He is Darkseid's son, born on Apokolips and raised on New Genesis. He is a fierce warrior who opposes Darkseid, and has allied himself with the heroes of Earth before. He even served in the Justice League back when Grant Morrison was writing the JLA comic. I know he appeared in Superman: The Animated Series, but I'm not sure if he has shown up on JL/JLU before. He is getting his own JLU action figure in October, though!

They're opening the Flash Museum for Wally? This Wally? Heh, that's funny.

Thanks bbvdl. I remember him now. That's right, he and Kalibak were exchanged as part of a peace pact between Apokolipse and New Genesis. I always found it odd that the Kalibak is the son of the human looking High Father but looks sort of monster-like and Orion (son of stoney-weird Darkseid) looks perfectly human. Hmmm...

Kalibak isn't Highfather's son. Scott Free is.

I have to admit I'm excited about these spoilers. At least 2 episodes centering on the Flash! An episode with the non-powered leaguers! Plus they throw in Hawkman and the Legion of Doom.

Why the execs at CN hate this show yet love Teen Titans is beyond me. I'm not a Titans-hater, but honestly, do they really need to run it 30 times a day? Would it kill them to rerun the old JL episodes on weekdays, preferably not at 2 am?

Teen Titans costs a whole lot less, as far as I know -- cheaper animation, cheaper voices, cheaper guest stars.

How so? I haven't read any Marvel in a long time but this sounds interesting.

I'm assuming it's based on the fact that the episode Patriot Act has them fighting against a "Super Soldier" which would have most comic fans immediately think of Captain America.

I wouldn't really call it "poking fun" though, more of an "homage" ala the group of Dr. Fate, Aquaman, Amazo, Hawkgirl, and Grundy which is obviously based on Marvel's Defenders.

If I say super soldier, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Exactly.

Argh! Xero beat me. Maybe you are perfect.

He was in JL's season 2 premiere, and is in fact one of the first heroes shown in JLU's opening credits. I'm not exactly sure why that is, since that credit shot is pretty much all we've seen of him in JLU and there's no good reason for him to even be a member of the League.

Isn't it because it's arguably the most mature of the Toonami lineup?

Well, X-Files automatically pops into my mind but then again once upon a time that was my #1 obsession.



I don't think I've ever watched any other Toonami shows, but by the looks of the promos (like the ever present Zatch Bell/Ball...whatever) JLU certainly looks the most adult.

"nazi". Often in a Wolfenstien-type setting.

MereyGB, you're close. They exchanged Orion (Darkseid's son) and Scott Free (Highfather's son), who grew up to become Mister Miracle.

What kind of comic/cartoon fans are y'all? Heh.

I'm going to say it! I can't stand that period of Kirby's work.

*runs for life*

I was getting a bit nostalgic before the next season starts. Which are your favorite and least favorite episodes of JL/JLU and why? I'm kinda curious whether there's any consensus on the forum.

For me, my favorite episodes are probably Twilight, the Starcrossed movie and For the Man Who Has Everything. The first two because they're big epic stories, the latter just because it's very well written.

My least favorite are probably Metamorphosis and A Knight of Shadows from season 1, which were both dull as dirt. I also reserve a special hatred for Hawk and Dove, mostly due to Dove's existence.



I'm with you Hasbro. I never thought Kirby's solo stuff for DC was all that impressive, though his characters were great when used by other writers.

I'm not a huge fan of the New Gods (although I kind of like the Forever People from the same continuity -- a heroine named Beautiful Dreamer is too campy to pass up). But I love the Eternals, which he created for Marvel in that same general period.

Oops... Thanks for the gentle correction, bbvdl. But it's still odd that Orion is normal looking and not all cracked, stoney-looking like his father. Also, is Kalibak suppose to be inspired by The Tempest's Caliban? Because Kalibak is exactly how I picture Caliban.

Favorite Ep.? I know this might not be a popular choice, but I'd have to say Epilogue. I guess I'm a sucker for legacy, emotionally-wrought, big-reveal stories. And the fact that it was well-written and pretty innovated has definitely, in my mind, separated it from the rest.

Other favorites: TMWHE, This Little Piggy (Bats singing, the funny and some shippy-ness...good times!) Starcrossed (because, Wow!) and Question Authority (Question!!! My superhero boyfriend...I should stop declaring that. My friends are starting to get weirded out.)

Worst. Oh god, that Hawk and Dove ep. ACK!

Favorite eps:
Comfort and Joy (I love super powered snowball fights)
Double Date (Black Canary, Green Arrow, Huntress, and Question are hillarious together)
Panic in the Sky (nice seeing the background characters kicking some ass)
The Return (yay AMAZO, Yay Green Lantern Corps, Yay Dr. Fate)
Wake the Dead (I like Hawkgirl and Grundy)
The Terror Beyond (same reason as above)
Balance (Hawkgirl and WW are great together, dorky Flash, tying up of a few loose ends, and the giggling over the damn magic laso thing)
Anything Flash heavy

Sersi? Seriously, Sersi? ;)

In the comics, at least, that's not Orion's true face, it's a facade created by his Mother Box. His true face is more sinister and ugly, as seen in his DC Direct figure. Still not as nasty-looking as Darkseid, but not an Olympian prettyboy either. (Not the best pic, I know, but I can't seem to find any of the original Kirby art. That really drives home the difference!)

My favorite of JL would have to be "A Better World Parts 1 and 2"!
Supes giving Lex a heat vision lobotomy, great action etc. also
"Wild Card" with the Joker and the Royal Flush Gang.

I read this and got hit by a vague memory of some dude on skis called Black Racer as well. I think he was either an avatar of Death or a (I hope) parody of Silver Surfer....

Thanks be to Google, what the HELL was Kirby on then?

Two great eps I still haven't seen. Thanks CN, because I'd much rather watch a 4 hour block of anime.

So question: How many years after B:TAS is JLU supposed to be taking place? It's been established that JLU is within the B:TAS timeline now, and while I know Timm/Dini obviously didn't know they'd still be going this far down the road, it would seem the universe in B:TAS was pretty retro (black and white tv's, tommy guns), yet the JLU universe is pretty modern.

I'm not a big fan of Kirby's Fourth World stuff either. Lots of ridiculously campy character names and costumes, that just seem out of place in the DCU. Kanto? Verman Vundebar? Granny Goodness? Just silly, and almost embarrassing in this era where superhero comics are becoming more complex and serious. I love Mister Miracle, though, but mostly for his stint in the JLI and his own late '80s series, and the general concept of an escape artist/showman superhero. As a result, I also like Barda, but the name "Big Barda" is horrible because she's one of the sexiest women in all of comics.

My favorite episodes would have to include "For the Man Who Has Everything" (because you can never go wrong with Alan Moore... oh wait... LXG), "Fearful Symmetry," "Double Date," and "Question Authority" (can you tell I'm a big Question mark, heh heh?), "Dark Heart" (because Warren Ellis is The Man, and John C. McGinley was awesome as the Atom), and "Task Force X" (because I love Darwyn Cooke, the Suicide Squad, and villain-centric/espionage stories, and Michael Rosenbaum was perfect doing his Kevin Spacey voice for Deadshot).

Actually, Supes was a bit more severe than that: he just blasted him. The rest of the villains (or at least Arkham's residents) got the lobotomy treatment.



Let's see: during BTAS Dick is still in college. TNBA takes place a couple of years after that, since Dick has graduated and spent a year wandering the world. Assuming that TNBA/STAS covered the same period of time, that's roughly 2 years worth of adventuring. JLU starts about 3-4 years after the end of STAS. This assumes that a couple of years passed between STAS and JL, and that JL and the building of the new Watchtower took another couple of years. The entirety of JLU (so far) probably spanned a year. So in total from the end of BTAS to the end of JLU's current season I'd say that at least 8 years have passed, and that's being generous.

This leads to the related question of just how old Bruce Wayne really is. Assuming that he's 20 at the start of MOTP, and that he's a couple of years older when he first meets Dick Grayson, he was probably 30 when BTAS started. This means that he's around 40 now. That's pretty old for an elite hero with no powers. Most 40 year-olds can't keep up with their younger counterparts without special creams and balms, if you know what I mean.

Are you saying Batman uses Flaxseed oil?

I think, despite what Batman Beyond tried to show us, that Bruce is really a habitual Lazarus Pit user.

Ra's is an arabic name. The character is not specifically ethnic, but always made me think he was from southeastern Asia. Yet he names his special life-giving places for a character from Western religion. What gives? Are there no tales of resurrection amid the religions of the East?

I have to defend "King" on this one. The names were campy, but it was the '70s. There were a lot of great ideas. Even at less than his best, he was a good idea man (just like "The Man"). Besides, wasn't the Fourth World supposed to be separate from the normal DCU at first?


I'm the only person in the world who doesn't have a problem with that movie. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. I haven't read the comics.

I'll have to think a bit about my favorite episode. I really enjoyed "Clash" just because of Captain Marvel.

I don't hate it either. It had some good visuals, and I'm a sucker for anything "steampunk," or any stories with a team of heroes (not necessarily superheroes) where everyone has unique specialties and talents. But I have read the first series of the comics, and the movie would have been a lot better if they didn't change Moore's story so much.

I've also read Moore's From Hell and seen the movie, and I think it's a perfectly fine Jack the Ripper movie. Looks great, very entertaining. It's just a mediocre-to-poor adaptation of the actual comics.

I actually didn't think LXG was half bad either. I thought the Hyde character was well done, and addition of Dorian Gray was a nice twist. Hell, I think I enjoyed it more than Fantastic Four.

Yes, most of DC's comics were not all that serious in the 70's. Kirby's work fit in just fine.



The Fourth World books were part of the DC Universe, however it was Kirby's original intent to keep the characters out of the "mainstream" books, and have them work mainly within their own contained continuity. Kinda like the way Swamp Thing and Hellblazer are part of the DCU, but they stay mainly within the confines of the Vertigo books.

In recent years though, DC has pretty much integrated the New Gods into the mainstream universe. And now they have re-imagined O.M.A.C. and have inserted that into continuity as well.

While I will be the first to admit that Kirby didn't write the greatest plots or dialogue, when it came to creating concepts, and mind-blowing, dynamic art, Kirby was indeed king. Besides his groundbreaking work for Marvel, the Fourth World books were perhaps Kirby's most significant creations.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I'm surprised I've found two other people who don't hate that movie. BTW, I really liked FF. It was fun! It was no Spider-Man or X-Men 2, but it wasn't Daredevil or Batman & Robin either. I think people expect too much from most movies.

I admit I haven't seen FF yet, but I didn't hate Daredevil like everyone else did. I thought Affleck and Garner were both poor casting choices, but I liked the rest of the actors. I just wish Bullseye didn't look like such a dork with his bald, tatooed head, but Colin Farrell was a lot of fun playing him. While the movie is definitely flawed, I don't think it's as bad as Hulk or Punisher... or ANY of the pre-Batman Begins Batman movies (including the Burton films).

Truthfully, I thought Daredevil was OK, but a bit bland. I liked the Daredevil/Elektra fight and I absolutely loved the special effect showing Matt's blindness in the first person, but everything else was unspectacular. Hulk was much worse. I expected to hate the special effects; imagine my surprise when they were the best part of the movie. Sad. I refused to see the Punisher on the grounds that the Dolph Lundgren one was almost as bad as Captain America. The first Batman rocked! I liked it better than Begins, which got off to a very slow start before getting good. Then again, I like Mask of the Phantasm more than both of them. Bringing this back on topic, we need a feature-length JLU movie!

Real quick... DD was bad overall, too many characters for an "origin" movie. The development the of DD/Elektra relationship just wasn't believeable. Hulk was boring as hell. You're not missing much with the Punisher. I actually liked Begins better than the original b/c the focus was on Batman, not the villain.

On topic,



So he was probably in his 80s when Batman Beyond started, and then close to 90 at the end of Epilogue? I wonder if the JLU would ever show an ep of him creating the Batman Beyond uniform and actually wearing that for awhile.

I really hope they do an Atom Smasher ep this season. He's always in the background during battles, and while his powers are less than original, it'd be interesting to see what they do with his character.

Well, in Epilogue it said 65 years from the present, so I guess it depends on how old Bruce really was during JLU: there's some wiggle room.



I'm not sure when/if it was ever explicitly stated, but for some reason I think that the beginning of BB shows his one and only night fighting in the BB suit. At that point I'm sure that he had managed to burn most of his JLU bridges.

You know, all this talk of Batman and how old he is reminds me of how much I like that in the DC animated universe Batman predates Superman. I know that Superman is supposed to be the ultimate superhero that all other heroes model themselves after, I respect that and even agree with it, but it always made sense to me that the Batman would come first. It all began with a masked man fighting psychos in his home town, and then things worked it's way up to world endangering situations the like that guys like Superman would have to deal with.

However, it occurs to me that Batman might not have actually come first even in the animated universe. Sure, Batman was well established for years in Gotham before Superman first made Metropolis his home, but didn't they say that before Superman had decided to settle down in a single city he was wondering the world for years righting wrongs? So that means that Superman and Batman might have debuted at the same time, right?

In the animated universe? I don't know. In the pilot episode of Superman, Clark was talking to his parents about how the media labled him "Superman" and Martha Kent says
"I don't want anyone thinking you're like that nut in Gotham City."
So it seems that Batman debuted first.

Well, yeah, that's what I was talking about. Superman was only labeled Superman and started getting well known, I believe, when he first started working in Metropolis. He was, however, wandering the world doing superhero stuff before that. Still, when Superman showed up in Metropolis I think Batman was working for almost ten years, and I can't imagine that Superman was wondering the world for ten years doing things unnoticed.

I remember in both Batman: Year One and in John Byrne's Man of Steel miniseries, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent were ready to go into action before they came up with their secret identities. It would be kind of cool to see a story where they met each other, both trying to be crimefighters, both keeping it secret, and neither knowing who the other is. That would be kind of cool.

Where did you get ten years? I figured Batman debuted first, but that seems far too long.

If I remember from the pilot movie of S:TAS, he was doing things on the down-low for a while, helping people but not publicly. There's a bit where, when we first are at the Planet, where Perry is dismissing another report of a "Blue Angel" that helped someone.

The comics did something like this, twice. In Superman: The Odyseey, a young Clark Kent walks to some asian temple, while a young Bruce Wayne walks out. They look at each other, say nothing, and then walk away. It's Batman's only appearance in the story, and at the time I thought it was a cool detail.

Another time, in the annuals for their animated versions, there was a story where both Batman and Superman meet Zatara (Zatanna's father) in the pages of their respective comic books, but miss each other (although they might have seen each other briefly--I forget). The story plays out somewhat like Fool For Love/Darla did in the Buffyverse: you got a complete story if you read either of the books, but you got the story behind the story if you read them both.

I found myself watching the Spider-man cartoon from the mid-90s the other day. Not a bad show, but inferior in most respects to the Bruce Timm stuff. But it did get me thinking: Marvel's been kind of screwed over when it comes to animated versions of their characters. When I was a kid, I remember the Spider-man and X-men cartoons being ok, but I don't remember any other Marvel animation. My brother told me that the Hulk and Fantastic Four cartoons were unwatchable. Anyone got any ideas why Marvel characters don't translate as well onto the small screen?

Maybe since Timm is done w/the DCU, he can get the Marvel properties done right for the small screen. I would love to see Timm tackle on the Avengers.

I thought the Avengers was pretty good. Not as good as JLU but still pretty good.

Apparently, the second season of FF was pretty good. Unfortunately, the first season was so bad that no one saw it.

I think Marvel characters would translate well if money and effort were put into them. X-Men Evolution was shunned by some fans for being too radical and/or kid-directed (much like Teen Titans), but there are many of us who thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd love to see a series based on my all-time favorite team, the original New Mutants. I'm obviously biased, but I think they'd make an excellent cartoon in the right hands. They could even get into some very mature themes with the (required) addition of Magik.

For its time the 80's Spiderman was pretty good.

For some reason DC had more success on the screens. Marvel was really lagging in film adaptations until X-men.