Product: Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked (2005)
Rating: 4.0
An excellent documentary
I have to disagree with the last reviewer. I found this to be a superb overview. The authors have an obvious love for the comic genre, and the result is a very consciencious and thorough review.It proceeds at a fair pace but never feels rushed. Tons of archival material are presented, as well as as some very interesting and unique input from Kevin Smith, Stan Lee, Will Eisner, Jim Steranko, Frank Miller ("I find my work kind of...jolly"), as well as execs from Marvel and DC.The presentation is lavished with a variety of source-material, and it proceeds chronologically, giving a great deal of attention to the formative years of Superman, the role of comics during WWII, both on and off the page, and the mid-50s crisis engendered by Wertham and the Comics Code. It covers up to about 2002, stopping to examine the industry slump of the 1990s as well as the reactions to the September 11th attacks (though this part gets a bit self-important and heavy-handed).There are a few omissions. The Watchmen gets a great deal of attention ("something like a bar-fight in the industry" opines a DC executive), but nothing else on Alan Moore's work is discussed. There's no mention of Grant Morrison's work, and it would have been interesting to see the industry's reactions to films that have appropriated comic book conventions, such as the Matrix.Still, these are small concerns given the high quality of the DVD as a whole. A must for even casual fans of the genre.