10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About The DC Animated Universe

When first looking for a way to follow up the success of Batman: The Animated Series in the mid-90s, most of Warner Brothers' ideas focused not on different DC heroes, but rather spin-offs for the Batman characters. Timm was in the early stages of development on a Catwoman: The Animated Series after the popularity of Michelle Pfeiffer's take on the character, but it went nowhere.

This was followed by the idea of spinning Robin off into a Teen Titans series. Concept art since revealed by artist Tommy Tejeda shows that the lineup would have paired Robin with Kid Flash, Speedy, Aqualad and Wonder Girl.

A non-DCAU Teen Titans cartoon did get picked up a few years later, airing at the same time as the DCAU's Justice League. In fact, there was a subtle crossover of sorts when the League faced off against the playing card-themed villains the Royal Flush Gang in the Joker's final episode Wild Cards. The Gang were all voiced by the Teen Titans cast (Teen Titans' Robin, Scott Menville, as King, Tara Strong, who played Raven, as Queen, and so on).

Even closer to coming to fruition was the 2000 movie Batman: Arkham. The planned follow-up to the Mr Freeze movie SubZero, Arkham had SubZero writer-director Boyd Kirkland attached to return alongside the regular voice cast and the addition of Angie Harmon as Bruce's new love interest, and had a lot of concept art already drawn up. Its plot would have involved capturing a bunch of escaped Arkham inmates.

Batman: Arkham was eventually dropped in favour of a Batman Beyond movie which was to become Return Of The Joker, with Harmon recast as Commissioner Barbara Gordon.