The name of the next DC direct-to-DVD animated feature is Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. It appeared on the preview box artwork for their current release, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, but we knew nothing beyond it and that it was written by Dwayne McDuffie. When that news broke I conjectured that, based on the name, it were probably going adapt the first Silver Age JLA/JSA story, however, it now looks like they’re going for a more up to date story.
Ain’t Cool News has a synopsis of the story and a couple of preview images:
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 World’s Finest website have confirmed the details with their tame WB insider. The announced cast are:
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 Super Woman and Bruce Davison (X-Men) as the President.
First off, this looks like it’s based on Grant Morrison’s JLA: Earth-Two which is itself based on an older Silver Age story. Specifically the flight by the “good” Luthor and the appearance of Owlman draws comparison’s with the JLA:Earth-Two graphic novel. The leaked group shot is using the current DC character models for Hal Jordan and the Martian Manhunter.
Bruce Timm is the executive producer. The Crime Syndicate is one of those stories they never got to on the animated Justice League cartoon. The closest they had got on air was the Justice Lords, a parallel-Earth Justice League that was more fascist/authoritarian than criminally evil. Yet, there were plans for a Crime Syndicate story. From an older Bruce Timm interview (also on Ain’t It Cool):
superhero: It’s been a few years now since technically the company with the original Bruce Timm animated DC Universe ended. Do you ever have that fear or have any anxiety that fans may look down on any new product not associated with the continuity?
BT: There’s always going to be that. I mean there are people, you go on any message board and some of them are OK with it and moving on and some of them are still bemoaning the fact that we aren’t doing more on that same universe. But you know it was time to move on and that’s the bottom line. It’s not to say we’ll never go back there because actually we do have a Justice League script which a lot of people know about which we actually wrote right at the beginning of the JLU era of “Justice League” which was supposed to transition from JL into JLU and it was a big sprawling adventure with JL vs. the Crime Syndicate. It’s a really terrific script that Ray[Dwayne?] McDuffy wrote and for a variety of reasons it just didn’t get made. But that comes up in conversation all the time, “hey when are we going to do Worlds Collide, when are we going to do Worlds Collide?” So I’m hoping we’ll actually get to do that one of these days.
That makes it sound like this JLA feature is a version of the Worlds Collide feature that they’d been working on for JL/JLU.
superhero: It’s been a few years now since technically the company with the original Bruce Timm animated DC Universe ended. Do you ever have that fear or have any anxiety that fans may look down on any new product not associated with the continuity?
BT: There’s always going to be that. I mean there are people, you go on any message board and some of them are OK with it and moving on and some of them are still bemoaning the fact that we aren’t doing more on that same universe. But you know it was time to move on and that’s the bottom line. 
It’s not to say we’ll never go back there because actually we do have a Justice League script which a lot of people know about which we actually wrote right at the beginning of the JLU era of “Justice League” which was supposed to transition from JL into JLU and it was a big sprawling adventure with JL vs. the Crime Syndicate. It’s a really terrific script that Ray McDuffy wrote and for a variety of reasons it just didn’t get made. But that comes up in conversation all the time, “hey when are we going to do Worlds Collide, when are we going to do Worlds Collide?” So I’m hoping we’ll actually get to do that one of these days.
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