Justice League Action: Your Super Friends Return To The World Of Animation

[Komodin]

Yeah, I'm gonna stay on the Fence of Cautious Optimism for the time being, too.

With the 11-minute format setup coupled with CN's current focus on comedy-based shows,  among other factors, there's just too big a chance of the show basically serving as the Justice League equivalent of Teen Titans Go! for my liking, so I'd rather watch some preview footage first before I proceed further with my thoughts.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I guess my biggest worry is it's no secret that I am a Batman fan, and I'm rather worried that he'll be flanderized into a asshole who will just be that weird guy who works in the corner, or he'll end up like his TTG personality.

[Dantemustdie00]

I pray that this doesn't become EXACTLY like TTGO!, at least the character designs aren't completely cartoony/chibi and look a bit like their Bruce Timm counterparts.

And jeez, I guess Hamill can't drop the Joker can he, it's with him till he dies.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

My guess is when DC announced The Killing Joke, and Hamill wanted to voice for it, part of the deal was that Hamil had to come out of retirement for the Joker, and since he did

Arkham Knight

, he probably thought he might as well retake the role full time.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Holy shit. 

I can't believe I'm saying this but it's a Christmas miracle.

JUSTICE LEAGUE ACTION IS FUCKING GREAT

No seriously! To my great surprise, I happened to just catch Justice League Action on Cartoon Network UK this morning (Which is currently placed at what I consider a death slot, 8:30am, and no other reruns throughout the day). But I watched it and it is actually really funny, and really good. Remember what I said above?

On 2/2/2016 at 3:24 PM, Ryannumber1Santa said:

I guess my biggest worry is it's no secret that I am a Batman fan, and I'm rather worried that he'll be flanderized into a asshole who will just be that weird guy who works in the corner, or he'll end up like his TTG personality.

IT ISN'T LIKE THIS! ALL CHARACTERS ARE IN CHARACTER!

I was so happy to see this especially. Everyone feels like they're in their correct personalities, and then watching the credits, it hit me why.  PAUL DINI IS WRITING THE SERIES! To be honest, this series feels a lot more like the original Teen Titans' more sillier episodes, in that the plots can still be outlandish, such as Toyman trapped Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Cyborg in a fighting game, but the characters are still all in character, and bounce off each other excellently. The two episodes I watched was Play Date and Follow that Space Cab!

Play Date was based around Toyman controlling the titans in a fighting game as mentioned above, after breaking into the Watchtower due to Cyborg being too busy with an online fighting game binge with Blue Beetle. After knocking out the Justice League members using a kryptonite net and knockout gas, Toyman plants devices that allows him to control the members using a controller, and forcing them to take part in a fighting game parody. Not only are all characters on point, and bounce off each other really well, but the video game jokes are really damn funny too, especially if you've played Injustice Gods Among Us. There's jokes like how repetitive intro screens for fighters can be (Which anyone who has played Injustice knows how long and repetitive they are in that game), Cyborg (who challenged Toyman as player 2) constantly uses Batman's taunt which of course is "I. AM. BATMAN!".

I legit think the best joke in the episode was a small one from Cyborg. When they're selecting their fighters, Toyman jumps over and forces Cyborg to pick Batman, leaving Cyborg to reply that Batman's the only one without powers. Cue death stare from Batman, and Cyborg is quickly trying to fix what he said to "ER WHAT I MEAN IS HE DOESN'T NEED THEM!". Compare this to Teen Titans Go which had an entire episode taking the piss out of Robin for not having powers, and trying to make him seem worse than the other titans for not having powers. Here, it's a quick joke, it isn't dwelled upon, and as soon as Batman gives his traditional death stare, Cyborg's so frightened to quickly rephrase his statement. 

I think that's one of the main things about comparing Action to Go. Justice League Action still feels in character. It still feels like these characters are teammates, and friends. In Go, if this same episode plot happened, you could pretty much confirm that all of the Titans would be overjoyed about kicking each others' ass. Here, while there's plenty of jokes and such, the Justice League members still act like friends. They make it clear they can't control their actions and they have to put faith in Cyborg's skills. They even try to warn each other of attacks coming their ways, which allows them to plan counters and such.

I think that's one of the biggest things. The characters and their actions are never meant to be harmful or evil, even when making jokes about DC's history. Like for example, Batman's special move against Superman in the game is a Kryptonite ring, leading to Superman asking "Do you just carry that everywhere" and Batman trying to think up an excuse. It isn't held upon for that long, and it doesn't feel evil, or hurtful because anyone who knows Batman knows he's just that paranoid about heroes going rogue, so that's taking a joke that works in canon, and in character, and making fun of it. Meanwhile, Teen Titans Go's jokes tends to go out of character to try make hurtful jokes work, and since they aren't in character, there is far more of that type of humor, and it's always dwelled upon, it legitimately just feels like these characters despise each other. There's no sense of friendship that makes these jokes feel like it's friends just taking the piss out of each other. It's people legitimately trying to hurt each other. 

But anyway, that's pretty much all I have to say right now. If you haven't seen it, definitely give it a watch, because this most definitely deserves far more views than Teen Titans Go.

Also, one other thing, but I fucking adore Wonder Woman in this series, which is good to say because I haven't liked her in animation for a while because they went really overboard on making her into someone who willingly kills in Justice League's New 52 movies. Here, I love her voice acting, her personality, and especially her design. It feels like it's taking design cues from the comics, and the original Justice League series, but also having it's own unique twist, for example I don't think I've seen this Wonder Woman hairstyle before, and I really like it because I think it being relatively tidy at first but getting more and more messy works more into her warrior personality.