Jay Oliva speaks on directing JUSTICE LEAGUE: WAR.

Jay Oliva spoke with Toonzone at NYCC about the upcoming Justice Leauge: War animated feature film which is based on the New 52's Justice League #1-#6. To kick things off, Oliva spoke about his desire to create a loose connected animated film universe following Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. "Justice League: War is kind of a loose adaptation of the Geoff Johns/Jim Lee comic book…I think issues #1-6 of the new 52 Justice League. It’s loosely based on events in that book. We didn’t adhere to it the way we did with The Dark Knight Returns, but we ended up translating that first graphic novel. This is the first true “New 52″ DCU that we’ve done. Flashpoint kind of was the old universe, and at the end we hinted at the New 52 universe. I’m hoping that somewhere down the line, we can do some other films that will hopefully connect the events from Flashpoint into Justice League: War and any other films we do in the New 52 universe, which would be kind of cool. We haven’t done that yet, but I’m hoping we can do that eventually. I’m trying to put Easter eggs throughout all the films. If you watch carefully, you’ll see them there."

If you were part of the DC Comics relaunch and followed the early issues of the Justice League, you'll recall that their first test came against the forces of Darkseid who'll likewise, be the big bad for Justice League: War. Oliva spoke a bit about bringing the New God of Apokolips to animation. "Whenever Darkseid shows up, you’ve got to bring it when it comes to the fight choreography and the action. I rewatched all the Superman Adventures where Darkseid showed up, and on Justice League. I worked on Superman/Batman Apocalypse during the Darkseid stuff, so I looked at that fight sequence. I looked at all that stuff that had been done in the past and I asked, “OK, how do I push it forward?” Because I don’t want to do the same thing – Omega beams and explosions and stuff. I tried to keep true to what Darkseid was, which is this larger than life character. I wanted to make it seem like the Justice League had to band together to defeat Darkseid because by themselves they couldn’t do it, but as a team they can. So I wanted to try and push that fight choreography and the action so that Darkseid felt larger than life and a huge threat that needed all these heroes to defeat him."

A veteran of the DC animated films, Oliva also spoke about trying to keep things fresh going to 'War.' "I would say it’s that the New 52 is very different universe. I wasn’t too familiar with it. I had followed a few of the books, but with my schedule, I don’t really get a chance to read the many comics, unless someone recommends it. When we started this film, I had to wrap my mind around, “What’s this version of Green Lantern? What’s this version of Wonder Woman?” We can’t just do the Justice League Unlimited version, because that’s the Bruce Timm universe. We’ve got to do something different. How do we set ourselves separate from that? That, to me, was hard because I’m used to doing Bruce’s stuff. Whenever I work with Bruce, I’m always diving into a Justice League Unlimited episode. For this stuff, James Tucker really wanted to try to set these movies different than what Bruce had done. So it will have a different feel. That’s what we try to do."

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