DC’s Justice League: The Animated Series is one of the most entertaining to watch, as it tells a dynamic story with rich and compelling storytelling, perfectly integrated with stunning animation. The series has perfected the art of engaging narratives, where each episode presents a new challenge to our heroes, keeping the viewers at the edge of their seats.
Even though the superhero team was so popular among the viewers another team of equally popular heroes was supposed to make their appearance on the show. it was the decision of the DC Comics President, Paul Levitz, who forbade the decision of their appearance. While it may look like a bad judgment to the fans initially, it was a well-planned decision from the President as it would have made them look outdated and a joke to a new generation of fans.
Paul Levitz Makes a Major Change in Justice League: The Animated Series
During an exclusive interview with ToonZone, Bruce Timm revealed how they had initially intended to do a Justice Society of America crossover. However, the concern with the crossover was how a “mega-sized” Justice League would have formed with twice as many heroes to deal with.
However, Paul Levitz, the Publisher of DC Comics had some concerns with the story. He felt the story was disrespectful to the Justice Society of America and was feeling that it was an inappropriate use of characters.
He said,
“However, DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz had some concerns with the story. He felt the story as written disrespected the JSA and was overall an inappropriate use of the characters. We pleaded our case, but we could clearly see his point, too: the DC guys have spent a lot of time and effort in revitalizing the JSA recently (to the point here it’s now one of their most popular titles) we certainly didn’t want it to seem as if we were saying the JSA was a joke. No disrespect was intended on our end-quite the opposite!”
Bruce Timm added,
“We wanted the story to be a love letter to the original JSA and a bittersweet nod to simpler times. [However], Paul saw our point and quickly agreed to a compromise: we’d change the names and designs just enough to make them not quite the JSA, but still get the point across. They’re now the superheroes of ‘Earth Two-and-a-half’, if you will…kinda similar to what Alan Moore was doing in his Supreme run.”
Bruce Timm explained that these last-minute moments were literally the “eleventh hour” and gave them a lot of trouble as they were waiting for clearances and were constantly on the phone with “the legal department, awaiting clearances on our new JGA characters’ names, at the voice-recording session.”
Nevertheless, despite being a fickle and how the Justice Society of America could not have a crossover with the Justice League, would forever haunt the DC fans.
Bruce Timm Shares How He Was Disappointed For Not Using Real JSA
In the same interview, Bruce Timm shared how he found things ultimately working in their favor because in reality they were quite disappointed for not using the real superhero team and they had to use doppelgangers. He said,
“It’s funny how things work out: at first, we were still kinda disappointed that we couldn’t use the ‘real’ JSA, but we’ve come to realize that the story actually works better this way. The ‘Green Lantern,’ ‘Flash,’ and ‘Black Canary’ doppelgangers are fairly close to the originals, but the ‘Wildcat’ clone is almost a Batman / Wildcat hybrid and the ‘Atom’ character has quite a bit of classic ‘Superman’ in him as well. So, in effect, we’re not just spoofing / paying homage to the JSA, but also to the Fox-era Silver Age JLA, too…sweet!”
He added,
“So, I know there’s been a bit of grumbling about DC Comics not letting us ‘do’ the JSA, but you won’t hear any complaints from us-the folks at DC have been an absolute joy to work with. They’ve given us an enormous amount of leeway while letting us play with their toys, stepping in only when it looks like we’re gonna break ’em.”
Nevertheless, this was crucial information as the Justice Society of America is a renowned superhero team in the DC Comic Universe, and over-usage would have indeed made the superhero team a joke.
Justice League: The Animated Series can be streamed on Netflix.
