COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL: JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED

SAN DIEGO -- A preview clip for the next season of Justice League Unlimited show at Comic-Con International on Friday revealed a big development: the Legion of Doom.

In the clip, which starts the new season, Lex Luthor breaks out of jail. When apparently trapped by the police, he miraculously is pulled through a wall. He is then taken to meet Gorilla Grodd, who shows him a familiar-looking building -- and then it's revealed that at least two dozen villains are in it.

"We kind of took a page with what we did with Justice League Unlimited," producer Bruce Timm said, "where we opened the ranks of the Justice League to include basically everybody. So now the villains are going to say, 'Hey, we're going to do that, too.' There's going to be a lot of Legion of Doom goodness throughout next season.

"Standalone episodes as well that don't completely focus on the Legion of Doom and some that just touch on the Legion of Doom.

"We have lots of major guest-stars next season. We had the whole Green Lantern/Vixen/Hawkgirl triangle, which is really complicated. We figured we needed to resolve that and we resolved that by making it more complicated. It gets really complicated when Shayera meets this young archeologist named Carter Hall.

"So we've got lots of interesting twists and turns and lots of Legion."

Speaking of another Legion, Timm also noted that the Legion of Super-Heroes will appear next season.

In other highlights from the Justice League portion of the JLU/The Batman panel:

* The episode "Divided We Fall," which debuts on Cartoon Network on Saturday, was shown in a widescreen format.

* Asked about a Justice League Unlimited movie, Timm said, "We talked a lot about doing a straight-to-video JLU movie. Maybe someday, but right now I don't think there's anything definitive happening with that."

* Asked if events in the comics DC Universe have any impact on the show, Timm said, "I don't know. We weren't really planning on using Sue Digby anyways. She's a little extra crispy now."

* Story editor Matt Wayne said an upcoming episode will feature the Seven Soldiers.

* Stargirl will appear next season.

* Producer Dwayne McDuffie said Hawkgirl was his favorite character to write.

* About the much-ballyhooed ban on use of Batman supporting characters or villains, Timm said, "I'm not finding it's a big problem. There's lot of villains -- a Legion of them."