Greg responds...

A lot of decisions are, I suppose, relativistic. That is, I can't have sixteen Justice Leaguers running around, all with the same intense, focused, personality. So I may take a kernel of something that I see in a character's LOOOONNNNNNGGGG history and develop that into something we can hang our hats (or cowls) upon.

For Barry, I think it's VERY safe to say that the Wally West of JL and JLU had pretty much NO influence on us. Cuz, you know, we were doing WALLY in the show too.

But Cary Bates, who wrote a huge chunk of Barry's adventures before Crisis on Infinite Earths, is one of my best friends, and he always made Barry a little goofy. A little bit of the boy scout, who still had that Flash fanboy in him, i.e. the guy who was inspired by Jay Garrick. We made that literal in our series... and we extended it into his personality. He likes catchphrases, even if he knows they make his wife and friends groan. He's a goody-two shoes and a happily married man and a scientist and a forensics expert and generally this slow, methodical but deeply honest guy, who likes his life and so is pretty at ease with his own sappiness.

He's NOT a smart-ass, which of course, Wally can be at times. And personally I don't think we portrayed him AT ALL like Wally.

But it's out there. If that's what you saw, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Greg responds...

First off, a slight correction: Hal, John and Guy are Green Lanterns FROM Sector 2814. You don't know what their respective assignments are.

We do indeed have thoughts about Green Lanterns and Martians. Some of this would have been dealt with in the comic (either the YJ:I comic that was cancelled or the Earth-16 comic that we pitched but was not picked up) and/or in Season Three (which was also not picked up).

Greg responds...

Who is Barbara Gordon that anyone would recognize her? She's NOT a celebrity. Nor is she the ward of a famous millionaire.

It's like that time that someone pulled off Spider-Man's mask... and had no idea who Peter Parker was. Not everyone is famous.

I mean, how do you think Clark Kent gets away with it? ;)

Greg responds...

Cost is a factor, but I don't think it's because we're TOO expensive. I think they're just ready to take a shot at something else that they perceive will be more valuable overall.

It doesn't help that our toy line was cancelled, since that's where the majority of our funding came from.

Anyway, as I've said ad nauseum, none of this is up to me.

Greg responds...

Yes.

Greg responds...

Of course, she cares about him.

And it's only confusing because you've missed huge chunks of it. ;)

Greg responds...

I'm not sure what speculations you're referring to. But...

ANYWAY, I suppose this is as good an excuse as any to go through a bit of a chronology.

We finished the scripts for Invasion in January of 2012. So that's when I stopped getting paid, because although I'm a producer on the series, that title and even the responsibilities that go with it were, in essence, a courtesy, based on my experience, I guess. With a guy as talented and competent as Brandon on the job, Warners didn't feel any need to pay me to do the post-production on YJ. They had no problem with me participating, but they also had no problem with me walking away. (Same with Season One, by the way.) (And it was the same at Sony vis-a-vis The Spectacular Spider-Man. In animation, writers often aren't valued all that much once the script process is completed. From the point of view of these companies, I was really just a story editor with a glorified title, who was willing to do what he had to do in order to make the title real and NOT glorified.)

On one level, I probably should have walked away. But instead, I worked for free, helping to post the episodes with Brandon from January to October of 2012. Simultaneously - because I do need to earn a living - I did a number of freelance scripts for various series, including one for Warners' Beware the Batman, plus a Transformers Prime, a couple of Kaijudos, a couple Rescue Bots and a couple of Octonauts. Plus, there was the YJ comic, a few miscellaneous things, and I was also working on revising my first novel, Rain of the Ghosts. Oh, and Brandon and I were also giving free input on Legacy, as well. So I was plenty busy.

In October of 2012, we finished posting episode 220, "Endgame", and on Halloween I moved out of my office on the Warner Bros. Ranch and moved back to my old office in Beverly Hills. By that time, I was done with the comic as well.

During that period, Brandon and I (both separately and together) pitched all sorts of further Earth-16 properties, including (but not limited to) a third season (of course), animated spin-offs featuring Arsenal and/or the Arrow Family, a comic book entitled Earth-16, the Black Manta Celebrity Hot Tub shorts, a direct to DVD movie, etc. Brandon even pitched a YJ meets Scooby movie. Unfortunately, none of these were in the cards.

I'd love to say differently. I'd even love to say I've moved on, but I haven't really. Like many of the fans, I'm still mourning the whole thing, quite a bit. Perhaps even quite a bit more than is healthy. And - because I do need to earn a living - I'm still looking for both freelance work and my next solid gig. (It's been fourteen months without a real job, and it's starting to get a bit nerve-wracking, to be perfectly honest.) But Rain is coming out in December, and I'm hard at work on its sequel. They've both been very rewarding to work on, at least emotionally. (We'll have to wait and see if they turn out to be rewarding financially - but at least the potential upside is there.)

I'd happily do a YJ Novel, but like anything YJ related, it's just not up to me. It's just not a property I control AT ALL.

Greg responds...

1. Between seasons.

2. Why, are you interested?

Greg responds...

It feels like an apples and oranges question, but... Wally.

Greg responds...

Out of universe, I'll admit there was a little discomfort on the part of some of our bosses about an out-of-wedlock child. Having said that, no one ordered us to marry them off, and ultimately, we felt it worked better for the two, given some of our plans for both Season Two and YJL.