SubscribeNote: For an artist working full-time in super-hero comics, sometimes when you have some free time you want to experiment. Wonder Woman artist Cliff Chiang did just that a few years back with a series of illustrations imagining a band of Japanese superheroes inspired by the heroes of the Justice League. In what Chiang describes as a mix of DC, old school anime and kaiju, this take was almost greenlit by DC a years ago. Just imagine. – Chris A.
Vito Delsante
/ January 4, 2012I want to kick whoever didn’t approve this.
Shiner
/ January 4, 2012Who is the girl in the cape with Aquaman and Green Lantern?
Pablo A.
/ January 4, 2012Wonderful!!!
Jay
/ January 4, 2012Most of these really miss the mark for me as they just seem like existing Japanese characters “repainted” to look like the DC icons. Wonder Woman is the least successful IMO, and Flash would have worked better looking more like Speed Racer but having Flash’s powers rather than the other way around with him driving a car…unless it has those cool buzz saws paint like yellow lighting bolts!
Design wise – I think that version of Aquaman is pretty great (even though it’s pretty clear that Ultraman was a heavy influence), Science-Ninja-Hero-Batman is alright too, the name alone makes me smile.
mordicai
/ January 4, 2012I’ve actually always thought that a G-Force look for Nightwing would be awesome!
Scott
/ January 4, 2012Wow.
I really dig that Robin. Incredibly fun — and that could be said for all these designs. I totally would have picked up a mini based on these characters and designs because I can only imagine it would have been a very fun book.
puff
/ January 4, 2012That is so awesome! Needs to be it’s own cartoon. I’d watch it.
Civitron
/ January 4, 2012I’m a big fan of the re-imagining in this series! My favorites are Batman and Superman but Wonder Woman is incredible, too. I especially love the way Supes and WW appear as such total deviations from what we’ve seen from these characters in the past. Batman is my absolute favorite as these illustrations capture everything I love about the idea of the character. However, the Robin re-design is a little too derivative of “Battle of the Planets”. A little more energy could have been put into the Joker and Harley Quinn concepts, too. Overall, the idea is solid and I’d love to see a comic mini-series based on this series. What’s the deal DC?
Bryan
/ January 4, 2012Interesting takes. Because many of the characters are obviously inspired by classic anime (Gatchaman, Tetsujin-28, and Captain Harlock jump out at me), I’m at once both pleased and apathetic to them because it seems like too easy an adaption.
CJ Furious Williams
/ January 4, 2012That is crazy fun! Batman and Robin are my favorites, but I really enjoyed all of them. Superman is pretty cool too. Liking PR on facebook has been the best thing I’ve done all year! Nice find, and to Cliff, I say great work!
Dedpool
/ January 4, 2012I had my own take on this and The batman, Robin, Wonder Woman were pretty close. I really Dislike Flash being a Racer X wanabe and GL being what’s his name with the Gun arm. I mean same hair and everything.
SilverHammerMan
/ January 4, 2012I love these, I would totally have read this!
Victor
/ January 4, 2012That Batman design rules, I wish that’s what Jiro Osamu’s Batman inc. costume looked like.
Troy
/ January 4, 2012Coolest. Thing. Ever. I LOVE the idea of giant Aquaman. (Imagine! An interesting version of Aquaman!)
The Chez
/ January 4, 2012nice designs, diggin the speed racer art style
Jim Gitman
/ January 4, 2012Really exciting drawings, though I wish a few of them were slightly more original.
Chad
/ January 4, 2012Wow.
Everything is ridiculously inspired. Wonder Woman is 99% unrecognizable, but that doesn’t bother me at all. He filtered her down past all the garbage.
Ben
/ January 4, 2012I want to watch all of these, especially “Themiscyra of My Youth” Wonder Woman.
Ted Hobgood
/ January 4, 2012This is…stunningly amazing. Shades of Alex Toth, but with a flair for Japanese pop culture. Golly, how I wish these could be made into a full comic or cartoon! Well done!
awesome all day
/ January 4, 2012Somebody please compose a theme song to this ASAP.
Edu
/ January 4, 2012Soooooo cool!
DaniSpite
/ January 4, 2012Good mixture of styles
Frank86
/ January 4, 2012I’d buy this.
Daniel Heard
/ January 4, 2012Everything here is pure gold.
Standout tiny detail for me: look at the way the yellow negative space on Superman forms two yellow arrows! GASP!
John
/ January 4, 2012This is so Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets), Star Blazers, Speed Racer, Mazinger Z, etc inspired and yet it brought back so many great memories of my youth and I would love to see this stuff.
Amazing work!
Jeff
/ January 4, 2012I remember seeing these a couple of years ago,and it still saddens me that this never happened.
Aman Chaudhary
/ January 4, 2012I’ve always loved these! Go Cliff!!! ^_^
Mike
/ January 4, 2012Holy moley. More! More! I love that Batman helmet and that radically different take on WW.
JAGADEY
/ January 4, 2012JAY- that’s the point!
Mara Dillinger
/ January 4, 2012Hey, wasn’t there a contest to redesign the Invincible character? What happened with that?
Erin
/ January 4, 2012I could not tell that was Wonder Woman at all until I read the other comments. Hers is really the only design I don’t get.
GerkMax
/ January 4, 2012I wonder what the Atom (right behind Aqua Man?) looks like. I hope he does more.
MacCLUBBIN
/ January 4, 2012Robin and Wonder Woman are too blatant, although would make really great cosplay for a future PR contest. The Bat-helmet is by far the greatest success, but my burning question is: why is this not currently Aquaman? I can’t imagine old Arthur is anything but a headache to DC execs. Is anyone really violently opposed to such a radical departure? This is what Aquaman needs, in my opinion. Money is so tight these days that I hesitate buying issues to story arcs by creators I already like, and I would drop five bucks right now to read that Aquaman.
Sparky
/ January 4, 2012Esmeralda blended with Captain Harlock is an elegant take on Wonder Woman.
MaximusRift
/ January 4, 2012I got to give the artist his due. Dude knows his anime.
Batman = Gatchaman
Superman = Tetsujin 28 / Gigantor
Wonder Woman = Harlock
Aquaman = Ultraman
Green Lantern = Cobra: The Psychogun
Flash = Speed Racer
DC Comics should give you a series on that merit alone.
Ren Malone
/ January 4, 2012Personally, I’ve never been a fan of most of the stuff these concepts were based off of, but I would buy this in a heartbeat! It’s really just too perfect.
Satriya
/ January 4, 2012AWESOME!!! guys, GL is based on Cobra…
plsburydoughboy
/ January 5, 2012That was supposed to be Wonder Woman? i got confused and thought it might be Big Barda or something.
Yeah, some of these are kind of off, but others are perfect (Aquaman Ultraman? perfect) and in general it’s fun to speculate. I personally would have preferred Shazam getting the Giant Robo/Mazinger Z treatment, and Batman seems closer in kindred to Mask Rider/Skull Rider. Hard to come up with genuine Superman and Wonder Woman analogues though.
Jeff Smith
/ January 5, 2012Robin had a motorcycle helmet similar to that once in the Teen Titans cartoon, though it wasn’t as prominent as that one. I always digged the G-Force… its a good look for Robin, who’s costume never made any sense.
Chris A.
/ January 5, 2012Dean’s going over the entries, and will be posted when the entire process is done.
Corey
/ January 5, 2012Can we get a Lex Luthor or a Sinestro re-design?
DannyIndeed
/ January 5, 2012These are really well done for the most part, but I don’t think I would have picked up this book. It’s one thing to use the anime characters as templates of sorts, but this is a straight up “Amalgam” treatment of DC/existing anime, and it seems pretty forced at times (For instance, doughboy totally nailed the Shazam/Gigantor parallel.) and merging Wonder Woman with Captain Harlock seems arbitrary. For that matter, once the artist runs out of parallel characters, the designs fall pretty flat – case in point, Joker and Harley. (Unless they’re just merged with characters I’m unfamiliar with. Truth be told, I’ve only got passing pop culture awareness of most anime.) I’m mainly disappointed in that it’s not DC characters done in an “old-school anime” and “kaiju” style, they’ve actually been merged with easily recognizable, existing characters. DC could never have greenlit these designs without an awful lot of rights negotiations….
Rexi
/ January 6, 2012Batman’s thigh highs are hilarious. Now all we need is a male hero with a cleavage window!
tbolt
/ January 6, 2012Like the Batman and Robin the best with two tweaks, correct Robin’s colors getting rid of the white and bring back the domino mask under the helmet. He gets that thing knocked off in a fight, its bye bye secret id. Like the idea of a Giant Robo type in the DCU, not sure if it works for Superman, tho.
AdamYJ
/ January 6, 2012You know, I always figured the Japanese Batman would have more of a Kamen Rider influence.
Itlas
/ January 6, 2012Gatchman Batman and Robin and Queen Emeralda WonderWoman are awesome,as Superrobot 28 Superman and Match 5 Flash,i liked too Ultraman-Aquaman.
But i didn’t catch Joker and Green Lantern.
I appreciate you didn’t mixed Saint Seya with WonderWoman,it would be too obvious.
As fan of early japanese animation i wuold suggest other characters mash-ups
Devilman-Etrigan the Demon
Time Bokan-Booster Gold
Sally the wich-Zatanna
Golgo13-Deadshot
Cyborg009-Metal Man
and i have a suggestion to change batman.
What if an Hurricane Polymar Batman who transform himself in various bat vehicles?
Toom
/ January 6, 2012So perfect, oh man.
Khalid Robertson
/ January 6, 2012I dig it. Yeah, there’s the issue of G-Force/Gigantor similarity and the like, but I think story wise, that’s appropriate. It forces the reader into a mental state of story approach: What if G-Force was J-Force.
Ren Malone
/ January 7, 2012@ GerkMax- That’s not the Atom behind Aquaman. He’s illustrating that Aquaman can grow in size to take on big kaiju monsters in hand to…er, claw combat.
AdamYJ
/ January 8, 2012Y’know, I had an idea similar to this once, but it was more inspired by Japanese superhero tokusatsu and the like. The Justice League was like a Super Sentai. Batman was like Kamen Rider. Superman was like Ultraman. And Wonder Woman was morphed into a sort of magical girl anime type thing. I called it DC: Earth J. Too bad I can’t draw.