Interview conducted by Ed Gross
Artemis faces an uphill battle winning over her new teammates as she tries to fill Red Arrow’s boots on a mission he initiated, saving a brilliant young scientist from the League of Shadows.
SUPERHERO TOONIVERSE: What was the appeal of bringing in the character of Artemis?
GREG WEISMAN: She’s not an incredibly famous character in the comics; she’s a little bit obscure. We are being faithful to her, but using her in a whole new way. We’re real excited to finally be bringing her on screen.
BRANDON VIETTI: She’s a really strong female character, which was important to us. Sometimes when you’re working on these superhero shows, boys are sort of your target audience. Sometimes there’s a little hesitancy to put the females in there because maybe the boys won’t like them. I kind of think that the boys are kind of like Artemis – she’s a tough character who can hold her own with the boys and against the boys, and I think that kind of brings a new angle to the team and the personalities we’ve already come to know. She brings in this new dynamic and it just makes everything that much better.
GREG WEISMAN: And she’s got some real interesting dynamics with each and every one of our characters. There’s a nice build here with her and Miss Martian, there’s some interesting stuff at play with her and Superboy, with Kid Flash especially. Eventually, maybe not as clear in this episode, with both Robin and Aqualad as well. Also, she brings some real interesting – and we’re not going to reveal what that is – baggage with her to the series. With our theme of secrets and lies, she’s got plenty and both.
SUPERHERO TOONIVERSE: How would you describe this character?
GREG WEISMAN: There’s who she is and who she comes across as, and those two things aren’t necessarily the same. Let’s start with she comes across, as Brandon said, as pretty tough and aggressive. She’s funny; she’s got a real wry edge to her, which brings something new to our group of characters. Obviously she’s an accomplished archer with both longbow and crossbow . She brings a little diversity to the show, too, which is always good and we’re real excited to have her joining the team.
SUPERHEROTOONIVERSE: The plot summary mentions Red Arrow…
GREG WEISMAN: Yes, in this episode Speedy takes up a new identity. Roy Harper was Speedy up this point. We haven’t seen him for a couple of episodes and now he’s back, with the new identity of Red Arrow. We’re interested to see his evolution in this episode as well.
SUPERHEROTOONIVERSE: When my kids and I did a marathon of the episodes, after Speedy came on again one of them quoted Ferris Bueller and said, “He’s so uptight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you’d have a diamond.”
GREG WEISMAN: I think there’s some truth to that [ALL LAUGH].
SUPERHERO TOONIVERSE: So this is a character you plan on continuing to explore through the show.
GREG WEISMAN: Oh, absolutely. He’s not one of our six leads, but if I had to say who the seventh lead would be, it would absolutely be Red Arrow.
BRANDON VIETTI: We like to refer to him as the Racer X of this show.