Set in the world of DC's
New 52, Justice League: War, being released next month, is inspired by the first JL arc written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jim Lee. As things unfold, the members of the League meet for the first time and have to learn to work together while fighting Darkseid and his minions.
"My take was basically
The Breakfast Club With Superheroes," laughs writer Heath Corson. "These are guys who are meeting each other for the first time; these are people who have maybe seen or heard of each other. The world is just starting to know about them. What if they had no idea about each other, what they're capable of, what they'll do, what they can do? These are guys in their '20s and, let's be honest, a 25-year-old Green Lantern is a douche. He's a frat boy. And then you rub him against Batman, who's a little introverted to the say the least, and you've got something there. Superman is really a super alien. He's a bruiser. He's not the boy scout. He's the guy who knows how to talk with his fists, so in this we're really leaning on the fact that he's not the one saying we should do the right thing. He's the one floating five feet above the ground with his arms crossed and his eyes glowing red. Once all of these voices and dynamics got locked in, it was super fun to play with these guys."
"When they first meet up, they do fight the villains in the movie, but they're getting in each other's way," elaborates director Jay Oliva, who also served as storyboard artist of
Man of Steel and has directed numerous animated films, including
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. "There's no teamwork whatsoever until the very end when they start to work together and become the start of what they will eventually be. I think what this story's about is really the coming together of all of these strong personalities, and the birth of a new hero, which is Cyborg. And thrown in the mix is Darkseid. I will say one thing about that final battle between the Justice League and Darkseid: wait until you see Wonder Woman go off on him. It's beautiful!"
Darkseid is a character who did not have a huge presence in the original comic story, but that's different in the film version as his ultimate goal is to terraform the Earth into another Apokalips. "Basically what we did," Oliva says, "was set the film over the course of one night. From the time that the movie starts to the time it ends, it's just the longest night ever."