With Justice League coverage about to begin and a gap in the schedule I thought it best to create a one-stop-shop for notes on the show’s creation and defining how I’ll be covering it.
Why a Primer?
Generally I write a few paragraphs about the conception of each show and put them at the top of the first episode. This time around I decided to do something a little different, mostly because the scheduling of the reviews annoyed me a little so I needed an extra thing to even them out. But this show is also a pretty radical departure from how things have worked for the history of The Matt Signal to date, so I wanted to establish how I’ll be going about things in one easily linkable place.
Background
I have seen extremely conflicting reports about how much Bruce Timm and his team wanted to do a Justice League show. I’ve read that they asked to do that instead of either STAS or more BTAS. I’ve seen comments that the original pitch for their Superman show would feature a different League member as a guest each episode. And I’ve seen claims they were vehemently against trying a team-up show. I do know Bruce Timm was more of a Marvel guy and thought most of the DC characters were boring and one dimensional. I could see that swinging things in either direction, as variety would prevent him having to drill any one character for too much depth, but it could also speak to a disinterest from straying too far from the heaviest hitters.
Whatever the truth, with both Batman and Superman’s shows having wound down, and Batman Beyond getting towards the end of its life cycle too, they did the two-part episode ‘The Call‘ which depicted the JL team of the future and really scratched their creative itches for a team-up show.
Initially pitching the show to Kids’ WB, the network weren’t into what they put together despite helping negotiate the rights during development and even giving them the idea for their late-series twist. Frustrated, Timm believed he could get the show green-lit instantly at Cartoon Network and was proven correct, enjoying the most creative freedom of any DCAU show to date. This emboldened them to not include any young/junior members of the team as they wanted to steer far away from the tone of Super Friends.
In order to juggle so many characters they made (almost) every episode a multi-parter for maximum breathing room, determined to give them distinct personalities to allow for proper group dynamics. They were extremely keen to avoid the original era of Justice League stories (and Super Friends) where the members were all generic good guys, functionally interchangeable. In order to enhance this even further, Andrea Romano ensured the cast recorded their lines together as a group.
The show premiered on November 17th 2001 and became the most watched show in Cartoon Network history, a record that stood for almost a decade.
Characters
This is more about why the characters were chosen and any notes/trivia on their pitch for them than an attempt to act as character bios. I don’t think the average viewer would need those. Comment if you want them though!
Batman
Old faithful. Pretty much unchanged from BTAS (or more specifically TNBA), you’ll rarely be seeing Bruce out of the Cape and Cowl. His costume was changed every so slightly to elongate the ears, while otherwise acting as somewhat of a synthesis of the previous designs.
This is more of a JLU thing but I don’t plan on doing one of these for that show, so let’s talk about ‘The Bat-Embargo’. Purported to come more from the comics side than Warner Bros., the impending release of The Batman cartoon and Batman Begins meant the DCAU could not use any Batman characters planned for these projects other than Batman himself. Joker is going to appear in Justice League, but by the time of JLU it would become quite a nuisance, forcing a few episodes to be changed. Ironically this prevented them from using the original Legion of Doom lineup, which featured Scarecrow and The Riddler, who themselves only made the cut decades earlier because of a similar embargo that took the biggest names off the table.
In-universe this is also partially explained by Batman explicitly calling himself a part-time member. This gave them an easy get-out for him to not appear in every episode… though he does end up in the vast majority of JL episodes.
Superman
Tim Daly was unfortunately unavailable to reprise his role due to commitments to The Fugitive, so was replaced by George Newbern, who has since become the longest tenured Superman actor.
The creative team mostly utilised Superman as a punching bag to demonstrate the might of the villains the League would be facing. So get ready for a lot of Superman being taken down really quickly for shock value. Fans hated this, complaining he was too weak, so he got a power boost (or rather just stopped getting beaten up so much) for Season 2.
Superman got a redesign, looking a little blockier and altogether older and tireder, with squinty eyes and a grey streak in his hair. Fans hated this too, so he would regain his classic look from Season 2. This decision was said to come from Glen Murakami & James Tucker with Bruce Timm preferring they just keep the STAS look in the first place.
As noted in ‘Legacy’, Darkseid brainwashing Superman to become a destructive force and the US Military turning against him was intended to serve as an ongoing plot point for STAS. With that show brought to a close those elements find their way to this series and the sequel series, with Clark still struggling with his PR and feeling The League would help.
Wonder Woman
Bruce Timm had difficulty obtaining the rights to even use Wonder Woman, which is presumably why she didn’t get a guest appearance in STAS while so many others did. It is believed Joss Whedon’s god-awful Wonder Woman script is what caused the troubles. This is also why she is missing in ‘The Call‘, with Big Barda used as a substitute. In the tie-in comics Diana would be added to the team as well because you should never have to choose between two queens.
They did want to give Diana a full origin story but were strapped for time so beat Patty Jenkins to the punch by having Diana simply steal the Wonder Woman paraphernalia and sneak off in the night rather than winning the contest against her fellow Amazons, as was tradition in the comics.
The creative team wanted to harness more Greek mythology rather than going the Linda Carter route. Thus Susan Eisenberg was instructed to play Diana as equal parts toug, regal and compassionate.
Flash
I covered this exhaustively in ‘Speed Demons‘, but while the creative team wrote their version of The Flash in STAS to be Wally West, he’s never actually named or unmasked. This time around his personality being brought even more in line with Wally’s, and we’ll eventually learn definitively that it is Wally West under the mask.
Michael Rosenbaum replaces Charlie Schlatter. The voice actor change gave them an out to claim it was Barry Allen in STAS and is now Wally in JL, but alas, no. Just a different actor and slightly different personality. And a very minor suit redesign.
The wonderful folks at Watchtower Database did a video on if Barry Allen even exists in the DCAU.
Green Lantern
Despite debuting Kyle Rayner in STAS, Bruce Timm originally wanted the DCAU Green Lantern to be John Stewart but was told no by Warner Bros. As highlighted above, Cartoon Network were entirely more relaxed about such things, so Stewart gets the call-up. Phil LeMarr has noted Timm made a point of not wanting the show to be seven white dudes saving the world.
But where is Kyle? Well, John was previously assigned to another sector as 2814 (aka Earth et al) was assigned to Abin Sur. When Sinestro killed Sur, John officially inherited the sector while Kyle was sent for further training and then given another sector to patrol. Get it? Got it? Good!
The DCAU creative team altered Stewart’s personality and background, changing him from an architect to an ex-marine. This version proved so popular that the comics would emulate it and even update his costume to closer match this one.
Stewart’s eyes glow green, which Bruce Timm claims is because of how long he’s served as a Lantern. He also almost never has to recharge his Power Ring to the annoyance of literally just me it seems.
Hawkgirl
Similar to ensuring John Stewart was Green Lantern for diversity, Bruce Timm wanted to make sure there wasn’t just one woman on the team, hence Hawkgirl getting the nod over the more famous Hawkman, or the most obvious choice, Aquaman, who got a STAS set-up.
Like many of the DCAU characters, Hawkgirl is a bit of an amalgamation of previous comic versions with their own flare on top. In the Golden Age she and Hawkman are ancient Egyptian lovers fated to constantly reincarnate as heroes, while in the Silver Age they were cops from the planet Thanagar. The latter is used more than the former here, but the reincarnation aspect will eventually find its way in down the line.
Maria Canalis was cast in part due to her accent, as the creative team wanted to make sure she stood out from the rest of the team as an alien. When other Thanagarians are brought in later in the series they were also voiced by hispanic actors.
Martian Manhunter
Carl Lumbly had an incredible challenge on his hands as the great Andrea Romano kept insisting he take the emotion out of his voice when playing J’onn J’onzz. Much like Michael Ansara with Mr. Freeze. This direction would be gradually lifted as J’onn grows throughout the series.
The name ‘Martian Manhunter’ is only used once in the entire series. Unclear if the creative team thought it was too goofy (despite his visual design), too much of a mouthful, or that it had an unintended nefarious sound to it.
The trademark Martian weakness to fire is never really made official in the show, but there are some subtle hints here and there. The other trademark of having way too many powers is still here though, don’t worry!
Similar to how all the Thanagarians are voiced by Hispanic actors, all Martians would be voiced by Black actors in the series.
Review Plan
Two-Parters
One of the creators’ worries when trying to put together an ensemble show was how they’d find time for seven characters and any villains and guest characters for the story of the week. Their solution was to make every episode a two-parter.
If you’ve been following the site for a long time you’ll know multi-parters always gave me trouble, because generally Part I is all story, so I gush about the elevated writing, pacing and atmosphere, while Part II tends to be all action, so you get some slick animation and extended fight sequences. Both sound good right? Well, no, because it also means each part lacks what the other has, which tended to hurt both halves compared to the whole. This led to things like neither Part of ‘Robin’s Reckoning‘ doing terrifically well, even though I’d agree if you combined them they’re excellent. After suffering through that dilemma for all of BTAS, TNBA and Beyond, I switched to considering them a single episode in STAS.
Naturally with all but one of the JL episodes being multi-parters, I’ll be keeping the STAS approach. That means the episode will get a placement on the list after Part I, but it can move up or down based on the quality of the later part(s).
So you’ll see one of the following next to every episode: (NEW ENTRY), (↑), (↓) or (–)
Air-Date vs Production Date
It’s pretty clear that BTAS was aired in a ridiculous order and only crazy people wouldn’t follow the production order. Home media releases have long-since favoured production order, as if the various continuity issues and splitting up two-parters with explicit cliffhangers weren’t enough to convince you.
The same held true in Batman Beyond (which I covered before STAS), albeit with a slightly less dramatic divergence. You still had stuff like characters meeting for the first time that the air date order would ruin though, so I stuck with prod order.
When I started STAS I had originally planned to keep going as I had been, but the differences became even more minimal, and what little there was actually favoured air-date for the first time, so that’s how I did that.
Justice League is similar, with only one difference in Season One: the placement of ‘Injustice For All’. Unfortunately this creates a continuity error, as Lex’s Injustice Gang would already be together if you followed Air-Date order… so Production it is!
Schedule
New episodes will release every Saturday and Sunday (2pm GMT/9am EST). See the full show page for updated schedules and links obviously. I sometimes like to do something else between seasons so won’t commit to the schedule past the first season.
Season One
- Secret Origins (March 2nd, 8th and 9th)
- In Blackest Night (March 15th-16th)
- The Enemy Below (March 22nd-23rd)
- Injustice for All (March 29th-30th)
- Paradise Lost (April 5th-6th)
- War World (April 12th-13th)
- The Brave and the Bold (April 19th-20th)
- Fury (April 26th-27th)
- Legends (May 3rd-4th)
- A Knight of Shadows (May 10th-11th)
- Metamorphosis (May 17th-18th)
- The Savage Time (May 24th, 25th and 31st)
Season One Review (June 1st)
Rogues Roundup
Historically I’ve highlighted every villain that had a remotely meaningful role in the plot, including a picture from the episode and assessed their placement on the overall rankings. A larger team of heroes means they’re often fighting a larger set of villains, so I’m going to be far more conservative with the Rogues Roundup.
Some will still get that treatment, but in the event there are some goons who just take a punch or two and barely speak… they may have to get ignored. Sorry. Others may get a ranking but no picture. I just really need to protect myself ahead of JLU where the number of villains is going to explode.
The Matt Signal 