If there’s one thing that DC Animation fans are, it’s extremely protective. That’s why Erik Norris and Joey Esposito felt the need to sit it on the roundtable interview at the New York Comic-Con 2010 with a host of other nerd journalists to discuss the upcoming animated Young Justice show with producers Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman. It’s strange seeing a new DCAnimated Universe evolve from the one Bruce Timm began to establish nearly 20 years ago, but we’re excited for both Young Justice and Green Lantern to kick off. Be sure to read our other feature article, NYCC 2010: Talking Green Lantern with Bruce Timm.
After brief introductions, things got down to brass tacks. Vietti kicked things off honestly when asked what kind of show Young Justice was going to be, replying quickly with “The best one we can do.” He then elaborated, saying “I think the stories that we tell are very much coming of age; the treatment of the world, the treatment of the costumes, we’re keeping it grounded.” In an interesting concept, Weisman added, “We date every episode.” Young Justice episodes will feature a month and date time stamp, so as to clue the audience into the length of time between episodes. Vietti and Weisman were very adamant in establishing the realism of the show. “We tried to find as many ways to ground the show and lock it into a sense of reality as possible, including designs by our designer Phil Bourassa.” said Weisman. Vietti agreed, chiming in, “From the letters on the page to the images on the screen, it’s all about realism.”
Moving on to the costumes of the characters, Vietti said, “We tailored each costume to the specific needs of the hero.” As an example, he cited Aquaman or Aqualad having “streamlined” costumes, without a lot of seams or stitching so as to be able to glide through the water at a fast speed. In comparison, someone like Batman and Robin would have a lot of armor and padding. “It’s all designed to work within reality.” said Vietti.
When asked how Young Justice got the green light, citing the fact that Green Lantern has an upcoming film to tie into, “Sam Register, the President of Warner Brothers Animation teamed us up.” answered Weisman. Vietti continued, “There was some discussion about wanting to do a team show. Teen Titans wasn’t very far away in the past, Justice League had been done, and we were trying to find something different. This is what we kind of collectively came up with.” Weisman went on to discuss the fear of tackling Young Justice out of the fact that the area had been traversed in the past, mostly between the two aforementioned shows. Eventually, though, they found their footing. “The more we got into it, the more we found there was another direction to take,” he concluded. “I’m not saying it’s better, just a different direction to take that allowed us to do something we hadn’t seen before.” Almost as much as they had been reaffirming their grounding in reality, Weisman and Vietti made it clear that they didn’t want to retread anything that had been done previously.
At long last, someone brought up the incessant Young Justice questions that are asked at comic-cons at any given DC panel. After being asked if there’s a fear to make sure they appease those hardcore fans, Weisman chuckled and replied “Yeah, obviously we hope they’re happy. I mean it’s going to be different from the comic but we’ve adapted a lot of elements from it. As I said in the panel when asked, you know, ‘is this Justice League, is it Teen Titans, is it Young Justice, is it New Teen Titans?’ and the answer is yes. We’re really adapting the entire DC Universe.” Don’t get too excited though, DCU nuts, Young Justice is still firmly planted in the lives of the primary sidekick Young Justice characters.
“I compiled a list of about 50 or 60 teenage DC superheroes that Brandon and I went through to find a chemistry with the 6 that really seemed to work for us,” said Weisman. “It felt like we were starting the DC Universe from scratch, to some extent.” He went on to explain the dichotomy of mixing hard work with having fun, saying “if you’re not having fun, you know you’re off target.”
In terms of the “adult” DCU, “Batman, Red Tornado and Black Canary have big roles in the series,” said Weisman. “Batman is in charge of assigning them on their missions, sending them on their covert operations. Red Tornado is sort of their den mother. He lives in their cave and sort of watches out over them, but he doesn’t go with them on missions. And then Black Canary is in charge of their training, so those are the big three.” Weisman held nothing back when speaking on the other characters that would appear; he confirmed pretty much every major DCU character, even throwing in some lesser known people like Zatara and Captain Atom. Vietti chimed in, saying “There’s a pretty careful mix about how often they’re in the show. Obviously we didn’t want the Justice League to eclipse the kids,” he continued. “When they show up, there’s a real story point.”
