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Is anyone watching this?

I have to admit that I've never really liked any of the DC or Marvel animated series. In my opinion, they always dumb them down and lighten them up for kids, which is understandable but counter-intuitive.

THE INCREDIBLES debuted almost a decade ago now, and proved that you can tell a story that plays to all ages without shying away from the concepts of evil, violence, and death. You just have to be careful with how you present it (lots of people died in THE INCREDIBLES -- they even made jokes of it with the sequence on capes).

Yet most of the animated shows are so watered-down, many containing huge departures from the comic characters that inspired them. It makes no sense. Comics and comic-based movies and TV should feed off of each other, sharing as much content and continuity as possible, and they should ALL be aimed at as broad an audience base as possible.

Batman: The Animated Series was pretty good. Green Lantern: The Animated Series is terrific. The computer animation they're using for TV is top notch, and the Incredibles-like animation style is plenty stylized and exaggerated enough to avoid "the uncanny valley" reaction that many fans have.

But what I'm digging most right now is the writing. The quality and style are FAR more suitable for mature audiences than YOUNG JUSTICE or any of the animated series I've sampled in the last several years, and without sacrificing its appeal to children. They have streamlined the GL backstory and universe quite a bit, making it easily accessible while also making the show heavily reliant on continuity (each episode starts with a "Previously on GL..." sequence).

The story is great and builds on itself nicely, and the action is beautiful to look at. The animation is really terrific for a TV show, much, MUCH further along than when Marvel took a stab at it many years back with the Spidey show on MTV, and not too far removed from what you'd expect from a modern CG-animated movie.

6 episodes in and they have already lain the groundwork for the show. Basically, Hal and Kilowog are in the far reaches of unexplored space, first responding to catastrophe, and then staying to find/recruit more GLs in response to the growing Red Lantern threat detailed in the 2-part premiere. Since then, they've taken in a rogue Red Lantern, seen their ship kinda convert itself into a robotic female AI (pretty cool character to introduce for exposition), and have encountered the Spider Guild, Mogo, and Saint Walker.

(And the Saint Walker intro shows how very cool a Nightwing in this animated style could be -- VERY nimble, acrobatic, and just plain awesome.)

If this series is a profitable venture for DC, I would love to see them shelve their so-so animated films and series (YOUNG JUSTICE included, though I do think it's generally okay) to pursue a lot more of this type of thing for its most popular characters and concepts. I hope this show isn't flying under the radar and is doing well. It's really very, very good.

Anyone else seen it?

I haven't seen it yet, and I will admit that the Green Lantern movie left me pretty much down on the whole line. I stopped reading the GL comics too after the movie.

But I'll check it out. I love the DC shorts. Animal Man and the Best Friends are great. Superbaby's a little out there for me though.

And Young Justice is really well done. So I'll try to catch up on GL.

I've seen it and it's ok but I certainly haven't enjoyed it as much as you have Jags and I've gotta disagree with you on a few of your points.

As far as I'm concerned, Batman was one of the best animated shows ever made and this just doesn't hold a candle to it in my opinion.

The way you put this arguement forward seems like (to me anyway) you're saying that while other shows do this, Green Lantern doesn't but it clearly does. They've made a good few changes to the Red Lanterns. Atrocitus looks and acts nothing like he does in the comic. In the comics, he feels his cause is righteous and that he is justified in killing the way he does. He feels that every one of his victims deserved to die in horrible and painful ways. He doesn't think of himself as the bad guy, but rather he's dealing out swift and brutal justice. In this he's a generic evil leader of a generic evil army and he has a big giant space station/warship/whatever it was and he was willing to blow up a planet full of innocent people. Also, in the comics the Red Lanterns are mindless servants to Atrocitus and when they put on their rings for the first time, it turns their blood to some sort of acidic substance which means unless they are cured by a Blue Lantern or by Mogo they can't take off them off again but in this they can remove their rings whenever they want and they all have distinct personalities. Although, I think Atrocitus has given 3 or 4 of them their personalities back in the comics now.

I don't see how this is far more suitable for mature audiences than Young Justice. In my opinion, there's nothing in either show that makes it any less or more suitable than the other. In terms of animated shows having content for mature audiences, Star Wars The Clone Wars is far more suitable than either of these shows for adults. They routinely have people killed on screen and sometimes in brutal ways and not just by the villains. In one episode, Ahsoka decapitates 4 Madalorians in one move.

I hope not. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the animation on this show, but I far prefer the traditional animation used in Young Justice and the films to the CGI used in Green Lantern. And it's not the best CGI out there either, The Clone Wars CGI is far superior in my opinion.


I feel like I may have gone on a little bit of a rant here but I'm not trying to attack the show or you for liking it. I do think Green Lantern is a decent and entertaining show but I clearly don't think it's as good as you do and since I felt you slated some other shows which I prefer to make your points about how good this show is, I felt I needed to offer up a proper rebutal. (Did I spell that?)


Also, one more point. I don't think the constructs they create with their rings are very varied or imaginative. All Kilowog ever does is create a big hammer to hit people with.

The bottom line for me is that GL isn't aimed squarely at kids. While Batman TAS was the best of the bunch by far, all of DC's animated series to date have been aimed at a young audience. So as a guy that's probably older than today's fans of animated series, there was never a time that any of those shows appealed to me to the point that I followed them regularly, Batman included.

In other words, I was an adult when the Batman series was airing. The animation was fantastic, but the departures from comic continuity, the caricatures of every feature character that wasn't Batman, and the fact that the stories were being aimed at ages far below mine... all reasons that I wasn't a fan. It was very enjoyable, but the content of the stories did not even approach the depth and maturity I'd come to expect from the comics.

And these shows ARE for kids, after all, so I never expected to be blown away, even if they do contain some of my all-time favorite characters. I feel the same way about Teen Titans, a show that I'm probably more predisposed to like than anyone on the planet. I thought they were very inventive in repackaging Titans continuity into a cool, fun series palatable to kids, but I rarely watched because it was a kids' show. They did some great episodes, but the show wasn't for me.

Green Lantern TAS tells a much more mature story overall. Like The Incredibles, they're not dumbing down the content, assuming that kids aren't bright enough to follow along or that certain material MUST be inappropriate for children. While every DC animated series to date would only occasionally appeal to me in this way, so far GL has hit the mark with me with all 6 episodes.

Is it the best animated show ever? Of course not. But I admire the effort they're putting into it and am relieved the stories are being written to appeal to a broader audience.

No, it really doesn't. Young Justice doesn't resemble any comic on the stands save for the cartoon adaptation, so right off the bat it has a huge strike against it for me. YJ was oddly timed given the DC relaunch was obviously not on anyone's mind when this show was created. Still, whether you look at DC before or after the relaunch, YJ is an aberration. It's by no means a BAD show, but it does nothing to increase the appeal of comics to its audience, which is an absurd business model.

A YJ cartoon based on the Peter David concept would have been great even if they directly adapted the comic itself. It was a great comic that appealed to young and older readers alike. I feel the same way about the recent Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. The first couple episodes were a lot of fun, but it's nowhere near as good as it would have been if they'd adapted the USM comic, which is both a terrific comic AND a wonderful way to introduce fans to Spider-Man.

I like originality, so I like that they're doing something original with Young Justice, but it does nothing to buoy the comics industry or DC Comics, and that's a mistake. A YJ adaptation or older version of Teen Titans (given the immense popularity of that cartoon) would have worked far better.

Based on its own merits, about 50% of the first season of YJ so far has been very good and intriguing. But a lot of it has been run-of-the-mill DC animation -- watered down, dumbed down versions of great DC characters and concepts.

What they're doing with GL is the opposite of that. Yes, there are some sizable departures from the comics, but they're ALL done in the interest of accessibility and suitability to a younger audience. I prefer the comic take on the Red Lanterns, too, but they have to streamline the GL universe to make the show a good jumping-on point for everyone. It's a good introduction to GL with a story that's aimed at a much broader audience base than most DC animated series to date, and by a pretty wide margin.

...and isn't based on a comic book, so I'm not sure how it's relevant to the discussion. I've heard great things about that show, which is surprising to me because the majority of the Star Wars mythos just isn't very good. George Lucas was a visionary as a director. As a writer? Not so much. In a fictional universe that large there's maybe 3 or 4 characters that aren't predictable, white-hat/black-hat archetypes. I'm sure the animated show is as good as you say it is, probably due in large part to it coming from someone else's pen.

I couldn't disagree more. The rigid, looped animation style in Young Justice is antiquated and does little to showcase the brilliant visual potential of its characters. In the most recent episode that spent a good bit of time on Robin with a couple sequences featuring his acrobatics, there wasn't even one moment that he looked cool moving around. It was just a tired, traditional take on human movement in animation.

Even if you don't appreciate the style or story of the GL series, you simply MUST concede that Dick Grayson would look WAY cooler moving the way Walker did in this week's GL versus the results produced by the traditional YJ animation. Walker's acrobatics were impressive, dynamic, and utilized by the writers/directors to make him both formidable and funny. THAT is how you showcase DC characters to today's young audience. They see traditional animation all the time. Nothing impressive about it. GL has a visual appeal that YJ simply doesn't.

I would prefer a more reality-based animation style done in CG, and I agree with you on the constructs being something they need to work on, but the closer CG animation gets to actual human depiction, the more "the uncanny valley" jumps out at me, so I'm good with what they're doing with GL overall.

I've always been a bit baffled by the appreciation for DC animation among the fans I interact with on the forums, and usually assume that they're younger than me. I think I would have LOVED Batman TAS as a kid, but it just didn't work out that way. I'm about a decade older than I'd like to be.

But as it is, I see little difference in the gap between cartoons and comics when I was a kid (SuperFriends vs. 80's Titans/Batman/X-Men) and the same gap that exists today (Animated YJ vs. today's best books). Today's cartoons are more mature in their storytelling, but not by all that much. They still pale in comparison to the more mature content in comics.

And I don't mean sex and violence. I mean formidable villains, stories with continuity and consequence, characters and concepts that are engaging and accessible with broad appeal, and animation that does the same great things for its characters that the best comic book artists do for theirs. You simply do not get any of that in shows like Young Justice or Ultimate Spider-Man.

While they do have a lot of redeeming value and are entertaining to young audiences, they don't have a similar appeal to a discerning adult. The kid in me enjoys them very much when they're good, but never enough to make me a fan. I feel the same way about Smallville and some of the live action movies, squandering the mass appeal of their core concepts by only adapting their most basic and underwhelming traits.

Animation is the one way we can actually translate comics to the screen 100%. You can do anything in animation, the same way a comic artist can. You have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in live action to even approach what's possible in animation. And, of course, they do it with CGI, so even the best live action stuff is animated.

Ongoing animated series can adapt a comic to TV or film in ways that make them better than the source material, it just hasn't been attempted yet. Animation is the only way to have continuity go on forever without being impacted by increasing budgets, aging actors, and studio idiocy, and I honestly think that Green Lantern: The Animated Series is a solid first step in that direction.

It is by no means perfect, but it's a bold departure from their past animated efforts in style and the closest adaptation of the spirit of the comics it's based on since Batman TAS many, many years ago.

I totally respect that you prefer the style and content of Young Justice. I just can't understand why. Thanks for the great reply, Ben!

I really don't see how Batman: The Animated Series, dumbed down its content. It's considered to be one of the best depictions of Batman on the small screen, ever. The show tackled a lot of heavy topics, including the love triangle between Bruce, Barbara and Dick. The Joker killed people regularly. I really have no idea where you're getting the idea that Batman:TAS was dumbed down.

There was also long standing continuity, with Dick growing up to Nightwing, Tim being introduced, Barbara becoming Batgirl, Harley Quinn being introduced and being so popular she made her way into the comics...

I'm not sure I can explain this any more thoroughly, and I don't want to drift too much from the GL topic, so I'll just sum up...

First of all, I'm not down on Batman TAS. It was a good show, but the simple fact of the matter is that it was written for kids. No depth of character, no complex plots, no mysteries to speak of, and, when compared to their DCU counterparts, the majority of the characters in the show were caricatures.

They were GOOD caricatures, but caricatures nonetheless. So I'll say it again: I liked it, but I was not a regular fan because it was not aimed at me. The simplistic characterization, continuity and storytelling was less than what I expect from my Batman stories.

I was not its target audience. It was a kids' show. A very good kids' show, but a kids' show nonetheless. Doesn't mean adults can't enjoy it, doesn't mean I don't see the many ways in which it was great. There were stretches that did hold my interest for nostalgic reasons, but ultimately I wasn't a fan because the things the studios sacrifice for children's programming are things that are important to me.

I'm not taking a hammer to the Batman show. I get that you guys are fans. I was using it as a comparison to explain what I like about the GL show. I like that it aims higher, at a broader age demographic. The stories are simply more mature. Not hugely so, but enough to make me a fan.

I acknowledged that I thought Batman TAS was good and used it as a baseline to explain why I prefer the content and style of the new GL show. It has enough complexity, depth, and continuity to keep me engaged as a fan. Batman TAS did not, at least not consistently.

I finished watching the 6th episode shortly after watching the most recent Ultimate Spidey, YJ and Avengers episodes and thought, "Wow, these other shows are pretty decent but still the standard animated kids' content. This GL show, on the other hand, is a big step in the right direction. I really like the differences in story content and animation style. The NW forum folks are chatting about YJ, I wonder if they've seen this...?" So I came and shared.

Starting to regret it a bit, but I still hope you guys check it out (or keep checking it out).

I think you're way off with Batman:TAS, and it has nothing to do with being a fan or not. It is a highly regarded show by critics, kids and adults.

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,311674,00.html


Or, you're thinking of what the show morphed into in the later years when it moved to the WB and changed art style. "The New Batman Adventures," with Nightwing, Tim and Batgirl, was definitely more kid oriented.

But the first 60 or so episodes of TAS was definitely adult oriented. it had complex characters. It started Harvey Dent as the DA, showed a personal friendship with Bruce and Dent, and then showed Dent being attacked and turned into Two-Face, and routinely showed Bruce struggling with trying to reform and save his friend. I don't know how much more deep than that you can get, and it illustrates how the show also kept a complex continuity.

I get your point about most kid shows, most superhero cartoons and how they are aimed at kids. I think you just bit off way more than you can chew by lumping TAS in with Ultimate Spiderman and the Avengers.

Getting back on topic, I couldn't get through the first episode of the GL animated series sadly. The movie really ruined this franchise for me, which is sad because I've always wanted a working Green Lantern ring. Also, Hal's head looks like a weeble to me.

*sigh*

Okay, point to where I said it wasn't highly regarded, or that critics, kids or adults didn't like it. For a cartoon, it was pretty great.

It was ALL kid-oriented. It was a cartoon made for children. At times, especially in the beginning, it occasionally embraced more mature stories and themes, and of course there was continuity. Never said there wasn't.

What I said was that it did not contain the levels of complexity, consequence, characterization, and continuity that I have become accustomed to reading Batman comics. And that is 100% true and beyond debate.

But sure, let's by all means continue discussing this decades-old cartoon you think I have insulted so completely...

No, it wasn't. It was aimed squarely at kids in its entirety. That it was deeper and more complex early on when compared to its shaky final years when the writing waned and it became more about selling toys does NOT mean that it was adult-oriented. It just means there were periods where the stories had a more mature appeal. The show was never, ever aimed at adults.

No, it didn't. Again, using the source material as a baseline, nearly all of the characters in the show were caricatures of their comic book counterparts, Batman especially. I agree that they did a good job with Harvey and like I've said a few times already, the show was GREAT at being what it was. They were absolutely caricatures, but they were very good caricatures for the most part.

The show made no effort to depict anything even close to deep characterization. That was never their goal, nor do I think it should have been, given their target audience.

That is not deep. That is an origin story. How much more deep than that can you get? Well, the origin is THE BEGINNING. Developing the character beyond that point would be adding depth. They never did that.

And that's also not complex continuity. That's just continuity, and I never said the show was devoid of continuity. I said it didn't have enough to hold my interest, and the continuity it did have rarely went beyond skimming the surface of its best characters and concepts.

And again, it didn't have to. It was a kids' show. It didn't have the things I look for in a TV show because it wasn't aimed at people my age. The simplified storytelling style was fitting, and certainly superior to any comic-related cartoon of its time.

There you go again. I DID NOT lump the old Batman show in with Spiderman and the Avengers. Read my original post. I said that these shows should aim at as broad an audience as possible and that, in that regard, Batman TAS was pretty good and the new GL show was great.

I clearly put Batman TAS and GL TAS in a category well above every other show mentioned. Batman TAS wasn't my cup of tea, but it was way better than other shows in the genre and any of the traditional animated shows airing today (YJ, Avengers, and Spidey being the only ones I've seen).

Then I went on to give a detailed review of the GL show because I enjoyed it quite a bit. That one sentence was my only mention of Batman. My post was clearly a "This is my opinion about this thing that I enjoyed" kind of post. I did not say that GL was better than Batman. I said that *I* enjoyed it more.

Ben jumped in, taking issue with me saying that the GL show was better and you guys have been on the Batman thing ever since. I just wanted to talk about the GL show...

I don't want to talk about the Batman show anymore, and you clearly don't want to watch the GL show. So...

I don't understand why the style of GL:TAS is so hideous. Remember the opening credits of JLU and those awful static cg things they used to introduce the crew? This GL project looks like that to me. Bleh.

But while you're talking about other 'toons: I love 'em!

I'm a little behind on YJ, and also on The Avengers, but I recently started Ultimate Spider-man. Marvel have really, (backed by daddy Disney, I imagine), pulled their game together and their cartoons look awesome, for once!

My gripe? That Spidey's pals are kiddy versions of the heroes they're supposed to be. I know that it's more exposure for the Marvel back catalogue etc and but that tickles me, in a bad way.

But then you get Principal Coulson. And that makes me happy

I think you just made a bad point, and are now trying to defend it.

Actually, this is your opinion, it's a minority opinion, and I dare say you're the only one who thinks it. Considering comics are loaded with exposition, throw away plots (like Batman's recent girlfriend with the hole in her head) decomposition, and a host of other issues

Compare it, to say, the origin of Two-Face in the 1990 Batman movies, the one with Tommy Lee Jones, and tell me which is deeper. And yes, they did add depth later on, for example in the episode entitled "the Trial," where the villains put Batman on trial for creating them and Harvey is the prosecuting attorney.

And you can stop talking about Batman any time you want I guess. I'm happy to let it drop. But I still think you made a very, very bad point, especially considering I can't sit through the first episode of the GL animated series.

I did not make a bad point. I shared an OPINION of which show I personally prefer based on the criterion I described in detail. Why am I simply not entitled to my opinion? Why must you turn this into a diatribe on the complexities of a show I mentioned in a single 7-word sentence and ignore the actual topic of the post?

You can't possibly be serious. You are arguing that the characters in the Batman cartoon were as deeply and maturely explored in 100 episodes of a kids' show than they are in thousands of issues of comics over nearly 75 years; that the content of the comics of the last 40+ years are not deeper and more complex and mature than the content in an afternoon cartoon.

That is absurd.

WHO IS TALKING ABOUT MOVIES??? That movie was HORRIBLE, less than 2 hours long, and focused very little on Harvey Dent. OF COURSE the cartoon did it better. If you're going to defend the depth and quality of this show by comparing it only to things that suck, you're making a very bad point. And I notice you're not comparing it to THE DARK KNIGHT, a film depiction of Harvey Dent that intricately explored his psychosis and motivations while maintaining a very mature take on the character's fearsome persona and captivating moral dichotomy.

You didn't make that comparison because you'd have been wrong. You also can't argue that the cartoon version is as deep, mature, and nuanced as the comic version. The only argument you can make is that a very good cartoon take on the character was superior to the one depicted in a horrible, horrible film. Bravo.

Yes, and the reasons you gave for not being able to sit through it were...

1) That the live action movie was so bad that you can't watch or read anything GL-related, which is ridiculous unless you dislike the character and concept outright. Horrible Batman movies and TV shows haven't made you less of a Batman fan. Joel Shumacher's and the 60's TV show's Dick Grayson didn't stop you from being a huge Dick Grayson fan...

2) Green Lantern's head "looks like a weeble." That's a terrific reason, especially when you add it to the mondo-substantial first one.

Thanks for giving it such a fair shake.

I will not share my thoughts on shows I like anymore. I have learned my lesson. I don't know what I was thinking talking about this here...

When you take the two part episode of Batman:The Animated Series, where Harvey dates Poison Ivy, and then add it to the two part episode that shows Harvey becoming Two Face, you get a very indepth, complicated plot that easily rivals the Dark Knight. In fact, there are a number of huge similarities, including the deep friendship between Bruce and Harvey, Harvey struggling with his inner demons before getting a face full of acid. And the cartoon did it in less than two hours too. In a complex and rich way that shows maturity and depth.

Either you shared an opinion, or a fact. It can't be both. Pick one. Either it's your opinion that the cartoon wasn't as complex as the comics, or its a fact. You're entitled to your opinion, but it doesn't make it right. Especially when so many others for so many years, disagree. If you read the review by Entertainment Weekly, you'll see that the critic points out that Bruce Wayne in the animated series is substantially different from the one in the comics. Instead of being a brooding two dimensional verison of the comics, Bruce in the cartoon is suave, debonair, and complicated.

The "two sides of the same coin" relationship between Batman and the Joker is constantly explored in the cartoon. Heck, it's 20 years later and Kevin Conroy and Mark Hammil are STILL considered the defining actors for Batman and the Joker. Will you be able to say the same thing about whoever's voicing Hal Jordan?

So if you're presenting it as a fact, it's incorrect. And I compared the show to the bad movie to display how easily the cartoon could have gotten it wrong, but didn't. And I think you probably know that, you're just being obtuse on purpose.

Green Lantern: The Animated Series, on the other hand, has a typical two dimenional Hal. He's honest and fearless. Great. It's as bad as the movie. And yep, his head looks like a weeble. Meaning there's no depth of emotion to his facial features. Watch The Clone Wars cartoon and see how emotions play on the faces of the characters. Green Lantern doesn't even come close.

I could barely pay attention to Green Lantern. Which, in my opinion, makes it not a good show.

In an effort to build up Green Lantern, you tried to show that it was better than Batman:TAS. This is all your opinion. You can share your thoughts and opinions as much as you like. But that doesn't mean we should all bow down to your thoughts and praise you for sharing them. If people disagree with your thoughts, people have just as much right to disagree as you have to share. Two of us disagreed with you that Green Lantern was more mature and complex than Batman:TAS. Be prepared to be adult enought to handle that.

Wow, this debate has gotten kinda heated.

Jags, you may have been just trying to voice your opinion but the way you phrased some of your points made it seem like you were stating them as fact which I think is part of the reason this topic has gotten a little tense.

I think it is fair to say that all superhero cartoons are aimed at kids, but you seem to think that Green Lantern is the exception to that and I just can't understand why. I have seen absolutely nothing in the first 6 episodes that would suggest that Green Lantern is aimed at a broader audience than Young Justice or Avengers. That's why I mentioned Star Wars Clone Wars, because on the point of what cartoons are more suitable for adults, it is head and shoulders above the rest as far as I'm concerned. I feel you are failing to acknowledge some of the flaws of Green Lantern while at the same time condemning other animated shows for having the exact same flaws. I know condemning is the wrong word to use hear but I can't quite thing of the right word to properly express what I'm trying to say.

Also, when I said I prefered the traditional animation of Young Justice to the CGI of Green Lantern I was refering more to the types of animation in general than the actual shows. I mean I think it's a shame that all animated movies nowadays are CGI because some of the older animated movies, from Disney in particular, looked spectacular.

I must just see if I can download this on Demonoid. I'm like Will, the GL movie left a bad taste in my mouth and soured me on Green Lantern. I lost interest. I should try this.

Completely agree with this.

I was lamenting recently about how any of the animated stuff isn't classically animated any more.

I was really pleased with Tangled, the animation was superb, it was almost like a cross between the two styles. And though the story to The Princess and the Frog was predictable, again, it looked amazing.

Let's face it, I think there are very few films of the current bunch that will stand the test of time like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Is it because of the animation of the story? I don't know.

They just don't make them like the used to and keep churning cg crap out.

*ahem*