Ever wonder what would happen if the Joker, Harley Quinn, and Penguin were on Terrace House?
DC Super Heroes vs. Eagle Talon is a 2017 theatrically-released feature film crossover between the Justice League and Japanese anime supervillains Eagle Talon. And you’ve likely never heard of it because, despite being an official DC Entertainment product produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, it’s never been released in the West. This is, to put it bluntly, a tragedy.
Image source: 「秘密結社 鷹の爪」公式 on Twitter
But before we go any deeper into the film itself, you first need to know a bit about Eagle Talon. It’s a long-running flash-animated anime almost entirely produced by a single man: FROGMAN. (Seriously, he is the writer, director, character designer, sound recording engineer, flash animator, editor, and main voice actor.)
The various TV series follows a group of inept supervillains trying to take over the world. It’s members include an M. Bison knockoff, a mad scientist/talking teddy bear, and a strikingly immature masked man known only as “Yamada.” They, along with a creepy kid and a former heavy metal vocalist, find themselves constantly bullied by the corrupt hero Deluxe Fighter in their bid for world domination.
Image source: 「秘密結社 鷹の爪」公式 on Twitter
DC Super Heroes vs. Eagle Talon follows them as they decide to have a yard sale to sell off their old take-over-the-world inventions–which are subsequently all bought by the recently arrived trio of the Joker, Harley Quinn, and Penguin. Of course, three big-name villains suddenly turning up in Tokyo catches the eye of the Justice League who promptly follow.
There’s just one problem. Batman is suffering from an existential crisis and has decided to retire from being a superhero–leaving the League without his experience on the Clown Prince of Crime. Still, with the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman on board, the team decides to face Joker head-on.
Image source: DLE Channel on YouTube
But here’s the trick. While the Justice League may be present, this is an Eagle Talon movie–a movie with a budget to cover cheap, flash-animation–not high budget dynamic action scenes. So before they are even able to fight through all the Joker’s thugs, the team burns through the entire film’s budget–leaving the justice league as nothing more than semi-intelligent crayon scribbles.
Joker, on the other hand, doesn’t need to rely on the film’s budget (thanks to him living with Japanese roommates and having Penguin’s large amount of stolen money to fund him) and is free to put his plans into action. So the Justice League is forced to turn to Eagle Talon and rely on their experience working under a meager budget to try and win. But with Joker having Eagle Talon’s inventions and Penguin having a near-infinite amount of money, how can the heroes win–you know, without Batman and his bat credit card.
As you have likely guessed from the paragraph above, fourth-wall-breaking humor is the film’s bread and butter. In fact, there is literally a gauge on the right side of the screen–constantly decreasing as they spend more and more of the film’s budget.
More than once, Eagle Talon has to stop the film mid-movie and do full-on product advertisements to refill the budget. Moreover, to combat the Joker’s thugs, Eagle Talon creates hybrids of the Justice League members and Yamada–creating low budget superheroes with awesome powers and odd quirks.
Of course, Eagle Talon aren’t the only ones capable of messing with the fourth wall. In the climax of the film, Joker decides to use an idiot ray on FROGMAN himself–making him think it’s a good idea to use the film budget to buy himself things like a new car and an apartment.
But that’s not all the film has to offer in terms of humor. There’s a ton of Japanese wordplay and an overt mockery of the life of a recent graduate/newbie office worker in Japan. But the best joke in the film?
Eagle Talon and the Justice League decide the best way to beat the Joker is to get Batman out of his funk. Their plan? They have Eagle Talon go into the past to save his parents (namely by beating Joe Chill with a baseball bat). With both saved, he becomes Donald Trump (literally). So they try again.
The second time, just Martha is saved, so he becomes an over-protected mama’s boy. The third time, they really mess up and Bruce dies alongside his parents… and, well, that doesn’t fix anything, does it?
DC Super Heroes vs. Eagle Talon is an absolutely hilarious film and it saddens me that, even after three years, there’s no word of an international release. Still, if you can speak Japanese–or if you just want to watch it for the awesome sight gags alone–absolutely give it a watch. You’ll be happy you did.
DC Super Heroes vs. Eagle Talon is available for streaming on Amazon Prime, Google Play, and YouTube in Japan.
Top image source: 「秘密結社 鷹の爪」公式 on Twitter.
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