General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles

Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles is a three-part American animated shortform web series released on Machinima in June 2015, presenting alternate-universe versions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman as a prelude to the animated film Justice League: Gods and Monsters. It was created by Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett, the producers of Batman: The Animated Series, and was the first project of Warner Bros.' newly formed digital content production unit.¹

Key fact	Detail
Format	Three-part animated shortform series on the YouTube network Machinima, announced September 17, 2014¹
Episodes	"Twisted" (June 8, 2015), "Bomb" (June 10, 2015), "Big" (June 12, 2015)²
Premise	An alternate universe in which Superman is the biological son of General Zod, Batman is a vampiric Man-Bat, and Wonder Woman is Bekka, a New God descended from New Genesis³^•¹⁰
Main cast	Michael C. Hall as Kirk Langstrom/Batman, Benjamin Bratt as Hernan Guerra/Superman, Tamara Taylor as Bekka/Wonder Woman²
Purpose	Prelude to the film Justice League: Gods and Monsters, released July 28, 2015 by Warner Home Entertainment⁴
Continuation	A second season was scripted but shelved; director Sam Liu later cited lack of funding and a closed "hype window"⁵

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The series is set in an alternate DC universe rather than the mainstream continuity. Its Superman, Hernan Guerra, is the biological son of General Zod and was not raised by the Kents; its Batman is Kirk Langstrom, the Man-Bat transformed into a bloodthirsty vampire rather than Bruce Wayne; and its Wonder Woman, Bekka, is not an Amazon of Themyscira but a New God descended from New Genesis.³^•⁶^•¹⁰ In the film's framing, this Justice League protects the planet but answers to no one, using intimidation and brute force in the name of justice.⁶

Other characters appear in altered forms as well. The first episode, "Twisted," featured Timm's own creation Harley Quinn reimagined as a maniacal killer, complete with dead bodies and severed heads in her refrigerator, and the wider universe includes a "bizarre" Green Lantern Corps.⁷^•⁴ In the Wonder Woman-focused episode, Bekka must take on a horde of Kobra soldiers to save Steve Trevor.⁸

Origin and production

The project began when Sam Register, President of Warner Bros. Animation and head of the new digital unit, asked Timm for ideas for a possible new Justice League cartoon. Timm recalled weighing what he would do differently with the concept, since the traditional version already worked.⁹ Machinima greenlit the series on September 17, 2014 as its first programming collaboration with Warner Bros. after the latter's investment in the company, with episodes expected in the second quarter of 2015 ahead of the film.¹

For Timm, the alternate setting allowed darker directions he had not been permitted to explore in earlier DC animation work.⁴ Design choices followed the same logic: Lois Lane hates Superman and built her career on telling the world he is a "dick"; Bruce Wayne's parents were not killed in Crime Alley, so he grew up to be something else; Kal-El was never conceived; and Timm tried a Jack Kirby-influenced take on ancient Greek design for Wonder Woman while resisting putting an "S" anywhere on Superman, arriving at a turtleneck, tight pants, and jack boots.⁵

Release

The three shorts ran on consecutive release days in June 2015: "Twisted" on June 8, "Bomb" on June 10, and "Big" on June 12, after which the series concluded.² DC's announcement of the first episode appeared on June 5, 2015, with the remaining episodes scheduled for Wednesday and Friday slots on Machinima and DCComics.com.³

The story continued on July 28, 2015 with the full-length film Justice League: Gods and Monsters, directed by Sam Liu and co-produced by Timm and Burnett, and with an original digital-first comic book series.⁴^•³ The comics, all set before the movie, were collected into a 200-page graphic novel on sale February 3, 2016, written by Timm and J.M. DeMatteis, in which the three loners are drawn together by Jackson Alpert and his immortal Forever People, who claim they can bring humanity to the next level of evolution.¹⁰

Unmade second season

A second season entered development but never reached production. By April 2016, Sam Liu said it had been shelved until "some stuff is worked out," and Timm confirmed that all scripts were written but that the season was on the back burner.⁵ In February 2019, Liu explained that Machinima had wanted the season and Warner Home Video was going to take it, but the process took so long that the "hype window" closed and the parties moved on; the furthest the season got was scripts and initial designs.⁵ In 2020, Timm said there had been talks about turning the second-season scripts into a comic series.⁵

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026