FAQs

Over the last few weeks I’ve been getting questions asking if I remember a live action JLA or Superfriends movie. Sometimes people will half remember a broadcast from the 1970s or they’ll encounter a VHS copy at a convention. So just to clear everything up: you’re either thinking of the two-part network Legends of the Super Heroes (1979) or the unbroadcast JLA Pilot (1997).

And to the second question I always get asked about these: No I don’t know the names of anybody selling copies so please stop asking me. Neither has been released on video/DVD and neither has been recently broadcast in the USA. In fact I’d suggest you give them both a pass. Mainly because it’s illegal to swap copyrighted material, but also because the JLA Pilot is really really naff*. The Legends thing isn’t meant to be much better. If you’re really interested somebody could suggest that you try using google or having a search around on E-Bay. Or even that you keep an eye out at your local scifi/comics convention.

*And yes I did see it legally - it’s been sold to overseas markets and has been shown at least once by Channel 5 in the United Kingdom.

Dark Knite sent in a batch of questions about the Justice League cartoon and I’ve decided to post my answers up here in case anybody else was interested. First up, Star Crossed:

Spoilers Ahead…
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Dark Knite’s second questions was:

I have been wondering for a long time why Justice League Unlimited airs only once a week when it is such an excellent show. I liked the former show better, of course but there are a lot of us old comic buffs out here that want more. One show once a week isn’t enough, and I can’t see how all of these obviously inferior cartoons are keeping the Justice League out.

Ah, now what we’re running into here is a demographic problem that the DC Animated shows have had since the original run of Batman: The Animated Series. On one hand you have the producers and the fans who love the sophisticated continuing storylines and on the other you’ve got the network and the advertisers who want to hit the key 6-11 kids marketing demographic. It’s part of the battle that saw the replacement of the BTAS franchise with the Batman Beyond series and the now famous controversy over the cut/uncut version of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Justice League suffers from some of the same problems. It’s premier had the largest 18-34 ratings in Cartoon Network’s history and it reached equal numbers of viewer in the 6-11 and the 18-34 age ratings brackets.
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Dark Knite’s third and final question:

Also, it seems to me that Warner Brothers is missing out by not looking at a Justice League movie along the same lines as X-Men. A live action Justice League movie would be the greatest comic hero movie ever.

This one is slightly easier to answer as it’s all a question of licensing. DC Comics licences each of the characters for separate motion picture franchises. We know that Superman and Batman are definite for screentime, Wonder Woman is in development and it is rumoured that Green Lantern, Flash and even Aquaman franchises are trying to get started. To get a Justice League movie going you’d need to either buy back or negotiate to use all those options for a single project. Compare this to the X-Men franchise where the studio was able to easily buy a single option for the entire team.

Realistically I can’t seem much prospect for a big screen live action
Justice League movie while the independent franchises are active. If the options for the second tier characters fall through then I could just about imagine a studio going with a JLA minus Batman and Superman option. One thing I could easily imagine is an animated direct-to-DVD movie based on the cartoon. In fact the fourth season finale is rumoured to be a four-parter similar to three-parter Starcrossed .

There are still a couple of weeks until Halloween, but it’s about this time that I normally get e-mails from parents asking where they can find costumes for their kids. This year I thought I’d prempt the questions by putting together a short guide to the costumes of the animated Justice League. Important points first: guys please be safe — always double check your costumes with your parents and never ever go trick-or-treating without a responsible adult. Tips and ideas for a safe Halloween can be found on websites like the Halloween Safety Guide.

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I was recently contacted by a mother who was seaching, without luck, for a Hawkgirl action figure. It seems that Hasbro has been releasing the JL Figures in a series of batches and Hawkgirl is in one of the last. According to Action Figure Times Hawkgirl will be released in August 2003 as an exclusive to Diamond (the supplier of almost everything to comicbook speciality stores) and Target. She is then meant go on general sale to all outlets (Wal-Mart, etc) the following month.

Long time readers will remember this splash of the Silver Age JLA which I use to have on the front of this site.

I was recently e-mailed by Bethany Madsen. She had recently aquired a JLA t-shirt featuring this image and was interested in the names of the characters (you can find the t-shirt at Boise River Collectiables and other fine collectiable retailers). For reference the characters are the members of the early-1980s JLA and listing left-to-right are: Hawkman, Black Canary, Green Lantern, Flash, Batman, Elongated Man, Wonder Woman, Atom, Superman, Zatanna, Green Arrow, [Update: Firestorm (pointed out by Craig)], Aquaman, Red Tornado, and the Martian Manhunter.

I first saw this arrangement on a poster in a magazine article about the defunct Superpower toyline and it seems to be a stock DC promotional piece. There may, however, be an alternative form of this piece that features John Stewart rather than Hal Jordan and excludes the Elongated Man — I’m not 100% certain of this as I’ve only got a bad scan of it and the original book is buried in storage back in the UK. Other similar stock artwork has been attributed to Jose Luis Garcia Lopez so it seems possible that this could also be by him.

If you’ve got any JLA questions or you can comment the above then I’d love to hear from you at jla@captain.custard.org.