Apparently these animated shows are fairly popular among Dopers, so where to start?
I’m guessing there are a buhjillion JLA-type shows. Can I just jump in on JLUnlimited, or should I start with something earlier?
Super Friends I remember from childhood, and is why I generally don’t bother with animated super hero shows. I assume they’ve gotten better?
I’ve watched X-Men before. I was thinking about watching the animated Fantastic Four.
Suggestions?
If the choices are JL vs JLU, watch JL first. It is a continuing story, and I’m all about starting at the beginning if you can.
Otto is correct. Much of JLU especially the second half of the second season are direct off-shoots of on particular episode of JL. If you don’t see the JL episode (A Better World, FTR) much of what happens in the related JLU stories is hard to follow.
I’m looking at What’s on Netflix and there’s a JL 2001. That seems to be season one.
After that, I’m not sure. Some of the JL stuff looks like collections of various episodes, but not a full season. Starcrossed the Movie & The Brave and the Bold look original.
Starcrossed is the movie that ends the JL run and opens the door to JLU. Very good movie…but you want to see JL first so you understand the story arc of JLU season 1.
That’s all I can say without spoilers…trust me, given the opportunity, I can rave for a long time on the merits of this show.
Now, does anyone know if they are going have more JLU episodes? I think they stalled 4 eps into season 2 (ep 504).
Feel free to rave, I’m not that concerned about spoilers. It’s not like they’re going to kill off a super hero that’s still alive in the comics, right?
I guess I should have put a [spoilers] warning in the thread title.
So far there are a few random compilation DVDs with JL episodes, but no complete season sets have been released or announced, as they did with Batman and Superman: The Animated Series. It’s only a matter of time, but that could be months or even years before they catch up and release everything as season sets.
I found the majority of the JL cartoon boring, believe it or not. I wasn’t too big of a fan of the core group of seven: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (John Stewart), Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Hawkgirl. I got back into it for JLU, when they introduced a large rotating cast of characters, with different episodes focusing on different team members.
JL featured two-part episodes, which allowed for greater depth of storytelling, although I felt several of them dragged on unnecessarily. Later, JLU focused on self-contained half-hour episodes, although they started an ongoing storyline where one show led directly into the next. That storyline, which took up the majority of last season, featured a government conspiracy against the superheroes, and was absolutely fantastic stuff.
The current season of JLU (which has only had four episodes shown so far) should resume in January, I’ve heard.
So far, everybody’s wrong. 
Yes, understanding what happened in the last half of the last (second) season of JL is useful for appreciating JLU. However the first season of JL sucked on toast. Sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, sucked, and also it sucked. If you decide to watch JL before continuing with JLU, you’ll never make it through the first season.
Just watch the new episodes when they reappear. If you have access to older episodes, you could start with the second season of JL, but don’t sweat it – I’ve never seen most JL episodes (I dropped it after two or three episodes due to offensive suckiness), and I understand JLU episodes perfectly well.
–Cliffy