Does the DCAU still hold up?

Ahhh okay. I don't know much about the guy at all really.

Loving that waller is playing a bigger part this season. She adds hype to anything she's in, woman has serious presence.

I finally saw the Black Canary/Green arrow/Wild cat episode. No doubt it's one of my favorites now, such fluid animation on those fight scenes. I was in love watching Canary fight. Probably my favorite JL girl now.

edited 14th Jul '15 2:08:44 PM by Vertigo_High

the dcau was always kinda dark and moody with some of the concepts they explored.

Mad Love is one of the biggest examples of an abusive relationship in western animation which isn't sugarcoated at all. The only thing that bugs me is the way Joker talks is way too formal and stilted, the personality is on-point but his actual dialogue doesn't sound like him.

There is always Batman the brave and the bold.

To answer the OP: I have seen some episodes in the DCAAU, and I can tell you that it definitely holds on its own against modern-day shows.

I think actually backhanding Harley is a bit more intense than throwing her out of a window, which is a bit cartoonish in comparison. Like most abusive men don't throw their girls out of window(it probably happens though), but hitting them is far more common and realistic. He knocks her out cold too.

It get's less cartoonish when you see blood dripping from her mouth and when she hospitalized.

edited 14th Jul '15 5:07:30 PM by AnimatedDreamer

If there's one thing I can give TNBA, it's that it was good at doing terrible or nasty things in ways that weren't all that graphic.

In any case, the reason falls are used more often than more blatant physical attacks in animation is because they're more grandiose than explicit, allowing them to get past censors.

Exactly. Though after season 1 Justice League starts getting more visceral with its violence, and to great effect. In fact Unlimited's hand to hand fight scenes are usually really well done. Watching Canary fight in the wildcat episode made me swoooooon.

It's partly why I love Superman Apocalypse so much, the fight scenes were fantastic, especially the Wonder woman/Furies one.

edited 14th Jul '15 6:50:20 PM by Vertigo_High

i think joker actually slapped harley around in mad love too before he threw her out of the window, though i don't remember.

As he advanced menacingly towards her, she grabbed a mounted swordfish to defend herself, but he easily took it from her and used it to slap her through the window.

Which also means it was mere chance she wasn't stabbed by the swordfish as well.

I'm actually in the middle of a Justice League marathon myself. I did Season 1 way back in December 2014 and I'm just now doing Season 2.

I want to give my top 15 favorite Justice League/Unlimited episodes:

1. The Once and Future Thing
2. A Better World
3. Destroyer
4. Divided We Fall
5. Maid of Honor
6. Hereafter
7. Legends
8. Only a Dream
9. Flash and Substance
10. Kid Stuff
11. Alive
12. Grudge Match
13. Tabula Rasa
14. Double Date
15. Wild Card

HONORABLE MENTIONS: All other episodes of the Cadmus storyline (Fearful Symmetry, Ultimatum, Dark Heart, Task Force X, Clash, Question Authority, Flashpoint, Panic in the Sky), Great Brain Robbery, Injustice For All, Secret Society, Savage Time, This Little Piggy, Greatest Story Never Told, For The Man Who Has Everything, Far From Home, Epilogue

Most of the really weak episodes of Justice League were in the first season, like "In Blackest Night," "War World" and "Metamorphosis." "Chaos at Earths Core" and "Far From Home" in the last season were also pretty weak. The main reason the first season of Justice League survived was the format itself was pretty strong, not forcing themselves to squeeze every character into every episode allowed a lot more flexibility and prevents the Superfriends problem of having a lot of characters with nothing to do.

Thinking about the switch from BTAS to TNBA, I noticed that part of what made BTAS work was that a lot of its villains were the focus character of their intro episode, and as a result incredibly well drawn. Mad Hatter in particular was incredibly pitiable in his first episode. He went down a bad path, sure, but he was blinded by his own insecurities and potential for some form of happiness. Clayface is similar. TNBA started to include a lot more generic motivations for their bad guys, like Firefly. And they were a lot less experimental with the episodes, the reason "Over the Edge" is so well regarded is because of how ambitious the premise was, even if it was All Just a Dream.

did you guys know that there's like 4 different releases of music from BTAS with multiple cd's in each one?

the show has one of the most extensive soundtracks of any show i've seen ever, animated or otherwise. almost every episode has a unique soundtrack. i'm honestly wondering how they managed to afford that, i imagine it was very expensive and time-consuming.

the music itself is honestly beyond amazing too. shirley walker is a really underrated composer.

edited 14th Jul '15 11:25:07 PM by wehrmacht

A lot of the WB shows from that era were like that.

Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky And The Brain and Freakazoid all had fully-orchestrated scores that weren't just a series of themes.

(And here I thought Richard Stone was recognized for his achievements in animation music.)

Can we say the same about "Mad Love"?

WMG: The Batman seen in BTAS isn't exactly the same one seen in TNBA.

Think about it; in TAS, Gotham City was a vaguely forties-fifties setting, despite the occasional highly advanced gizmo that wouldn't have been out of place in fictional works created around that time. And what we saw of the rest of the world seemed more or less the same. But in TNBA and S:TAS, going all the way to the end of JLU, Gotham and the rest of the world were pretty modern looking, contemporary to the noughties, even. There was no way the world would have changed THAT much in the short alleged span between BTAS and STAS.

Which is not to say BTAS canon doesn't apply to TNBA and beyond; much like the Silver and Bronze Age Batman(Earth One) shared a common past with the Golden Age Batman (Earth Two) until a certain unspecified 'divergence' point, the same things that happened to TAS Batman also happened in TNBA Batman's past, just in his own version of Gotham City, except perhaps for a few relatively minor changes (which might explain the differences in the looks of Croc and Penguin, or why TAS Zatanna only used sleight of hand while JLU Zatanna had actual magic).

edited 15th Jul '15 10:26:29 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Out-of-universe, that makes sense, as BTAS mostly existed as a tie-in to the Burton movieverse (even though they shared no canon beyond the basics), while TNBA came around when they were conceiving of a DCAU.

Kind of like the Nolan Batman movies versus what will come. Except that there is explicitly not continuity in the new movies, they're obviously still broadly inspired by the Nolanverse rather than a total rethink.

Character wise, TNBA Bats is very different from BTAS Bats as well, in a way that can't really be explained by him just being jaded and losing himself to the mission like they try to - he's a fundamentally different character (imo, this includes being a lot more two-dimensional, but even without that it's still a noticeable contrast).

And as KJ noted, this extends to the villains as well - they lose a lot of nuance in some cases, change motivations and personalities in others (Catwoman being the best example), or just outright become starkly different (Scarecrow).

edited 15th Jul '15 10:39:23 AM by KnownUnknown

BTAS series is more of a case of Early-Installment Weirdness.

They clearly we're more focus on making a Batman show, rather than a show that one big continuity. Superman: TAS series is what really build upon the DCAU Verse.

BTAS and TNBA are still explicitly the same continuity. Any changes can be Hand Waved as there being a time skip. I mean, people in real life don't look and act exactly the same throughout their entire lives. Stuff happens. People change.

As for the 40s-50s setting, the DCAU is an Alternate History to our own. It's very clearly NOT Like Reality, Unless Noted, especially with how much Zeerust Batman Beyond has. I just assume their society initially resembled our world's 40s-50s but then quickly grew out of it, resembling our world's 90s-2000s for a bit before advancing to Batman Beyond's aesthetic.

Blackest Night had a cool ending(dat mantra) and its moments, mainly what hurt it most was the whole hologram thing and the villains being quite lame. I feel like Gorilla grodd's crap was the worst part of season 1. Metamorphosis started off okay but kind of devolved into pure cliche plus Metamorpho looks so freakin dumb lol.

Weakest episode in Unlimited so far is Hawk and Dove. Aside from Aries' hilarious IT'S TUESDAY WHERE'S MY SEWT line the episode was like the epitome of mediocrity. Terrible writing all the way through, lame hero of the week and a lousy plot made it easily one of my least favorite episodes.

The Christmas one wasn't that good either but as far as Christmas Specials go it wasn't insultingly bad or anything, just whatever.

So far Season 2 > Unlimited S1 > Season 1

I haven't gotten too far on Unlimited season 2 but it's supposed to be the shortest one, no? Epilogue was an excellent episode though.

edited 15th Jul '15 6:23:10 PM by Vertigo_High

Technically JLU had one 26 episode season ending with "Epilogue," and a 13 episode season ending with "Destroyer." In broadcast and other collections they often separate the first season into two 13 episode seasons, letting "Once and Future Thing" cap off the first before the Cadmus arc kicks into high gear for the second. The Legion of Doom for the third season was very much Post-Script Season, which was sort of the only place they could go after the absolutely epic "Panic in the Sky." They made a point of trying to let every season properly end the series in case they didn't get another.

Grodd's episode in season one was okay in that the banter between GL and F Lash worked really well, and the show decided to just embrace the silliness of the character and backstory instead of trying to work out something less silly but also less fun.

edited 15th Jul '15 6:34:15 PM by KJMackley

"Metamorphosis" was definitely the weakest episode overall. The whole time, my only thought was "why should i care?"

That was part of the problem with "In Blackest Night," although there i think the issue was having a trial for a character we were just introduced to, which limited their ability because they hadn't fleshed out John much yet and our ability to care because we didn't know about him. That would have been better suited for close to the end of Season 2, at least, to help do setup for Starcrossed.

Metamorphosis was kinda pointless, it really felt like a situation that could easily have been solved by just everyone talking around a beer and agreeing to punish the somewhat bad guy. And yeah, the character-of-the-week looks weird. Some of the JLU episodes also fall flat when it is hard to care for the Hero of the Week. Like Hawk and Dove, or the one with Stargirl

If I had to rank the best episodes, it would be something like :

• A Better World
• For The Man Who Has Everything
• Starcrossed
• The Greatest Story Never Told
• Flash And Substance
• Hereafter
• Hunter's Moon
• Comfort and Joy
• Wake The Dead
• Task Force X

...and I guess it's not hard to see who my favorite character was. The Balance, Double Date, The Terror Beyond or Kids Stuff would be honorable mentions. And S2 would rank among the best series' seasons I have seen, animated or live. It was a true masterpiece.

"Metamorphosis" leaves so much of the plot unexplained with a lot of Fridge Logic. An oil company develops a super soldier serum that turns them into playdough, so they will be safe in case of an accident. Does anyone feel safer working for that company? And then the comatose corrupt exec falls next to a bunch of wires connected to that goop and creates a glob monster... yeah the logic of that episode was skewed.