The Best Justice League Movie Everyone Missed

4. How Gods And Monsters Came To Be

Justice League Gods and Monsters Trinity
Warner Bros.

Justice League: Gods and Monsters isn't like any other DC film, and that's a good thing. According to Timm (via Screen Rant), the project span out from discussions with Sam Webster. Webster had apparently wanted a new Justice League cartoon, with the only stipulation being that it was "fresh and different."

Timm elaborates:

"So I started thinking, “OK, fresh and different. What can we do differently with Justice League?” [...] It made me start thinking about the Silver Age Flash and Green Lantern, when they brought them back from… they were completely different than their Golden Age versions of those characters. They basically kept the name and the gimmick and threw everything else out [...] I thought that would be really exciting to do that same level of reboot with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, who are the most untouchable characters of the DC universe."

Out of this rationale came entirely new versions of the DC Trinity. Superman (Benjamin Bratt) was reimagined as the son of Zod, and was raised by a Mexican family; Batman wasn't a wealthy socialite, but instead the scientist Kirk Langstrom (Michael C. Hall). Meanwhile, Wonder Woman (Tamara Taylor) became a New God from New Genesis - although to disclose the twist with that character would be to ruin one of the best sequences in the film itself.

With these new versions came brand-new redesigns, each bearing the hallmarks of Timm's indelible style. The Dark Knight, in this universe Kirk Langstrom, boasts a mad-scientist-esque twist on the classic Batsuit design, while Superman's coat and jacket denotes his father's military past. Best of all, though, is Wonder Woman, who ends up taking on the aesthetic of Jack Kirby's Fourth World but with the added bonus of Timm's cartoonish flair.

It imparts a unique and memorable version of DC's Trinity, and while Timm would go on to inspire three more DC films, Gods and Monsters is by far his most unique offering to date.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.