Very brief first impressions of the DC Universe streaming service.

§ September 14th, 2018 § Filed under television § 1 Comment


Yup, I got in on the ground floor on this, getting that twelve months plus three extra months subscription, which translates to a whole lot of Sweary Robin in my future.

Anyway, I’m going to make this quick, because your pal Mike is up way past his bedtime again (8 PM during the week, maybe as late as 8:30 on the weekends if I’m feeling particularly wild), so let me just thrown some random thoughts out there in a bullet-pointed list with no particular order:

  • Okay, first off the Amazon Fire TV thingie was supposed to be supported at launch, which was what I was planning to use, but guess what? Har har, it ain’t, so the Roku stick thingie it is. I like the Roku’s interface a little better anyway…a lot less “HERE’S EVERYTHING YOU CAN BE WATCHING OR DOWNLOADING RIGHT NOW ON YOUR LANDING PAGE WHEN YOU FIRST TURN YOUR FIRE STICK ON” which is a bit overwhelming. Roku seems to work fine through my TV.
  • First thing I watched, which may be evidenced by the above screen shot, was the latter-day episode of Super Friends where both Firestorm and Darkseid were introduced. And, as Super Friends goes, given its reputation as a…not particuarly good cartoon, this episode wasn’t half-bad, to be honest. Definitely written with a young target audience in mind, as it should be, and the Standards and Practices dictates were fairly clear(losts of characters being trapped in nets or bindings, with no full-on punches to the face or anything…though I was surprised a bit at Firestorm calling Wonder Woman “a fox.” But overall, it was a fun episode, and I look forward to perusing other episodes of the series over time.

    However, as I watched that episode ogain on the computer, to het that screenshot and this GIF, I experience some kind of glitch where I couldn’t turn off the captions. Didn’t have that problem on the Roku. Not a terrible problem, but hopefullly they’ll get it fixed soon.

  • The video library seems fairly sizeable so far…nowhere near complete, of course (no Swamp Thing movies or TV series or cartoon) but it did have all three classic Christopher Reeve Superman films plus the fourth one, the George Reeves Superman show, the Lynda Carter Womder Woman series, several of the animated series and films, and more. None of the ’60s cartoons yet, which is what I’m hoping for, but they do have all of Constantine so I can finally watch that, at long last. None of the CW shows are on there, which I think was pretty well publicized but thought I should mention it here anyway.
  • The comic reading section I haven’t looked through too much yet…looks like some Golden Age mixed in with the more recent-ish titles, plus weird things like the original Authority comics. I tried looking at some DC Comics Presents but got a “not availale” response, so hopefully that’s something that’ll be addressed. But the actual reading of the comic is pretty neat, at least how I did it, which was to blow up the whole page and I could jsut scroll up and down as needed. There’s also a timed page turner/panel progresser you can use as well.
  • Peeked in on the community section, with message boards for fans to complain about things. Probably won’t be looking at this ever again.
  • And there’s an online shop where you can buy lots of mugs and figurines apparenntly. Don’t see myself doing much with that either, unless some exclusive DC Universe Streaming Service Swamp Thing goodies.
  • Probably should have mentioned it up there but IT’S TOO lATE TO TURN BACK NOW: episodic items have a “next up” box that theoretically should pop up over the credits, but I tried watching onoe of those DC Nation fhort cartoons and the “next up” box showed up well before it was completed, so that needs a bit of work, too.

Okay, I’m fading fast, so let’s check out here for now and I’ll report back after I’ve had a little more time to go through it. If you have specific questions about it, just let me know and I’ll try to answer ’em best I can.

One Response to “Very brief first impressions of the DC Universe streaming service.”

  • A few additional notes:

    The “Curator” likes Man-Bat. Not just his first appearance in Detective, but both issues of his ’70s series (I had the full run!), his ’96 miniseries, the 4 issues of Detective he starred in in 2013 …

    This is good, because I love me some Man-Bat.

    They like Doom Patrol, too. 3 issues of My Greatest Adventure, 13 issues of the Silver Age Doom Patrol series, and 24 of the 1987 series, starting with Morrison’s takeover.

    They take a similar tack with (Teen) Titans, too: The Silver Age Brave & The Bold Run, plus several years of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans, plus several more recent incarnations.

    A lot of the rest of the selection ties in with their other media: upcoming DC Universe shows (Swamp Thing, Titans, Doom Patrol), the existing CW shows and the movies (stuff with the Legion, the New Gods, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad members, Killer Frost, Constantine …).

    So far, the general impression feels a little less like “cashing in” and more “let people know who the less-well-known characters are” and “if you like these guys, here’s more!”

    Nice to know about the Roku; I may wind up picking one up. I can plug an HDMI cable into my laptop and my tablet, though, and that frequently works Well Enough; it really depends on how much I wind up watching.

    Oh, and other than the DC Nation Doom Patrol shorts, the first thing I watched was the opening episode of Hi-Def Remaster of B:TAS, because I love me some Man-Bat. ^/\^