Justice League Unlimited

Justice League Unlimited is an animated television series produced by and aired on Cartoon Network. Featuring a wide array of superheroes from the DC Comics universe, it is a direct sequel to the earlier Justice League series. It debuted on July 31, 2004 at 8:30 PM on Toonami.

Episode Trivia

The character "Edgar Mandragora" from the episode "Double Date" (Steven Mandragora's son) shows up later (in the continuity timeline) as a telekinetic in the Batman Beyond episode "Mind Games". The Batman Beyond episode aired years before the Justice League episode. Mandragora himself is based on the character of Tobias Whale, a Black Lightning villain, whose name could not be used due to DC's troubles with Whale's (and Black Lightning's) creator, Tony Isabella.

Related Topics:
Black Lightning - Tony Isabella

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The switch from 1 hour shows to 30 minute shows was a production descision by the producers, not Cartoon Network. After doing two seasons of Justice League, the producers felt that the 1 hour shows short changed some stories that could have been done over an hour and a half or two hours (such as "A Better World", and over extended other shows that really didn't have to be an hour long and got to that length through filler (such as "Fury"). The 30 minute format allowed them to do the short stories they wanted to, but for the big stories they could spread out over 4 or 5 episodes. The End of the JLU Season 2 arc starting with Episode 9 "Question Authority" and Ending with Episode 13 "Epilogue" is the most direct an apparent fruit of this change. It is easy to see how they all would have been one show if they aired in the first and second season of Justice League.

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The final scene in "Epilogue" is an homage to "On Leather Wings", the opening scene in the very first episode of the first Batman animated series that the Timm/Dini team collaborated on. It is the same scene but reversed shot by shot, with the original Batman theme.

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It seems that Justice League Unlimited has progressed in real time. In the episode "To Another Shore", Wonder Woman comments that Jonn Jonzz has been couped up in the Watchtower for over 2 years, which would correspond with the first two seasons for JLU. This is different than the original Justice League cartoon which seems to have taken place over several years, with a substantial gap in time between seasons 1 and 2 for the show,"Starcrossed" (Justice League series finale) and "Initiation".

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Dwayne McDuffie has gone on the record as saying that we will never see the golden shield on the back of Superman's cape and the issue of where fits into continuity rarely comes up. Supergirl recieved a redesign because they said that the white-T design was "too 90s". The new design is described as being based on the new Supergirl from the Loeb/Churchill series with DCAU Supergirl's face and DCAU Black Canary's hair.

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All characters except for Superman and Batman recieved minor redesigns following the end of Justice League and start of Justice League Unlimited. Some like Green Lantern got new heads or (in the case of Hawkgirl and Supergirl) new bodies. Others like the Flash had some of their lines changed.

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The Justice League embassy in Metropolis at the start of season 5 is the former site of Lexxor City and the future site of the Justice League Watchtower in Batman Beyond's time. Its current design is based a homage of the Hall of Justice from Superfriends, with its shape extrapolated as a tower and pavilion rather than a hall.

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In the original Justice League series, the Javelin was heavily damaged, but never destroyed until it was blown up during the Thangarian invasion. By contrast, the Javelin shuttles in Justice League Unlimited are destroyed with regular frequency, starting with an entire armada of them in "The Return".

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Bruce Timm has stated that the Batman Beyond episode "The Call" starring a future Justice League was a test bed for the pacing and large cast handling for the Justice League cartoon. The production staff was concerned that they would have difficulty giving screen time with such a large cast of icons while still telling good stories, and some of the more technical issues of producing a show that had such many varied designs that would need to be animated. The resounding success of that particular episode is credited by the producers as being instrumental in making Justice League happen.

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The fact that the DC Comics continuity, the DCAU JLU season 3 and Alex Ross' out-of-continuity "Ultimate Justice League" comic known as Justice are all exploring the theme of villians organizing to form an anti-Justice League of sorts (via the Secret Society and both Legions of Doom) turned out to be completely coincidental. The DC comics plans were the natural extension of Identity Crisis, the DCAU plans were the natural outgrowth of the mere existence of the 40 member Justice League Unlimited, and the Legion of Doom in Justice being Alex Ross' tribute to SuperFriends, a show he has much affinity towards. This has caused problems for several theories that the DCAU is going to have a counterpart to Infinite Crisis.

Related Topics:
Alex Ross - Identity Crisis - SuperFriends - Infinite Crisis

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