Writer Matt Wayne is most popularly known for his work on the animated series Niko and the Sword of Light, Ben 10: Omniverse, and Cannon Busters. The writer served as the managing editor at Milestone Media, where he worked on titles such as Icon and Hardware. Milestone Media was co-founded by Dwayne McDuffie, who worked on Bruce Timm’s Justice League Unlimited. Wayne is also the writer of Shadow Cabinet and Heroes.
Matt Wayne joined Justice League Unlimited in season three as the head writer. As the name suggests, specifically based on the Justice League team, the animated series featured an array of superheroes from the DC Comics universe. The series is said to be a direct sequel to the Justice League animated series and served as the eighth and concluding animated series in the DCAU. Matt Wayne, in an interview, revealed the heroes he had the most fun writing for.
Matt Wayne reveals his favorite characters to write about in Justice League Unlimited
In an interview with DC Animated, writer Matt Wayne was asked how he was brought into the world of Justice League Unlimited, and he said that after Stan Berkowitz decided to leave the show to work on other projects, Dwayne McDuffie recommended him to other producers.
“I’d co-written a screenplay and a comic with Dwayne, written and edited for him at Milestone, and by this time had racked up some good animation credits both at Warner and elsewhere. Bruce, the showrunner, had said that it was Dwayne’s recommendation that meant the most to him.”
Talking about writing on the show, Wayne was asked if he had any favorite characters from the show that he liked to write about, to which he declared that Vigilante, Shining Knight, and Tala were the most satisfying to write about. He explained that it was because he got the opportunity to try and sound natural with bass-ackwards syntax and odd word choices with them. The writer continued to name other characters,
“Batman, because he’s so terse. And of course, GL, Shayera, and especially The Flash, because I knew what the performers were capable of. The actors made bad dialogue good and good dialogue great.”
Matt Wayne mentioned that by the time he did Alive, he was aware of what Clancy Brown, who voiced Lex Luthor, Juliet Landau as Tala, and Powers Boothe as Grodd would do in the scene, so it brought him more joy while penning the scene down.
Matt Wayne talks about Justice League Unlimited Season 3’s episode Alive
During his conversation with DC Animated, Matt Wayne was asked if he had taken part in suggesting what villains would fight in the third season’s episode Alive. To which he said,
“There was a list of every hero and villain in JLU stapled to the front of both Alive and Destroyer, which said whose team they were on. Grodd’s or Luthor’s at the beginning of Alive, and who was left alive at the end.”
He continued to explain that Dan Riba, who had directed the episode, had to compensate for a couple of ambiguities in his script, adding that they didn’t want to leave it to the board. Wayne acknowledged that making Luthor’s team the villains was a conscious decision, as the audience had watched them and cared about them.
The writer mentioned that if the series had been renewed for the fourth season, he would have probably liked to write more Superman and Wonder Woman.
Justice League Unlimited seasons one to three are streaming on HBO Max.
