Rejected DC Comics Designs and Show Pitches, Part 2

[RoyalRubble]

No harm done. It's probably a story that should be brought up every once in a while to help others struggling with similar cookie themed addictions.

 

[Yojimbo]

In this week's Justice League Revisited, Dan Riba revealed some tidbits:

Patrick McGoohan was offered Dr. Fate for STAS
34:55-35:03: We reached out to him for Dr. Fate back on Superman. And nothing. Crickets. Crickets. We designed the character after him anyway.

A Better World
35:10-35:41: Terence Stamp called Andrea. Terrance Stamp. General Zod. He was in town, he had a couple weeks of work and was going to be in town for a week and he heard such nice things about our show and working with Andrea from other actors, he called, "I'm available, I want to do a cartoon." And we were working on the one episode that had no guest stars A Better World. There was no place for him.

 

[Karkull]

There is a certain appeal to The Prisoner voicing Dr. Fate, a man who's "imprisoned" by his connection to the spirit of Nabu.

 

[Yojimbo]

Paul Rivoche posted concept art done for the Batman Beyond on Mars sequel pitch.

 

[Karkull]

Wow. I know that it was talked about with the head of Kids' WB!, but I had no idea that there was concept art drawn up. I've been meaning to write a piece about this for Aglets Are Sinister.

Come to think of it, the end of Batman Beyond kinda syncs up with the pre-production on Justice League. You don't suppose that plot point in "Secret Origins," with the manned Mars landing, could have been inspired by that pitch?

 

[Frontier]

Paul Rivoche posted concept art done for the Batman Beyond on Mars sequel pitch.

So basically...aliens .

 

[Yojimbo]

Wow. I know that it was talked about with the head of Kids' WB!, but I had no idea that there was concept art drawn up. I've been meaning to write a piece about this for Aglets Are Sinister.

Come to think of it, the end of Batman Beyond kinda syncs up with the pre-production on Justice League. You don't suppose that plot point in "Secret Origins," with the manned Mars landing, could have been inspired by that pitch?

I suppose when Alan Burnett and Hilary Bader put together the pitch they got some of the people still working on BB to do some concepts they could show.

I think Rivoche did some JL so I can see bit of that alien design concept evolve into the Imperium decor. Why waste a good design?

Hmm, always did wonder about what inspired that cold open. I recall Carter's look was inspired by Steve Austin and the overall premise War of the Worlds (even the Imperium walkers resemble those in War). I always had a theory it was loosely inspired by this 60s Sci-Fi show called Captain Scarlet and the Mysterions - it also started with a Mars landing, finding an alien city, a conflict with an enemy race is started as a result, a lead human being replaced, etc.

 

[Karkull]

I want to read the original pitch. Think that J'onn J'onzz and the Imperium factored into it?

 

[Yojimbo]

I want to read the original pitch. Think that J'onn J'onzz and the Imperium factored into it?

Huh. Didn't think to consider they might have first devised that part of Secret Origins in that pitch. If it were I'm sure Alan Burnett and Hilary Bader would have been given a story credit of some sort in Secret Origins. Now you got me wondering. Maybe they were thinking Total Recall, crime was already pretty rampant? Idk, it was a flimsy idea and a small miracle no one was into it.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I want to read the original pitch. Think that J'onn J'onzz and the Imperium factored into it?

The Batman Beyond on Mars pitch? I doubt it.

 

[RoyalRubble]

I was also wondering about J'onn, or his legacy. Similar to how Terry was the new Batman. I don't think Miss Martian was even introduced in the comics yet when they were contemplating this show. If this was before Justice League I guess they might have wanted to properly set up J'onn first but then again, the Hawks weren't exactly present either in the DCAU yet Warhawk did show up in "The Call".

 

[b.t.]

i have just the vaguest memories of the BATMAN ON MARS pitch. I think Alan said it was going to be on a terraformed Mars with an already fairly well-developed (but very grubby) urban environment. In retrospect, yes, kinda like TOTAL RECALL, though I didn’t make that connection at the time. My response was along the lines of ‘So, Terry’s still going to be fighting bad guys in a futuristic urban environment only on Mars instead of Earth?‘ It seemed to me at the time that it really wasn’t different enough from the basic BATMAN BEYOND set-up, but designing Martian Gotham would be a massive design challenge on a TV budget and schedule. In other words, a huge amount of work for very little payoff.

i don’t remember ever seeing that nice Paul Rivoche concept art, but I suppose I might have and just forgotten it. In any case, the BATMAN ON MARS pitch didn’t influence ‘Secret Origins’. The basic idea of using the White Martians as the villains came directly from one of Grant Morrison’s first JLA story arcs. And the look of the Martians and their gear was heavily inspired by the work of avant-garde science-fiction illustrator Richard Powers.

Oh, and I can’t speak for Rich Fogel or anyone else involved in the writing of ‘Secret Origins’ but I’ve never seen an episode of CAPTAIN SCARLET. Space explorers accidentally awakening inimical alien beings on other worlds is a pretty common trope. We could just as likely have subconsciously borrowed the idea from ALIEN or PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES or A.E. Van Vogt’s ‘Black Destroyer’.

 

[Karkull]

Fascinating, b.t. As questionable / redundant / etc. the series could have been, I must admit that I find the concept strangely compelling. For one thing, would it still be Batman if he abandoned Gotham? It would either have to be some kind of planetary evacuation (set-up for Kamandi, maybe?) or something more simple (Blight turns up on Mars, and Batman has to bring him back to Earth for trial). Throw in the possibility of a native Martian population competing for resources with the human colonizers, and it could have been great. But I digress.

On an unrelated note, I'm doing research on an upcoming article, and an old Wizard Magazine article mentioned that actor Jim Belushi was cast as the Parasite on STAS. As far as I can tell, Belushi was never used -- on STAS he was voiced by actor Brion James (Blade Runner, Tango & Cash) and, after he died in 1999, he was later voiced by Brian George (Babu Bhatt on Seinfeld, Dr. V.M. Koothrappali on The Big Bang Theory).

Did we ever find out what happened to Jim Belushi? Was it a Tim Curry / Mark Hamill thing? He was doing voice work around that time (he was Fang on Gargoyles), so he must have had the chops. Perhaps it was a scheduling issue.

 

[Frontier]

I don't know if this had been posed before but Boyd Kirkland pitched a Wonder Woman cartoon to Fox Kids in 1994 and approached them multiple times but the cartoon never came to fruition.

 

[Yojimbo]

I don't know if this had been posed before but Boyd Kirkland pitched a Wonder Woman cartoon to Fox Kids in 1994 and approached them multiple times but the cartoon never came to fruition.

Yup, he also pitched Metal Men and GL series. WW, in particular, he pitched 3 times from the early to late 90s. He also developed LOSH and Lobo shows that weren't picked up (all from Back Issue! #16 I believe). According to Timm, one of the WW ones got as far as the pilot being animated but the plug got pulled.

 

[Frontier]

Yup, he also pitched Metal Men and GL series. WW, in particular, he pitched 3 times from the early to late 90s. He also developed LOSH and Lobo shows that weren't picked up (all from Back Issue! #16 I believe). According to Timm, one of the WW ones got as far as the pilot being animated but the plug got pulled.

That all would've been really cool! Also the GL one might've been Kyle's only chance to get a cartoon to himself .

 

[Yojimbo]

That all would've been really cool! Also the GL one might've been Kyle's only chance to get a cartoon to himself .

Hm, if it was Kyle even. We presume he was pitching DCAU shows, but who knows. They could have been stand alones, too.

 

[Frontier]

Hm, if it was Kyle even. We presume he was pitching DCAU shows, but who knows. They could have been stand alones, too.

True, I'm just thinking...pitching a GL show in the 90's, they probably would have been more likely to pitch it with Kyle since he was the main and only GL at the time rather than Hal or any other GL.

 

[Yojimbo]

True, I'm just thinking...pitching a GL show in the 90's, they probably would have been morel likely to pitch it with Kyle since he was the main and only GL at the time rather than Hal or any other GL.

True, plus Warner was shopping GL live action movie in '96 or '97 to writers and directors so perhaps there was a Hal embargo as well.

 

[Karkull]

I've been quite the busy bee lately. I just posted an article on Aglets Are Sinister about Batman on Mars, and a few days prior an article about the history of the production on the Justice League series. I'd encourage you to read it before watching Part 3 of Crisis. Man, I forgot how much Bruce Timm did not want to do that series!

UPDATE: I added an article about Timm's attempt at capturing the Pokémon market, Batanime.