Monday, February 15, 2016

Rare Treats: Justice League: The First Mission pitch (2001-5)

Included with the season 1 DVD compilation of Justice League is some preview animation for a pitch producers Bruce Timm & James Tucker made to Kids' WB! for a slightly retooled version of the series. One that would include Robin and Impulse (subbing for Flash) on the roster. Had this been sold to Kids' WB!, chances are we might not have gotten Teen Titans on Cartoon Network 2 years later.



Yes, there's a female version of Cyborg, if you will, who hadn't appeared in the books. Character models were borrowed from other DCAU series of the period (i.e. Batman Beyond). After seeing this, I'd have to say, WB did the right thing by turning this puppy down.

Rating: B.

2 comments:

Goldstar said...

The thing of it is that Justice League: TAS was originally pitched to Kids' WB!. In fact, Superman: TAS was originally going to end with Supes joining the Justice League, hence why Supes met and teamed up with Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner, in this case), Aquaman and Flash in his series. However, Kids' WB had this idee fixee that only shows starring kids sold and the network wasn't interested in producing a cartoon about a super hero team made up entirely of grown-ups. This is why Bruce Timm and company made that pilot piece of animation for a proposed JL series with Robin, Impulse and a girl version Cyborg (I've heard this character referred to as "Cyborgirl", but I don't know that's her official name or not).

hobbyfan said...

After seeing this piece, why did I have the feeling they were going for a Super Friends revival vibe?