DC Animated Watch: DC's League of Super-Pets (2022)

Watched:  08/19/2026

Format:  Disc 4K

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Jared Stern

One of the oddest of casualties of a certain point in time was DC's League of Super-Pets (2022).  

Started before COVID and then, mind-bogglingly, released during COVID as a kids' movie - it seemingly tanked at the box office.  Fun note:  it made $80 million more than Supergirl.

My memory was - people found the advertising very confusing, and the notion of Superman having a *dog* seemed preposterous to the uninitiated.  One wonders how a kid's movie about Krypto would fare now.  

But, it was also part of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's bizarre attempt to wrest control of DC Superhero movies in the wake of Snyder's departure, starting with this cartoon and moving on to the most dull superhero movie of the last decade in Black Adam.  Which, you're just, right now, remembering it exists, right?  

But, yes, Dwayne Johnson voiced Krypto in this movie, and he's actually pretty good for this version of the character - a dog who considers himself a peer/ best-friend of Superman.  It's wildly different from Gunn's take that would be the new, de facto version of Krypto which we'll have for some years to come.*

But with Gunn and Safran taking over DC, they basically asked to clear the decks.  So, despite what was a $200 million box office (I mean, WOW, for a movie most people have never heard of), no sequel was in the offing.  

I like this movie a lot!  Of course, I am a dog guy and like a good animated gag and superheroes, so...  it kind of hits a lot of my buttons.  But it's genuinely pretty funny, great for kids, well-animated, and feels like what a kid-friendly DCU should be and gives DC a sort of Mad-Magazine opportunity to poke fun at itself in a way it can't in the live-action movies.  

The movie also works really well as a plain-ol superhero movie.  Our characters are well defined enough, the villain's plot is diabolical and has a certain logic that escalates and escalates.  

We've also got an all-star cast that actually works pretty well.  Kevin Hart as Ace seems like a bad fit, but he kind of steals the movie.  He's really funny.  Vanessa Bayer as PB the pot-belly pig.  Diego Luna as Chip.  Natasha Lyonne as Merton the tortoise.  Lulu he villain is Kate McKinnon.  We also have Keanu as Batman, John Krasinski as Superman, and more.

I dunno.  I don't have a ton new to say about this, but it may have also been a canary in a coal mine because it seems like kids watched this but greeted it with a collective shrug.  Just another bit of the tsunami of super-hero media.  I mean, three years later Superman was being advertised and people seemed surprised Superman had a dog.  

Meanwhile, thanks to Stuart, this is one of the few movie posters on my walls, and my only superhero movie poster.

*wildly - DC Comics themselves have not capitalized on Krypto-mania and have not shown the dog directly in forever, while putting Krypto on covers of comics for a year straight.  

Anyway, never think the comics branch isn't afraid to leave money on the table.