Rumor PaTroll: Green Lantern’s Ideal Audience, Young Justice Starts From Scratch

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Wednesday, October 13, 2010 –

Green Lantern: Something for Everyone, As Long As You Know A Little About the Franchise

Executive producer Bruce Timm said that the upcoming Green Lantern: The Animated Series isn’t just intended for kids. At the same time, the CGI animated series is not going to be just for die-hard comic book fans.

“We can’t aim the show directly at comic book fans only,” said  Timm. “That’s a trap you can fall into. You get too caught up in the continuity and the mythology and the back story and all of that stuff, then you run the risk of alienating a broader audience that might go,’Wait a minute, I don’t know what these guys are talking about. I know this is supposed to mean something, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.’ So, we try to cast as big a net or as wide a net as possible so hopefully the plan is the Green Lantern movie is going to come out next summer and kill, and everybody is going to be really into Green Lantern mania, and then we’ll just slip right in and take over.”

While you start thinking this is a generic answer – of course, everyone wants to appeal to as wide a demographic as possible – Timm revealed that they won’t be going into the back story of Green Lantern that much, relying instead that many of the kids and adults who are tuned into the series watched the movie in theaters next summer. The series will be “98 percent” set in space, and Kilowag will be in “practically every episode,” with Thaal Sinestro making an appearance. The new Green Lantern is disconnected from the previous animated series that involved iterations of Green Lanterns to give the creators more flexibility. Other characters from the DC Universe will be stopping by, but it won’t be the one’s you expect. “Because the series is set in outer space you’re not going to be seeing Batman and Robin showing up, at least not any time soon,” he said.

Young Justice Tries To Shy Away from Previous Franchises

[youtube id =”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiOjAmXDjW4″%5D

While they are adapting the  Teen Titans, Young Justice, and “the whole DC Universe,” Young Justice is starting everyone out young in order to retell a lot of the story. “Superman has only been around 10 years, Justice League has only been around four years. The guy who’s been doing the sidekick gig the longest is Robin, he’s only been doing it for four years and the others have been doing for less time,” said executive producer Greg Weisman, adding Miss Martian is a newbie when the show stars.

The focus of the show will be on the teens themselves and how the come of age with this responsibility. The audience will see the young superheroes in their lives at home with their parents and interacting with the normal world, dealing with normal teen issues.

“It’s a show about teenagers who happen to be superheroes. It’s also a covert ops show; it’s a show about secrets and lies. It’s a show about growing up and proving yourself. It’s about so many different things, we have so many different stories we are trying to tell with this show. But primarily it’s focused on a group of teenagers that are coming of age and taking their first steps into adulthood, coming out from being sidekicks and becoming their own heroes in their own right,” said Brandon Vietti.

Villains on the show will include Mr. Freeze, Icicle Junior, Killer Frost, Captain Cold, and Black Manta. The Justice League will be very involved with Batman assigning missions, Red Tornado acting as their “den mother,” and Black Canary training them in their skills. The show operates in a  universe with a 16-member Justice League, and the other members will step in as mentors occasionally. “I think we were a little more nervous in the early days about hitting something that was so identified with one show or the other. I feel freer now. The show hasn’t even aired yet, we’ve done so much material that now I kind of get what our interpretation of such and such a character would be. So there would be characters that we kind of shied away from early on that we ended up using,” Weisman said.