Justice League: Season One - Blu-ray Review

Why have one superhero when you can have a whole team of them? That was the idea when DC Comics created the Justice League and teamed up their most popular heroes, including Batman and Superman.

That’s the same premise behind this excellent animated series from the makers of Batman: the Animated Series.

The Earth is under attack from an alien force and the world’s greatest superheroes join together to form the Justice League to defend the planet. The League consists of Superman (George Newburn), Batman (Kevin Conroy), Wonder Woman (susan Eisenberg), Martian Manhunter (Carl Lumbly), The Flash (Michael Rosenbaum), Green Lantern (Phil LaMarr) and Hawkgirl (Maria Canals).

Not only does this series feature a new cast of super-villains but some familiar dastardly faces as well, like the Joker (Mark Hamill) and Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) when both take part in a League of Injustice.

Since this is the same creative team behind Batman: the animated series you have the same excellent quality storytelling and animation. The show is not afraid to show that most of our heroes are just as human as the next fellow, even the ones who come from other planets and there’s occasionally some tension amongst team members. It really creates a multidimensional dynamic that sometimes isn’t found in animated product aimed at children. There’s always something for the adults to latch on to as well. This three Blu-ray set features all twenty-six of the first season episodes. Somewhat controversially this set features the same fullscreen aspect ratio that the 2006 DVD set used. It should be noted that the show wasn’t truly composed for a more widescreen aspect ratio until season two.

It was hoped that he Blu-ray would reflect that, but the show appears in fullscreen. That being said, it should also be noted that it’s presented in a pristine 1080p high definition transfer.

I’m not sure this adversely affects the show as this season was composed more for the fullscreen ration and it was the continuing seasons that took advantage of widescreen (1.78:1).

Special features include commentaries with the likes of producers Bruce Timm, James Tucker, Glenn Murakami, Rich Fogel and director Dan Riba on “The Enemy Below, part two, “Legends, part two,” and “The Savage Time, part two.” The remainder of the special features is on disc three and is in standard definition.

They include the 9 minute “Inside Justice League” creative panel discussion, the 4 minute “The Look of the League” which looks at the character design, the 6 minute “Justice League: The First Mission” which is a look at the show’s promo reel, 7 minutes of storyboards, and the 3 minute “Blackhawk Theme” music video.

Justice League is a fantastic animated show that features more supers than you can shake a stick at. It’s the quality writing, animation, and vocal talent that make it stand head and shoulders above others and on par with the fine quality of Batman. Warner Brothers has put together a fine Blu-ray presentation and the episodes look fantastic.