Somehow the best DC film of the year so far is an animated movie featuring Superman’s dog, Krypto. DC League of Super-Pets was released back in July 2022 and received a solid reception from both audiences and critics. The film stars Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as the voice of Krypto, while The Office star John Krasinski voices Superman himself. Also in the film’s cast is Keanu Reeves as Batman, Kevin Hart as Ace the Bat-Hound, and Kate McKinnon as an evil guinea pig named Lulu.
In addition to its positive reviews, DC League of Super-Pets also did not do too badly financially, nearly making back double its budget. Even the director of the film, Jared Stern, recently talked about the likelihood of a sequel, so it could not have performed too badly.
With all that in mind, let’s unpack the ending of DC League of Super-Pets, and try to come up with a possible angle that a second installment might run with.
What would a DC League of Super-Pets 2 look like?
DC League of Super-Pets was a fun animated look at how Krypto and Ace became friends, while Krypto teamed up with him and some other fun animals to save the Justice League, and finally accept Superman’s relationship with Lois Lane (Olivia Wilde). The two Super-Pets were joined by other superpowered animals like PB (Vanessa Bayer) the potbellied pig who can change her size at will, Merton (Natasha Lyonne) the turtle who has super speed, Chip (Diego Luna) a squirrel who has the power to conjure electricity from his hands, Keith (Thomas Middleditch) a guinea pig who has water powers, and Mark (Ben Schwartz) another guinea pig but this one has fire powers.
Each of these pets ends up pairing with one member of the Justice League with Ace joining Batman, PB joining Wonder Woman (Jameela Jamil), Merton joining The Flash (John Early), Chip joining Jessica Cruz (Dascha Polanco) who is the Green Lantern, Keith joining Aquaman (Jemaine Clement), and Mark joining Cyborg (Daveed Diggs). Throughout DC League of Super-Pets we also see Ace gain super strength, and Lulu gains telekinesis with the latter joining Mercy Graves (Maya Erskine), Lex Luthor’s assistant in the first post-credits scene.
The last post-credits scene in the film sees Dwayne Johnson return not only as Krypto, but also to make his debut as Black Adam and his pet Basenji. This would probably have little bearing on a sequel, but rather acts as a fun nod promoting the upcoming Black Adam film in which Johnson has the starring role. So if the post-credits scene seemingly does not set up a sequel, what thread in the first film could be turned into another entry in the DC League of Super-Pets franchise?
Gotham City
We never did get a glimpse of Gotham City in DC League of Super-Pets, or any of Batman’s villains. So the sequel might see Krypto journey to Gotham to help Ace out with some crime fighting, and go up against some of Batman’s villains. After all, he does have many animal-themed villains like Catwoman, Killer Croc, the Penguin, the Court of Owls, and Man-Bat, among others. The superheroic pets could also go up against the pets of these villains, as even the Joker and Harley Quinn have had pet hyenas in the past, named Bud and Lou. After having Lex Luthor (Marc Maron) as the main human villain of the film and Metropolis as the film’s main setting, it would be nice to see how the pets in Gotham City act and this could be a nice idea for a possible sequel.
Super-Sons
With the end of the film seeing Superman finally propose to Lois Lane, it would be interesting for a sequel to DC League of Super-Pets to have Krypto have adventures with Lois and Clark’s child Jonathan Kent. We did not get much of Krypto growing up with Clark, pretty much only what was on the ship which brought Kal-El to Earth. Jon could also not be born with the powers in the film, with Krypto having to protect the baby, like Baby’s Day Out but with a superpowered dog.
With Ace now working alongside Batman/Bruce Wayne, it would make sense for them to introduce a child counterpart for him as well. This could be one of the Robin’s, and traditionally Jonathan Kent and Damian Wayne – the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al’Ghul – adventure together to form the Super-Sons. It would not be beyond the pale to imagine a sequel for DC League of Super-Pets to have two boys fighting crime with their pet dogs, that seems like an animated film that children would be able to latch on to. Or in addition to this idea, they could introduce Superman’s cousin, Supergirl, and her pet cat who is similar to Krypto named Streaky. This could allow for a Garfield-like plot, where Krypto feels jealous about the new cat in town, maybe even mirroring Superman’s own feelings if they choose to go this way.
DC League of Intergalactic Super-Pets
At the end of the film, as we mentioned previously, the squirrel Chip ends up teaming up with the Green Lantern, even getting a Green Lantern ring of his own. This could possibly lead to a spin-off where Chip is part of a team of pets or alien-like creatures in space. There are different space creatures in the DC Universe, in fact, Chip is supposed to be one of them, as his comic book counterpart is named Ch’p and is from another planet. There is also a Red Lantern named Dex-Starr – who is a cat – who could serve as the villain of this spin-off, as well as the intergalactic being Starro who is an alien starfish.
There are definitely avenues that a sequel or spin-off for DC League of Super-Pets could take. Who knew that the DC universe was so full of animals and villains who use animals in their name? Surely the wait to find out if a sequel or spin-off will be made, will not be too much longer as the film seemingly did well both commercially and critically, and DC seems to be in need of a win.
Catch DC League of Super-Pets when it flies into HBO Max on Sept. 26, 2022.