Speaking to ScreenRant to promote the Tomorrowverse's latest project, Justice League: Warworld, producer Jim Krieg, fellow producer Butch Lukic and Warworld director Jeff Wamester shared a few comic series that are on their wishlist to tackle.
However, before we dive into the production team's wishlist, a recap of how the Tomorrowverse came to be is probably in order.
Butch Lukic, Jim Kreig, and Kimberly S. Moreau are part of the development team that leads Warner Bros. Animation's current era of direct-to-video DC animated films, affectionately known as the Tomorrowverse.
The Tomorrowverse is DC Entertainment's latest shared universe, which takes its name from the first entry in the film series, Superman: Man of Tomorrow (2020).
The DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU) preceded the Tomorrowverse, and started back in 2013 with Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox and concluded with Justice League Dark: Apokolips War in 2020.
Prior to the DCAMU, all DC animated direct-to-video films were considered standalone projects unless they were split into part 1 and 2 installments.
When asked about what other comic book storylines they want to tackle, Wamester named Tom King and Mike Janin's eight-part Batman storyline The War of Jokes and Riddles as his dream project. The storyline saw the Riddler and Joker going to war during Batman's second year of operation in Gotham. "I try and nudge Jim every 9 to 12 months on the War of Jokes and Riddles. I'd love to do that."
In turn, Krieg remarked that he'd like to go a bit further back in the DC archives and mentioned two titles that only old-school DC Comics fans would recognize. "I like Camelot 3000 or Omega Men," he stated.
Lukic followed up, "I would love to do Camelot 3000, yeah. And then the Neal Adams, Denny O'Neill, Ra's al Ghul storyline. That would make a perfect film. Readapted again after 30 years. We did it in Batman The Animated Series, but now we can really do it as an R-rated [story]. But I'm sure that's going to end up being incorporated into the new James Gunn universe."
Camelot 3000 was a 12-issue limited comic series from Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland where the King Arthur legend is reimagined for a futuristic setting where Arthur is reawakened in the year 3000 to save Britain from invading aliens. Published in 1982, Camelot 3000 was the first maxiseries- DC's terminology for a limited comic run that exceeded 11 issues.
The Omega Men are more or less a DC pastiche of the original 1969 Guardians of the Galaxy, the team that preceded Star-Lord, Drax, and co. Created by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton, the Omega Men debuted in Green Lantern Vol 2 #141(June 1981) as a team of galactic peacekeepers that operated in a space system with no Lanterns.
The team branched out from the Green Lantern books and received its own series from April 1983 to May 1986, consisting of 38 issues. Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen wrote and provided art for the run, which is notable for the debut of the anti-hero, Lobo.
Going back to previous Warner Bros. Animation regimes that were led by Bruce Timm and James Tucker, there's long been a desire to work on projects centered around more obscure properties like Omega Men or Camelot 3000, however, Timm and Tucker have both stated in the past that sales figures determine what characters get to take center stage.
That certainly explains why so many of Warner Bros. Animation's direct-to-video projects are Batman-focused.
In the past, the animation team attempted to circumvent this mandate by including shorts with all their DTV projects as part of the DC Showcase initiative. For instance, a 12-minute short focused on The Spectre was included with Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and a short based on Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth! was included with Justice Society: World War II.
For the time being, DC fans are more likely to get shorts based on Camelot 3000 or the Omega Men rather than a full-length DTV film.