Superman/Batman Public Enemies: the 2009 animated film explained

Superman/Batman Public Enemies: the film at a glance

The original title is Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. In France, the film is called Superman/Batman : Ennemis publics. It's an American animated feature, the sixth entry in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line, a series of DC films produced for home video. It never played in movie theaters: not in the United States, and not in France either.

Sam Liu directed it. Stan Berkowitz wrote the screenplay, based on the comic by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness. Bruce Timm was executive producer, Christopher Drake composed the music and Andrea Romano directed the voice cast. In the United States, the film is rated PG-13. Its runtime varies from one listing to the next: AlloCiné shows 1 hr 05 min, Rotten Tomatoes 1 hr 15 min. Most sources, starting with IGN, give 67 minutes, credits included.

The slash in the title comes from the comic. Superman/Batman is a DC series published from 2003 to 2011, in which the two heroes share top billing. The film adapts its very first arc, and with it the series' core idea: a single story, two heroes, the same enemy.

Lex Luthor, President of the United States: the starting point

The film opens on an America hit by a severe economic crisis. Lex Luthor, Superman's archenemy, has just been elected president. And the economy bounces back. In an interview published by CBR on September 30, 2009, Sam Liu sums it up this way: Luthor turns the economy around, at least partly.

The film doesn't dwell on the election: its opening strings together the crisis, a few clips from the campaign and a newspaper article on Luthor's victory, on screen for just a few seconds. In the comics, Luthor is elected in Superman: Lex 2000 #1, cover-dated January 2001. All of Lex Luthor's presidency has its own article on this blog. Just remember this: the film rushes through the campaign in a few shots, then the plot kicks off in the middle of his term.

Luthor assembles a team of heroes employed by the government: Captain Atom, Katana, Black Lightning, Power Girl, Starfire and Major Force. They work for the state, and therefore for him. Superman and Batman, for their part, remain wary. That initial suspicion drives the whole story.

The kryptonite meteor and the trap set in Gotham

The threat comes from space. The government spots a huge meteor made of kryptonite, a rock from Krypton, hurtling toward Earth. Luthor bets on nuclear missiles. Amanda Waller, one of his aides, advises him to also call on the superheroes, who now work for the government. Luthor refuses.

Meanwhile, Luthor reaches out to Superman. He offers him a truce and a meeting in Gotham, Batman's city. It's an ambush. Metallo, one of Superman's enemies, is waiting for him there, and the fight breaks out at once.

In the brawl, Metallo is killed by a radioactive blast. That blast is disguised to look like Superman's heat vision. The trap is set: a dead man, a ready-made culprit, and faked footage to prove it.

A billion-dollar bounty on Superman

Luthor goes on television. He accuses Superman of Metallo's murder, with footage to back it up. He adds that the kryptonite radiation could be clouding the Man of Steel's judgment. Then he puts a billion-dollar bounty on Superman. Batman, who refuses to abandon his friend, is treated as an accomplice.

The hunt begins. First, an army of supervillains attacks, drawn by the money. Then come the heroes from Luthor's team, this time in the name of the law. Superman and Batman are now two fugitives, pursued by criminals and government heroes alike.

Power Girl is part of Luthor's government team. She's torn, and ends up helping the two heroes. Batman, meanwhile, looks for the real shooter. He pushes Major Force into confessing that he killed Metallo, on Luthor's orders. The fight is settled when Power Girl pierces Major Force's suit and Captain Atom absorbs his energy.

Tokyo, Toyman and the final battle against Luthor

The nuclear missiles fail: the meteor's radiation destroys them. Waller then uncovers a secret. Luthor is injecting himself with a serum made from a steroid and liquid kryptonite. Worse, he wants to let the meteor hit Earth so he can rebuild the world around himself. Luthor erases the meteor data, but Waller passes a copy on to the two heroes.

Batman, Superman and Power Girl head to Tokyo to find Hiro Okamura, a Japanese teenager nicknamed Toyman. This Toyman is an ally of the heroes. He isn't Winslow Schott, the criminal Toyman of the classic comics. Hiro has built a rocket shaped like a giant robot, half Superman, half Batman, to destroy the meteor.

Luthor shows up in armor, equipped with kryptonite weapons. He takes down the heroes and sabotages the rocket's remote guidance, so it can no longer launch on its own. Batman then decides to pilot it himself, despite Superman's objections. He destroys the meteor and comes back aboard an escape pod. Superman, for his part, knocks Luthor out of the fight with a line that, in the original version, goes: “Consider yourself... impeached.” In other words: consider yourself removed from office.

The ending puts everything back in order. Superman is cleared. Luthor is arrested, awaiting trial and impeachment. Lois Lane is reunited with Superman.

The original voices of Superman/Batman Public Enemies

The voice cast brings together a familiar trio. Tim Daly voices Superman, Kevin Conroy voices Batman, Clancy Brown voices Lex Luthor. Warner's press release of June 29, 2009, stresses this point: all three return to the voices they provided in Superman: The Animated Series and in Batman: The Animated Series. The three had already crossed paths in “World's Finest,” episodes of the Superman series first aired in the United States on October 4, 1997. Kevin Conroy died on November 10, 2022, at age 66.

Around them, CCH Pounder plays Amanda Waller, Xander Berkeley Captain Atom, Ricardo Chavira Major Force, John C. McGinley Metallo and LeVar Burton Black Lightning. Power Girl is voiced by Allison Mack, the actress who played Chloe Sullivan in Smallville. Calvin Tran voices Hiro Okamura, Alan Oppenheimer voices Alfred and Jennifer Hale voices Starfire.

Two name traps. Corey Burton voices Captain Marvel, the DC hero now known as Shazam, not to be confused with Marvel's Captain Marvel. And Michael Gough, the voice of Hawkman and Captain Cold, is an American voice actor, not the British actor who played Alfred in the 1989 Batman. A final nod: producer Bruce Timm lends his voice to Mongul.

US release, French release and French dub

In the United States, the film came out on September 29, 2009, straight to DVD (single- and two-disc editions), on Blu-ray and on video on demand. In France, you had to wait until September 1, 2010: Warner Home Video released it on DVD, once again without a theatrical run. So nearly a year separates the two releases.

An error lingers on some French listings: these dates are filed under the label “au cinéma” (in theaters). Yet the film never had a theatrical release, either in the United States or in France. If you're looking for it, home video is where you need to look.

In the French version, Emmanuel Jacomy voices Superman, Adrien Antoine voices Batman and Marc Alfos voices Lex Luthor. Jacques Ciron lends his voice to Alfred, Jean-Claude Donda to Captain Atom. Dubbing fans, watch out for the trap: Adrien Antoine, whose career as the French voice of Superman you can read about, plays Batman here, not the Man of Steel.

The Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness comic

The film adapts issues #1 to #6 of the Superman/Batman series. The arc is called “The World's Finest,” or “Public Enemies.” Jeph Loeb writes, Ed McGuinness draws, Dexter Vines inks and Dave Stewart handles the colors. The covers are dated from October 2003 for #1 to March 2004 for #6. Issue #1 hit stores as early as August 2003 and ranked third in sales that month.

The series has a signature: alternating thought captions, one voice for Superman, one for Batman. The reader keeps switching from one hero's head to the other's. To place this arc within the history of their alliance, the dedicated article goes over everything from the very beginning.

In France, the arc first appeared from Semic under the title Au service du monde (In the Service of the World), in the Superman magazine (#5 to #8, in 2004), then in a collected edition. Urban Comics reissued it in January 2016 in volume 1 of Superman/Batman, which collects #1 to #13, including the following arc devoted to Supergirl (#8 to #13). Au service du monde is therefore the story the film adapts under the title Public Enemies.

What the film changes from the comic

In his CBR interview, Sam Liu explains that he wanted to stay almost entirely faithful to the comic whenever possible. Storyboard artist Adam Van Wyk reused panels from the comic for the big fight scenes, and IGN notes that the film keeps Ed McGuinness's bulky style. But 67 minutes means making cuts.

First change: the accusation. In the comic, Luthor blames Superman for the asteroid and accuses him of crimes against humanity. In the film, it's Metallo's murder. IGN, on September 24, 2009, found that motive more logical. The Superman from the future and Green Lantern (John Stewart) are gone, as are the alternating thought captions. As for the asteroid “the size of Brazil,” that's a detail from the comic, not from the film.

The ending changes too. In the comic, Captain Atom pilots the robot and seems to vanish: in reality, he's hurled into the WildStorm universe, as revealed in Captain Atom: Armageddon #1 (cover-dated December 2005). Luthor fights in armor from Apokolips, the world of Darkseid, loses the fight and flees. Impeached, he leaves the presidency to his vice president, Pete Ross. In the film, Batman pilots it and comes back, and Luthor is arrested.

The film's reception and the Apocalypse sequel

Critics are divided. IGN (Dan Iverson and Phil Pirrello, September 24, 2009) gives it 8 out of 10, while regretting the loss of the inner monologues and an overly convenient ending. Comics Worth Reading (KC Carlson, October 5, 2009) finds the adaptation fairly faithful, but points out weaknesses in the animation and the storytelling. Moria (Richard Scheib, July 3, 2010) is harsher: 2.5 stars out of 5 and a story judged thin, loaded with nods to the fans.

On video, the film sold well. In November 2009, the site The World's Finest reported more than 300,000 DVDs sold in four weeks in the United States, according to retailers and independent studies, not counting rentals, video on demand, downloads and high definition. The Numbers, checked on October 19, 2026, estimates its US home video sales at about $11 million. As for French audiences, AlloCiné shows 3.7 out of 5 (232 ratings) and SensCritique 6.2 out of 10, two scores noted on October 19, 2026.

That success on video paved the way for a sequel, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, directed by Lauren Montgomery from the arc “The Supergirl from Krypton,” released in the United States on September 28, 2010, and covered in detail in its own article.

Conclusion

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies tells, in 67 minutes, a story that's easy to follow: a lying president, a meteor, a billion-dollar bounty and two hunted heroes. The film keeps the voice trio from the 1990s animated series and tightens Loeb and McGuinness's comic around Metallo's murder.

Released on video in the United States in 2009, then on DVD in France a year later, it launched the sequel Apocalypse. To place it among the Man of Steel's other films, the Superman movie watch order will help you get your bearings.