Has a logo ever been as heavily scrutinized as the DC Studios logo? When it appears, how it appears, why it appears… At least for DC fans (and detractors), it’s a constant topic of discussion online. But the wait is over. While Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story had a limited run in September, the documentary debuts in wide release today, and it officially kicks off with the full DC Studios logo. Having seen the (excellent) documentary last month, I can attest that the new DC Studios logo is a powerful and emotional mission statement for James Gunn’s new DCU.
The full, new DC Studios logo and motion logo were revealed back at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con in July. It features an animation based on the Fleischer Superman cartoons from the 1940s, the first animated appearance on the Man of Steel. He breaks free of chains, and then it flips to an updated version of what’s nicknamed the DC Bullet, a logo designed by Milton Glaser in 1976. That logo ran on comics and products until 2005 before being retired and is now back — along with the logo on DC Studios itself.
The intent is pretty clear across the board. You’ve got two key pieces of DC history, together in one logo, indicating that DC Studios is paying tribute to the past while forging forward to the future. It includes Superman, the character most credited with kicking off the dawn of superheroes. And he’s breaking free of chains… An image that is intrinsically associated with Superman, but also indicates that DC Studios is breaking free of the chains that perhaps were binding the Studios’s roster of characters from not being themselves. Whether things pan out that way or not is TBD; James Gunn’s Superman won’t kick off the fictional part of the DCU until next year. But what is meant by the logo is transparent.
However, it hasn’t appeared in full on any projects as of yet. The DC Bullet was attached to the end of Prime Video’s Batman: Caped Crusader, which was itself co-produced by Matt Reeves, the guy behind The Batman, The Penguin, and Dynamic Duo, a wild-sounding animated film featuring Jason Todd and Dick Grayson. The Penguin also features the DC Bullet, though it’s stuck in a rainy alleyway, and as an umbrella falls it wipes to the Warner Bros. Television logo in red.
Super/Man is the first DC Studios project to feature the full motion logo, at the beginning of the film. And it’s plain why it’s debuting there, before anywhere else. That’s because the film itself is an emotionally charged jaunt through history, focusing on the man at the center of what kicked off the modern era of superhero film, Christopher Reeve. Reeve played Superman/Clark Kent in four movies, before suffering a devastating horseback riding accident that left him paralyzed for the rest of his life. But as the documentary depicts, he spent that post-accident time advocating for research to assist those who were in similar conditions, as well as raising millions for care. He also went back to directing and acting and continued his career until he unfortunately passed away at age 52, in 2004.
So seeing the character Superman breaking free of chains isn’t just about DC, it’s about Reeve. It presages everything that the movie lays out over the course of the next hour and 44 minutes, that he became a sort of Superman in real life, as well as in fiction, through his work post-accident.
But there’s also a clear creative reason for including the logo here, beyond the emotional one. The thing that makes this documentary special is that it isn’t just a weepy testament to Reeve’s life, though you will likely cry on and off for most of the runtime. It’s that it also doesn’t shy away from the more complicated aspects of Reeve’s character pre-accident, and advocacy post-accident. The “Man” part of the title is as important as the “Super,” and beyond being informative and well-edited, it’s also a creatively fulfilling and excellently made documentary.
That’s what Gunn has been pushing with DC Studios, that this is less about DC as a franchise and more about DC as a creative engine for telling stories. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, per the title, tells the full story of the man, through archival footage, new interviews, and even his own words thanks to recordings from his autobiographical audiobooks. It’s not just lip service, and it challenges the viewer even as it takes them on an emotional journey. While DC Studios picked this one up at Sundance, versus creating it themselves, Gunn reportedly advocated hard for this to be the first official DC Studios release, and it’s clear why… This sets the tone for the entire enterprise.
And that, in essence, is why the logo debuts in full here. It’s about honoring history while embracing the future. Up, up, and away.
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