Monthly Archives: July 2010

Comic Book News interviewed Young Justice producer at SDCC 2010 about his various animation projects including the new YJ show.

Cliff Notes:

• Weisman was brought into WB Animation after the second season of his Spiderman cartoon at Marvel.
• At the suggestion of Sam Register (their boss) Weisman and Brandon Vietti (his co-producer) took a look at DC’s younger characters and had to set up a clear path between Justice League Unlimited (“so iconic, so great”) and Teen Titans.
• They put together a list of 50-60 teenage heroes from the DCU and filtered them to come up with a diverse group that fitted the themes of the series.
• That theme, repeated from the panel, is “Secrets and Lies”.
• They looked at Peter David’s original Young Justice, the original 60s Teen Titans, and Geoff Johns stuff.
• Weisman knows his DC parallel Earths.
• This is a “young” DCU so they’re dealing with the first generation of sidekicks (Dick Grayson, Wally West, Garth), but characters like Superboy and Miss Martian can be slotted into any generation.
• “The show is a huge canvas and we have a lot of characters.” They start with four characters in the beginning (one who doesn’t join the team), the others are slowly added through the first 6 episodes. A seventh regular joins half-way through the season, and an 8th joins at the end of the season.
• They’ve planned for a second season, but that hasn’t been green lit yet.
• Characters mentioned: Captain Atom, Batman, Red Tornado, Black Canary, Superman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Flash, Green Arrow, Captain Marvel, Zatara, Wonder Woman, Captain Atom, Hawkman, Hawkwoman, two Green Lanterns (Hal and John).
• Greg wrote Captain Atom with Cary Bates for years and is itching to give him a bigger role in the show (he’s a member of the Justice League).
• Zatara – not Zatanna – was mentioned as being part of the League. Could his daughter show up as a teenager?
• The question of Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl was brought up. It seemed that it was a case of them being allowed to use Wonder Woman, but not Wonder Girl. Greg mentions legal reasons. This could possibly related to licensing – historically DC characters in movie production have been ring fenced from other projects, e.g. Smallville was restricted in their use of Lois Lane during the time that Superman Returns was being developed/distributed). Updated: Greg clarified on his Ask Greg column that they were prohibited from using Wonder Girl while the show was being developed, but that restriction has now been lifted.
• The Young Justice comic book won’t “be a little kiddie book”. It will have the same tone as the cartoon and will exist within the same continuity. No crossovers are planned with the main DC Earth.
• There were superheroes in the 1940s on Earth-16.
• The voice director on Young Justice is Jamie Thomason who worked with Weisman on Gargoyles and Spectacular Spiderman.