Pre-Production Justice League
- Numerous plots and ideas were dreamed up by the writers, and some even went to the scripting and storyboarding stage, before they had to be abandoned for one reason or another before the actual episodes were produced. These include, but are not limited to:
- The show had been pitched as far back in The '90s while Superman: The Animated Series was still in production, a number of concept pieces showing up online. One early idea would've had no Batman (as his solo series was still airing at the time), and included varied characters like Supergirl, Vixen, Lightray, Black Lightning, Nightshade (who would've sported a Psylocke-inspired redesign), the Question, Mister Miracle and Doctor Fate. Superman would've teamed up with two superheroes each episode before they all got together to assemble the Justice League in the series finale.
- As shown in the image above, the founding members of the Justice League was originally going to consist of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern (either Hal Jordan, or the Jordan-esque Kyle Rayner seen in Superman: TAS), and Aquaman (who would've sported his Superman: TAS design instead of his hook-handed one from the '90s). Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Green Arrow and Black Canary were apparently planned as well.
- And in another early concept piece, the line-up consisted of Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, John Stewart's Green Lantern, Aquaman (in his Superman: TAS appearance still), and Orion.
- Additionally, a Teen Titans cartoon based off of the '60's team was also proposed in the '90's, with the line-up being the Flash and Kid Flash (presumably Barry Allen and Wally West, respectively), Aquaman and Aqualad, Donna Troy, Speedy, and Robin (presumably an older Tim Drake).
- The Justice Society of America was planned to appear in "Legends", which was an Affectionate Parody of The Golden Age of Comic Books. This idea went so far as to have character designs and promotional stills produced, but they were forced to transform the Society into the Justice Guild of America by DC Comics, who said they could not use the original characters. In the defense of DC Comics, they were trying to establish the Justice Society comic ongoing at the time as a serious story, which the affectionate parody nature of the episode would not have helped with.
- The Crime Syndicate, a not-quite-Evil Twin version of the League from a parallel world, was scheduled to appear in two separate stories, but both were abandoned for different reasons.
- The first was "A Better World," an episode where the Syndicate was replaced by the Justice Lords, a more direct mirror image of the League which featured alternate versions of the same characters, rather than villains who were merely similar in theme and power.
- The direct-to-DVD film Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is based on the film that was originally supposed to bridge the gap between Justice League and Unlimited. Justice League: Worlds Collide would have explained the origins of the expanded roster, the new Watchtower, and Wonder Woman's invisible jet and would have featured the Crime Syndicate as the primary villains. Worlds Collide was never produced as such, but people on the Crisis on Two Earths production team have said that the film stays within "95 percent" of the original script, and indeed it shows things like the second Watchtower under construction, the beginnings of an expanded Justice League, subtle evidence that Hawkgirl recently left the League, and the origin of Wonder Woman's invisible jet (which made its first DCAU appearance two episodes into Unlimited).
- Related to Crisis on Two Earth, Vanessa Marshall, who voiced Wonder Woman there and Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, was in the running to voice Wonder Woman for JL before Timm and co. opted for Susan Eisenberg.
- The Birds of Prey would have starred in an episode of Justice League Unlimited. In a semi-retelling of the origin of Oracle and the team there was originally a plan for Batgirl to be hospitalized in an episode and, unable to finish the mission she was on when she was injured, she would contact Huntress and Black Canary to help her finish the job while supervising them over their radios. The "Bat-Embargo," which was a moratorium on using certain Batman-related characters after the premier of The Batman and the production of Batman Begins, meant that Batgirl had to be written out of the episode and the story was re-written and expanded into "Double Date". The episode still featured Huntress and Black Canary, but also included their "dates" The Question and Green Arrow.
- Scarecrow and The Riddler were likewise intended to appear in Season 3 of Unlimited as part of the Legion of Doom note , but the Bat-Embargo prevented this.
- At one point, Bruce Timm thought about giving costume redesigns to the founding members, but realized it was too drastic. He would reuse these for the Justice Lord designs. A Batman redesign and a masked John Stewart have surfaced
◊. - The commentary for "The Return" reveals that, when "Starcrossed" was scripted, the writers did not know where Shayera had gone after leaving the League. One theory was that she had become the resident guardian angel of a small South American village, and another was that one of the victim planets of the Thanagarians had found her seeking revenge (this story was later used in the Unlimited episode "Hunter's Moon"). Eventually they decided that she had sought sanctuary with Doctor Fate, and this led to the double meaning of the title "The Return".
- Lastly, a minor cameo instead of a plot-important appearance, the writers originally wanted a Joker cameo in "This Little Piggy" for a brief moment of comic relief. After Diana had been turned into a pig, Batman would be walking down the street with her and would pass the Joker preparing to commit a crime with his gang. The Joker, in the middle of preparing a heist and laying out his convoluted plan to deal with Batman, would see Batman holding and consoling a pig and would stare at it in Dull Surprise, then throw his hands in the air and abandon the entire scheme because he couldn't possibly top that. Sadly, this scene (which might very well have been the single greatest scene ever animated), had to be dropped from the episode for a variety of reasons, including time and pacing problems.
- According to the commentary track for Superman: Doomsday, James Marsters (who voiced Lex Luthor in Doomsday) was almost the voice of Green Arrow, but had to bow out at the last second.
- Andrea Romano considered bringing Victor Garber on to reunite him with Carl Lumby, but nothing came of it. Garber would eventually make his voice acting debut with Green Lantern: First Flight.
- There were plans to make a crossover with Teen Titans, but the idea was dropped because the writers couldn't come up with a good story that would fit both shows' different style.
- Mxyzptlk was set to appear, but the production team couldn't find a good way to fit him into the story.
- In an interview from 2001, Bruce Timm stated that the creative team considered the "In Brightest Day" episode of Superman: The Animated Series to be Canon Discontinuity, as its use of Kyle Rayner conflicted with John Stewart being Earth's Green Lantern. They eventually found a way to reconcile the situation with Kyle in the second season by having Katma Tui mention that he'd been sent to Oa for training, thus explaining his absence.
- Orm was supposed to return as Ocean Master later in the series, but it never happened.
- When the show was originally pitched to Kids' WB!, the Flash was swapped out for three Kid Sidekicks: Robin, Impulse, and a gender-flipped Cyborg.
- Tim Daly was originally set to reprise the role of Superman from Superman: The Animated Series. He did do some initial recordings, but he was not available due to his commitment to the TV remake of The Fugitive.
- Captain Marvel was originally supposed to appear in Hereafter as Superman's replacement, but they went with Lobo instead.
- The whole Amazo and Grundy thing was supposed to be a Brick Joke in the last episode but they forgot. They were going to include a gag in the finale showing Amazo sitting on an asteroid somewhere, wondering whether or not it was safe to return (even though his omniscience should've told him so).
- While writing the Cadmus arc they seriously considered having Batman defect from the Justice League and join Cadmus after being convinced that Cadmus was right about his god like super-friends, but they nixed the idea since they felt it would have required making the League look and act like a bunch of jerks or make Batman look and act like a jerk (and he had already crossed the Jerkass line before in season 2).
- That basically what happens in Marvel Comics' Squadron Supreme mini-series from the 1980s featuring an alternate reality Captain Ersatz version of the JLA. The Squadron decide to create a Utopian society on their world but at the cost of individual liberty. One of their members, Nighthawk (their world's version of Batman) forms his own team to stop them. As a result both sides do end up looking like jerks.
- There was going to be more focus on Michael Rosenbaum voicing Luthor as the Flash in "The Great Brain Robbery", but the crew found Clancy Brown's performance of the Flash as Luthor just too funny.
- Stan Berkowitz and Dwayne McDuffie wrote a comedy-heavy episode called "Misfortune Cookies" based heavily on the Justice League International comics. The story centered on Martian Manhunter's addiction to Oreos...er, Chocos almost ruining a peace negotiation between two warring alien races, which forces Elongated Man to play the mediator instead. The executives vetoed the ideanote , but in early 2015, J.M. Dematteis posted a summary version of the concept on his website, saying it could have been JLU's equivalent to "The Trouble with Tribbles".
- The Question almost got his own Spinoff.
- Gail Simone said that if she was allowed to write another episode besides "Double Date", there would have been an episode with the Queen of Fables as the villain.
- "The Greatest Story Never Told" was originally going to star Firestorm before it was changed to Booster Gold.
- Superman/Clark was going to reveal his identity to Lois at the end of "Divided We Fall", but Executive Meddling put a stop to that.
- Word is that at some point in JLU Season 3, Luthor would've succeeded at reviving Brainiac, in addition to the Key being involved in some way. For whatever reason, this wasn't to be.
- According to James Tucker (as addressed by Watchtower Database), the crew considered doing another twelve episode-long season of JLU, centered around time travel and/or travelling the galaxy, but it never came to be due to the show not being renewed. Dwayne McDuffie left a hook to a possible such season in "Alive!".
- According to James Tucker, they also considered doing a whole season taking place in the Batman Beyond era.
- According to Dwayne McDuffie on his now defunct website (as seen in this Watchtower Database video), the writers seriously considered an episode where Hal appeared, but nothing came of it.
- According to Paul Dini, he mentioned that the twist for "Epilogue", where Terry is revealed to be Bruce Wayne's son, was something that they tried incorporating into Batman Beyond, but the show was cancelled before they could explore it in more detail. It was eventually incorporated here, though he wasn't involved in the episode.
- As detailed in Watchtower Database's video about the subject, Darkwing Duck comic writer Aaron Sparrow wrote up a five-page pitch for a 22-issue comic continuation of the show. It even got Paul Dini's approval, but DC refused to greenlight it. Despite this, Sparrow is hopeful that Batman: The Adventures Continue will inspire DC to reconsider. This series would have included:
- Leading up to the Near-Apocalypse of '09 as well as incorporating the events of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
- Characters from newer material like Jessica Cruz.
- Continuing with the show's A Day in the Limelight format.
- Paul Dini was originally going to write "The Brave And The Bold Part 1", but since he injured his hand, Dwayne McDuffie wrote it instead.
- Jon McClenahan pitched to WB for his studio StarToons to work on the first season of Justice League, much as the studio had worked on previous WB series throughout the '90s (Tiny Toons, Taz-Mania, Animaniacs, Histeria, etc.). They were rejected in favor of Koko Enterprises / Dong Yang. It would've been interesting to see their animation style for the series.
- Alan Burnett was working on an Aquaman spin-off for Kids' WB! that would have focused on the character's younger years, and made many different pitches to satisfy the mid-20s comic fans' demographic, the female audience, and kids.
