Yeah, well, so I’d say at least half of my DVR entries are cartoons at this point, the majority of which air on the Cartoon Network. This is a direct results of a lack of Yankees games being televised – the time zones and the lack of YES are killing that – along with a lack of new Soprano seasons and the over abundance of reality shows, that I try to avoid like a case of gout.

They’re mostly to blame anyway…

The fact that CN has stepped up their programing over the last few years – right around the same time that the SciFi channel stopped showing cartoons altogether – is something that has caught my attention, too. They keep a run of Dragonball (original, Z, and GT) going and they have a habit of bringing back old shows (like Robotech) from time to time… they also have been pushing the latest [the first?] incarnation of Teen Titans, which has been heavily influenced by proper anime even though it’s fully American.

Then there was the introduction Justice League four seasons ago. *shrug*, I said. I caught the first episode and kept waiting for the Hall of Justice or the Legion of Doom to show up… yes, I know my age is showing. I also wondered if this version was being produced by WB; they were the company that did a kick ass job when they brought back Batman, Superman and Batman Beyond, back in the early-1990’s.

First episode hooked me… and yep, the WB was definitely involved. Superman was a reluctant boyscout type, with a square chin, and Batman was a surly fucker, with same shaped jaw. They added a good ex-Marine Green Lantern, a young Flash, a can’t-be-physically-possible-with-21″-waist bad-assed Wonder Woman (known more as Diana than not), a red haired, green eyed Hawk Girl, and a subdued John Jones (the Martian bounty hunter). Then they started weaving a pretty good storyline into the mix… at some point there was a bunch of tension between GL and HG, as they start… um, dating, I guess you’d call it? They also seemed to have a little bit of a cliff hanger after the first season – the danger of things like this is that cartoons get shit canned all the time. They fully expected a “next” seasons, but they don’t often get it… and it’s always way to late to wrap up the current season – both in time and money – so they just end the season and that’s that.

I sorta expected that here too, but a few months after my DVR stopped picking up new episodes, I heard a promo that there was a new show: Justice League Unlimited. Sure, the original seven were there, but they add just about every known [and unknown] hero that the DC Comics world has ever inked and fling them into the mix. Again, I was skeptical… this many new characters? A couple of week opening shows? No more Shayera? Bah!

Again, I was surprised. They carried over a few of the plot twists from the season before: at some point there’s a rogue version of Superman from an alternate Universe who killed their Lex Luthor. Then they had to work out a way to bring Hawk Girl back, after she was uncovered to be a spy last season – this also mounted some tension since GL had moved on but, in true TV fashion, there was still conflict. They had a couple of time shift episodes where a few League members bump into the Batman from Batman Beyond, an older Static Shock (also a WB cartoon that had cameos from JL already), and the offspring of DL and HG… made for a nice two parter. Then they started mucking with an arc’d story line: something from the second or third episode had repercussion that rippled through the season, ending with a three part gig that ran over the last month. And it was good.

This week’s episode – Epilogue – was the culmination of about thirteen years of animation at WB. No lie: one 30 minute episode that touched upon thirteen years of the Batman/Superman storylines. Most cartoons go out of “trend” within two seasons… kids have got a shorter attention span than the people that watch MTV. And countless cartoons are left unfinished; buzz cut by a dead budget. Meanwhile, WB has quietly performed a grand coup one the genre.

Epilogue starts “65 years from now”. There’s a guy – in his thirties I guess? – that’s breaking into a house. As it turns out it’s an older-than-Batman-Beyond Terry McGinnis and the house is owned by Amanda Waller [government agent in the current JLU series]. As they compare notes and swap stories, the pull a whole lotta shit from thin air. How Waller conspired to imprint the original Bruce Wayne’s DNA on Terry’s, so that the legacy of Batman would continue with Wayne’s genes. She also tried to get Andrea Beaumont [from the 1993 Mask of the Phantasm] to kill off Terry’s parents as a kid, to egg on the “new” Batman. And then there was the young kid that could create illusions from thin air, in a flashback, as Ace [of the Royal Flush Gang]. Ink from Batman Beyond, makes an appearance, along with Dana, the soundwave dude, and I don’t remember who else. They even threw in a reference to Tim Drake, who was the last Robin [from the 2000 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker].

To prevent an already too-long post from getting longer, I gotta say that this was a nice piece of work. Other animation studios should look to WB as a team that’s doing it right. All of their references tied everything – and I mean everything – together… no holes. No dangling questions. No breaks in the “created universe”… They remember that it’s animation: any thing and everything is and should be possible. Was it necessary? Maybe not, but the whole story was pretty freakin’ awesome.

Fitting tribute to Bob Kane’s creation… the boys have done good.