Poster of The Guardians of Justice (Credit: Adi Shankar)
A new adult-friendly animated series has arrived on Netflix that stands out for mixing a variety of animation styles and paying tribute to 1990s cartoons. The Guardians of Justice is directed by two Spaniards, brothers Luis and Enol Junquera.
The show landed quietly on the streamer with the story of a group of superheroes trying to prevent nuclear war when an unfathomable tragedy alters the power balance in the world. The show was screened at the Cannes International Series Festival in France last year.
In the first season, an alien superhero, Marvelous Man, helped to end WWIII in a single day and kept peace on Earth for four decades. But an unforeseeable tragedy plunges the globe into chaos, making the future uncertain. It’s up to two Guardians, Marvelous Man’s bitter, violent lieutenant Knight Hawk and idealistic do-gooder Speed, to stop atomic Armageddon.
The show is rated TV-MA for mature audiences and may not be suitable for ages 17 and under due to language, violence and other adult situations.
Starring in the show are Denise Richards (Love Actually), Derek Mears (Swamp Thing), Hal Ozsan (What Would Diplo Do?), Andy Milonakis (Waiting…), Sharni Vinson (You’re Next) and former pro-wrestler Dallas Page (The Devil’s Rejects).
The Guardians of Justice was created and executive produced by Adi Shankar, an Indian-American executive producer of films led by Hollywood stars like The Grey with Liam Neeson, Killing Them Softly with Brad Pitt, Dredd with Karl Urban and Lone Survivor with Mark Whalberg. Among Shankar’s most recent executive-produced projects is Castlevania, another Netflix animated series that ran from 2017 through 2021 and starred Richard Armitage, James Callis and Alejandra Reynoso.
The Guardians of Justice marks Shankar’s TV directorial debut.
The Junquera brothers, who serve also as animators, joined Shankar for the Netflix series about six years ago working from Asturias, according to Enol Junquera. The siblings got on board the project through their studio company Angry Metal. “For the first Guardians of Justice scene we made, Adi Shankar asked us to develop a romantic date between superheroes and we came to the most special dating (sic) for Awesome Man and Speed as possible, fighting an evil Ciber-Care Bear,” state the Junqueras on their company website.
The Spanish filmmakers say Angry Metal is an “innovative, award-winning, auteur-driven, hand-drawn (sic) animation studio based in Spain that specializes in adult-oriented animation.” They describe their signature style as a “cross-pollination of our native European sensibilities with Japanese anime, Saturday Morning Cartoons, nostalgic gaming, and American live-action cinema influences.” They add, “ We are allergic to interchangeable assembly-line productions, so each of our works are designed to have a unique artistic identity.”
The Junqueras and Shankar have collaborated in other animated projects in the past, including the miniseries Judge Dredd: Superfiend and the short film The End of Pokémon, both of which the Spanish brothers directed and wrote.
The Junqueras’ artistic vision contributes to The Guardians of Justices’ unique mix of live action with traditional animation, claymation–a stop-animation technique using clay or plasticine, cut-out paper animation and 8-bit video game footage.
The first season of the Netflix series consists of seven episodes, all of which are now available for streaming.
