I grew up on the old Superfriends cartoons. I loved ‘em. I also have a substantial comic
book collection. So, it’s fair to say I was plenty excited
when Cartoon Network decided to do a Justice League show.
My son has become a fan of the series as he has become old
enough to watch it as well. He loves Batman and Superman especially,
and often those two take center stage. However, the rest of
the crew is not relegated to second banana status. In this
show, every character is used and explored, which for an American
cartoon for children is rare.
For those comic illiterates out there, Justice League (and
the Superfriends for that matter) is based on the long running Justice League of America books for Detective Comics
(DC for short). The idea back when the book started in the
early 1960s was to group together the new and popular DC superheroes
of the time ala the old Justice Society from All Star Comics
in the 1940s. These iconic heroes could take on the types
of villains that they couldn’t stop single handedly.
It was one more way to get these heroes out and into reader’s
hands each month.
The stalwart silver age characters most people know are all
here in the cartoon - Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash,
and Green Lantern. They are joined by two characters familiar
to comic fans, but not so much to the average person - Martian
Manhunter and Hawkgirl. Manhunter is the last surviving Martian
and Hawkgirl is a police officer from Thanagar, both nearly
identical to their comic origins.
 It
was decided early on that the Green Lantern in this series
would be John Stewart, an African American man who, in the
comics, took over for the original Green Lantern, Hal Jordan,
when he quit the superhero gig back in the 1980s. This choice
upset a few people in the comic community because it was seen
as a token racial gesture, and many Hal fans wanted him in.
I myself found it to be the right decision for various reasons,
not the least of which is the main one the producers used
- that boys and girls who are not white should see people
who look like them, and more importantly who are heroes,
up on the TV or movie screen. And again, it wasn’t an
unprecedented switch just for the sake of skin color- John’s
been around for awhile and continues to this day to be a big
part of the Green Lantern mythos.
So anyway, the television series collected on these DVDs.
Included in this set are all 26 season 1 episodes. Each story
is usually two episodes long and was shown as a two-parter
(or three-parter as with the series premier and season finale)
when originally aired.
What works so well here is what made the Batman and Superman
cartoons of the ‘90s so great - the writing. The producers
and writers were able to not only write self-contained tales
that kids of all ages loved, but were also able to tie stories
into comic continuity on occasion for people such as myself.
The characters are crisp and pretty loyal to how they have
been portrayed for the last 15-20 years or so in the comics.
Batman is a dark loner, Superman a big boy scout, Wonder Woman
a stranger in the world of man. In addition, there is some
nice humor in the episodes as well. The episodes are really
written as character pieces, and not necessarily plot driven.
Perhaps the best example of all of the above to me is the
two-part episode titled Legends. As I mentioned earlier,
there was a DC super team way back in the ‘40s that
in the comics helped inspire the formation of the Justice
League of America. The writers wanted to do a similar thing,
but found themselves unable to use the DC Golden Age characters
that are a part of the Justice Society (they asked but DC
declined), so instead the used place holder characters (the
streak, instead off the Golden Age Flash for example), and
called them the Justice Guild. What happens in the episode
is that Hawkgirl, Flash, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter
are all transported by accident to another dimension where
the Guild is the only superhero team. They have to try and
find a way back home while working with the Guild.
 For
me it was a great episode because it harkened back to so many
of the great Justice Society/Justice League team-ups From
the ‘60s, and for my son, it was just neat to see new
characters in action. It’s a well written tip of the
cap to Silver Age comics.
In addition, there were some other guest stars during season
one, like Aquaman, Metamorpho and Lex Luthor. Again, I think
the strength of the show during the first couple of seasons
is that it is accessible to kids and non-comic fans, but also
able to utilize characters like Metamorpho and stay true to
comics history, so that long time fans such as me enjoyed
the show too.
There are a couple of episodes, Fury and War
World, that I don’t think are up to par with the
rest of the season, but even still, they are pretty entertaining.
The series I think hits a higher note when dealing with the
characters on a more intimate level. Fury tried that
in dealing with Wonder Woman’s back story, but fell
short. War World is Superman-focused, and just sort
of meanders through the story. It’s the weakest of the
bunch I think.
Overall this is a great bunch of episodes. My son and I churned
through them in a couple days and had a great time doing so.
Ecstasy For My Eyes?
The
animation is clear and great looking. Like the audio, the
set isn’t given extra special care in terms of how each
episode looks, but don’t take that to mean they don’t
look good. They do.
Will My Ears Love It?
The set sounds OK. It won’t rock
your house, but it is a kids DVD set, so I doubt there was
much concern on doing a DTS track. As well, I don’t
think anything special is done for the sound when the episodes
air, so overall the set sounds just like the episodes did,
which is good enough for me.
Goody Bag!
There are a few extras on the set:
Audio
Commentary on selected episodes with Bruce Timm- Producer,
James Tucker - Producer, Glenn Murakami- Producer, Rich Fogel-
Producer & Dan Riba- Director
Interviews:
Inside Justice League. A private panel discussion takes
place between Bruce Timm and his team of creators about Justice
League with some special surprises
The
Look of The League. Bruce Timm explains character design
of Justice League
Storyboards:
The Blueprint For Justice. The creative team of Justice
League discuss storyboarding process
Justice
League: The First Mission. Watch this exciting "Never
Seen Before" promo which helped Justice League leap into
action
That’s
actually a pretty good amount considering it’s a release
essentially aimed at kids. The commentaries are pretty good.
I wish they would have had a little more documentary info
about getting the series off the ground or about how this
series relates back to the comics of my youth (and before),
but again, what you have hear is a pretty decent amount of
stuff in addition to the episodes themselves.
The Final Analysis
Sad enough to say, I’d probably
watch just about ANY cartoon comic book adaptation that comes
down the pike. Justice League, though, succeeds
on the strength of the writing with relation to the stories
and characters. It’s able to entertain me and my little
boy, which few shows are able to do. It’s worth checking
out.
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