Sam Liu (The Killing Joke, Crisis on Two Earths) had been in the industry for about 10 years when he won his Emmy for his work on The Batman and since then he has had his big toe in nearly everything that DC Animation has produced. Hot off the heels of his smash  two parter The Death of Superman/ Reign Of The Supermen, Liu grabs a chair at WonderCon 2019 for a discussion of his latest epic Justice League vs The Fatal Five. A love letter to fans of the original voices and visual style the series, it also serves as bridge between the veteran heroes and the new generation. The director behind mega hits such as Batman: Year One, Justice League: Gods And Monsters, Teen Titans: Judas Contract, and Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay begins by explaining why he thinks this movie will keep that streak alive:

“I like exploring characters, and I like psychology of characters. And I think in this one, in particular, we sort of touch upon characters that are not sort of just your common , you know “ I'm a hero and how do I live up to, how do I not mess up my friends?…I think a lot of credit has to go to the Writers for pairing these people, or putting people in certain scenarios that, I don't know it's a lot of fun. In editing and watching it and stuff like that, subtle things about these people are ,... I don't know it's very subtle. Maybe it's only something that I'll appreciate or if your really, really into it you'll appreciate.  But there's a lot of really touching things in it. It's one of the ones I like the most. “

With such a busy production schedule I wondered how does Sam cleanse his palette in between movies as to change the tone between projects in order to keep them fresh. He responds: 

“It’s hard keeping fresh, you know. It’s hard having to shift gears when you have to do things like Gotham by Gaslight where all of a sudden you are in a Victorian era, type of thing. This should feel different than a modern summer blockbuster movie, you know how d you do that?…So, It’s fun in a masochistic kind of way…...working with Bruce Timm and James Tucker, who are veterans and experts at this stuff. It’s a joy, I really do feel like. I refer to this a lot with my team. I have a team full of snipers. Basically, we can shoot anything with in a ten mile radius, one shot one kill type of thing. I do feel like, as far as how fast we do, and what we do, we are all experts at stuff. I’m sorry, that sounds like I’m bragging but, that gives me the confidence to move forward.”

There is so much more behind the scenes talk in the full interview. Sam also talks about the hectic grind of constantly pumping out gold for DC, how to change up the tone of the movie from project to project, and more on how much work goes in during post production. You can dig the whole groovy discussion here.