(Cartoon Network, November 26, 2016-June 3, 2018)
Shane Glines served as the
series’ character designer. He was
told that the show was meant to be “fun, not funny”, so he used big and
simple shapes that popped immediately with minimalist color palettes that best
represented each character. He largely had free reign except for the edict that
Superman couldn’t have his traditional trunks in keeping with his appearance in
the new films (Bizarro, however, was free to have them as he was Superman’s
total opposite). Additionally, he had to town down the sexiness in the initial
designs of Zatanna,
namely her bust size, and Star
Sapphire, who had a barely-there costume. Glines posting his various
designs to his Instagram account revealed
that Batgirl had been planned to appear, but never did outside of the set of 8 McDonald’s Happy Meal toys.
Justice League Action’s
first episode was shown at San Diego
Comic Con in 2016, before later making its television debut on Cartoon Network; November 26 in the
United Kingdom and December 16 in North America. The show’s title logo and
initials were inspired by the original Justice League of America logo
used on the comics for the first two
volumes. Each episode was only 11 minutes long, putting greater emphasis on
the humor and action with a quick pace over character development and deep
plots. The majority of them also made their debuts in international markets
before hitting US airwaves. Additionally, 22 shorts running under 3-minutes
were released onto the DC
Kids YouTube channel. One of those shorts, “Missing the Mark”, was a
showcase for Hamill and featured the actor himself interacting with all three
of his Action characters.
The series was written by Patrick Rieger, Heath Corson, Paul Dini, Duane Capizzi, Josie Campbell, Shannon
Denton, Jeremy Adams, Matt Wayne, Stan Berkowitz, Ernie Altbacker, Mairghread Scott, Jonathan Callan, Ray Utamachitt, Jim Krieg, Jennifer Muro, Brian Ford Sullivan, Geoffrey Thorne, John Semper, Tim Sheridan, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg, Lauren Certo, Eric Carrasco, Akira “Mark” Fujita and Kevin Rubio. Dini was given a
chance to revisit a pitch for Batman:
The Animated Series with the episode “Garden of Evil”; an
episode shelved because Swamp Thing was unavailable for use. Speaking of Batman,
this series aired during the 25th anniversary of both Conroy and
Hamill’s respective performances as Batman and the Joker. Kevin Riepl composed the series’ music
while animation was handled by DR Movie, Digital eMation
and SIMP co. Ltd.
Unfortunately, the very nature of
the series ended up working against it in the end. The production of the Justice
League movie was troubled. After the negative reception to Batman v Superman,
Warner Bros. was having doubts over
the direction of the DC
Extended Universe (DCEU) and its ability to compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They put Geoff Johns and Jon Berg in charge of
production of the franchise, and Johns would announce that the film would be
more “hopeful and optimistic” than the previous films. Unhappy with how
director Zack Snyder’s work
was shaping up (going so far as to declare it “unwatchable”), the film
underwent numerous rewrites during filming; which rubbed screenwriter Chris Terrio the wrong
way (leading him to unsuccessfully petition to have his name removed from
the final film). When Snyder left
during post-production to deal with the death of his daughter, Joss Whedon was hired to take
over and eventually oversaw two months of reshoots with the intent of bringing
it closer to the highly successful Avengers film
he helmed. Additionally, WB refused to delay the film’s release in order to
ensure that executives would receive their cash bonuses before
the merger with AT&T. The result was a
mishmash of the directors’ contrasting styles that left reviewers mixed and
audiences underwhelmed. And the less said about the poor CGI
removal of Superman actor Henry
Cavill’s mustache from his role in Mission: Impossible –
Fallout, the better.
All of this led to WB quickly
abandoning Justice League Action. The series received little to no
promotion on the network. Episodes were quickly burned through over the next
year, with the last few being held over until the start of summer in 2018.
After that, it disappeared with very little fanfare. Fans of the show, as well
as the
actors themselves, were left in question as to the ultimate fate of the
series. But, with the DCEU in chaos and ratings insufficient, it became
increasingly likely that WB quietly cancelled the series; fittingly ending it
at 52 episodes (not counting the shorts), which tended to be a default number for DC Comics.
Mattel
produced a line of action
figures and vehicles in a 4-inch scale that was initially only available at
Toys R Us (but gradually found its way
into other stores) and in
a 12-inch scale that was more widely available. Burger King also released 6 toys of their own in
their restaurants. BKOM Studios
released a mobile endless runner game called Justice
League Action Run. The Cartoon Network website also hosted three web
games: Orbital Chase, a Candy
Crush-type game; Nuclear Rescue, a platformer that required you to
switch between Leaguers at various points; and a coloring program. In
2018, Warner
Bros. Home Entertainment released the complete series across two
DVD sets. The series was made available to purchase on Prime
Video, Google
Play and Apple
TV, and could be streamed on Cartoon Network’s website.
Kevin Conroy, signing his iconic role. |
Sadly, this was the last time
Conroy would voice Batman regularly in a series. He had several more outings
with the character in an episode of Teen Titans Go!
and Scooby-Doo and
Guess Who?, the video games LEGO DC Super-Villains
and MultiVersus,
the animated movie Justice
League vs. the Fatal Five, and made his only live-action appearance
in the Arrowverse’s
Crisis on Infinite
Earths crossover event. His final outing in the role was the
video game Suicide
Squad: Kill the Justice League released two years after Conroy died from
a brief
bout with cancer.
No comments:
Post a Comment