Frustrating Hindsight

[Casey Mack]

After seeing peopes responses to the "Lightspeed" episode of teen Tians, and how some people after seeing KidFlash still think Teen Titans takes place before JLU. I now agree with the Bat ban and all the other bans out their! If teenagers and adults think [jokeing or otherwise] because another version of wally west appeared on teen Titans, thats makes it a precursor to JL it obvious kids will be even more confused. SO i hope the Bat ban lives on throughout JLU run! Haveing the same characters appear on two shows gets confuseing and its obvious now!

 

[Fone Bone]

After seeing peopes responses to the "Lightspeed" episode of teen Tians, and how some people after seeing KidFlash still think Teen Titans takes place before JLU. I now agree with the Bat ban and all the other bans out their! If teenagers and adults think [jokeing or otherwise] because another version of wally west appeared on teen Titans, thats makes it a precursor to JL it obvious kids will be even more confused. SO i hope the Bat ban lives on throughout JLU run! Haveing the same characters appear on two shows gets confuseing and its obvious now!

Oh, come on. You know the ONLY reason the producers had Micheal Rosenbaum voice Kid Flash was to rile up the fanboys into trying to make the show fit into DCAU continuity. They are keeping it vague on purpose. The producers of Teen Titans are wicked in that they drop all of these hints in the show regarding continuity, some things HELPING the case and others hurting it. They LOVE driving the fans insane and it is so obvious that was what they were trying to do here. IS it a prequel to BTAS? Maybe, maybe not but part of the fun of the episode was trying to make it fit. I know you despise fun in all of it's forms but some people actually enjoy it!

As for your other point of the embargo possibly being nessecary because ADULTS on this board actually get confused over Teen Titans that is a perfectly valid point and an argument I agree with and have even made myself at some point. But you are SO not taking into account that the producers play around with Teen Titans continuity and the fans speculation on purpose.

 

[John Cage]

Besides, we did get the underrated Batwoman DTV. I know that doesn't count much for most people here, but it did show us most of the bat-family one last time.

That's true you know -- a lot of people forget the whole gang (sans Nightwing, that is) appeared as recently as late 2003, roughly two years ago.

Yeah, they had to change "Black Manta" to "Devil Ray"...but it sounds like that was to avoid racial undertones, not because of Aquaman.

This is totally untrue. Dwayne McDuffie has repeatedly said that Black Manta's name change was not racially motivated, and that he, a JLU producer, story editor, and writer, was unaware Black Manta was even black under his mask.

Have a good day.
John Cage

 

[Revelator]

It's called a universe for a reason, i just like to think it all ties in together.

Amen brother! And a universe where Batman exists in apparent isolation from his most well known allies and villains is a mighty strange one.

 

[James]

That's true you know -- a lot of people forget the whole gang (sans Nightwing, that is) appeared as recently as late 2003, roughly two years ago.

Which was when DCAU moved away from Batman and towards JL. I still feel that people see JL as a vehicle for Batman. JL just happens to have Batman in it and doesn't have any responsibilities to show more of Batman's background as it does to any other character.

We've seen Batman characters relevant to the League pop up (Joker, Clock King, Clayface) and some who are not (Phantasm, Terry McGinnis for instance) so he's not been underused. Yes, there are other Bat characters which are relevant to the League - Oracle and Nightwing are obvious examples being often reserve members in the comics, however, this is when you HAVE to accept that commerce ALWAYS rears it's very ugly head. The time of Batman has moved on commerically and is now fairly exclusive to a new vision which is rather popular with the kiddies.

So it is a shame we can't see NW pop up. One could almost say frustrating! However, as I've said before, in kids cartoon, situations are normally far more frustrating with TV shows lasting far shorter and being cut off far faster.

If it wasn't for the fact that Justice League was commissioned, we wouldn't have that Batman period, as his time had pasted and was being prepared to be moved on to a new version. Technically, MOTB is the final Bat outing, before the movement to TB. Timm's "Batman" universe came to rest, as you say, a few years back.

JL(U) is a naughty treat; it allows ourselves and the writers to indulge in a character which really should have finished by now, being there a new version in town. As I've said, you don't have two versions of the same character running in commerce without good reason, and JLU is a GOOD reason!

So indulge in our treat. We're all lucky on so many fronts. It's not TV that's being "unfair" it's the fans. TV is being VERY fair since this situation (two Batmans) is very rare. The fans getting upset because they want more old Batman, despite that fact that standard laws of commerce suggest you shouldn't have ANY. It should be The Batman and The Batman alone. It's not. We are still eating our cake way past our bedtime. Why can't we be happy with that cake instead of wishing we had an even BIGGER and better one?

 

[b.t.]

JL(U) is a naughty treat; it allows ourselves and the writers to indulge in a character which really should have finished by now, being there a new version in town. As I've said, you don't have two versions of the same character running in commerce without good reason, and JLU is a GOOD reason!

So indulge in our treat. We're all lucky on so many fronts. It's not TV that's being "unfair" it's the fans. TV is being VERY fair since this situation (two Batmans) is very rare. The fans getting upset because they want more old Batman, despite that fact that standard laws of commerce suggest you shouldn't have ANY. It should be The Batman and The Batman alone. It's not. We are still eating our cake way past our bedtime. Why can't we be happy with that cake instead of wishing we had an even BIGGER and better one?

another excellent post, sjj....you've been making perfect sense for pages now, and this is possibly your best argument so far....

...but i still don't think you're gonna sway anyone.

if there's one thing that's constant about fandom, it's that they're VERY hard to satisfy...see if this sounds familiar:

"i wish they'd stop putting out these 4-eps per disc BTAS dvd's....we want season sets only! WB sucks!"

and a year or so later:

"the season sets don't have enough extras on 'em....WB sucks!"

fans can NEVER get enough, apparently...(i'm reminded that "fan" IS short for "fanatic")....it's flattering, to be sure, but also kinda frustrating....we work our butts off to make the best show possible with the tools available to us, but the fans will always find something to get "peeved" about....the ubiquitous "MY GLASS IS HALF-EMPTY!!!" mindset gets grating after awhile....

to go back to disneyboy's original point (pages and pages of comparative lists of "whose villains got how much screen-time etc etc " ago), even if we HAD featured nightwing or barb or tim in JL before the dreaded bat-embargo took effect, chances are very likely that they would only have been non-essential cameos....we certainly wouldn't have used the opportunity to give those characters "closure"....JL was NEVER intended to be "batman and his amazing friends"...

and say for a moment we HAD used up valuable JL airtime to give closure to dick, barb and the gang....i'd bet any amount of money that you guys would STILL be saying "i just wanna see 'em one last time"....if i'd never opened my big fat mouth about the embargo in the first place, this probably wouldn't even be an issue, the absence of major bat-villains and supporting characters would hardly even be noticed....guess i'll have to be more careful about what behind-the-scenes stuff i blab about in the future.....ah well, lesson learned!

for the record, i'll say it one last time: i don't mind the embargo....not ONE. LITTLE. BIT. i don't necessarily agree with the reasoning behind it, but i haven't found it to be a huge stumbling block, creatively...in fact, "double date" is a MUCH better story than the barb-inclusive original premise was shaping up to be, to give just one small example....

do i miss barbara and co.? and shouldn't, say, scarecrow be included in the legion of doom for old-times' sake? i suppose, but so what? it's not like we don't have tons of other interesting personalities to play with....

ok, now i'm repeating myself, so it's time to quit....but don't let that stop any of you, feel free to keep kickin' that ol' dead horse if it makes ya happy....

 

[Stu]

Am I an evil person if I got a chuckle out of that, after having to deal with the "OMG BRING BACK BATMAN'S VILLAINS!!!!111one " for months?

 

[James]

another excellent post, sjj....you've been making perfect sense for pages now, and this is possibly your best argument so far....

...but i still don't think you're gonna sway anyone.

Maybe I won't, but maybe you will... for some reason you are held in higher acclaim here than I, despite all the hard work I put in here. *tut*

and say for a moment we HAD used up valuable JL airtime to give closure to dick, barb and the gang....i'd bet any amount of money that you guys would STILL be saying "i just wanna see 'em one last time"....if i'd never opened my big fat mouth about the embargo in the first place, this probably wouldn't even be an issue, the absence of major bat-villains and supporting characters would hardly even be noticed....guess i'll have to be more careful about what behind-the-scenes stuff i blab about in the future.....ah well, lesson learned!

I don't think you should feel too bugged by that. In the end, while I imagine it's frustrating that fans aren't ever happy, it's testament to the product that they are so, erm, fanatical.

Fans (as a rough generalisation) complain. As you say, it's always something. It's the nature of the beast. Some fans will even be frustrated by the lack of decade consistency from certain projects top 40 hits..

Seriously, if it hadn't been the embargo it would have been something else. I would hate to think you felt you needed to be more tight lipped because of the fan feedback that could result. You can't stop the fans. I thought that was precisely what "Dark Heart" was about...

 

[DeathscytheVII]

Am I an evil person if I got a chuckle out of that, after having to deal with the "OMG BRING BACK BATMAN'S VILLAINS!!!!111one " for months?

HAHA, well, for me, you can take out the OMG and the 111111ones. I understand that JLU is its own show and not "Batman and his friends", so i'm not asking for that. The one thing i only wanted was to see Scarecrow drawn in the Legion line up of I Am Legion , even if he never appeared, it would give a nice nod to BTAS, yeah i know, as if we hadn't had enuf of that already? ( but kinda like Strange's inclusion on the round table of Cadmus). Stories wouldn't be so bad, but its not a requirement from me, though Clayface's role in Secret society was awesome.

So indulge in our treat. We're all lucky on so many fronts. It's not TV that's being "unfair" it's the fans. TV is being VERY fair since this situation (two Batmans) is very rare. The fans getting upset because they want more old Batman, despite that fact that standard laws of commerce suggest you shouldn't have ANY. It should be The Batman and The Batman alone. It's not. We are still eating our cake way past our bedtime. Why can't we be happy with that cake instead of wishing we had an even BIGGER and better one?

I'm actually quite pleased that the batman i grew up watching is still on the air But yeah, you make a good point, i never did recall any time when more than one version of a character was on TV.

for the record, i'll say it one last time: i don't mind the embargo....not ONE. LITTLE. BIT. i don't necessarily agree with the reasoning behind it, but i haven't found it to be a huge stumbling block, creatively...in fact, "double date" is a MUCH better story than the barb-inclusive original premise was shaping up to be, to give just one small example....

Wow.

Actually, the major beef I had with the Embargo was that i thought it was an unfair constraint on the creators/writers, something that would prevent the crew from tackling on possible stories that could have made good use of Batman's rogue's gallery or that they would've liked to do, just because the new show was airing.

To me, It always seemed like a corporate/business decision rather than a creative one. I've always wondered what you thought about it, and now that I do. I don't mind it anymore.

If it doesn't get in the creator's way, and if the creators don't mind it one bit. Then I don't have a problem with it.

For what it's worth, this is one less person complaining about the embargo

 

[James]

For what it's worth, this is one less person complaining about the embargo

See? Da man does in one what I fail to do in five!

I always think it's always good to remember that artists in any field are by definition, creative. Generally, it means they like to challenge themselves and their subject. While the audience tends to enjoy the comfort of aquaintence, the artist's job is to keep them happy without becoming a product himself; a machine to churn out what simply what the audience wants. Once could argue it seperates fanfiction from professional fiction. Maybe that's too harsh.

Point is, BTAS retold and reorigined virtually all the characters in the Batman world - particularly the villains. TNBA played with them a little more and gave the heroes some extra room for evolution and personal tales. Batman Beyond caps off the tale by giving the story a finale - and even an epilogue to the whole project.

So in the end, creatively, aside from looking for different ways to do the same thing (which is essentially the unenviable job of the comic writer) it's clear that one has covered what's needed to be covered. That's not to say their aren't more stories to be told, but if one was to look at Batman by Timm and co, it's explored all the essential avenues.

So when commerce cries "move on", I am truely not surprised the artists involved in DCAU like b.t can do so with little regret. Batman's world has been well documented and creatively they can move on without regret and that must be a good feeling in an industry which rarely gives such opportunity.

 

[John Cage]

As a fan I still get a little peeved by the fact I'm not going to see some of my old Batman favorites in JLU, but I've made peace with the Bat-embargo. The fact that we still get to see Kevin Conroy's Batman is pretty darn cool. It'd be nice to see Scarecrow and Riddler with the Legion, and yes, it's a little jarring to see such a large group of villains without much Bat-representation, but as someone who's been there since that first Saturday morning premiere of "Cat and the Claw", I'm cool with it and very pleased to see -- on a toon-themed message board no less -- that I'm not alone.

(By the way, I remember "Cat and the Claw" starting and thinking that the animation looked kind of weird. Later that week I remember seeing the first Clayface and wondering who he was and where Joker or Penguin were. Good times.)

Have a good day.
John Cage

 

[Revelator]

and say for a moment we HAD used up valuable JL airtime to give closure to dick, barb and the gang....i'd bet any amount of money that you guys would STILL be saying "i just wanna see 'em one last time"

And some of us guys would respond to those folks by saying, "The team was kind enough to go out of their way and give them genuine closure, so stop mewling." No matter how good or audience-pleasing an episode may be, there'll always be someone ready to say "meh," but whether the meh-men are a chorus or a crowd depends on the circumstances of the episode in question.

....if i'd never opened my big fat mouth about the embargo in the first place, this probably wouldn't even be an issue, the absence of major bat-villains and supporting characters would hardly even be noticed....

I don't wish to be quarrelsome or doubt your authority, but I don't think that would be the case, at least not on this board. A Legion of Doom without any bat-villains on it would attract some kind of notice, and people would still ask about when Nightwing or Robin or Alfred might show up, probably to the point of asking you and any other creative staff.

I've never thought that your creativity was truly fenced-in by the embrago, since you pretty much have the entire DC universe to play with now--or should I say most of the DC Universe. While the exclusion of Vertigo characters is understandable, I think many are rankled by the--as you noted--questionable reasoning behind the embargo, and the fact that it effectively blocks off the last look at soon-to-be-extinct versions of the characters.

I wasn't wild about Epilogue (I'd rather have seen a half-hour on Vibe than Terry literally being Bruce's son) but I thought it succeeded at providing a sense of closure to Terry's story and to Bruce's future. I don't have any desire for you to revisit Batman Beyond within JLU, and as far as I can tell, not many other people do either. That episode satisfied a lot of people who perhaps had complaints about TOAFT 2. I think taking the time to send off Barbara and Dick might not silence every fan, but it might silence most.
All that said, there obviously won't be an episode of that nature, even if JLU gets another season, since The Batman is doing well and you've evidently got many other stories you'd like to tell involving other characters. That's fine, and I won't lose any sleep over that. Sometimes it's easier to remain angry over matters of principle than practical matters, which accounts for some of the fan-wrath at the embargo. Additionally, dead horses are often easier to beat than live ones. So I'll just wait in anticipation for the rest of JLU to air, and hope what I see will erase any thoughts of what might have been.

 

[Fone Bone]

another excellent post, sjj....you've been making perfect sense for pages now, and this is possibly your best argument so far....

...but i still don't think you're gonna sway anyone.

if there's one thing that's constant about fandom, it's that they're VERY hard to satisfy...see if this sounds familiar:

"i wish they'd stop putting out these 4-eps per disc BTAS dvd's....we want season sets only! WB sucks!"

and a year or so later:

"the season sets don't have enough extras on 'em....WB sucks!"

But WHV DOES suck. The sets ARE crappy and the extras I really wanted like Gotham Girls are actual DCAU canon cartoons and now the sets feel incomplete. I'll stop saying WHV sucks when it stops sucking.

fans can NEVER get enough, apparently...(i'm reminded that "fan" IS short for "fanatic")....it's flattering, to be sure, but also kinda frustrating....we work our butts off to make the best show possible with the tools available to us, but the fans will always find something to get "peeved" about....the ubiquitous "MY GLASS IS HALF-EMPTY!!!" mindset gets grating after awhile....

to go back to disneyboy's original point (pages and pages of comparative lists of "whose villains got how much screen-time etc etc " ago), even if we HAD featured nightwing or barb or tim in JL before the dreaded bat-embargo took effect, chances are very likely that they would only have been non-essential cameos....we certainly wouldn't have used the opportunity to give those characters "closure"....JL was NEVER intended to be "batman and his amazing friends"...

and say for a moment we HAD used up valuable JL airtime to give closure to dick, barb and the gang....i'd bet any amount of money that you guys would STILL be saying "i just wanna see 'em one last time"....if i'd never opened my big fat mouth about the embargo in the first place, this probably wouldn't even be an issue, the absence of major bat-villains and supporting characters would hardly even be noticed....guess i'll have to be more careful about what behind-the-scenes stuff i blab about in the future.....ah well, lesson learned!

for the record, i'll say it one last time: i don't mind the embargo....not ONE. LITTLE. BIT. i don't necessarily agree with the reasoning behind it, but i haven't found it to be a huge stumbling block, creatively...in fact, "double date" is a MUCH better story than the barb-inclusive original premise was shaping up to be, to give just one small example....

do i miss barbara and co.? and shouldn't, say, scarecrow be included in the legion of doom for old-times' sake? i suppose, but so what? it's not like we don't have tons of other interesting personalities to play with....

ok, now i'm repeating myself, so it's time to quit....but don't let that stop any of you, feel free to keep kickin' that ol' dead horse if it makes ya happy....

I'm not going to stop hating the Bat-Embargo or resenting The Batman any time soon but I had always thought this was the case with a few of your other posts you made. This is however the most clear-cut and easy to understand explaination you've ever given us and I can't help wishing it had come a few pages earlier to stop a lot of whining from me included.

 

[Link]

for the record, i'll say it one last time: i don't mind the embargo....not ONE. LITTLE. BIT. i don't necessarily agree with the reasoning behind it, but i haven't found it to be a huge stumbling block, creatively...in fact, "double date" is a MUCH better story than the barb-inclusive original premise was shaping up to be, to give just one small example....

do i miss barbara and co.? and shouldn't, say, scarecrow be included in the legion of doom for old-times' sake? i suppose, but so what? it's not like we don't have tons of other interesting personalities to play with....

ok, now i'm repeating myself, so it's time to quit....but don't let that stop any of you, feel free to keep kickin' that ol' dead horse if it makes ya happy....

Wow. This makes me feel so much better. Like others said, my main beef with the embargo was the creators not being able to choose who they want to use for themselves.

Still, one question leaves me pondering, despite this. Let's go ahead and pretend the embargo never existed. Would there be any, any, Batman characters whatsoever that are part of the embargo that you would use? If not, than I am officially completely fine with the embargo.

 

[A.J]

Sorry to say this b.t. but I dont agree with you about WHV. So what? Should I be endless grateful with WHV because they dared to release the BTAS & STAS box sets after so much waiting with such lack of Special Features, extras, etc? Didnt they have enough extra material to put out with the sets? Was it too hard to put a little more work on their sets since they are calling them "Classic Collection"? Its called costumer service. I am the one paying for the sets, its my money and I could perfectly choose NOT to buy the darn sets and get so much better sets from another companies...so what can I do? Download the episodes? Get them from Ebay?

WHV sucks. Just look at the first releases with 4 episodes on a DVD. What the heck is that? Look at the JLU releases: No episode order nor production order, Fullscreen & only 3 episodes on a dvd! Are you telling me I should think WHV is all great because they finally released those dvds? I dont think so. They day we get quality box sets or single dvds Ill respect them. In the meantime Ill just buy the sets for the episodes because the episodes are worth by themselves & buy better box sets from another companies who actually respect their shows fan bases.

 

[William C. Maune]

Should I be endless grateful with WHV

I don't think anyone is saying that you should be endlessly grateful with WHV. There is a lot of room between being endlessly grateful and saying WB sucks. They are opposite ends of a wide spectrum, not the only two options to choose from.

 

[b.t.]

Still, one question leaves me pondering, despite this. Let's go ahead and pretend the embargo never existed. Would there be any, any, Batman characters whatsoever that are part of the embargo that you would use? If not, than I am officially completely fine with the embargo.

as mentioned already, we planned to use barb in a "birds of prey" one-off, which, when we found out we couldn't use her, got completely re-worked into the much better "double date"....other than that, we had no plans to use BTAS characters in JLU (other than the occasional villain cameo)....there aren't any BTAS-centric stories we were dying to tell that we couldn't because of the embargo....

 

[A.J]

as mentioned already, we planned to use barb in a "birds of prey" one-off, which, when we found out we couldn't use her, got completely re-worked into the much better "double date"....other than that, we had no plans to use BTAS characters in JLU (other than the occasional villain cameo)....there aren't any BTAS-centric stories we were dying to tell that we couldn't because of the embargo....

Thats good to know mr b.t. I loved Double date. It was one of the best episodes of JLU season 2 (along with Clash!). Now you´ve said all this I feel a lot better. I never really had a problem with the bat embargo but I was always wondering how were you guys feeling about it. Thanks for letting us know!

Now, lets celebrate the new BTAS & STAS releases today!

 

[Arrakhat]

as mentioned already, we planned to use barb in a "birds of prey" one-off, which, when we found out we couldn't use her, got completely re-worked into the much better "double date"....other than that, we had no plans to use BTAS characters in JLU (other than the occasional villain cameo)....there aren't any BTAS-centric stories we were dying to tell that we couldn't because of the embargo....

Well this makes me feel even better on my views about the embargo. Besides, look at what it does for the minor villains. If there was no embargo and we did see Batman's biggest villains appear now and then, the others would be ignored. Look at how Clock King became a quick favorite among the fans after his Task Force X team-up. I doubt he'd be getting much hype if he hadn't made it past an embargo to appear. He probably would have been overshadowed and forgotten since his appearance wouldn't have meant anything. On the other hand, he's currently one of the biggest Bat-rogues who made it to JLU. This embargo certainly helped hype him and the other rogues who appeared lately.