge’s (Mark Consuelos). lessons and saves Pop Tate’s diner. Haunting them all was a killer (or killers) dubbed the Black Hood (a nod to Archie’s comic book origins) in addition to the shady world the adults seem to prefer living in with questionable moral choices, making them lousy role models for their offspring. Hiram has gone from the big business tycoon in the less offensive Trump mode to being Don Lodge, head of a shadowy crime family that tries to seduce Archie with offers of easy cash in exchange for easing of morality. Yuck.

Aguirre-Sacasa has made much of the tonal shift from the mystery of who killed Jason Blossom in the 13-episode first season to the serial killer threat in season two. Death is still death and really, the issues confronting teens today, including incredible peer pressure and fully packed schedules, is totally absent from the show making it a funhouse mirror reflection of being a teen today.

The darkness grabbed hold of the cast, especially Betty who veered between innocent crusader and sexual being, complete with black wig. She had to confront this dichotomy and her struggle was perhaps the best character arc of the season and it was nice to see her smile at the end.

What’s to come in season three, arriving October 10? We’re told “Tales from the Darkside”, S2E7, offers some clues.

The Season is sold widely as a DVD box set although a Blu-ray edition can be ordered from Warner Archive. The DVD transfer is fine and looks just as it on broadcast TV, with an equally good audio track (important since the music is sometimes more enjoyable than the plotting).

There are just a handful of special feature, starting with the behind-the-scenes Caught between Two Worlds: The Darkness Inside and Making the Musical: Riverdale. The requisite Riverdale: 2017 Comic-Con Panel is on hand along with a Riverdale Pop Quiz!  There are Deleted Scenes for just about every episode (some interesting, some easily left out), and of course, the Gag Reel.