Justice League on Batman Beyond
Rembrandt
Mon, 7 Aug 2000 20:58:42 EDT

Monday's Comics Continuum has an update on the Justice League on "Batman Beyond." This is what is read:

"Paul Dini, producer of Batman Beyond, provided some details about the upcoming two-part episode of the series featuring the Justice League.

"I just looked at the episode yesterday. It came in in animation," Dini said
Friday at the Wizard World convention. "One change now: It's called the JLU. It's now 40 years in the future, and it's the Justice League Unlimited.

"There are some old familiar faces in there, but there are new characters you've never seen before, sort of second generation of classic characters.
But the basic JLU lineup consists of Superman, the senior member; Barda, from Apokolips, who is sort of second in command; Aquagirl, who is the daughter of Aquaman and Mera; a character called Micron, who is sort of like the original version of the Atom, mixed with a little bit of Giant-Man; a character called Warhawk, who is sort of like Hawkman, but who is also the bad-ass of the group; and a new Green Lantern, who is an Asian child, who's about 8 and is sort of like the Dali Lama, he just sort of hovers and is mystical all the time.

"Superman goes to see Bruce and says, 'I think it's time for Terry to join the League.' We say that Bruce was an original member, although kind of a reserve member because he wasn't one for joining up. Superman needs Terry to come in because he's somebody he can trust and there may be a traitor in the league.

"It's really cool. All the characters look great. Superman's got elements of Kingdom Come Superman to him, a little gray in the temple, but he's still the same guy. His suit's a little more Kryptonian, oddly enough."

Since Wonder Woman could be around in the future as a viable member, why wasn't she used?

"There's kind of a licensing problem," Dini said. "If we wanted to do Wonder Woman as a series, we could do that. If it was a guest-shot, it was a little more problematic. I don't really understand it. It just turned out to be easier all the way around.

"With Barda being a full-time member of the League (in the comics), we figured Barda's from Apokolips and nearly immortal, too, so let's put her in there and it has a link to the contemporary book.

"We love Wonder Woman. Bruce (Timm, producer) did that great design of her, which is now a maquette at the Warner Bros. store. At some point, we'll do Wonder Woman. We just need to fight that battle when we get to it."

Dini said the door was left open for more JLU appearances. "If we do more Batman Beyond, we'll definitely do more JLU," he said.

Dini was asked about the possibility of JLA in animation.

"It's something we've talked doing about for a long time," Dini said. "I'm not really sure where it is. That's looking more and more like it's going to be Bruce's project, if, in fact, it's going to be a project.

"We're taking a little time off, to do some other things around the studio, so I'm not sure what's going on with that. I know they've talked about it, and it's been on again, off again. But there's no news on it right now."

Thirteen episodes of Batman Beyond will air during the third season on Kids' WB!

"We finished production on the show. It doesn't mean that there's not going to be any more," Dini said. "They just haven't given us a pick-up for a new season yet. We're coming off of 13 new episodes, which start, I think, at the end of August.

"If the ratings still stay up there, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't give us a pick-up of some sort. They're very encouraged by the way Return of the Joker (movie) is looking and I think they want to at least investigate doing another direct-to-video Batman maybe a year from now. So we're doing some plotting now, working up a few outlines, things like that."

The Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker movie will feature music by Kenny Wayne Shepard.

Look for more on Batman Beyond in Tuesday's Continuum report."