Justice League Unlimited (2004)

While the Justice League may have been the best of the best in the DC animated universe at the time, they decided to take it a step further with Justice League Unlimited. JLU took over right where Justice League left off and even though sadly it was the last series in the DC animated universe, Justice League Unlimited pulled out all the stops. This time we got our founding members, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and (not near enough) Flash, and they also added just about every DC hero they could, even if at times it was just background shots. With almost 60 heroes total, it was kind of hard to balance the stories.

Here is where some people have a problem with JLU. Originally with seven members, it was fairly easy to give everyone screen time. But with sixty? That’s a whole 'nother story.

We did get some really cool "stunt" voice casting though. Along with the originals I mentioned before we got.... John C. McGinley (Scrubs) as Atom (Dr. Ray Palmer) Jerry O'Connell (Sliders) as Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) Oded Fehr (The Mummy) as Doctor Fate (Kent Nelson/Nabu) Jeremy Piven (Entourage) as Elongated Man (Ralph Dibny) Michael T. Weiss (The Pretender) as Etrigan the Demon (Jason Blood) Jeffrey Combs (The Reanimator) as Question (Charles Victor Szasz/Vic Sage)

In a couple of cool moves we got "The Wonder Years" Kevin and Wayne Arnold (Fred Savage and Jason Hervey) as brothers Hawk and Dove.

And the cast of Firefly was well represented as Nathan Fillion, Morena Baccarin, Gina Torres and Adam Baldwin all showed up on the show at one time or another. In a really cool episode Vigilante (Fillion) was piloting a spaceship as Vixen (Torres) complained about it.

All good things must come to an end and so did Justice League Unlimited. We got two years worth of good shows before it left and took the DC animated universe with it. There were more DC cartoons true, but none were set in that Universe.

Hawkgirl - Justice League

This is part of what made the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons so good.
They could take a nothing happening DC comics character like Hawkgirl and turn her into one of the baddest Leaguers ever.

The name "Hawkgirl" has been used by a lot of DC women. But my favorite Hawkgirl out of all of them was the one on the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited TV show.

Of course since this Hawkgirl is based on the "Silver Age" Shayera Hol Hawkgirl....I like her better.

The cartoon managed to transform this girl that just flew around into a real bird of prey. You didn’t want to get her angry, because she had a temper and a berserker rage right up there with Wolverine.
The main differences between this Hawkgirl and the one she was based on in the comics was that this Shayera had organic wings (as opposed to strap-on ones) and carried a mace that was made out of Nth metal.

Nth metal would disrupt energy that it came in contact with it, so Hawkgirl could smash your psionic, energy or mystic force fields, all with equal ease. This freaked a lot of her over-confident opponents out when this winged girl could hit them right through their "impenetrable" shields.

And Shayera was another red head. Which was another point in her favor.

So Hawkgirl could fly, she had some level of super-strength, agility, she was a trained Thanagarian military officer, and she had that mace. Oh yeah....and she could also beat Batman at chess.

Her story in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited was quite complex so I would recommend watching it from the beginning to see how well the writers crafted her character. You don’t see writing like that on a "kid's show" every day. The reincarnation episode with Hawkman was done especially well

Green Arrow and Speedy Foreshadow Young Justice in Justice League Unlimited

Remember the Justice League Unlimited episode where Crimson Avenger and Speedy were teleported in to help Green Arrow.
It was from the episode "Patriot Act" which I thought was one of the best JLU episodes.
What caught my eye (ear actually) was the little exchange between Green Arrow and Speedy at the beginning....

Green Arrow: The Crimson Avenger and my ex-sidekick!
Speedy: Ex-Partner....
Green Arrow: Speedy...we gotta do this now?

What made this funny (and cool) to me was that four years later in Young Justice, Speedy would be the main catalyst in the separation of the heroes and their "sidekicks".
He was even the one that delivered the line "Don't call us sidekicks".

Even though, I know JLU and Young Justice are set in different universes, that kind of tip of the hat is what makes the DCU cool to me.

Zatanna Zatara - DC Comics

Zatanna by Ed Benes

Zatanna Zatara was created by Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson back in Hawkman #4 (October-November 1964).
Zatanna is the daughter of the Golden Age character, magician Giovanni Zatara.
The character seems to be fairly popular despite not having attained superstar status.
I'm guessing like Black Canary, the fishnets have something to do with it.
That and her shadowy relationship with Batman.....
Besides Smallville, Zatanna has shown up in Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited.
Back in 2005, screenwriter Hadley Davis proposed an action-comedy starring a teen-aged Zatanna, but nothing ever came of it.