The DCU Animation Thread.

[Sawyer]

Newbern is the one that voiced Supes in The Batman.

 

[Hush]

Gotham knights was primarily used to promote the toy line based off the 4th season of Batman.

 

[Dread]

I saw GOTHAM KNIGHTS as just an additional way to cash in on THE DARK KNIGHT.

And indeed, George Newburn has voiced Superman in JUSTICE LEAGUE, JLU, and for his appearances in STATIC SHOCK and THE BATMAN in the last season. Tim Daly reprised the role for SUPERMAN: BRAINIAC ATTACKS, which was so terrible even I couldn't sit through it on TV. And I've sat through SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED for heaven's sake.

While I am likely going to get GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT (I skipped WONDER WOMAN, since I was never a fan of hers), I am interested in SUPERMAN/BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES. Part of me wonders if this special may suffer from some of the same dilemmas that SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY did. Not so much as not being faithful to the comic series which which it was loosely based on, but because Bruce Timm has essentially covered a similar storyline via his 14 years on TV with DCUA. I mean, episodes of S:TAS and JLU covered much of what was in SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY and Timm ended up repeating some of his Bizarro episode stuff in that without realizing it (according to the commentary). Well, in JLU, Timm & Co. did approach a "President Luthor" type storyline. Luthor was running for office, busy framing the JLU for stuff and making Superman lose it in public to ruin his image a little, was basically funding metahuman response methods against them, and so on. SUPERMAN/BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES does have the risk of going over some of that ground if the story is not careful. The animation style is closer to the SUPERMAN/BATMAN comic storyline, though, and in that story Luthor actually successfully does become President (albeit is impeached after trying to kill the duo with his wonky green armor).

Still, I am interested.

 

[Hush]

I think that Public Enemies is going to be the best DTV to date.

 

[Dread]

As I said earlier, it reminds me a little of HULK VS. in which the aim of the DTV is for the hardcore fan and the aim of the story is just to provide a lot of feel good action with recognizable heroes and villains rather than to try to remake the wheel or other pretensions. Which really isn't a bad thing to be honest. DC claimed that fans were the true targets of these, after all. The Loeb story that this DTV is being based on had a bit of that. I mean, what can be more crowd pleasing than Batman & Superman teaming up to pummel a punch of big name villains like Bane, Grundy, virtually the entire "Legion of Doom" and Luthor himself?

Hopefully Luthor's rise to the presidency and vilification of Superman in the story is made to make sense. While declaring Batman a public enemy shouldn't be too hard, as many in Gotham (aside for Commissioner Gordon) consider him a vigilante and even a lunatic at worst, Superman is a harder pickle.

Ed McGuiness' style looked pretty good in motion.

I did like how the Bat-Mite episode of BRAVE AND THE BOLD seemed to try to answer some criticism about the show being too "light" for Batman.

 

[Hush]

Well if you remember in the book it is already established that Luthor had won the presidency and now was just going through his devious motions in such a postion of power. I just hope they some how retain the though bubbles from the books and use them as a narration of sorts. Switching between Newber (hopefully) and Conroy. I think we are going to see the first meeting of Clark and Bruce cut though.

 

[WompuM]

That's such a good scene. I hope its not cut.

 

[Hush]

Yeah but it really adds nothing to the story. It would be a scene i would cut.

 

[Dread]

To be honest, it is about time both Marvel and DC got past the 75 minute barrier for their animated releases. Many stories are hard to tell without a more "movie" length of about 90 minutes. Japan releases a LUPIN THE THIRD TV special every summer that is 90 minutes and some of those are packed to the gills (and that franchise stars only about five characters, most of them amusing ciphers). The only thing holding JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NEW FRONTIER from "great" to "epic" was another 15-20 minutes to BREATHE. Some stories need those small memorable scenes intact. These aren't music video's here. Especially if it was from an era when Jeph Loeb could actually write something that wasn't drivel.

IMDB.com claims Kevin Conroy has been recast as Batman, but they've been infamously wrong before on pre-production rumors (once casting Hawkeye in ULTIMATE AVENGERS 2), so I won't believe any real casting rumors until official stuff is announced, which should be around when GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT is about to be released on July 28th.

Hopefully this is the sort of feel-good adventure that DC likely wants it to be; Batman & Superman teaming up to fight bad guys. And to think, this could have been done in live action if only WB was more patient and less incompetent.

 

[Sawyer]

To be honest, it is about time both Marvel and DC got past the 75 minute barrier for their animated releases. Many stories are hard to tell without a more "movie" length of about 90 minutes. Japan releases a LUPIN THE THIRD TV special every summer that is 90 minutes and some of those are packed to the gills (and that franchise stars only about five characters, most of them amusing ciphers). The only thing holding JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NEW FRONTIER from "great" to "epic" was another 15-20 minutes to BREATHE. Some stories need those small memorable scenes intact. These aren't music video's here. Especially if it was from an era when Jeph Loeb could actually write something that wasn't drivel.

IMDB.com claims Kevin Conroy has been recast as Batman, but they've been infamously wrong before on pre-production rumors (once casting Hawkeye in ULTIMATE AVENGERS 2), so I won't believe any real casting rumors until official stuff is announced, which should be around when GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT is about to be released on July 28th.

Hopefully this is the sort of feel-good adventure that DC likely wants it to be; Batman & Superman teaming up to fight bad guys. And to think, this could have been done in live action if only WB was more patient and less incompetent.

Agreed. I dont think it would hurt to bump the running times to about 85-90 minutes.

 

[BlackLantern]

it's also a budget issue...WB only gives them X amount of money per production, so that affects run time...if they get a DTV that is a HUGE hit then that may change and we might get longer movies

 

[RogueDK]

^^^That is correct.

Also studios don't want to invest too much in hand-drawn animated projects nowadays when CGI features are such the rage with contemporary audiences.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'd take a CGI DTV movie if it's cheaper than hand-drawn animation.

 

[Anubis]

As long as it's good CGI.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, we'd probably end up with really lame CGI.

 

[RogueDK]

Like Nube said: If it's good CGI and in my book "mind-blowing". Otherwise...no thank you.

I much prefer the more organic look of hand drawn cartoons.

 

[Panthro]

Yeah I was wondering wtf he got that myself...




There was never any harm done, but I detest BGK. It's awful and I wouldn't want any Superman that I know end up looking like this:

Would you accept a Superman who looked like this -

Not as grim and not using a gun of course.

 

[BlackLantern]

No...

 

[Sawyer]

Eh... I kinda like it. But, yeah, no to that being Superman.

 

[Etienne]

Finally got around to watching B&B's Legends of the Dark Mite and The Color of Revenge, both of which get two from me.

The Dark Mite episode was all sorts of fun and filled with awesome references.

Paul Reubens was PERFECTO as the voice of Bat-Mite!

The costume changes.

Bruce Timm as The Joker with Paul Dini as Harley. Timm's reaction and response to campy Batman "Meh".

What a great old school reference to Daffy Duck's "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery".

The BTAS reference with Bat-Mite on the rooftop and the lightning strike behind him.

Spoiler

As a Robin/Dick Grayson fan I thoroughly enjoyed The Color of Revenge.
Writer Todd Casey made Crazy Quilt into a surprisingly threatening, dangerous villain. I've always loved the Father/Son dynamic between Batman and Robin and this episode has it. The mere mention of Blüdhaven had me giddy like a school girl...er boy. Also loved the take down by Robin on Grundy, clever and affective. The Color of Revenge is easily one of my favorite episodes of B&B right up there with The Red Hood/Joker episodes (Deep Cover For Batman/Game Over For Owlman).

BATMAN: "I thought you liked the sidecar."
ROBIN: "Yeah, when I was 8."

 

[Etienne]

You know had you just said BTAS SEASON 4 or Volume 4 instead of trying to be fancy with it, we'd have had a smoother conversation.

You know good and well that you've never seen that cartoon with that title onscreen...

To be fair Rogue, I used to rarely see "The New Batman Adventures" listed onscreen. Like Lantern said, Kids WB used to combine TNBA/STAS and refer to it as "The New Batman/Superman Adventures".

The New Batman Adventures is sometimes considered separate from BTAS, heck even IMDB has it listed separately. I agree with Sawyer on this one, I have heard TNBA referred to as "Gotham Knights" or "Batman: Gotham Knights".

 

[RogueDK]

To be fair Rogue, I used to rarely see "The New Batman Adventures" listed onscreen. Like Lantern said, Kids WB used to combine TNBA/STAS and refer to it as "The New Batman/Superman Adventures".

The New Batman Adventures is sometimes considered separate from BTAS, heck even IMDB has it listed separately. I agree with Sawyer on this one, I have heard TNBA referred to as "Gotham Knights" or "Batman: Gotham Knights".

Despite all of the madness from which title is referred to more, out of all four volumes of BTAS, Vol. 4(TNBA ), is my favorite. I know that some fans don't like connecting those seasons to the earlier ones but damn if the artwork and production aren't a step up from the other 3.

To be partially fair to Sawyer, there is an ep in that volume titled Gotham Knights and I believe that it revolved around a Christmas scenario with all of the lead characters?

I've never heard of that series on a whole being advertised as GKs though.

 

[RogueDK]

Would you accept a Superman who looked like this -

Not as grim and not using a gun of course.

That was probably the best looking segment on the entire disc (and I'm not a huge fan of Anime by any means) but I really don't think that this design fits a universe as cheery as Superman's.

This looks a tad too gothic for Clark.

 

[BlueLightning]

I just wanted to say that "Legends of The Dark Mite!" is one of the best episodes of Brave and the Bold, by far. It is one of my favorites along "Deep Cover for Batman! " and "Game Over for Owlman". It was just so cleverly written. Paul Dini sure knows the Batman mythos, and this episode proved it.

I absolutely loved the part where Bat-Mite gave the reason of being of the show. I recommend al the "nay sayers" of this show to watch it. Maybe it can change some people's minds.

The part where Bat-Mite was changing the suits of Batman was hilarious. Let me check if I got them correctly:

- Batman & Dracula: Red Rain "Imposing, but too Dracula"
- Bat-Hombre "Too dashing"
- Adam West Batman "Too campy"
- Batman & Robin Batman Suit "Too icky"
- Zebra Batman (Thanks GamerSlyRatchet) "Too confusing"
- The Dark Knight Returns Batman "Too psycho!"

I just loved this episode, and cameo appareaces of The Joker, The Riddler, The Penguin, Catwoman, The Mad Hatter, and Mr. Freeze (Mr. Zero) made it perfect. Great episode, I hope Dini will write a little more of The Brave and The Bold.

 

[Dread]

I do agree that the style of BATMAN BRAVE AND THE BOLD seems to suit Dini's more recent DC cartoon writing habits. His episodes tended to be lighter fare in recent years, which clashed a bit when it was JLU, but works find for Bold.