Paul Dini and the Legion of Super-Heroes

Part 2 of an on-going look at the Animated Legion. Part 1 was posted here a few days ago.

I didn't realize that Paul Dini wrote the upcoming Justice League Unlimited episode featuring Supergirl and the Legion, but in a post on his blog, the King of Breakfast says:

I see that word is leaking out here and there on the net about the new Justice League episode I wrote. It's called "Supergirl and the Legion" and it delivers pretty much what the title promises. Don't look for it any time soon, though. Last I heard (and I may be wrong) new episodes of JLU won't be running until late spring or early summer. Confound Cartoon Network and their oh so capricious air schedule!

I asked him if he could spill anything about who's going to be in it or what they look like. I'll report back if I hear anything.

ToonZone gives a little more information, which parallels (either by design or amazing coincidence) upcoming events in the Legion's book:

Also, Supergirl will appear in an episode penned by Paul Dini, and the Legion of Superheroes will make an appearance in an episode that will feature one Justice League member deciding to leave the League and join the 30th century team (my bet is on Supergirl, as she had a relationship with Brainiac 5 in the Silver Age comics, but don't quote me on that).

Of course, we've been waiting for an animated Legion series for a long time. I found some stuff on Comics2film, dating back to 1999, suggesting that Dini and Alan Burnett (producer) have been trying for a while to get the series to the small screen.

In an episode of Duck Dodgers a couple years ago, the creators pulled from their pile of unused material stuff that was done for a proposed Green Lantern series that never made it. The episode had Duck Dodgers accidentally getting his costume mixed up with Hal Jordan's, with him joining the Green Lantern Corps. One of the GLs looked somewhat Durlan, which (given the episode's appearance of dozens of GLs) would probably have made him Xenofobe, the GL of the 30th Century (to the right in the image below).

...These character designs originated as part of a failed attempt to sell a Green Lantern series to the network. ... It serves as a reminder that for every animated DC Universe series that makes it to the air, there are several that don’t make it past the drawing boards. Thus, the Green Lantern series proposal joins other proposed pilots for Robin, Catwoman, Shazam, Lobo, Impulse, Supergirl, and the Legion of Superheroes in the slush pile of television history.