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New animated "Justice League" project from Timm and Burnett

Honestly, this doesn't interest me that much. There's nothing new about grimdark, violent takes on superheroes; I'd say that Bruce Timm's sensibilities were stuck in the '90s if modern DC comics weren't just as self-consciously bloodsoaked. And if the story isn't even about Clark, Bruce, and Diana, but a bunch of malicious strangers, what is there for me to engage with?
 
I dunno about stuck in the 90s, considering the three Nolan Batmans weren't that long ago and were dark, or Man of Steel. You might say that Guardians is a watershed for things going into a camp direction, I guess.
 
mos6507 said:
I dunno about stuck in the 90s, considering the three Nolan Batmans weren't that long ago and were dark, or Man of Steel.
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Well, yeah, but screen adaptations tend to lag a decade or two behind the comics. The Nolan films were a reflection of what the comics were doing while the Burton films were coming out. The first Burton film was pretty much a reflection of what the Batman comics were doing in 1939, and the Schumacher films embraced the camp of the '66 TV series, which was a distillation of the tone of the comics in the '50s and early '60s.

The thing is, the 1990s in comics were an age of excess, when gratuitous ultraviolence and darkness came to dominate and EXTREEEEEEEME, violent characters like Spawn and Venom and Cable were in demand. Basically they took the wrong lessons from The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and used their darkness and violence as an end in itself rather than a means of critiquing and deconstructing comics. It was also an era when being EXTREEEEEEEME was more important than telling good stories or drawing competent art, and an era when male characters came to be exaggerated to super-musculararity (and covered in all sorts of extraneous pouches and belts and pads and weapons) and female characters came to be exaggerated with impossibly long legs and wasp waists and impossibly contorted spines (and covered in as little as possible). Basically, it isn't an especially well-regarded era in comics history.
 
That video didn't make JL: Gods & Monsters look very good. The super grim, violent stuff is very played out at this point. I'm disappointed that Bruce Timm, who helped make the best of DC Animation, has gone in this direction. I'll definitely watch it, but I've lost most of the enthusiasm that I had for the project when it was first announced.
 
Well I'm enough of a sucker for Elseworlds stories to check this out. Who knows maybe if this does well DC might occasionally do more for direct to video stories.
 
Admiral_Young said:
I'm not sure how much darker you can get than the 52'Verse right now.
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Well nuSuperman gets freaked out if he thinks he killed someone while the one from this new project probably wouldn't give a shit.

If anything it seems like DC is showing the people complaining about the New 52 just what a darker and edgery anti-hero JLA would actually be like.
 
Enough with the "dark and edgy," already.

Let's have silly, cartoonish camp a la the 60s Batman series, and our heroes referring to one another as "old chum" and so forth.

Kor
 
We are getting that in the Batman '66 movie coming out sometime in the next year or two.
I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of this. I trust Bruce Timm, and I like the idea of an Elseworld's type movie, but I would think I would like it better if they did something at least a little big closer to the regular versions of the characters.
 
I was hoping for something involving the real Justice League. I've been buying the animated movies quite regularly and I may skip it. That clip doesn't do anything for me at all.
 
JD said:
I trust Bruce Timm, and I like the idea of an Elseworld's type movie, but I would think I would like it better if they did something at least a little big closer to the regular versions of the characters.
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Actually that's just the problem for me -- the "regular versions" of the DC characters have themselves gotten so dark these days that I don't see this as being that different, just an exaggeration of what's already routine. The DCU movie line already gave us ultraviolent, murderous alternate-reality versions of the DC characters in The Flashpoint Paradox just a couple of years ago. And we also had Crisis on Two Earths a few years before that, and the Justice Lords storyline on Justice League before that (although it was tamer due to network standards). There's just a been-there, done-that feel to this.
 
Christopher said:
JD said:
I trust Bruce Timm, and I like the idea of an Elseworld's type movie, but I would think I would like it better if they did something at least a little big closer to the regular versions of the characters.
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Actually that's just the problem for me -- the "regular versions" of the DC characters have themselves gotten so dark these days that I don't see this as being that different, just an exaggeration of what's already routine.
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I was unaware that the current versions of the characters enguaged in things described as a massacre, or that while doing so they maim, burn, crush, and suck the blood out of people, or that the current JLA could be considered a terrorist organiation.

I Mean last I checked when current Superman thought he killed a guy he freaked the hell out and turned himself into the government.
 
The costume design for the Gods and Monsters Wonder Woman is ridiculous. How does she keep on a strapless top with decolletage plunging to her navel? Double-sided tape?
 
Christopher said:
The costume design for the Gods and Monsters Wonder Woman is ridiculous. How does she keep on a strapless top with decolletage plunging to her navel? Double-sided tape?
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Superior Apokoliptian technology of course. ;)

To be fair though, a lot of the Kirby and Kirby inspired costume designs have always been a tad implausible, which I suspect is rather the point, no?
 
Here's the cast list:

Michael C. Hall (Dexter) as Batman, Benjamin Bratt (Law & Order, 24) as Superman, Tamara Taylor (Bones) as Wonder Woman, Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) as Lois Lane, Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter films, Dig) as Lex Luthor and C. Thomas Howell (E.T., Southland) as Dr. Will Magnus.
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Enterprise is Great said:
Here's the cast list:

Michael C. Hall (Dexter) as Batman, Benjamin Bratt (Law & Order, 24) as Superman, Tamara Taylor (Bones) as Wonder Woman, Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) as Lois Lane, Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter films, Dig) as Lex Luthor and C. Thomas Howell (E.T., Southland) as Dr. Will Magnus.
Click to expand...
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Hm. Interesting that Paget Brewster is playing Lois Lane, since she previously played Lana Lang in the adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns. Jason Isaacs is making his way through the DC arch-nemesis catalogue, since he's previously been Ra's al Ghul (Under the Red Hood) and Sinestro (Emerald Knights). Howell was Professor Zoom in The Flashpoint Paradox. And Bratt was the love interest in the live-action Halle Berry Catwoman movie, though that only technically counts as a DC character (heck, it only technically counts as a movie).
 
It always amazes me when they renew things before they ever air. I guess they could still cancel the second season if the first totally bombs, but you'd think they want to see if people actually want a second season before they start working on one. Especially something like this that is a little bit more experimental than your tradition Justice League series.
 
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