While a different take on the Green Lantern mythos, as compared to the comics, Green Lantern: The Animated series is a wonderful cartoon.
My first thoughts on the show were this was a fairly standard DCAU- styled show, (Note: This is in no way a bad thing, the DC Animated Universe made up some of the greatest animation of my childhood) but I was blown away by both the visuals and the performance of the voice actors. Jason Spisak as Razer is particularly compelling, and Josh Keaton plays a wonderfully funny and caring Hal Jordan.
Admittedly, the series plays fast and loose with the existing canon, but it does this in the name of fun and a good story. Ideas that just don't make sense in this format are adjusted slightly to make it so. The Red Lanterns in particular actually come out, in typical Timm style, more menacing for being less obviously violent than their comics counterparts.
Onto the visuals. simply saying that the entire series is beautiful is not doing it nearly enough justice. Every character has a distinct style, as does every planet, from Mogo's forests and mountains, to the ruins of Biot, and every single image is compelling. The characters manage to say as much through body language as words (exemplified in the most recent episode at the time of writing, Babel) and the animators have gone out of their way to ensure that characters who are not currently part of the conversation, but are on screen do not simply stand static. The backgrounds are beautiful in their own right. I have started using stills without characters or vehicles from the show as desktop backgrounds, and have been asked on numerous occasions if some of the images from space are in fact real. On top of this, there is a massive boost in animation quality by episode 14.
While the series does have a somewhat shaky start, by episode 5 (if one counts the double-length premier as two episodes) it has found what it is, and where it is going, and from there, only improves. I would urge anyone who tries the series to give it the chance it well deserves.
My first thoughts on the show were this was a fairly standard DCAU- styled show, (Note: This is in no way a bad thing, the DC Animated Universe made up some of the greatest animation of my childhood) but I was blown away by both the visuals and the performance of the voice actors. Jason Spisak as Razer is particularly compelling, and Josh Keaton plays a wonderfully funny and caring Hal Jordan.
Admittedly, the series plays fast and loose with the existing canon, but it does this in the name of fun and a good story. Ideas that just don't make sense in this format are adjusted slightly to make it so. The Red Lanterns in particular actually come out, in typical Timm style, more menacing for being less obviously violent than their comics counterparts.
Onto the visuals. simply saying that the entire series is beautiful is not doing it nearly enough justice. Every character has a distinct style, as does every planet, from Mogo's forests and mountains, to the ruins of Biot, and every single image is compelling. The characters manage to say as much through body language as words (exemplified in the most recent episode at the time of writing, Babel) and the animators have gone out of their way to ensure that characters who are not currently part of the conversation, but are on screen do not simply stand static. The backgrounds are beautiful in their own right. I have started using stills without characters or vehicles from the show as desktop backgrounds, and have been asked on numerous occasions if some of the images from space are in fact real. On top of this, there is a massive boost in animation quality by episode 14.
While the series does have a somewhat shaky start, by episode 5 (if one counts the double-length premier as two episodes) it has found what it is, and where it is going, and from there, only improves. I would urge anyone who tries the series to give it the chance it well deserves.