DC's New Animation Frontier

In what could possibly be the coolest news I could ever expect to hear at a comics convention, DC Comics has announced that they are teaming with Warner Bros. Animation and Warner Home Video to create a series of direct-to-video animated films based on storylines directly from their comics, "designed with DC Comics fans in mind."

DC Publisher and President Paul Levitz personally announced the news during at Saturday's DC: One Year Greater panel at the San Diego Comic Con (SDCC). While Bruce Timm will be overseeing these projects, they are not based on the existing DC animated universe that he helped create. While no release dates have yet been annoucned, the first three titles to be developed are:

The New Frontier – Writer/artist Darwyn Cooke’s non-continuity depiction of the birth of the Silver Age of heroes, will be directed by Justice League Unlimited’s Stan Berkowitz . Cooke himself will provide art direction on the film.

Superman/Doomsday – adapted from the Death of Superman story, not the entire story, but its "essence," according to Levitz.. Timm will direct this himself from a script by The Batman’s Duane Capizzi (unfortunately, also the writer of Superman: Brainiac Attacks).

The New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract – Based on the classic Wolfman/Perez storyline which saw the Dick Grayson go from Robin to Nightwing, deals with the revelation that new team member Terra worked for their enemy Deathstroke the Terminator. Marv Wolfman himself will co-write the script with Tom DeSanto (X-Men movies) and George Perez will also consult.

Levitz hope that these new features appeal DC Comics fans of all ages:

We're going to take the marquee-value characters that have love across the generations. And use the stellar characters so that the parental generation will reach out and share it with their kids. We're looking at all the great stories, and cases where we can find the best stories of a long run.

In an interview with conics new site Newsarama (which I highly recommend reading) after the panel, Levitz talked about the discussions he had with other Warner Bros. divisions, and what would be the best way to use the DC characters in direct-to-video and realized the staff at Warner Bros. Animation had a great love and knowledge of the characters, stories and history, and that was the best way to go:

Ultimately, once we figured out what the box was that we wanted to work in creatively; we sat around and asked what's cool? We started playing with the ideas - if we were going to do the New Teen Titans, one of the best stories and one that everybody loved was The Judas Contract. Wouldn't it be incredible to get Marv involved in that? If we're going to do the Justice League characters, well, you could do Kingdom Come on one hand, but maybe do New Frontier, and we settled on that as a logical place to start.

The three titles announced are just the beginning of this initiative, as brainstorming continues for which storylines to adapt next. The possibilities are endless: Kingdom Come, The Golden Age, The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, JLA: Rock of Ages, Knightfall, Wagner's Sandman Mystery Theatre, Robinson's Starman, the first meeting of the JLA/JSA, Hard Travelin' Heroes, Identity Crisis, The Return of Barry Allen, the Crime Syndicate. The mind reels at the possiblities! Let's use the comments section here to talk about what they could do. You can jog your memory here.

This is going to be awesome!