Bruce Timm is responsible directly for some of the best animated series I’ve ever seen. Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League are constantly called by any fan of comics the most faithful and respectful translations of the characters from the page to the screen.

Bruce is still animating DC Comics characters, but this time for direct-to-DVD movies. Newsarama has a 2 part interview up, the first goes over his history, but the second gets to the new stuff, specifically some lingering questions about the animated adaptation of the Death and Return of Superman comic. The film will only run 75 minutes, cutting out all the fat of the 30+ issues of the original story and just sticking to the basics.

No League. No Supergirl. Not even any blood, since they’re aiming for a PG 13 rating. Still, he seems pretty confident they can deliver a good version of the comic original.

Beyond Doomsday, he’s directing an adaptation of New Frontier and Teen Titans: Judas Contract.

Nope, not Marvel’s Captain Marvel. They haven’t even figured out when his book’s going to come out. Instead, we’re talking DC’s Captain Marvel, whose mini-series from Jeff Smith is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the new push for the character. With the script underway for the movie (which has not cast Jake Gyllenhaal in the role, despite what rumors may be telling you), it looks like they’ve got big plan for the character… In fact, a movie pretty much is the big plan for the character.

The upcoming SHAZAM! animated series is all part of the push, according to the latest Lying In The Gutters, and they’ve got the promo image to prove it (image mirrored on the left). Looks like the new standard animation style from The Batman and Legion of Super-Heroes holds through for Billy Batson too. Those shoulders look lumpy.

Update- Look like this is a fake, as Micheal G in our comments section pointed out: Its a an orginal work, and some fankid photoshopped out Jim Zubkavich’s signature. LITG has corrected their article.

DC and Marvel scrimped on the news today (what, tired of talking World War Hulk, Amazons Attack, and World War III already?), but some interesting news did surface about IDW’s Scarface prequel, Gene Simmons diving into the comic scene, and some great Heroes DVD (and HD-DVD) news. Read on!
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Yes, I realize we JUST had two separate conventions. Clearly, this is nowhere near enough of them. Clearly.

Continue on to read about Avengers Classic, Booster Gold & Infinity, Inc., and 9 new Marvel busts from Bowen Designs. All that, and the rest of the Day 1 roundup after the jump
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Everyone should know by now (because we already told you) that Katie Holmes is too busy making babies and bad career moves to reprise her role from Batman Begins in the upcoming sequel, The Dark Knight. Taking up the mantle of Rachel Dawes will be the excellent Maggie Gyllenhaal who, having recently seen her in the glorious Stranger Than Fiction, should do an excellent job in the role.

Today’s the big finish for WonderCon, and the upcoming animated DVDs from DC were the highlight of the day. Read on, OR ELSE…

DC:

• Superman/Doomsday is due to release on September 18th, 2007. Superman will be voiced by Adam Baldwin, Lois Lane gets Anne Heche, and Lex Luthor is James Marsters.
• The next film to be released will be DC: New Frontier.
• The third animated feature they’re working on – Teen Titans: The Judas Contract – is in pre-production, and will have a different animation style from the recent Teen Titans cartoon. They’ll also stick more tightly to the comic, to differentiate themselves from the similar arc on the series.
• Each movie will have its own ‘pocket’ continuity, where they’re not beholden to each other, or to the previous cartoons. Also, the movies will have more freedom in what they can do (read: they’re going to corrupt our youth with violence), as they aren’t made specifically for TV.
• The DVDs should have a decent amount of special features, like behind-the-scenes featurettes and other extras and games.
• After these three, they’re looking to do films for Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Catwoman in the future. (The OTHER Big 3 of DC, right?) Bruce Timm’s wishlist for the future includes: The Question, Jonah Hex, New Gods, Kamandi, and Challengers of the Unknown.

IDW:

• For Transformers books, we have an upcoming Spotlight on Kup and one for Galvatron, a Megatron Origin mini, and two “Best Of” books – one for Don Figueroa and one for Simon Furman.
• There will be a Star Trek: Original Series mini which will have two versions of each issue – one in English, one in Klingon. And I was just wondering what could be nerdier than merely mating Star Trek and comics…

GROO THE WANDERER:

• Like we said yesterday, the prognosis on the Groo/Conan crossover looking good.
• Also, Mark Evanier has completed a script for the “Groo the Wanderer” movie, and Sergio Aragonés has completed some art, but at the moment it’s still tied up in negotiations.

Well, it’s another weekend, so I guess that means it’s time for another comic convention.
…Really? Ok, I guess so. Here’s the news –

DC:

• Based on a little anecdote (A fan asked that they keep their weekly series the same price, and Didio put 50 cents on the table, saying “I’ve got your first one covered”) it sounds like Countdown gets a 50 cent price hike. Nice.
• Green Arrow ends at issue #75, with Green Arrow proposing to Black Canary.
• There’ll be a Black Canary miniseries running at the same time as this summer’s Green Arrow: Year One.
• WWIII will be “Black Adam versus everybody.”
• A Metal Men miniseries is coming.

More news as it comes…

Source: Newsarama.com

Day 3 seems to be grinding to a halt, and it’s turned out to be a little bit of a lighter news day for everyone. Here’s the bullet points:

• Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina will end at issue #50, putting the series at about its halfway mark.
• Here’s an interesting recap of George Perez‘s panel, where he shares interesting stories, like how he stayed up 72 hours straight to get the original Crisis penciled and finished.
• Sci-Fi channel and Virgin comics have established a partnership, presumably to get shows into comic form, and comics into show form.
• Sci-Fi also had a panel dedicated to Battlestar: Galactica, revealing there would be a direct-to-DVD movie, which will actually later air on Sci-Fi. Surprised it isn’t the other way around, but whatever works, I guess. (Thanks to Crazy for pointing this one out.)

If anything more comes in, I’ll be sure to update, but today seems to have petered out a bit. Just for fun, here’s a recap of yesterday’s biggest headlines –

• Marvel and Top Cow Comics are both currently working on a digital distribution plans for their comics.
• Marvel announced a Halo ongoing comic, to be written by Brian Michael Bendis, with art by Alex Maleev.
• Ultimate delays – Ultimates #13 should be out by May or April (I’m betting not before May), Orson Scott Card is still working on Ultimate Iron Man 2, no release date yet for Ultimates 3, Ultimate Wolverine/Hulk has a completed script for 3 – and almost one for 4.
• Avengers/Transformers update! Extended details (cast lists, synopsis, etc.) can be found at Newsarama.
• On the DC side, Dan Didio got flustered and admitted that the Red Robin and Flash in the recent teaser image are Jason Todd and Barry Allen. Everyone else on the panel got mad at him, so this must be pretty important.