ANIMATED SHORTS 254: DOING THE JUSTICE LEAGUE

[MattBrady]

DOING THE LEAGUE JUSTICE
Timm & Tucker Talk About New Season…And Just What’s Up With WB Animation?

by Steve Fritz

When we last looked in on the Justice League Unlimited, J’onn Jonz realized he had spent too much time in the Watchtower and decided desert his post and go walkabout on Earth. If that wasn’t enough, a guy named Carter Hall appeared out of the blue claiming to be the reincarnation of Hawkman.

But the big story was Lex Luthor being sprung out of prison by Grodd, and becoming a member of the Legion of Doom.

Then everything stopped. There was talk about JLU returning late fall, then early winter, and now the unofficial word is late spring/early summer 2006.

The clamor from the fans is starting to rise. Just what is happening with the League? If that isn’t enough, there’s a ton of rumors floating about. Among them the end of the Teen Titans series, as well as new shows revolving around Supergirl teaming up with the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Doom Patrol getting their own show, and a Superman-based series similar to the Batman series currently on Kids WB.

As luck would have it, I managed to get interviews with JLU exec producers Bruce Timm and James Tucker (third producer and story man Dwayne McDuffie was on the road when the interviews were done). I bring lots of interesting news, but I won’t deny there’s lots of things left unsaid. One thing is for sure, they felt pretty pleased about the upcoming Legion of Doom arc.

“I blame Dwayne McDuffie. It was his idea,” laughs Timm. “A while back we were just sitting around banging ideas about, and he said ‘we should just do the Legion of Doom!’ I said that we’d done the Legion of Doom. We had the Secret Society and the Injustice Gang. But he said ‘No! We should do the straight-up Legion of Doom with Grodd, Luthor and the other guys living inside Darth Vader’s head.’ We had just finished that last season which was dark and adult-skewing than we had done previously. So after thinking about it we thought it would be a good change of pace.”

“It’s sort of a thing that sort of lingered from the days of the Super Friends,” adds Tucker. “It’s something people who’ve been into the Justice League for years wanted to see. It just seemed like a place we could go now. The last season sort of set it up for us. The Justice League is now a separate and unique entity from the Super Friends after all. Besides, it’s just cool. If we had done them right out when it just premiered, it would have felt been-there-done-that.”

So does this mean the return of the Hall of Justice and Gleep? Don’t think so. After all, this is Justice League Unlimited, not Super-Friends.

“No. The League will still be based in space in the Watchtower like always,” says Timm. “There will be a place on Earth where you can meet the League, and we incorporated some of the architecture from the Hall into it, but that’s about it.

“[As for the Legion of Doom] They are the anti-Justice League Unlimited. It’s Villains Unlimited. It’s anybody and everybody who has ever been a villain in all our previous shows. So it’s a super-sized Secret Society.”

One thing the two did leak out though was Luthor’s hunt for the Spear of Destiny will have no cumulative effect on the show.

“That was a total McGuffin,” says Timm. “It was just a little test of Luthor by Grodd .”

But as for the coming of the Legion, it will do some other, much more surprising, changes to the show.

“Oddly enough, this season is more about the villains than the heroes,” says Timm. “So the heroes will be rotating; whoever works best for whatever story. There are some ongoing story arcs that will be played out, like the Green Lantern/Hawkgirl/Vixen thing. That’s going to get resolved this season. Other than that, it’s more about Luthor. He’s the main character this season.”

“We are going to find out what happened to him after the whole ‘Divided We Fall’ arc,” says Tucker, “after he was fused with Brainiac. It will also give us a chance to see other Justice League characters we haven’t seen before.”

“The truth is he’s one of the few non-powered villains who has proven to be a threat,” says Timm. “The thing about Luthor is we’ve kind of done different versions of him. So much so it’s kind of amazing to think he’s the same guy. He started off as the evil tycoon. Then he became the evil mad scientist. He became respectable again and now he’s cracked. What’s also important is we have the absolutely brilliant Clancy Brown playing him. He can do anything.”

Another important arc will be the upcoming Hawkman arc. While Timm preferred to stay mum on the subject, Tucker was a bit more open.

“Originally, when we started out we couldn’t do Carter Hall,” says Tucker. “We originally had plans to make him the villain of the ‘Starcrossed’ story, but I think fans would have screamed that they felt cheated. Now we have something that feels more true to what he is. We get to do a fairly classic take on Hawkman that also fits into our show.

As for keeping the fans happy, the Hawkman story arc has had fans wondering just what would this do to the ongoing triangle between John Stewart, Vixen and Hawkgirl.

“That would be telling,” Tucker chides. “I will say that John is a very rich, conflicted character. When we first started the Justice League, all the characters were sketchy. People especially didn’t know who John was, and most of the fanboys who did know him, didn’t like him. Part of that was because there were a number of different versions of him, one of which was really namby pamby. We had to define him. So we decided to go with the very hard-tack version of him and then soften him up over time. He comes off as the hard soldier, but you peel back the layers and you find a real human being inside. We did that with Hawkgirl, too. We can’t do something like that with Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.”

Actually, over the six seasons of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, one might have noticed the show went through a lot of change. As far as Tucker was concerned, the show really didn’t hit its stride until very recently. The scene was when the crew thought it would be fun to have Batman and Superman sitting in the Batmobile sipping coffee and making small talk while waiting for a signal from the rest of the team.

“That was Bruce’s idea and it was that one scene that really established the series,” says Tucker. “It’s their friendship, mutual trust yet conflict with each other that carries throughout the Justice League. That’s when we realized that every other member of the Justice League bounces off one of them and not the other. The Justice League is really about the conflict between the Batman side of things and the Superman side. When we put that in with the ‘Twilight’ episode, that really helped.”

“There was a learning curve when we first started. It was funny, too. We tried to not do the things that we had done with the previous shows. We avoided going to our stock way of doing things. Then we went back to putting character in front of action and getting more psychological.”

“Let me also add that it’s also very solid, character-oriented, action-driven stuff,” says Tucker. “It’s not as geo-political as the previous season. It’s going back to what we originally had in mind for Justice League Unlimited, which is an anthology show which focus on specific characters each episode. To keep things going the way of the Cadmus arc would have worked against us. Even The X-Files had its funny episodes.”

It was when the conversation turned to the future of the series that things got a lot hazier.

“We’re thinking about it,” says Tucker. “We usually work like each season could be our last. That way we make sure that each episode is its best.”

But the rumor mill is going ballistic regarding this being the last season of Justice League, period. Even though it appears to be one of Cartoon Network’s most popular shows, there are some other mitigating factors to consider. Probably the biggest is that Timm, who has been involved with the DC Animated universe since it’s inception, has apparently been thinking of doing some different work. It should be noted the man’s resume goes at least as far back as the film The Secret of N.I.M.H, where he was an animator under the legendary Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.

“I started working on the Batman series back in 1990, so it’s been 15 years,” says Timm. “It’s been fun! I’m a hardcore geek so this has been my dream job.”

For me, probably the most telling piece was an interview with Timm after the completion of the second season of JL. At that time he made one very astonishing confession. He was physically exhausted, even back then.

From there, things start to move much more into rumor and less into hardcore fact.

Now it’s personal confession time, I’ve managed to get into a lot of trouble speculating on rumors. Let me explain.

In the infancy of this column (when it was originally called “Tooned In” for the late Combo magazine), I took a hard one on the chin, oddly enough about Justice League. At that time, 1995-6, Superman: The Animated Series, was at its peak, and some considerably reliable sources said that Timm and company were working on a JL series.

The howls of denial were so incredible I couldn’t believe it. I got calls from even the top brass at DC and Warner Bros., demanding to know who my sources were. I was even pilloried in other magazines for the piece.

Fact is, I was right, even though it put a serious strain on my relationship with both WB Animation and DC for some time to come (and I personally still refuse to talk to DC, but that’s for other reasons, too).

Well, truth be told, those same sources are telling me some interesting things now. The main thing is WB Animation is working on a slew of DC-related shows. Among them are Supergirl & The Legion of Super-Heroes, a new version of Superman (probably the most likely), a Doom Patrol series, and also there has been some talk about either a Brave & Bold or World’s Finest spin-off. What’s known is there is a Supergirl/Legion episode scripted and apparently running this season of JLU (It was written by Paul Dini, no less). In recent interviews I’ve done, WB veterans Glen Murakami and Alan Burnett have told me they would love to do a Doom Patrol series (and, according to my source, at least one of them is). As for Brave & Bold/World’s Finest?

“I don’t know about those, but I’d watch them,” Tucker admitted when asked directly.

Here’s what I also know. When questioning both Warner Bros. and CN regarding the end of both the Teen Titans and the Justice League, both groups jumped on the defensive. CN, in particular, didn’t want me to think things were done with the Titans no matter what was being said. As proof they pointed out how the Titans had been moved to their new slot on the Miguzi afternoon block. As one of the channel’s most popular shows that does give me cause to pause.

Personal speculation, supplemented by sources, makes me think we will be seeing more Titans and JL in some form or another. What will determine the future of the League will be the ratings of this upcoming season. As for everything else, I’ll be sitting back and waiting.

On one final note, the Warners did tell me there is going to be a lot of announcements, in fact three sets of them, coming from them in the very near future. The first will be delivered during WonderCon this February 24-25. The second will be during the upfront sessions that will be held by Kids WB and CN on March 1. The last set will be around the middle of the March.

So, yeah, we’ll have to wait until that time. But then again, I’d much prefer to work with hardcore facts than what’s floating about the net these days.


NEXT COLUMN: A very bold and brave new show is coming to Nickelodeon this February that’s sure to smack both anime and American cartoons squarely in the head. Called Kappa Mikey, it’s a fresh idea from a fresh new studio called Animators Collective. We talk with the Collective’s leader, Larry Schwartz, for the entire scoop.

[c_andrew_s]

This is a great show... thanks for the article!!

[KyleCowstar]

Never cancel JLU or Teen Titans!!!!!!!!

[Hutchimus Pr]

Where is that picture of the Doom Patrol from? Is it from an upcoming episode of Justice League or from the Teen Titans episode?

[M Intensity]

Originally posted by KyleCowstar
Never cancel JLU or Teen Titans!!!!!!!!

Well, Titans is already cancelled. Great but unusal final episode, which will be rerun on Saturday at 8 PM.

M Intensity

[Randy Hassan]

I've already pre-ordered all the season sets (Titans, JL, Batman Beyond) coming out on DVD. Trying to support 'em all I can.

I'm sharing it all with my seven-year-old son, and feeling like I'm raising him right.

Long live DC animation.

[algertman]

JLU is an amazing show. An action cartoon that can appeal to everyone regardless or age, gender, or whatever.

[HomerJimmy]

i hope when this series does end they collect it like they have done with batman and superman. i have 3 of the 4 volumes for batman:tas and the commentaries rock on it. i like that they are finally doing certain episodes but i would love to see the whole series collected as well. the only sad thing is when this does go off the air. no kevin conroy as batman. to me he is the batman

[ticknart]

This year is the first time since I was six that I've had cable, back then there was no Cartoon Network, and I've been waiting and waiting to see the Justice League cartoon. Is there any concrete information on when the show is going to start back up? Even in reruns? Is it being shown in reruns and I just don't know about it?

[Clem]

I'm kind of conflicted when it comes to the subject of Bruce Timm. On one hand i can understand that he's been working in the same DCAU for 15 years now and wants a change. But on the other hand i want to keep him in slave labour producing these shows til the end of days. I know all good things come to an end, but it sure does suck when they do. I still feel bitter that Angel was cancelled like two years ago now.

[Spaz_Monkey]

Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond, Justice League, JLU, Teen Titans... As long as the Dini-verse continues, even without the shows/characters we've known since 1990, I think we're guarenteed quality shows.

The last 2 seasons of Teen Titans are far superior to the first season. It's gone from random bad guys (The fat remote-control guy, Mad freakin Mod, etc) to longer story arcs, better story telling, better villians and all around better quality.

I'm not worried about losing TT & JLU (pissed? yeah. worried? no), because I know the Dini-verse will continue with the same quality we've come to know over the last decade-and-a-half.

[Kolimar]

Great article. I'm looking forward to all of the announcements.

Originally posted by KyleCowstar
Never cancel JLU or Teen Titans!!!!!!!!

I agree with the feeling but the rational part of my brain (I will succed in killing you with alcohol some day damn you ) tells me that, eventually, all shows have to go. Oh well. The good thing is he also tells me that there will always be new shows to replace the old ones (that makes me glad I haven't succeeded yet).

[zamuel]

I've got a sneaking suspicion that Teen Titans is going to get several direct to DVD releases like the Batman series did. And I hate to rant but, WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL WB/CN TO RELEASE THE REST OF THE STATIC SHOCK EPISODES ON DVD?

[rufus]

I'm guessing one of their "big announcements" will be the season one box sets of JL and BB which can already be pre-ordered on amazon.

[Kolimar]

Originally posted by MicroZone
Cancelling Titans & JLU has made Carton Network even more loathesome in my book than Joe Quesada's Marvel regime for the cancellation of Spider-girl & the monthly anal raping that they still allow JMS to do to Spider-man.

Ouch.

[MadBandit]

Originally posted by Hutchimus Pr
Where is that picture of the Doom Patrol from? Is it from an upcoming episode of Justice League or from the Teen Titans episode?

It's from the Titans's fifth season two-part opener, introducing the Doom Patrol and the Brotherhood of Evil.

[eh_ver]

um...this interview was great, but its just going to make me sad if we don't hear something about the future of the show soon. I love this show. Love it. I really hope it can at least wrap up this season.

[j2lepew]

JLU is by far my favorite animated series right now. Yes, I like the Teen Titans and hate that it has been cancelled. And, yes, I have come to like The Batman (I still prefer the Dini version, though).

Still, if JLU is one of Cartoon Network's highest rated shows, then it bewilders me that the network does not repeat the episodes. Very few of the episodes from last season were ever repeated, and there were a couple that I missed due to situations beyond my control--like weather. And with the series not being present in some form, such as in repeats, one would think that the show would lose viewers. Many shows have been canceled on other networks for the way the networks themselves would bounce the shows around from one time-slot to another, sometimes not even announcing or barely announcing the changes. The Cartoon Network is also bad about not advertising any changes or even advertising upcoming episodes. It frustrated me that I missed the series finale of Teen Titans on Monday afternoon. When I could have known about it if it had advertised during the Teen Titans episode on Saturday.

Still, JLU is an excellent series with many classic moments. The Booster Gold episode is hilarious. Of course, the humor the Flash adds at times is pure gold too. It is shame that we all have to wait until the spring/summer for more episodes and have to see silly anime like Bobo-bo-booboo (or whatever the heck it's called). Well, let me just say, I'm not watching that Bobo-ba-boohoo-baba-blacksheep (or whatever it's called).

[Noreikas]

I'd like to see one more season of TEEN TITANS. I liked that they debuted so many of the various Titans characters this year. I'd like one more season so they can have Donna Troy (finally!) make an appearance, and perhaps debut Lilith, Flamebird, Aquagirl, Golden Eagle, Hawk and Dove.


As for JLU - I'd love to see them keep that up for several more years.

A new Superman cartoon makes sense with the movie coming out....hopefully they'll consider a Wonder Woman cartoon around her movie as well.

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes could be interesting. Doom Patrol has a lot of potential. And a new Shazam series would be amazing.

[j2lepew]

oh, btw, if the John Stewart Green Lantern has layers, are these layers like those from an onion? If so, we know the secret behind the green in the Green Lantern.

[WC Brooks]

All I know is after everything is said and done I want to thank Mr. Timm and his associates for the all the hard work and fun they put into all their respective series.

And a very heart-felt thanks for "In Blackest Night" and "Twilight".

I have been waiting 30+ years for the conclusion of "Night". John Stewart has more than earned the right to be in the League.

And to see Superman not only kick Darkseid's ass but to shut up Batman????

Now that's Superman.


Thanks to all. And keep 'em coming!

[jedifish]

Great column. Very interesting insight.

[John Cage]

Great interview, but way too short. I don't normally read this column, but do they always end with long editorials? I would have preferred more from Mssrs. Timm and Tucker.

Have a good day.
John Cage

[loiosh]

I have cartoon network, and I can never find when this is on?!
Its so bad, even the CN website doesnt give a day and time? what up wit dat?

[dryponder]

Man, I really hope Teen Titans isn't done for good. I love that show so much.