The Wonder Twins can eat a dick.
This article will not involve magic rides from Aquaman’s precious seahorsey. While Ian skips regular friends, I’ll be skipping the made-to-appear-on-Zeller’s-underwear Super Friends era altogether. For me, DC’s animated universe began in 1992, crafted by a mofo that had no need for s#!%head twin mascots that deliver overly-expository dialogue to mask poor scripting. (No Haddow)
Batman: The Animated Series
With the popularity of Batman reaching heights it hadn’t seen since Adam West did battle with Ceaser Romero’s moustache in the sixties, the powers that be decided to hand Bruce Timm the keys to the Batmobile and usher the Dark Knight into animation. To give it a different aesthetic, all of the artwork for the show was done on black paper. Imbued with darkness at it’s core literally, this Batman was the most faithful adaptation yet, and somehow still blazed it’s own trail. Unfolding in moody two-parters, the stories had more room to breathe, and thus more time to shine. Timm and voice actors, including Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill (!) as Joker, delivered definitive versions of the characters in the smartest, funniest, coolest cartoon I’d ever seen.
If you have never seen an episode, your name is either Stevie Wonder or F@#$ing Idiot.
Superman: The Animated Series
With Batman’s success, the green light was given to launch DC’s other premier character in his own series. While not as groundbreaking and perfect as it’s predecessor, S: TAS was a hit with critics and fans alike and responsible for my favourite rendition of Lex Luthor. Clancy Brown’s booming voice added a presence and gravitas not usually found in a cartoon. Season two brought us the three part mini-epic titled ‘World’s Finest’. A team-up with Batman revealed that the two series were set in the same universe. This crossover unknowingly laid the groundwork for the future…
Justice League
And here’s where it all paid off. Having done noir and sci-fi, it was time for Timm to try his hand at big budget action. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and Martian Manhunter came together to form the ultimate super-group and the ultimate cartoon. Epic in scope, Justice League upped the stakes and brought widescreen mayhem the likes of which had not before been seen outside of the comics. Ending the second season with a betrayal that caused the League to implode, cartoons had never pushed envelopes like this. And it got even grander in scale after all that!
Justice League Unlimited
Renamed Justice League Unlimited, the show re-launched with a new showrunner (Dwayne McDuffie) and a re-built League, incorporating a revolving supporting cast comprised of (almost) every character in the DC universe! The Apokaliptic (not a typo, ho!) series finale is filed with cool moments including my favourite – the unlikely, unstoppable duo of Batman and Lex Luthor, the two smartest, most dangerous men on the planet. It would be like me hanging out with a mirror. In the last frame of the last episode, as the heroes ran off-screen to continue the never-ending battle, I assumed Timm and McDuffie would follow suit. But they was all like, “Naw…”
DC would now bring us a series of stand-alone straight-to-home-video feature length films, some adaptations of their most famous and/or acclaimed stories, some wholly original. Semi-relevant: Ian is an adaptation of Elephant Man’s face.
Superman: Doomsday
First out of the gate, as he was in the comic world back in 1938, DC hit us with Supes’ greatest (or at least most publicized) battle. The one that ultimately killed him. Changes were made in an effort to streamline the film, removing elements that would require too much explanation or set-up. Unfortunately, some of the more confusing elements from the comic were my favorite, like all of the other superheroes that attended his funeral and the Rise of the Four Supermen. Condensed to under 90 minutes, the story seemed rushed.
Justice League: The New Frontier
Another sprawling epic on the page, and one of my favorites, I thought this would suffer the same fate as the previous entry. I was proven wrong before the opening credits rolled. I gotta say, opening an animated film starring your company’s biggest icons with a suicide is ballsy. So was setting it in the 60’s, against a backdrop of Cold War paranoia, Rat Pack stand-ins, the Kennedy administration and the ‘Space Race’. So was drawing it in the style of the writer/artist Darwyn Cooke, the man that brought us the original mini-series this was based on. So is Ian’s chin.
Batman: Gotham Knight
Basically The Animatrix, but with Batman. An anthology of shorts set in the world of the live-action Christopher Nolan version of Bruce Wayne that takes place in between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Like Chris Brown, some hit. The rest, unfortunately, went wide right.
Wonder Woman
Surprisingly, this was pretty damn good and pretty damn violent. Wonder Woman on her own: meh. Wonder Woman with beheadings: I’m in.
Green Lantern: First Flight
Treating the Green Lantern Corps like a universe-wide police force was genius. A fearless, arrogant test pilot is drafted into an army of space-cops wielding power limited only by their imagination. Any jerkhole out there that thinks Green Lantern is just about ‘sparkly, magic rings’ is just confused about his own sexuality due to prolonged exposure to Thor’s pecs and huge hammer. Jason.
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, these two are my favorite characters. Adapting a story that is basically: Framed by US President Lex Luthor (!), Superman and Batman are on the run and forced to fight EVERYBODY! Wanna taste? Have another. F@¢# yeah, yo!
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
A good guy Lex Luthor enlists The Justice League to come to his alternate earth and do battle with evil, mafia versions of themselves. The film drops the ball on the voice casting of Batman and Superman but knocks it out of the park with the evil-alternate-Batman known as Owlman. As voiced by James Woods, he is nihilistic, and as is the case with most dangerously intelligent people: bored. The plot he hatches to alleviate this boredom is absolutely incredible and overshadows any dark, evil scheme that has come before this in the DCAU. Dwayne McDuffie’s writing is spot-on and, as is the norm for him, no matter how high Bruce Timm sets that bar for himself, he continually one-ups it. Almost perfect, and it wasn’t even the best thing on the disc. That distinction belongs to one of the supplementary ‘special features’…
DC Showcase: The Spectre
Much like Ian in a prove-you-have-a-penis-contest, I was not prepared for this. Bar-none, the best thing produced since Justice League Unlimited is the first in a series of supplementary shorts featuring DC’s lesser known stable of characters and concepts that will accompany the main features. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, so the less you know about the specifics, the better. Suffice it to say, everything from the setting, to the mood, to the era, to the voices, to the script, to the music, to the mood is awesomer than a bag of hammers. Hitting Ian in the head. While the ghost of whichever Milli Vanilli member is dead sticks gum in his pubes. Watch that s#!%. (Spectre, not Ian/Milli Vanilli ghost-porn)
Jonah Hex (think Clint Eastwood as Two-Face) and Green Arrow are next in the queue for the DC Showcase series and the next feature is called Batman: Under The Red Hood. They could call it “Rob Liefeld” and I’d still watch it as long as that motherf@#$er Bruce Timm is at the helm. No Wonder Twins, though, okay Bruce?
Put one in the air…
– Nuv
NEXT ISSUE: POP A WOODIE FOR WOODY!
TUNE IN: SAME NUV-TIME, SAME NUV-CHANNEL…
