TVSquad

After the Superman/Batman story Public Enemies, DC Entertainment's next Direct-to-DVD animated release for Spring 2010 will be called Crisis on Two Earths and will star the animated Justice League. Will it be the same Justice League that was on Cartoon Network for four years? I doubt it. The animated features tend to be in their own, self-contained universes.

The story involves the League fighting their evil, other-dimensional counterparts. It's based on the classic "Crisis" stories from the comic books.

I do wish the story was in the Cartoon Network Justice League universe because I liked that theme song. However, the fact that the Hal Jordan Green Lantern appears in the promo picture and the television version used the John Stewart Green Lantern pretty much confirms that it won't be. The writer behind the story is Dwayne McDuffie, who was one of the folks behind the Justice League cartoon. So even if it's not that version of the group, it'll likely still be a quality story.

It's an animated movie to be put out by DC Comics in the direct-to-DVD market, but it's a movie nonetheless. The lead voices are Keri Russell (formerly of TV's Felicity) who plays the Amazon princess and Nathan Fillion (of Firefly fame) who voices Steve Trevor. Other actors providing voices include Virginia Madsen, Rosario Dawson and Alfred Molina.

Going with our Retro Squad theme of the week, a lot of Whedon alumni seem to be lending their voices to DC Comics animation. I've been re-watching the two seasons of Justice League Unlimited and voices for that have included half the Firefly line-up: Morena Baccarin, Gina Torres, Adam Baldwin and Nathan Fillion. Also involved were Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof and Juliet Landau from Buffy and Angel. Furthermore, Adam Baldwin and James Marsters were on the Superman: Doomsday DVD and David Boreanaz was involved with the Justice League: New Frontier DVD.

Of course, Whedon himself was involved in the oft-delayed Wonder Woman live-action film. Perhaps there's a big Joss Whedon/DC Comics conspiracy that I don't know about?

Here's a quick news item forwarded to me by my brother Rich, frequent TV Squad commenter and rabid comic book fan: Matt Czuchry, who plays Logan on Gilmore Girls, will voice the character of Braniac 5 on an upcoming episode of Justice League Unlimited, which currently airs on the Cartoon Network (scroll mid-way down the linked page for the story).

Being a non-fan of comic books, I really have nothing else to say about this.