Character Models

The removal of the DCAU continuity necessitated an entirely new set of character designs. Artist Phil Bourassa got the call to work on the Justice League on the day that Obama was elected US President. (Links in text are to model sheets on Bourassa’s Deviant Art page).

His approach to the basic Justice League was very close to the comic book costumes. The characters models were also leaner and lacked the Bruce Timm square-jawed, barrel-chested template that had dominated the animated DCU. The two biggest departures were probably a post-Infinite Crisis style Martian Manhunter and the use of Hal Jordan rather than John Stewart – a deliberate statement that this wasn’t the DCAU League. A seventh member was missing from the League’s line-up. If this story had been done in the DCAU it would have been set just after Hawkgirl quit so she wouldn’t have appeared.

The designs for the Crime Syndicate were based on sketches that Bruce Timm had done several years beforehand. Bourassa took those as his starting point and added his own style. The breakout character of the movie had to be Owlman voiced by James Woods. A hand-painted cold-cast porcelain Owlman maquette was released by DC Direct around the time of the movie.

The Martian Manhunter parallel was the four armed J’edd J’arkus. He was based on a Bruce Timm sketch and the four arms were a reference to the John Carter novels. While Hawkgirl wasn’t not shown in the movie, her doppelgänger Angelique was – albeit as canon fodder. The only two “heroes” from the parallel world are Lex Luthor and a character based on the Joker called the Jester. The designs for the Jester were done by Jerome Moore based on a sketch by Bourassa.

Bourassa collaborated with Jerome Moore, Dusty Abell, Steve Jones, and Jon Suzuki to design the vast roster of other heroes and “made men” (the legion of second tier characters that served the Crime Syndicate). On his Deviant Art gallery Jerome Moore notes that for the Super Family he worked from designs submitted by Alex Ross and Bruce Timm and made sure he stuck to the style of the lead designer (Bourassa). Moore also worked on the designs for Black Canary, Model Citizen, Vamp, and the several shape-shifted bodies.

Of particular interest to fans was a cameo of the evil versions of the Outsiders and the Detroit JLA in a fight sequence in J’edd J’arkus hideout. (You can see a promotional clip of the fight on Youtube, but WB have stopped the clip being embedded for some reason).

The DVD Artwork

The DVD artwork for Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths was created by Phil Bourassa and Dusty Abell and coloured by Joshua Middleton. Bourassa commented that,

I was super thrilled that the honor fell to me to draw the box art, as that sort of thing is often done by the marketing division and we ususally only get to see it AFTER it’s done. My buddy Dusty Abell did an excellent job inking my line art digitally at a high enough resolution for print. I gotta say Dusty is one of the most talented and dependable pros I have ever had the pleasure of working with, he always comes through for me in a crunch. He’s also one of the few cats in animation who can make digital inking still feel organic and not lose the life of the drawing in the process.

After Boursassa and Abell had finished the line work it has handed over to Joshua Middleton for colouring (you may remember from his great run of Supergirl covers). Middleton posted on his blog about the subtles of colouring someone else’s work,

I can only recall one other instance in which I colored another artist’s work, which was a pin-up for Marvel a very long time ago, so this was a fun new challenge. Luckily, Phil and Dusty are both excellent artists, so my job was a lot easier. While I originally set out to color the drawing in a fairly straightforward cel-shaded style, we wound up going for a somewhat more painterly finish. My challenge was to render in such a way as to not overpower the clean line art. I colored with Photoshop CS4.

DVD Talk has a great opening paragraph to their review:

Okay, so Batman’s on a space station bought and paid for out of his own pocket, decked out in a Power Loader, and squaring off against demented versions of three Marvels and a Wonder Woman from a parallel universe. The smart money says I could go ahead and stop the review right there since this is clearly the best movie ever.

I found their review interesting as they pulled apart the audio and video just as you’d expect a site interested in HD quality. They take issue with the video compression, but I don’t think its something I’d know to notice.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths just doesn’t sound like a movie. Justice League got its start on basic cable, and that’s pretty much where Crisis…‘s soundtrack wound up too. There are no dubs, alternate soundtracks, commentaries, or downmixes this time around

I agree that the lack of a commentary is a downside, but I’ve listened to the Superman “Brave New Metropolis” commentary I know how little these guys can have to say about an otherwise brilliant episode. Now a solo commentary by McDuffie would have been cool.

There is a CD album of soundtrack so Warners must think its good enough. I actually rather liked the main theme, but I think DVDTalk expect too much. After all this is a direct-to-disc feature and not a disc of a theatrical release. Batman: Gotham Knights even said that “one of the best DCU animated scores to date.”

Crave online makes an observation about the co-directors:

Co-Directors Sam Liu (Superman/Batman, Planet Hulk) and Lauren Montgomery (Green Lantern: First Flight) really play well off of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Liu has a tendency to rush things (Planet Hulk) while Montgomery’s direction can be clunky and boring. Together they find a perfect pace that allows the plot to shine through but not at the expense of action.

I’m not familiar with Planet Hulk or Green Lantern: First Flight, but I can see where Crave is coming from about Superman/Batman as I bought that at the same time as Justice League and watched them back-to-back. Justice League is definitely the better film, even if Superman/Batman has better lead voice artists.

MTV Splash Page is just one of the comics sites that criticises the voice acting:

It’s disappointing to note that the weakest elements of “Crisis On Two Earths” lie in the voice casting of two of the film’s most popular characters. Mark Harmon and William Baldwin voice Superman and Batman, respectively, and neither actor seems to put much heart into their performance. For much of the film, both characters’ dialogue feels forced — as if they’re just reading their characters’ lines rather than actually becoming the voices of their characters.

However, it seems that while that sort of sentiment is common amongst comic-book fan sites the DVD/film sites actually quite like, or at least are more tolerant, of  Harmon/Baldwin. For example, Cinema Spy says:

While some of the cast’s big names seemingly get lost in the shuffle — in hindsight, the producers probably didn’t need Mark Harmon for Superman, since he doesn’t get all that much to do — there are plenty of standouts. William Baldwin makes for a brooding and effective Batman, although he seems to be channeling Christian Bale more than mimicking legendary Bat-vocalist Kevin Conroy, and Gina Torres does good work as the Crime Syndicate’s Superwoman, whom she appropriately plays as Wonder Woman with a seductive side.

and Harry at AintItCool,

As with each of these ANIMATED features, the style is different yet again. Mark Harmon is a strong voice for Superman, who is more in command here, than in any of the previous incarnations. He sounds powerful & a bit cocky. William Baldwin’s Batman feels tamer than James Woods’ Owlman, but that’s how it should be here.

I was amused by Blu-Ray.com’s review. They give the film something of a once over in their review -

“Still, at 75-minutes, is it any wonder that subtleties, cohesive storytelling, and character development have fallen by the wayside? Hopefully the day will come when DC’s animated films grow up.”

- but still award it 3/5 over all. I’d hate to see a review for a film they give 1/5 marks to. The Open Salon/Huffington Post also wasn’t that impressed, but the reviewer at least admits upfront that he doesn’t like multiverse/parallel world stories.

The latest direct-to-DVD feature from Warner Brother Animation is Justice League: Crisis on Two-Earths. The other features they’ve done have been good, maybe even brilliant, but I think this is the one I anticipated the most. And it’s good, really good – not quite as good as Justice League: A New Frontier, but it’s close. The main film does seem a little short (75 minutes), but that’s made up for by the presence of the Spectre animated-short on the Blu-Ray disc.

Some spoilers follow…

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earth opens on a parallel Earth where the usual icons of good and evil are reversed. The counterparts of the heroic Justice League are the evil Crime Syndicate. Their mafia-like organisation dominates their world with a network of “Made Men” (lesser meta-humans who serve one or other of the Syndicate members). The only thing that keeps the Syndicate from taking over entirely is the threat of a nuclear reprisal by the civilian authorities.

Owlman of the Crime Syndicate is building a doomsday weapon that would negate the nuclear threat and deliver the Syndicate’s greatest victory. Lex Luthor, the last surviving hero of his world’s Justice League, makes a last desperate attempt to cross over into another universe to recruit another Justice League to oppose the Crime Syndicate. However, by revealing the existence of the Multiverse to Owlman Luthor spawns a threat that may doom all the Earths in the Multiverse.

There is something very recognisable about the worlds shown in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. This is because its origins date back to an unmade script from the Justice League cartoon. At the end of Season Two the Justice League faced the big-three part “Star Crossed” story that saw Hawkgirl’s betrayal, the vote on her expulsion from the League,  the destruction of the Watchtower, and the reveal of their secret identities. For the third season the show returned as Justice League Unlimited with a new status quo – a larger Watchtower and 50+ characters on the roster. There was originally going to be a TV movie called “World’s Collide” which would have bridged the two seasons showing circumstances that led to those changes.

Pressures on time and resources meant that Dwayne McDuffie’s script for “World’s Collide” had to be shelved, but it remained a story that Bruce Timm and co. always wanted to come back to. Spin ahead several years and DC Comics and Warner Brothers Animation launch their series of direct-to-DVD features. McDuffie’s “World’s Collide” script was dusted down and re-commissioned as Crisis on Two Earths. It is now a standalone movie and steps have been taken to distance it from the Justice League cartoon series. I don’t personally think that was necessary, but it’s meant to make the film more accessible to casual viewers. The most obvious change is that they’re using character models that are closer to the comic-book League than the DCAU cartoon. The look is still very similar to the Bruce Timm style, but the women aren’t quite to slim and the men aren’t quite so barrel-chested.

A lot has been made about the substitution of Hal Jordan (played by Nolan North) for John Stewart as Green Lantern. This was also to show that this wasn’t set in the cartoon series continuity, but what they’ve really jettisoned was the emotional hurt/baggage that Stewart was carrying out of the “Star Crossed” season season finale. Several interviews have quoted the figure of 95% as the percentage of the original script that remains unchanged. I think it’s a good bet that the 5% that did change contained the John Stewart subplot. There was nothing that struck me immediately that would rule this out from being in the same continuity as the cartoon series. There is even one line at the end that’ll have you saying “so that’s where she got it from.”

Made Men Trailer:

The Crime Syndicate operate as a mafia-like family structure. Each of the Syndicate heads leads a band of Made Men, other meta-humans that report to them. Superwoman leads the Marvel Family which could mean she’s Mary Marvel. Owlman’s group are Outsiders parallels, the Martian Manhunter’s group are parallels of the Detroit Justice League, and Johnny Quick’s group includes parallels of Green Arrow and Black Canary. The implication is that the Unlimited League are copying the Crime Syndicate’s expanded roster. At one point the Justice League recruit their own help – a precursor to that expansion – including Aquaman and Black Canary. All the Made Men cameos are fun even if the Jimmy Olsen appearance is surprising. The piece against the Outsiders/Detroit League was released online (the clip above) and is fun for all the obscure appearances, but did feel a little gratuitous. The battle that follows it in the film against Superwoman’s Made Men had a lot more going for it.

A lot of us has assumed that this was going to be an adaptation of Grant Morrison’s JLA: Earth-Two graphic novel. Well it certainly isn’t a direct adaptation, but there are story beats (Luthor’s arrival, the Superwoman/Owlman relationship, etc) that do survive. So it definitely is a post-Earth-Two Crime Syndicate. The Luthor arrival moment is actually one of my favourite and nicely establishes him as a likeable and sympathetic character – a distinct difference than the comic-book anti-matter Luthor.

If I do have a criticism of the recasting it’ll be because the cartoon series characters were so strong.  The Batman character, in particular, comes off weakly when compared to the cartoon series Batman and with this Owlman. I suspect that this is partly because he isn’t played by Kevin Conroy – an almost impossible act to follow – but, it is also because James Woods is so good as the main villain. He is easily as cool as Conroy’s Batman. It doesn’t help that this Batman has to carry a confrontation against Owlman. The Flash (Josh Keaton) and J’onn J’onzz (Jonathan Adams) voice artists could easily sub for the regulars from the Justice League cartoon series as there is little discernible difference in the characterisations between here and there. They work quite well and I grew to like Keaton’s Flash quite a lot. The Superman and Wonder Woman characters aren’t developed as much.

The animation is of the usual high stan… actually you already know this. It’s Bruce Timm and Dwayne McDuffie doing a Justice League story. They’ve done dozens of these in the past so you know what the standard is going to be like and, if you’ve read this far into the review, you’ve probably seen at least several of those. To rank Crisis on Two Earths against the cartoon series is hard as the feature can afford higher production values and I’m not a fan of letting those automatically translate into a higher score. I gave the last Justice League DVD movie, The New Frontier, 4.5 stars which would rank it along side Superman “Brave New World” or the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game. Now I think this film is good, but not quite as good as those so I’m going to give it 4 stars which is comparable to what I gave the last part of “Paradise Lost” or Batman or Batman Begins.

PS: Sorry if you were expecting a full image gallery, synopsis, commentary, etc as I do for the normal Justice League cartoons, but I’m planning on leaving all that until I get to the Season Two/Season Three gap.

This clip from the movie of the JLA assembling their Watchtower/Satellite headquarters makes the connection pretty obvious – you can almost imagine the voices of the other original artists.

Newsarama hosted premier screens of the films on the East and West Coast. There was a live panel at the New York screening that was attended by James Woods (Owlman), writer Dwayne McDuffie, and voice director Andrea Romano. The West Coast premier was also have a panel hosted by Newsarama. It had larger roster including the executive producer Bruce Timm, the producers, and several actors.

At the East Cost panel James Wood’s described the thinking process of his Owlman character:

I was reading about an idiot savant chess player, and he went into real mental illness because he was so far ahead of his competitors that he got bored and was waiting to see them realize there was no way out.

McDuffie also expanded on the conversion from JLU to a standalone movie:

I was working on Justice League, and we were about to start Justice League Unlimited. The plan was to do a version of this story as a bridge from how they went from 6 characters to 60. There wasn’t the staff [at WB Animation] to do the design for both of these at once though.

Bruce Timm called me and asked if I’d be willing to rewrite it to be a bit more like the comics and less like the [cartoon] series. We switched Green Lanterns, we switched out all of the guest Justice Leaguers. In the TV series, they were all characters who had met Batman in other series.  The only one who was in both versions was Aquaman, who was going to be in there, cause I think Aquaman’s cool.

Wood’s then noted that he was the villain in the spoof Aquaman movie featured in the Entourage.

In a studio provided interview Executive Producer Bruce Timm was asked about the biggest challenge in translating a Justice League Unlimited script into a stand-alone movie.

The biggest challenge, and this is kind of esoteric, was that we had to find the line between the original source material and making it feel like a stand-alone movie so anyone that didn’t watch JLU could follow it. We really didn’t have to tweak the script too much – I think about 95 percent remains untouched. In terms of visual styling, we also wanted it to stand on its own and not necessarily as a continuation of the old show. We have this brilliant character designer – Phil Bourassa – who draws in a style similar to my own in terms of simplicity, but slightly different. So it doesn’t look 180 degrees away from the old show, but it definitely feels unique.

And, MTV’s Splash Page picked up on comments Dwayne McDuffie made about already having written two other animated movies.

“I’ve written two more [animated] movies,” said McDuffie. “I can’t say what they are, although I’m dying to say what they are. They’re really cool. [Warner Brothers Animation] kind of likes to announce just the next [animated film] to keep focused, but I think people are going to be pretty excited.”

The DVD and Blu-Ray copies of Crisis on Two Earths go on sale on Tuesday. I’ve got my blue ray copy on pre-order from Amazon, but it looks like there are a lot of copies out there already. I’ve got a saved search with Google that alerts me to new articles or webpages mentioning the Justice League and for the last week or so it has been inundated with links to pirate sites offering the film for download. I won’t download it, but I certainly won’t claim to hold the moral high ground. Nevertheless, I’ve been surprised by just how many times it’s been downloaded. A quick check of a couple of torrent sites shows 9000+ seeds/leechers for the most popular Crisis on Two Earths rip, which is three times more than for Smallville: Absolute Justice and comparable with the aggregate numbers for many motion pictures. Hopefully this will translate into enough sales to warrant subsequent Justice League movies.

Smallville “Absolute Justice”

The Justice Society are due to appear in the upcoming Smallville “Absolute Justice” feature-length episode written by comics scribe Geoff Johns. WB have released a new trailer which shows Clark walking around shut-up JSA meeting rooms.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

This clip is a minute-long segment that sees the Justice League fight a group of recognisable characters. Their opponents seem to be based on Detroit-era League. We see a Vixen, Elongated Man, and Black Lightning parallels.

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s rather obvious that this is a script held over from the DCAU Justice League cartoon. The quip from the Flash is funny, but you almost expect to hear Michael Rosenbaum’s voice. Nevertheless, it looks fantastic.

Around the net there has been a slow build-up of studio conducted interviews and casting details being released by Warner Home Video to promote the up-coming release of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.Voice Actors in the News summarises the coverage and links to Toonzone’s copies of the interviews.

A direct to DVD movie pitting the Justice League against the Crime Syndicate. TV Shows on DVD have hi-resolution images of the DVD’s artwork. The special edition Blu-ray cover is reproduced above, go to their site to see the boxes for the other formats.

The Official Press describes the film as:

To save our world and all those like it, SUPERMAN, BATMAN and their caped colleagues must go toe-to-toe with their evil mirror images in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, the seventh entry in the successful ongoing series of DC UNIVERSE Animated Original PG-13 Movies coming February 23, 2010 from Warner Premiere, DC Comics and Warner Bros. Animation. The full-length animated film will be distributed by Warner Home Video as a Special Edition 2-disc version on DVD and Blu-Ray™ Hi-Def for $24.98 (SRP) and $29.99 (SRP), respectively, as well as single disc DVD for $19.98 (SRP). The film will also be available On Demand and Download.

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is an original story from award-winning animation/comics writer Dwayne McDuffie (Justice League) rooted in DC Comics’ popular canon of “Crisis” stories depicting parallel worlds with uniquely similar heroes and villains. Bruce Timm (Superman Doomsday) is executive producer. Lauren Montgomery (Wonder Woman, Green Lantern: First Flight) and Sam Liu (Superman/Batman: Public Enemies) are co-directors.

In Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, a “good” LEX LUTHOR arrives from an alternate universe to recruit the JUSTICE LEAGUE to help save his Earth from the Crime Syndicate, a gang of villainous characters with virtually identical super powers to the JUSTICE LEAGUE. What ensues is the ultimate battle of good versus evil in a war that threatens both planets and, through a diabolical plan launched by OWLMAN, puts the balance of all existence in peril.

The movie features an all-star voice cast led by Mark Harmon (NCIS) as SUPERMAN, James Woods (Ghosts of Mississippi) as OWLMAN, Chris Noth (Sex and the City, Law & Order) as LEX LUTHOR, William Baldwin (Dirty Sexy Money) as BATMAN, Gina Torres (Serenity, Firefly) as SUPERWOMAN and Bruce Davison (X-Men) as the President.

The official website, www.JUSTICELEAGUECRISIS.com, is now live, but as yet doesn’t contain much more than the trailer.

To coincide with the release of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths DC Direct are releasing a hand-painted cold-cast porcelain maquette of Owlman (sculpted by Derek Miller). It’ll ship in February 24, 2010 and will set you back a penny less that $100. It does look quite cool, but I’m not sure I’d want just Owlman on his own. Now paired Batman and Owlman macquettes with mirrored poses would be harder to resist.

It’s an interesting trailer. We get to see more of the Crime Syndicate including our first looks at Johnny Quick and Power Ring (below). It’s very brief, but Quick is seen colliding with a white skinned biker who has to be Lobo.

We also see a Red Arrow, presumably the Crime Syndicate’s Green Arrow, fighting the Martian Manhunter. I was surprised by J’onn ferocity.  It looks like the Detroit League (Vibe, Vixen, and co) are fighting the Justice League, but there might be a hint of costume reversing going on.

I know we’ve have one super-villain in the White House, but was that really President Slade Wilson (Deathstroke the Terminator)?

Their website has an exclusive chat with the writer (Dwayne McDuffie) and the cast of the upcoming Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths DVD feature film. They talk to  William Baldwin (Batman), Mark Harmon (Superman), James Woods (Owlman), Gina Torres (Super Woman), and Christopher North (Lex Luthor).

McDuffie commented on the nature of the second Earth.

“There are so many different continuities for all of the characters in the comics over the many years, that we’re sort of used to seeing Batman and Superman in different contexts, which is fun,” says writer Dwayne McDuffie, “but a lot of it, in this particular case, is seeing what the world would be like if they weren’t good people. They have enormous power and there are almost no checks on their power. We dealt with this on the Justice League TV series, where they went to a parallel world where the Justice League met parallel versions of themselves [the Justice Lords] who had decided that the way to get rid of crime was to control everything and had maybe gone too far in that direction. In this case, they’re meeting not direct parallels of themselves, but people who sort of take those same positions. You’ve got Owlman instead of Batman, Ultraman instead of Superman, and Super Woman instead of Wonder Woman. They’re completely different people who have chosen to use their power for personal gain.”

Voices of Krypton is available now and costs $12 with US shipping and $20 with international shipping.

Rick Marshell over at MTV’s Splash Page Blog has posted up the above copy of the Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths sneak peak feature from Superman/Batman: Public Enemies DVD.