I suppose that could be another Uncle Dudley from an Earth where he has powers.
[SPOILERS for the Crisis on Infinite Earths animated movies]
So you all know Uncle Dudley from the Marvel/Shazam Family, right? The good-natured codger who is privy to all the Marvel Family’s secret IDs, and hangs out with them, and when trouble comes a’callin’, he quickly doffs his outer clothes to reveal his homemade Captain Marvel costume beneath? Who then complains that his ol’ “Shazambago” is acting up and can’t use his powers (of which he has none) and one of the other Marvels picks him and carries him to their destination. And while they do, they usually think “We all know he doesn’t actually have any powers, but we love him anyway and play along with him!” You know, as they carry this civilian into outright danger.
Anyway, he makes a brief cameo in the new Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths where he flies under his own power through space with a glowing fist, and then shoots an energy blast out of that fist at the bad guy:
I watched all three of this Crisis on Infinite Earths direct-to-home-video animated features from DC Comics, and…well, it wasn’t great.
The premise is that the New Animated Universe that forms post the Flashpoint animated movie from 2013 is under attack, with parallel Earths being wiped out by an unknown enemy, and, well, you probably know the story.
Well, that story from the comics is not the story presented here in the film, which is an even more disjointed accumulation of nonsense than the source material, except lacking the the always-excellent George Pérez art to carry it along. There’s an awful lot of characters standing around looking at things, or staring and/or taping on displays that tell the viewer nothing. The Bad Guy isn’t defeated so much as conceded to, as the heroes run away to a safe bolthole and presumably the destruction of the parallel Earths won’t extend to this new one they just cobbled together.
Lots of your favorite characters show up, only to sit still in space and let anti-matter wash over them. Sorry, Booster Gold fans! And I’m never quite clear if the bad guy is destroying entire parallel universes or just targeting parallel Earths, because it sure looks like (and characters act like) it’s the latter.
Not to say there aren’t a few good points, the main one being Matt Ryan, the One True John Constantine in Media Adaptations, reprising the role yet again and stealing the show whenever the character shows up. In one of the twists I actually like in this reworking of Crisis, Constantine takes Pariah‘s role, as the man cursed to watch the multiverse die, and he’s the reason why it’s happening. (Okay, in the original it’s revealed Pariah wasn’t at fault, but John definitely is here).
Not so efficient a swap is Supergirl stepping in for the Harbinger role, which is primarily there to set up a version of her death, which ends up being moot anyway.
So, they throw a lot of parallel Earths at us, most of which mean nothing to us except maybe mildly duplicating Earths from print. It isn’t really until we start seeing some familiar multiversal faces that, hey, suddenly we’re intrigued. Like, here are decades-old properties that mean something to us, not Earth-221 that we see all of once, where Firestorm is left-handed instead of right-handed.
Two of the Earths we see just as they get destroyed is Super Friends Earth, featuring our heroes as they appeared in 1970s cartoons. And the Batman from the 1990s animated series, voiced for the last time by the now-deceased Kevin Conroy. And if that’s to be Batman’s last line ever spoken by Conroy, it’s a good one to go out on. …But where were these guys fighting alongside the other heroes in this film? That would have improved the proceedings. (Earth-One Wonder Woman: “Let’s go punch those guys!” Super Friends Wonder Woman: “Wait, hold on, let’s set up some traps!”)
I don’t know. This is all just clearing a path for however long the James Gunn and the other guy whose name I never can remember’s regime presides over the DC Comics media-that-ain’t-comics empire. The plan is for…everything to tie together now? With characters in live action films voicing their animated versions as well? We’ll see how long that lasts.
Probably lots more to say about this, but these are just the immediate thoughts on the matter. It’s not the worst of the animated films (that would the 2023 Legion of Super-Heroes flick) but it ain’t good.