Exclusive First Look: “Batman – Under the Red Hood”

Dark, brooding adventure is nothing new in the world of Batman, but from all indications, his latest animated journey – this fall’s Batman: Under the Red Hood – could be the darkest of all.

“It’s simply the darkest Batman movie we’ve made yet, and that’s including Mask of the Phantasm and Return of the Joker,” offers producer Bruce Timm, who has been involved in Batman’s 2D world since the 1990s’ Batman: The Animated Series. “This is a really gritty, pretty darkly emotional story, and if it all comes together as I’m expecting it will, it’s going to be something really special.”

Following a line of films that includes Superman: Doomsday, Green Lantern: First Flight, Batman: Gotham Knight, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and, most recently, Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths, Under The Red Hood is adapted by Judd Winick from a story arc presented in the Dark Knight’s comic book adventures, part of which Winick himself had written. For his part, the writer thought the tale was a natural for animation.

“What I loved best about it is that it had a really amazing beginning and a really strong ending, which pretty much most movies ride on,” Winick notes. “The movie starts with Batman’s failure, which resonates throughout.”

That “failure,” the full details of which he won’t go in to, occurred some years ago, and its impact is felt in the present with the arrival of the Red Hood, a costumed vigilante and criminal whose actions reflect what Batman himself would be should he ever decide to step over the line from hero to villain.

“This is absolutely a Batman story,” he emphasizes. “It’s about Batman facing his greatest fear, and it’s a fear he was unaware of: failure. All Batman is trying to do is win a war. All he’s trying to do is right wrongs, beginning with the death of his parents and followed by another seminal event in his life, the loss of his partner, Jason Todd [who replaced Dick Grayson as his sidekick, Robin]. It was a major mistake in his life, bringing another kid into this war. So for Batman, it seems like one horrible mistake after another.”

Those mistakes, and a few others made in his career, come home to roost in the form of the Red Hood. “Batman is the Dark Knight, he has strange means and he’s tortured, but the bare essence of the man is that he’s trying to do right; to stop the bad in the world,” Winick explains. “In this story, his failure has increased ten-fold. He’s almost at a loss, because something unspoken about Batman is his emotional side. This ‘mistake’ is trying to undo everything that Batman does, trying to beat him at his own game, trying to be better than he is. So Batman has to battle this on two fronts: one, just this criminal, who’s coming in and trying to take over the city by force and being what he is, the villain. The flip side of this is that this is something from Batman’s past that has returned from beyond, which is maddening, confusing and horrible. And what does he do when he stops him, if he can stop him? These are wonderfully complex issues, which is why I just fell in love with the idea that this is Batman at his most unbalanced. What the Red Hood represents is Batman’s Achilles heel, and he tortures himself over it. The situation he is being forced to deal with is his fault, and it’s something he never lets himself forget.”

VOICES UNDER THE RED HOOD
One of the most impressive aspects of the various DC made-for-DVD animated projects is the sheer spectrum of voice talent involved in bringing the characters to life. Particularly distinct about Batman: Under The Red Hood is that the project brings into the fold a couple of vocal newbies.

Bruce Greenwood, most recently seen on the big screen as Captain Christopher Pike in last year’s Star Trek, takes on the role of Batman, whose gravelly voice he spent a lot of time experimenting with. “We just toyed around with different timbers for 20 minutes or so,” he explains. “We read the script the whole way through while we were looking for the tone of the voice. And by the time we’d sort of finished the first read through, we were kind of saying, ‘Okay, it’s got a little bit of smoke in it, but not too much.’ It became smokier as we went along.”

As to working in animation, he says, “I didn’t come in with too many preconceptions. I read the script beforehand, and the emotional through line of the story is what I’m trying to connect to. So when the director asks you to give it a certain tone, then you just go for that. But it was interesting to work this way. [Vocal director] Andrea Romano provided the visual – she’d describe everything. So you just kind of close your eyes and she’d set the scene and you could really imagine it very clearly, and then you do your thing.”

The other newcomer to animation acting is Jensen Ackles, who voices the villain of the piece, the Red Hood. Ackles, of course, is best known for his portrayal of Dean Winchester on the CW series, Supernatural.

“There really wasn’t any heavy acting choices to make,” says Ackles regarding Red Hood. “It pretty much just bounced off the page, and I just tried to do it justice. With working in this medium, once you get clear on all the specific pronunciations and how the tone of the voice needs to rise and fall, it was really about focusing on the more emotional elements of the script, especially in the intense moments and trying to envision the scene with the characters. And envisioning yourself in that scenario. A lot of times if you can do that, if you can put yourself there, I think the voice follows suit.”

Between his work on Supernatural and now the world of Batman, Ackles obviously has had some experience working in what has affectionately been called the “fan boy genre.”

“The positives of working in this genre are that the fans are extremely devoted,” he offers. “People really invest themselves in these stories and characters, and the mythology behind them. To be a part of something that so many people really get behind and want more of is extremely gratifying.”

Batman: Under The Red Hood will be released on DVD and Blu-ray in October.

Interview: Voice Director Andrea Romano on “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths”

You need a voice echoing the All-American trust of Superman? Andrea Romano
gets Mark Harmon for his maiden voyage in animation. You’re seeking a
subtly evil performance as the intelligent-bordering-on-insane Owlman?
James Woods is willing to do it from a little booth in Rhode Island.

Whatever the role, no matter the production, actors push aside their
Oscars, Emmys and Tonys to step behind the microphone and “play” with
Romano.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is the seventh entry in the
ongoing series of DC Universe animated original PG-13 movies, and each
has featured all-star casts with Romano at the reigns. From Neil
Patrick Harris, Brooke Shields and Alfred Molina to Virginia Madsen,
Nathan Fillion and Kyra Sedgwick (to name but a few), Romano’s casts
are packed with the faces normally reserved for lead roles in feature
films and primetime television series.

In addition to Harmon (NCIS) as Superman and Woods (Mississippi
Burning) as Owlman, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths features the
voices of Chris Noth (Law & Order, Sex and the City) as Lex Luthor,
William Baldwin (Dirty Sexy Money) as Batman, Gina Torres
(Firefly/Serenity) as Superwoman and Bruce Davison (X-Men) as President Wilson.

Romano has been one of the driving forces in animation voiceovers for
more than a quarter century, amassing a list of credits that range
from dramatic (Batman: The Animated Series) to silly (Animaniacs) to hip (The Boondocks) and timeless (Smurfs). The six-time Emmy Award winner (and 20-time nominee) has not only set the standard by which industry veterans measure the art, but she has become a household name to animation fans across the globe, regularly drawing standing ovations and endless applause during her annual Con appearances.

Warner Home Video will distribute the full-length animated Justice
League: Crisis on Two Earths on February 23 as a Special Edition
2-disc version on DVD and Blu-Ray™ Hi-Def, as well as single disc DVD,
and On Demand and Download.

Romano found time in her busier-than-you’d-ever-believe schedule to
discuss the cast of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. The
questions are simple, but the answers are pure Andrea Romano. Take a
read …

QUESTION: James Woods has quite the resume, including plenty of animation
experience. How is it that you had not worked with him until now?

ANDREA ROMANO: I’ve been a huge fan of James Woods and wanted to work with him for
years. We actually had a Justice League production about five years
ago that we had him booked for, and then the plug got pulled on the
project. I’ve been waiting for something else for him ever since – and
then Owlman came along, a perfect role for him.

We had to record him long distance, and his performance was very, very
subtle – so much so that I was worried that it wasn’t going to play
when it came back with animation. But it was perfect. It was subtle
and nuanced and scary without being broad in any way, and it was
wonderful to see such a subtle performance work in a big action piece.
I can’t wait to meet him in person.

QUESTION: On the flipside, the star of one of primetime’s top rated series –Mark Harmon of NCIS – had never previously done animation. How did he
do?

ANDREA ROMANO: I fell in love with Mark Harmon. I have admired his work for many
years, but he had not done this kind of work before, and so you always
run the risk of several different situations occurring when you bring
in someone who is new to animation. But Mark Harmon completely put
himself in my hands, and totally let me show him how this work is
done. I certainly didn’t have to teach him acting, but he was
completely agreeable to trying options, had ideas of his own, and had
complete trust in my process. So it was a terrific experience for both
of us. I think he’s a wonderful Superman. Although he’s older in years
than how we typically portray Superman, his voice with the model was
right on.

QUESTION: Gina Torres is another Joss Whedon alum making an appearance in the
Timmverse. What made her right for Superwoman?

ANDREA ROMANO: I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Gina over the years, and she is as beautiful to work with as she is visually. What makes this particular performance so great is that she plays a truly evil
character and, if you didn’t know her personally, you’d think that was
what she was like in real-life. She wore this role like a glove.

We recorded Gina separately from James Woods, and their characters are
love interests. Without the benefit of being in the same room, let
alone the same coast, Gina brought an energy that matched his
perfectly. She’s such an instinctual actress. And especially for
Superwoman, Gina really put herself into the role. She is sexy. She
doesn’t have to play sexy – she IS sexy.

One of the interesting things about Gina’s performance is that when
she first recorded, she had a cold and it manifested itself as kind of
deeper and textured. But when she came in for ADR, she was perfectly
healthy, and much more pure and clear – so we had to make a little bit
of an adjustment to make sure she didn’t sound too sweet.

QUESTION: Did William Baldwin have any trouble mastering Batman?

ANDREA ROMANO: I thought he did great – I love the texture of his voice. The performance is spot-on. The only issue was that William hasn’t done a lot of voiceover work in this genre. We do a lot of impact sounds that come with this kind of an action piece, and being the method actor he is, he insisted on actually striking his own body physically when he
had to do “umphs” and “ohs” and impacts. By the time he was done, he
must’ve been bruised. We were a little worried for him. When we
brought him back in for ADR, we asked him to please not hit himself,
and we showed him how to do those grunts and ughs In this film,
Batman wasn’t a big role, but it’s an important role, and I think
William really filled it well. Someday I’m going to get all the
Baldwins in the same room.

QUESTION: Chris Noth is another animation novice. Did he enjoy his time as a “good” Lex Luthor?

ANDREA ROMANO: Chris Noth thought he was going to be playing the evil Lex, and I think he was disappointed he didn’t get to play a villain. Still, he came through and gave a really good performance. What was funny was
that at the end of the entire recording process, Chris was our absolute last session of ADR – on a late Friday afternoon. To celebrate, they brought in a tray of Cosmos, and our own Susan Chieco had a very “Sex in the City” moment of walking a Cosmo in to Chris Noth. He cheered up considerably at that point.

QUESTION: How did you end up promoting Bruce Davison to President?

ANDREA ROMANO: I met Bruce at a wedding about 20 years ago and have admired his acting for so long anyway. It was another one of those perfect matches of voice and character. We had this nice role of the President that needed some gravitas to it and, at the same time, this particular President was a bit of a coward. Bruce was able to give us both of those aspects in just the right doses.

Exclusive Interview: Bruce Timm on “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earth”

In February Warner Bros. releases its latest DVD animated adventure from DC Comics, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Utilizing the parallel world theory, the plot has the Justice League from “our” earth being recruited by a parallel earth’s Lex Luthor (who is a hero there) to take down their evil counterparts, the Crime Syndicate. In this exclusive audio interview, producer Bruce Timm discusses the film, sharing on its connection to the Justice League Unlimited TV series.

Click To Play

Producer Bruce Timm Talks the Animated “Spectre”

Over the years, DC and Warner Bros. have been pretty innovative in bringing various comic book characters to animated life, starting with Batman: The Animated Series in the 1990s and continuing right through to the current made for DC animated films, the latest of which, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, reaches stores in February.

Accompanying the Justice League film is the first installment of “DC Showcase,” a series of 10-minute shorts featuring characters that aren’t generally featured in leading roles. Things kick off with The Spectre, which producer Bruce Timm discusses with Voices From Krypton in this exclusive interview.

VOICES FROM KRYPTON: What’s your feeling about doing these DC Showcase shorts?

BRUCE TIMM: They’re a blast. It’s great, because we can play with these oddball characters who wouldn’t commercially support making a full length feature with them. I wish the business model was such that we could do that, but now we get to mess around with these more off-trail characters and have fun. In a weird kind of way, the Spectre is perfect for a series like this, because those original Fleischer/Aparo comics this version is based on, were really simple, straight-forward little standalone stories. You don’t have to expand it and make it bigger than it is: bad guys do a crime, Spectre shows up and kills them in horrible ways. Ten minutes of that works great.

VOICES FROM KRYPTON: You brought up Jim Aparo, and that’s the first thing that popped into my mind when I watched it: those Spectre comics from the 1970s.

BRUCE TIMM: That’s exactly what we were going for.

VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Tell me if I’m wrong here, but the opening of the film feels like a Dirty Harry movie, from the music to the staging of the death.

BRUCE TIMM: Absolutely. That was Joaquim Dos Santos’ inspiration, to do the ‘70s vibe through the whole thing. Not just the music, but the costuming, the architecture, the cars and everything else is very much rooted in the 1970s. He carried that through with the score, which is a cross between Dirty Harry and Suspiria. It’s perfect.

VOICES FROM KRYPTON: After watching it, of course, I started thinking to myself, “I want more Spectre.”

BRUCE TIMM: I know. I’d love to do a whole series of shorts. Of course – and this is a trap even the comic fell into – after six or seven issues of it, you kind of go, “Okay, I know where this is going.” We probably won’t have to worry about that. You know the tricky thing about doing these is that each one of them has their own set of characters and locales and its own mood. Each one takes a lot of preproduction. For a 10-minute short, it’s a lot of work; you have to do almost as much work designing the thing as you would for a long form. But so far it’s been fun.

VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Did these shorts present any particular challenges?

BRUCE TIMM: The biggest problem was figuring out how to tell a satisfying story in 10 minutes. It’s literally half the length of a standard half-hour episode, and we didn’t want to make each one non-stop action. We wanted to make sure they had a beginning, middle and an end and a little bit of character development. I wouldn’t say it was worrisome, but we did kind of struggle with it in the beginning, wondering if that would be enough time to do a satisfying story featuring any of these characters. We’ve seen the first two at this point, so far so good. — Interview conducted by Edward Gross

Voices From Krypton: Superhero Movie Roundup

The world of superhero movies is an ever-expanding one, and in this roundup of news we check out the latest news surrounding Captain America, Green Lantern and Spider-Man.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Director Joe Johnston has begun promoting his remake of The Wolfman, and not surprisingly the topic is turning to Captain America, which he’ll be helming for a July 2011 release. Offers Johnston to Box Office, “It’s the origin story of Captain America. It’s mostly period – there are modern, present-day bookends on it – but it’s basically the story of how Steve Rogers becomes Captain America. The great thing about Captain America is he’s a super hero without any super powers. He’s an every man who’s been given this amazing gift of transformation into the perfect specimen – the pinnacle of human perfection. How does that affect him? What does that mean for him emotionally and psychologically?” Given his work on The Rocketeer, it’s obvious that Johnston can capture the era of the 1940s beautifully, which should serve Captain America as well.

GREEN LANTERN: Hitfix reports that although there is nothing final in this report, Jackie Earle Haley (seen last year in Watchmen, to be seen this year in the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street and co-starring in Fox’s Human Target TV series, debuting Sunday night) is the guy Warner Bros. wants in the role of GL’s arch enemy, Sinestro. Offers the site, “The groundwork is being laid in the first Lantern for a much larger role for Sinestro later on if this first movie does well, and they like the idea of continuing their relationship with Haley.” In other casting news, earlier this week Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively was cast as Carol Ferris, Hal Jordan’s boss and eventual love interest, who is destined to become Star Sapphire.

SPIDER-MAN: When Spider-Man 3 went into production, there was reportedly conflict between director Sam Raimi and Sony Pictures over creative differences. The nature of those differences became apparent in the film itself, which absolutely seemed to represent the creative desires of both, some of which were in conflict with each other. And now, with Spider-Man 4, it seemed that similar conflicts were arising, and rather than go forward, the parties have agreed to disagree and elected to part ways. The result? As has been widely reported, Sony is rebooting Spidey, as noted in the official press release:

“Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012. Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today they are moving forward with a film based on a script by James Vanderbilt that focuses on a teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises. The new chapter in the Spider-Man franchise produced by Columbia, Marvel Studios and Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin, will have a new cast and filmmaking team. Spider-Man 4 was to have been released in 2011, but had not yet gone into production.

“’A decade ago we set out on this journey with Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire and together we made three Spider-Man films that set a new bar for the genre. When we began, no one ever imagined that we would make history at the box-office and now we have a rare opportunity to make history once again with this franchise. Peter Parker as an ordinary young adult grappling with extraordinary powers has always been the foundation that has made this character so timeless and compelling for generations of fans. We’re very excited about the creative possibilities that come from returning to Peter’s roots and we look forward to working once again with Marvel Studios, Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin on this new beginning,’ said Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

“’Working on the Spider-Man movies was the experience of a lifetime for me. While we were looking forward to doing a fourth one together, the studio and Marvel have a unique opportunity to take the franchise in a new direction, and I know they will do a terrific job,’ said Sam Raimi.

“’We have had a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration and friendship with Sam and Tobey and they have given us their best for the better part of the last decade. This is a bittersweet moment for us because while it is hard to imagine Spider-Man in anyone else’s hands, I know that this was a day that was inevitable,’ said Matt Tolmach, president of Columbia Pictures, who has served as the studio’s chief production executive since the beginning of the franchise. ‘Now everything begins anew, and that’s got us all tremendously excited about what comes next. Under the continuing supervision of Avi and Laura, we have a clear vision for the future of Spider-Man and can’t wait to share this exciting new direction with audiences in 2012.’

“’Spider-Man will always be an important franchise for Sony Pictures and a fresh start like this is a responsibility that we all take very seriously,’ said Michael Lynton, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures. ‘We have always believed that story comes first and story guides the direction of these films and as we move onto the next chapter, we will stay true to that principle and will do so with the highest respect for the source material and the fans and moviegoers who deserve nothing but the best when it comes to bringing these stories and characters to life on the big screen.’”

Reportedly two directors Sony is looking at are 500 Days of Summer’s Mark Webb and Kick-Ass’ Matthew Vaughn.

The Making of “Justice League: The Animated Series”

Warner Home Video recently released Justice League: The Complete Series on DVD, which features every episode of the animated Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. To celebrate, SciFi TV Zone offers this behind the scenes look at the making of the series, which is an excerpt from Voices From Krypton magazine.

When Batman The Animated Series made its debut in 1991, it was viewed as innovative, ground-breaking and unlike any other animated show to have been aired in the television medium’s history.

Not surprisingly, the show spawned a number of spin-offs (among them The Adventures of Batman and Robin and Gotham Knights), and its success paved the way for Superman The Animated Series and Batman Beyond, which took place 50 years in the future and chronicled the efforts of an elderly Bruce Wayne to train his successor. All told, an impressive track record for everyone involved, among them executive producer Bruce Timm. Ironically, though, it was precisely his previous success in animating DC Comics superheroes that prevented him from initially embracing the notion of a series based on the adventures of the Justice League.

“I kind of dodged the Justice League bullet for years, because I knew how difficult it would be,” he admits. “Just in terms of its scope and the fact that you had seven major players in it. Truthfully, we’d never done a show with that many superheroes in it. All the shows we’d done prior to that were one-character shows that would occasionally have guest stars or sidekicks. But even those shows were a hint of things to come in that every time we had an episode with Batman and Robin or Batgirl, just in staging the action scenes, it was difficult to do.”

That difficulty, he explains, came from the idea of keeping the characters in motion at the same time. In other words, if too much time is spent on Batgirl fighting someone, the audience is asking, “What’s Batman doing?”, so there is a need to then cut to Batman. Naturally at that point the audience is then asking, “What’s Batgirl doing?”

“It’s as simple as that,” Timm says. “It’s an extra problem that makes the storytelling a little more difficult. Suddenly you have to keep seven characters in motion and they all have fantastic powers. Just trying, for example, to come up with a way of staging the Flash so he doesn’t come off looking like a total moron is really difficult, because he can be everywhere at once. We know that really doesn’t work in any kind of filmic medium. Nobody should ever be able to get the drop on the Flash; his reflexes should be so fast that nobody should be able to land a punch on him or shoot him with a ray gun.”

Although interest in the concept of a Justice League series was mounting, Timm resisted – until about the time that production on Batman Beyond was winding down and there was a sense of determination to keep the production team together on a new project. According to Justice League co-producer James Tucker, at that time the Kids WB expressed interest in a new series that would skew to a young audience.

“Development was done on a Batman Anime show that kind of reflects on what Teen Titans is now,” he reflects. “And we developed a more youth-oriented version of Justice League. Thank God both of those projects never happened, although there’s a tape out there of a very kiddified Justice League that included Robin and a teenage female version of Cyborg. It was our attempt to try and do something that wasn’t as edgy or as dark as we would normally want to go. At the time, Kids WB totally passed on the Batman Anime idea and we actually did test animation for the Justice League idea.”

As Tucker explains it, the thing that convinced them that Justice League was a possibility was an episode of Batman Beyond titled “The Call,” which dealt with a future version of the team. “Prior to that,” he says, “Bruce was very public in saying he didn’t think we could do a Justice League show. Then, after ‘The Call,’ it kind of clicked something in his head that made him think we could. So we did the promotional footage, we looked at it and said, ‘This is good, but it’s a little too compromised from what we would really want to do.’ So on a whim he called Cartoon Network and asked if they wanted a Justice League show, and the response was, ‘Sure.’ It was as simple as that.”

A CALL TO ACTION
Once the greenlight was given, Timm and his team – including Tucker, producer Rich Fogel and story editors Stan Berkowitz and Dwayne McDuffie – set about trying to come up with a team dynamic, attempting to choose who would be appropriate for the series and how they would relate to each other. Timm notes that several years earlier, this problem was initially addressed as they first started to develop Superman The Animated Series, when a great deal of time was spent determining what that show would be.

“We didn’t quite know what to do with Superman the way we did with Batman,” he admits. “Even though, again, we were dealing with a big iconic hero. We all kind of got Superman, we knew what made him tick, but he didn’t have the psychological underpinnings that Batman did, which is what made Batman instantly interesting to us. One of the things we toyed with at the time was doing a Superman show that was half Superman and half the Justice League, where it was almost a Superman team-up show. At that point, when we talked about doing a back door Justice League show, some of the lineup we picked for that pitch were not the standard Justice League characters. I don’t think Flash was in it, John Stewart was. Wonder Woman wasn’t in it. So it was much more the kind of Justice League that was going on in the comics world at that time. You have to remember that the classic lineup of the Justice League wasn’t really in existence in the early ‘90s. That’s one thing I’ll give Grant Morrison a lot of credit for. He was the one who went to DC and said, ‘You know, if you want to revitalize Justice League, you’ve got to go back to the original seven, that core iconic group,’ and he was right. By the time we got around to doing the actual Justice League show, Grant Morrison’s idea had already implemented in the comics and we looked at that and said, ‘Yeah, that’s a really smart idea.’ And we also learned from Marvel’s mistake.

“When Marvel did their Avengers show in the ‘90s,” he continues, “they made a radical mistake by not having the Avengers be Captain America, Thor and Iron Man, plus the other guys. They made it just the other guys, and anybody who’s a comic book fan, when they hear there’s an Avengers show, you want to see the big three and you feel a little bit cheated when you don’t see them. All of these things were going through our minds when we decided on the lineup for Justice League. Really, the only ones that were even somewhat controversial among ourselves was which Green Lantern to choose. Hawkman or Hawkgirl? I instantly voted for Hawkgirl. It was purely an aesthetic thing; I have just always loved the Hawkgirl costume and the design of her helmet. I also thought we could afford to have an extra girl on the team, joining Wonder Woman.”

In the end, and despite the fact that a number of heroes were considered for the lineup, the final members of the Justice League were Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, J’onn J’onzz, Green Lantern (John Stewart), the Flash and Hawkgirl.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of arguing going on,” explains Timm. “We all decided very quickly and easily on the line up and from that point on it was just a matter of sitting down, talking about the characters and saying, ‘These are who we’re going to use. What do they do? What about their characters inform the way they act?’ Basically we wanted to keep the show to the core seven the first two seasons. We wanted to keep it limited, because the majority of the episodes didn’t have all seven of them in it. There were just too many damn characters. They won’t get enough screen time to make an impact if there’s seven of them every single episode. Somebody would have to be Chekov. Somebody would be saying, ‘Hailing frequencies open, Captain.’ So we always had to pare it down.”

He admits that he was surprised to hear at conventions just how badly the fans wanted to see a modern day animated version of the Justice League, especially as the whole concept, to his way of thinking, shouldn’t work at all. “There is something cool about seeing these heroes team up,” he says. “God knows why, because it doesn’t really make sense. It doesn’t even work dramatically in a lot of ways, but going back to the Golden Age and the Justice Society, they somehow struck gold when they started teaming those characters up. As cool as it is to see Batman and Superman by themselves, you get them together with Green Lantern or Hawkman, and suddenly it’s cooler. I don’t know why we have this desire to see these guys team up, but it’s cool and there’s no denying it.”

To read the full behind the scenes story on the making of Justice League, order a copy of Voices From Krypton magazine by clicking below.

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