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jlu

Is this a “Golden Age” for animated PG-13 features?

Published: 9 April 2010
Written by James Haley
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Categories: comics, Commentary, DC, jlu, movie, TV, Video

JL: Crisis on Two Earths

For years, I’ve complained how about most people in the US view animation as medium for children’s movies and TV shows (with comedy shows like the Simpsons and Family Guy being an exception.) With the latest Justice League feature debuting at #2, could we be finally coming around to accepting animation as venue for more mature features?

Bruce Timm, Dwayne McDuffie and the rest of the crew on Justice League Unlimited did an amazing job of writing smart and mature story lines, while working within the restrictions of a TV-Y7 rating. With the DC Comics Direct-To-Video releases, we get the opportunity to see what they can do without the TV rating restrictions. The results are awesome comic book adaptation presented as they should be.

Watching Videos Over the Holidays

Published: 24 December 2008
Written by James Haley
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Categories: anime, comics, Commentary, DC, dragon ball z, jlu, movie, TV, Video, voltron

dbz setThe holidays are a great time to chill out and watch some old videos that are collecting dust on your shelf. Saturday, I watched 8 Man After, DBZ Treee of Might, and DBZ Dead Zone.

It’s always fun to watch old Streamline Pictures anime becuase they seem to use the same 5 voices for all of their dubs. But I still enjoy Streamline Pics like 8 Man After. Plenty of good action, nice story and good animation that holds up pretty well today. I wish it could have been fleshed out into a full series, instead of an OAV.

The DBZ movies were fun just to see how the DBZ characters have evolved over time. Gohan, the litte kid with so much hidden power. Piccolo, (in Dead Zone) is training for a re-match with his nemisis Goku! And Goku, who hasn’t figured out the Super Saiyan thing yet, relies on his Kaiô-ken to fight his enemies.

Later, I plan to watch Voltron: Fleet of Doom. I’m still mad, reflecting on my elementary school days when all my friends came in and told me how cool it was to see BOTH Voltrons TOGETHER! Of course, I never saw that episode until I was an adult. I may watch some of my DC Animation DVDs too.

What are you watching over the holidays?

Justice League: The New Frontier review

Published: 11 February 2008
Written by James Haley
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Categories: comics, jlu, movie, new release, News, review, Video

It is an accomplished, serious and adult adaptation that keeps every ounce of the original story’s brilliance. What we have here is a serious adult superhero story straight out of the Silver Age, but with the weight of the best of modern age storytelling.

read more from Ain’t It Cool News

Justice League – The New Frontier (Single-Disc Edition)

Superman: Doomsday & Justice League: New Frontier

Published: 29 September 2006
Written by James Haley
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Categories: comics, Commentary, DC, jlu, new release, News, Video

The Superman Homepage has the following details regarding these two animated features…

Superman: Doomsday

In an epic tale of sacrifice, Superman battles an intergalactic serial killer in a superpowered Armageddon – “Superman: Doomsday”.

Justice League: New Frontier

Live the intense tale of the founding of the greatest band of superheroes ever – “Justice League: New Frontier”.

In this origin epic, a virtual who’s who of superheroes featuring not only Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, but also Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and Flash, these very different heroes must overcome their fear and suspicion of one another to forge an alliance against a creature so formidable that it will take all of their powers combined to prevail!

JLU’s Dwayne McDuffie to develop original adult action/adventure animated series

Published: 17 August 2006
Written by James Haley
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Categories: BET, black, comics, Commentary, DC, jlu, News, static shock, TV

BET has inked an agreement to develop a new original adult action/adventure animated series with Dwayne McDuffie, co-creator (with BET’s Denys Cowan) of the Emmy Award and Humanitas Prize winning cartoon, Static Shock. Cowan and McDuffie were co-founders of Milestone Media, Inc., the most successful Black-owned comic book company in history. McDuffie is also a producer and story editor on Cartoon Network’s Justice League, Editor-In-Chief of Milestone Media’s award-winning line of comic books, and has worked as an editor for Marvel Comics and Harvey Entertainment. As head of BET Animation, Cowan will oversee the development of all new projects and work closely with McDuffie.

This is great news! I enjoyed McDuffie’s work on Static (especially the later seasons) and Justice League Unlimited. This partnership should help fill the void left by the cancellation of JLU. We will also get a nice alternative to the “kid-oriented” projects that DC Animation seems to be more interested in developing.

Read the full press release.