Joe Casey’s Justice League Academy Pitch

Joe Casey had once proposed a Justice League Academy series to DC Comics. Casey discusses his proposal in an interview with Tim Callahan @ CBR in relation to the “glacier-like” pace of getting anything approved at DC Comics.

About two years ago, at San Diego, I pitched an idea to the editor of the “Justice League” books…something called “Justice League Academy.” Maybe the most fan-friendly idea I’d ever had for either of the Big Two. The kids of the Justice League in a top secret “superhero training school” that not even their parents knew about (which solved all the inter-book continuity problems in one stroke). It had kind of a Starman-meets-X-Men vibe to it. Superhero legacy meets four-color melodrama. It was Wally West’s kids, it was Metamorpho’s son (who I gave powers to and renamed Megamorpho, the Energy Kid), it was Adam Strange’s daughter, it was Animal Man’s kids (the daughter also given powers and assuming the great, unused name, Changeling…while Cliff was the surly, Guy Gardner-type of the cast). Great characters that no one — outside of Geoff’s Flash stuff — was doing jack-shit with. There was also Offspring, Plastic Man’s kid…as well as a new character who was the son of DC’s Hercules. Originally, it was a Batman-initiated program, but Damian Wayne (who I knew ahead of time was going to be the new Robin) was to quickly take it over and run it like Batman used to run the Justice League in the early Giffen issues (in other words, through insults and intimidation).

The grouping is interesting as these are the kids are a different “generation” than the current Teen Titans, they are all closer to 10-11 than the Teen Titans who are at least 16+. Everybody at the creator level loved the pitch, but it never proceeded very quickly up the DC foot chain and Marvel scooped them with the Avenger’s Academy series.