Justice League: The Complete Series Release Date: November 10, 2009 Own it on DVD Producers: Dwayne McDuffie, Shaun McLaughlin, Bruce W. Timm, James Tucker, Rich Fogel, Sander Schwartz, Glen Murakami, Linda Steiner Stars: Carl Lumbly, Phil LaMarr, George Newbern, Kevin Conroy, Maria Canals-Barrera, Michael Rosenbaum, Susan Eisenberg MPAA Rating: Unrated HoboTrashcan’s Rating:

Because of the unique visual style and compelling character incarnations producer Bruce Timm helped to create, the collection of animated shows that Timm has worked on are often referred to by fans as the “Timmverse.” Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond are all part of the Timmverse, but it’s Justice League that truly allows you to appreciate the scope of the world that Timm and his fellow producers, writers and animators have created.

What’s great about the recently released 15-disc Justice League: The Complete Series box set is that it allows you to see the evolution of this universe. Through the episodes themselves and the bonus featurettes, you can see how Timm and the rest of the creative team were able to create an entire world populated with all of these different DC Comic characters and how they were able to juggle the various characters so that the 22-minute episodes didn’t seem too cluttered or confusing.

In the first two seasons, the League consisted of just seven characters – Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and J’onn J’onzz (a.k.a. Martian Manhunter). The seven met inside of a space station orbiting earth and they all worked together to fight evil on this planet and in other galaxies. To best utilize all of the characters, most stories were two or three-parters.

In the bonus featurette entitled “Inside Justice League,” the producers admit that season one was rocky at times while they attempted to figure out the right formula for the show. By season two, though, they had hit their groove and they seemed to figure out the best way to utilize the characters in the allotted time in order to tell the most compelling stories.

When season two came to an end, many people thought it was the end of the Justice League. However, the show was rebranded Justice League Unlimited and was expanded to feature a larger cast of heroes. The first episode, “Initiation,” depicts over 50 different superheroes together in the space station as Superman conducts the first ever meeting of this expanded Justice League. J’onn J’onzz is put in charge of assigning missions, so he decides which collection of heroes is sent out to take on each new threat.

In Justice League Unlimited, the writers did away with the two and three-part stories and instead elected to have overarching storylines throughout the entire seasons. In the first season of Unlimited, the overaching plot involves an organization called Cadmus that believes the League poses a threat to mankind. Cadmus believes they are actually the good guys, protecting us all from these all-powerful beings. In the second season of Unlimited, the Legion of Doom – a collection of supervillians with no illusions that they are the good guys – form to take down the Justice League.

It’s in the two seasons of Unlimited that you are truly able to appreciate the scope of this animated universe. By opening up the group to more characters than the original seven, they are able to introduce a wide range of new heroes into this continuity, creating a new complexity and depth. Also, during the Cadmus storyline, the writers tied the conspiracy theories from old Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series episodes into the plot, which intricately links those shows into this one, which again reinforced the idea that this was one big universe.

Also helping with that continuity was the fact that Kevin Conroy was retained as the voice of Batman. (Unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict, Tim Daly did not return at the voice of Superman.) However, they did alter the look of the character for this show – Batman was given longer ears and the coloring of his costume was a mix between his look in Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures. Superman’s look was also tweaked – he was redesigned to look a bit older in the first season of the show, but fans didn’t like the new look, so it was eventually phased out.

The featurette “The Look of the League” has an in-depth look at how they settled on the look of the seven original characters. Mostly, they tried to stick with the original comic book depictions of the characters, while adapting their looks to Bruce Timm’s signature style.

“Inside Justice League,” “Justice League Declassified,” “Cadmus: Exposed” and “Justice League Chronicles” are all panel discussions that take you through the evolution of the show. There is also “Unlimited Reserve: A League for the Ages,” which is a retrospective looking back at the entire run of the series.

“Storyboards: The Blueprint for Justice,” “Voices of Justice” and “Themes of Justice” take fans even deeper into the creation of the show. As the name suggests, the first featurette shows you how they create storyboards for each episode and how those storyboards are adapted into the animation. “Voices of Justice” shows you how the ensemble cast of voice actors record their lines together (although for some reason Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman, is left out of this featurette). “Themes of Justice” allows you to isolate the musical tracks on a variety of scenes so that you can appreciate the musical score.

There is also an excerpt from the Bryan Singer and Kevin Burns produced documentary “Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman,” which is a broad overview of the various incarnations of Superman in the comics, film and television.

Unless you already own each individual season of the Justice League already, I definitely recommend picking up this box set. The stories are rich, the animation is beautiful and the featurettes allow you to appreciate the evolution of the series. So get lost in the Timmverse; it’s a wonderful place to be.

Written by Joel Murphy. Justice League: The Complete Series is available now on DVD.

Similar Posts:

• One on One with Kevin Conroy
• One on One with Paul Dini
• Positive Cynicism – Fine, let’s talk about the DC reboot
• Review – Batman: Gotham Knight
• Murphy’s Law – A SFW review of Superman XXX

Starting this week, there will be a slight change in the weekly schedule.

From now on, Murphy’s Law will run on Mondays and Outside of the In-Crowd will run on Wednesday.

I know change is scary, but I promise it will be okay.

- Joel Murphy
Editor-in-chief

Joel Murphy

As I write this, I am currently barricaded inside my home, chomping on a cigar, eating a juicy steak and downing a fifth of Jameson. I have been locked in here since Friday, passing the time by alternating between Jason Statham movies and episodes of Dirty Jobs. I fear that I may never leave here again. The streets are no longer safe.

You see, my friends, it’s finally happened … women have gotten too much power.

Guys, we knew this was coming for years. There were signs – all the jokes about married guys with controlling wives, Fight Club’s theme of men raised by women struggling with their masculinity, the increased popularity of roller derby – but we were too busy being forced to take salsa dancing classes and go apple picking to notice. We waited too long and now it’s officially too late.

Things reached a tipping point this weekend when Twilight: New Moon had the third-largest opening in box office history, making $140.7 million in three days. It even set a new opening day record, earning $72.7 million, which surpassed The Dark Knight’s $67.2 million one-day total. That’s right, we are now officially living in a world where sparkly vampires can claim a victory over Batman.

Not surprisingly, the audience was 80 percent female. Still gentlemen, I think it’s only right that we take a moment here to honor our fallen brethren who made up that other 20 percent. Those poor bastards may have sacrificed everything for a chance to score with a lonely goth chick, but still, they fought the good fight. That being said, if reports get back that any of these men were sporting either a Team Edward or Team Jacob t-shirt in the theater, we will, of course, disown them.

Still, Twilight’s success alone isn’t what has me barricaded in my house. No, this is much bigger than that. Movies like Twilight are easy enough to avoid. They are easy to spot. But something sinister happened this weekend. Guys who went to the movies with their lady friends and wisely chose the new football movie over the teen vampire saga found themselves in another Jerry MaGuire situation. That’s right, women are once again infiltrating our sports movies. And this time, they sent one of their top agents – Sandra Bullock.

The Blind Side, an inspirational football film based on the touching true story of Michael Oher, actually stars Sandra Bullock. Yes, that Sandra Bullock – the one who starred in All About Steve, The Lake House and Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. The Blind Side made $34.5 million this weekend, earning it second place. And the audience for that film was about 59 percent female.

So women are already going after the box office records set by The Dark Knight and Spider-man 3 and they are taking over our sports movies. But I fear this is only the beginning. Now that they have gotten a taste of power, we don’t really stand a chance.

Their power will continue to grow tonight as we all witness the end of Jon and Kate Plus 8. Or, to put it more accurately – the end of Jon. Sure, Jon Gosselin is doing all he can to keep Kate Plus 8 from happening, but eventually TLC will find a way to move forward with the show. Before long, Jon will be nothing more than a distant memory. His story will be replaced by Kate Gosselin, single mother with a dumb haircut who struggles to raise eight children on her own (with the help of a team full of nannies, personal assistants and pool boys, all paid for with with the fat paycheck she received from TLC).

Now some of you might say that Jon Gosselin deserved what he got. You would, of course, be right. He is an unlikable douche who should be forced to wear that mask full of bees that they put on Nicolas Cage at the end of The Wicker Man. Watching him suffer would normally give me great joy, but I see the bigger picture. He has weakened our cause. He has shown that we are all expendable.

Women have now taken over film and television. It’s only a matter of time before they rise up and officially take over the world. The revolution is coming and it will happen on September 9, 2011 – Oprah’s last day on the air.

Sure, Oprah can claim that she is stepping down from her popular daytime talk show to focus on a new cable network, but I know the truth. She has spent the last 23 years building an army of loyal soldiers, hiding subliminal messages inside her book club selections. There is no question that Oprah is the most powerful woman on the planet and in 2011, she is claiming her rightful throne … and no man will be safe.

That’s why, if you need me, I’ll be ordering some chicken wings and watching Death Race in my fortified bunker. You can either join me or join Team Edward. The choice is yours.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

Similar Posts:

• Positive Cynicism – How to exploit your child for fame and profit
• Hobo Radio 184 – From Hamsterdam to Amsterdam
• Hobo Radio 108 – The holiday hangover
• Outside of the In-Crowd – Opresh
• Outside of the In-Crowd – Reality people don’t count

Chuck Bartowski may moonlight as a government spy, but he still has to work a day job at the Buy More. And while his government handlers may be a bit difficult to deal with, luckily his Buy More boss Big Mike is a bit more down to earth.

Playing Big Mike is Mark Christopher Lawrence, an easily recognizable character actor who has appeared in a variety of television shows, as well as the cult classic mockumentary Fear of a Black Hat. In 2007, we talked with Lawrence about Chuck, the Tijuana Boys Club and the possibility of a NWH reunion.

If you missed it then, enjoy it now:
http://www.hobotrashcan.com/2007/11/22/one-on-one-with-mark-christopher-lawrence/