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Monthly Archives: February 2005

Aztek

Aztek was one of those brief bright experiments that flaired up during the late 1990s. He was created by Grant Morrison (just before his JLA launch) and Mark Millar (long before his Authority or the Ultimates) as a retro-Silver Age hero dropped into an all to modern setting. I’ve always liked the character and have uploaded a new Aztek profile (loosely based on the ancient one in the archive) and have added with a glossary and a new Secret Origin section.

(And if your unfamiliar with the character then you may recognise him as one of the voiceless background characters in Justice League Unlimited.)

What was the result of the Starcrossed vote?

Dark Knite sent in a batch of questions about the Justice League cartoon and I’ve decided to post my answers up here in case anybody else was interested. First up, Star Crossed:

Spoilers Ahead…Continue reading

Why is Justice League Unlimited only shown once a week?

Dark Knite’s second questions was:

I have been wondering for a long time why Justice League Unlimited airs only once a week when it is such an excellent show. I liked the former show better, of course but there are a lot of us old comic buffs out here that want more. One show once a week isn’t enough, and I can’t see how all of these obviously inferior cartoons are keeping the Justice League out.

Ah, now what we’re running into here is a demographic problem that the DC Animated shows have had since the original run of Batman: The Animated Series. On one hand you have the producers and the fans who love the sophisticated continuing storylines and on the other you’ve got the network and the advertisers who want to hit the key 6-11 kids marketing demographic. It’s part of the battle that saw the replacement of the BTAS franchise with the Batman Beyond series and the now famous controversy over the cut/uncut version of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Justice League suffers from some of the same problems. It’s premier had the largest 18-34 ratings in Cartoon Network’s history and it reached equal numbers of viewer in the 6-11 and the 18-34 age ratings brackets.Continue reading

Why no live action Justice League movie?

Dark Knite’s third and final question:

Also, it seems to me that Warner Brothers is missing out by not looking at a Justice League movie along the same lines as X-Men. A live action Justice League movie would be the greatest comic hero movie ever.

This one is slightly easier to answer as it’s all a question of licensing. DC Comics licences each of the characters for separate motion picture franchises. We know that Superman and Batman are definite for screentime, Wonder Woman is in development and it is rumoured that Green Lantern, Flash and even Aquaman franchises are trying to get started. To get a Justice League movie going you’d need to either buy back or negotiate to use all those options for a single project. Compare this to the X-Men franchise where the studio was able to easily buy a single option for the entire team.

Realistically I can’t seem much prospect for a big screen live actionJustice League movie while the independent franchises are active. If the options for the second tier characters fall through then I could just about imagine a studio going with a JLA minus Batman and Superman option. One thing I could easily imagine is an animated direct-to-DVD movie based on the cartoon. In fact the fourth season finale is rumoured to be a four-parter similar to three-parter Starcrossed .

Justice League Unlimited Renewed

From a recent Cartoon Network press release,

Justice League Unlimited: The Justice League, led by Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, has grown much larger because the threats are even greater. This season, Black Canary, Shayera, Vigilante, Vixen and The Question step up to face such villains as Lex Luthor, Felix Faust and Tobias Whale. And Superman takes on Cadmus in a battle that will determine the future of the League. Twenty-three new episodes will air this year.

Those twenty-three episode presumably include the current 13-part season and a new 13-part third season. Cool.

On Batman Beyond and character profiles

One of the reasons I never seem to finish a full set of anything at once is that I get distracted so easily. I’m now several weeks behind on the JLU episode analysis because I’ve been distracted by looking up stuff about Batman Beyond. That produced the previously mentioned Animated Timeline, but it eventually resulted in me digging out my old VHS copies of Batman Beyond. They made me so nostalgic for the series that I parlayed the viewing marathon into a character profile.

I’ve decided that animated character profiles are a heck of a lot easier to write that comicbook profiles. You’ve got few running subplots, no sudden unexplained changes in direction, no massive retcons, and very few supporting characters. You can just sit down and string together a series of brief synopsis, add some linking text and you’re half way there. Comicbook profiles on the other hand require you to explain several years worth of convoluted stories in one paragraph and then to spend the next three paragraphs arm waving as you try and link that in with a dozen random guest appearances that either totally ignore or rewrite the developments in the first paragraph.

Unlike some people I can’t remember the minutia of all this. And that is the reason I started writing profiles as a kid – just to keep track of events in my own mind. Occassionally I get the urge to invent my own characters, but the strange thing is that I can hardly ever remember writing stories for them. Oh, I’ll write profiles summerising non-existant stories, but I never seem to get the stories themselves onto paper. I’ll have to post one up one day – if I can ever find a finished one.

JLA Sold Out at DC

DC’s latest newsletter has proudly proclaimed that three issues of the current Syndicate Rules storyline has sold out. Unlike some comic book companies DC delibrately over prints their runs so that retailers can reorder a title if they sell out. What his announcement means is that DC has run out of their own over print stock. Still it’s a good sign. The release has a quote from Kurt Busiek,

“This is great! I’m thrilled to hear that it’s doing this well,” says Busiek. “It’s been fun to see the audience reaction as this story has built, ramping up in tension every month. We’re at the halfway point now, and things have just broken open big time. #111 is a major smackdown between the JLA and the CSA that changes everything, and after that, it keeps getting bigger and the stakes keep getting higher – battles on Earth, in space, in the anti-matter universe, and Justice Leaguers being rung in to help from the reserves and the Elite. It’s been a privilege working with Ron Garney on this arc. His art’s only gotten bolder and more dynamic over the course of it, and I’m eager to see it all play out.”

Weird Western Tales


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