What makes it even worse is what I imagine will be Dwayne’s final project, All-Star Superman, hits stores today.

I’ll probably have more thoughts when I can come up with something more articulate.

Originally Aired: January 21, 2011
Written By: Kevin Hopps
Directed By: Jay Oliva

Summary: While waiting for their first mission, the team has to deal with a villain with a suspiciously familiar set of powers.

Site Notes: Just remember to follow this blog on Twitter to receive updates.

Arc Notes:  Establishes the details of Mount Justice; first appearance of Megan’s Biotransport, which I assume will serve as the team’s transportation.

Debuting Characters: The bad guy in the opening credits is Brick (a Green Arrow villain, as he notes in dialogue), while Mr. Twister makes what I believe is his first animated appearance.  The labcoat-ed scientist at the end of the episode is Professor T.O. Morrow, the Red Tornado’s original creator.

(Background sections will be rarer for this series due to wanting to be timely.)

Thoughts on the Episode:

Prior to the advent of decompressed storylines in comics, the third or fourth issue of any team book was usually devoted to a story like this one, where the infrastructure supporting the team is established and they deal with a minor threat. This episode carries on that tradition, as the naescent Young Justice gets familiar with the Justice League’s former headquarters and takes on Mr. Twister. The problem is that these types of stories are a necessary evil, and usually aren’t that great. This episode was no exception.

The fact that the team isn’t quite perfect from the beginning was somewhat expected – these are inexperienced heroes, after all.  But the script rather smartly goes for elements of tension right away, specifically the Superboy / Miss Martian confrontations.  It’s a logical place to go with Superboy – essentially a victim of telepathic rape for most of his life – as being distrusting of everyone else with telepathy.  However, the other team members don’t receive much in the way of character development in an episode that you’d think would be ripe for it;  other than the occasional line from Kid Flash, we don’t know much about the other three team members.  I expect that we’re supposed to instinctively map past Robins onto this one, but I view that as a bit of a cheat.  And, of course, Aqualad is a completely new character in both comics AND animation, a complete blank slate to the viewer.

The lack of character work leaves this episode to rely on action scenes – which, if the first 66 minutes’ worth of this series are any indication, is where the production team’s strengths lie anyway.  The opening skirmish with Brick isn’t anything special, though, and while the fight against Twister is sufficiently long to get the team to show off what they can do, we already had a pilot to establish that type of thing for 80% of the current members.  It’s also hurt that the eventual end of the fight is both a bit of a cheat and something we’ve seen many times before: a sex-changed twist on the J’onn Fakeout (although Megan shouldn’t have been able to generate the electricity that helped the illusion). There are some nice moments in the battle – Twister failing to fall for Robin trying the sticky bomb trick, for instance – but overall, it was pretty flat, albeit visually interesting throughout.

Speaking of which, the animation appears to have maintained the same level of quality as in the pilot, which is a good thing going forwards, and the vocal cast appears to be rounding into form nicely with the exception of Superboy’s oddly inappropriate voice.  Danica McKellar (Winnie Cooper from the Wonder Years and without a doubt the world’s best-looking mathematician) as Megan does the best job here, although it is a bit too easy to paint Megan as little more than a grown-up Starfire from Teen Titans.

While this one did get some needed work in (HQ tour, getting Megan some face time to allow her to catch up with the boys in terms of development), it couldn’t shake the “placeholder” feeling throughout. I’m going to be a bit harsher here than I probably should be with this grade, but this series has high expectations.

(Also – and this is a late addition but fits with the theme – one of my only problems with producer Greg Weisman’s previous series, The Spectacular Spider-Man, was that it tended to favour overlong action sequences when its strengths were with the characters.  Although it’s far too early to sound the alarm on this show based on just over an hour of action, the episode triggered those same concerns with me.)

Grade: C-. A decent little bit of characterisation with Superboy’s mistrust of Megan, but overall a fairly pedestrian episode.  I have a feeling I’m going to be developing a longing for Justice League‘s two-parters before long, as the pilot did a better job of working characterisation in amidst the action.

Random Thoughts:

• I know this is overthinking things, but if it became known that the mountain outside your quaint New England town was holding the Justice League, wouldn’t you move out of town, I don’t know, SECONDS LATER??? I guess the U.S. housing situation is bad on Earth-16 as well.
• My copy of this is in 1.77:1 aspect ratio – a slightly different one than Justice League’s later widescreen seasons, if memory serves. I squished the first image up above a bit to make it look more cinematic as a result.
• This was the first time we saw the full credits, and they’re pretty underwhelming (aside from that nice shot of Miss Martian in front of the moon). No spoilers from what I could detect, other than the obvious fact that Artemis is going to join the team sooner rather than later.  Speedy is briefly shown in the credits, making it seem as though he’s going to make the occasional appearance, as well.
• “Mount Justice” isn’t a much better name for the HQ than the Justice Cave.
• Continuing the listing of teleporter codes, Robin is P-01 and Wally is P-03. I assume that refers to their “provisional” status.
• Continuing our theme of bad guys with Star Trek ties, he’s voiced by former Q John DeLancie.
• In news that shakes my faith in humanity, Batman: Under the Red Hood was the highest-selling DC DVD of 2010. People, it’s a Judd Winick storyline! I know you love Batman and all, but… c’mon!
• Also, don’t listen to the Wonder Woman fans who claim that her movie supposedly outsold anything released this year based on this out-of-date Wikipedia entry. The number listed there for Crisis on Two Earths, for instance, was its first week sales. Real sales figures, courtesy The World’s Finest, are here.
• Robin wearing the glasses is a nice callback to Young Justice, as Batman refused to let Tim tell the rest of the team his real name.  This led to much hilarity, as well as the “Alvin Draper” alias that’s something of a running joke now.
• Similarly, the thing with Miss Martian and the cookies is of course a callback to J’onn’s cookie obsession, which we briefly talked about two Christmases ago.
• The line about Wally being unable to vibrate through walls is a lift from his comic counterpart – except that Wally vibrating through an object didn’t cause him to get a headache, but rather to cause the object to explode because he was unable to contain his kinetic energy.
• Obviously, I don’t really talk much Marvel, but Spectacular Spidey was far and away the best animated show Marvel has ever produced (although the current Avengers show isn’t bad at all), and it boggles the mind that they let Weisman slip through their fingers and go to DC Animation.

Line of the Episode: “Indeed. That was quite turbing.” Of all the gags to continue….

(Kid) Flash Line of the Episode: “Is it wrong that I think I’m hot?”

Next Young Justice: What will likely be, given recent movie casting announcements, the first and only appearance of a certain Bat-Villain in this series (complete with awesome voice actor) via the team’s first official mission in “Drop Zone.”  Time to see if the weird black-ops setup makes any sense in practice.

Next Time: Mad Love, promise.

Written by: Paul Dini
Directed by: Kevin Altieri
Originally Aired: October 15, 1994
DVD: Batman TAS, Volume 3

Summary: Finally declared sane and released from Arkham, Harleen Quinziel tries to put her criminal past behind her, and is actually successful… for ten minutes.

Background:

Batman: The Animated Series added several new characters to the mythos, such as Lock-Up and Officer / Sgt. / Detective Montoya.  But the undoubted breakout star was Harley Quinn.  Paul Dini originally came up with an idea for a female sidekick of the Joker for use in Joker’s Favor because, well, he needed someone to pop out of a cake and it would be weird if Joker himself did that (of course, Timm then turned around and realised that it was funnier if Joker himself was in the cake anyway).

When Paul mentioned the idea to me, I thought “Okay, that’s kind of clever.” We put her in Joker’s Favor but it wasn’t until we got the footage back from overseas and put it on the screen that everyone instantly fell in love with her.

Bruce Timm, Modern Masters, page 41.

The issue with Harley quickly became apparent: her performance, enhanced and inspired by former Days of Our Lives star Arleen Sorkin (a friend of Dini’s), was actually too good, as she was undercutting the hard-boiler drama the creators were going for.

As much as I didn’t want to keep using her, because I had this gut feeling… We kept trying to make the Joker scary, and scary, and scary, and by having his wacky girlfriend there it brings out his goofier side. I was really cocerned about that, but we all loved the character, so Paul kept sticking her in every Joker show.

Bruce Timm, ibid.

If you listen to the Return of the Joker commentary track, you learn just how attached Dini was to Harley – a couple of the other crew members jokingly refer to her as Paul’s daughter. In the end, though, the team was able to figure out how to work Harley into both types of stories – one of which became legendary after the fact.

Eventually we were able to pull off some really dark stories with her, as well as some fun and light ones, like “Harlequinade” and “Harley’s Holiday.” But certainly “Mad Love”, which we did in the re-vamp(sic) Batman, was one of the darkest shows we ever did.

Bruce Timm, ibid.

Thoughts on the Episode:

Some episodes of Batman were gritty crime fiction.

Some episodes were prime superhero action.

This episode… this episode is Batman-as-screwball-comedy, complete with a female lead, an insane setup and a tank. And, of course… it works.

So by this point in the series (well into Batman: TAS season 2, after the name change), Harley was well-established as a character. Heck, she’d already featured in her own episode (Harlequinade), but was some ways off from her origin getting animated treatment.  This, however, was an entirely Joker-free episode, which if not providing a lot of insights into Harley’s character, proved that she could carry an episode all by herself without a certain clown interfering.

The plot of a con given a chance to go straight and screwing things up isn’t exactly original, as the same themes were even explored in several other B:TAS episodes, such as “Riddler’s Reform”.  Unlike that episode, however, the main character thrust of this episode is that Harley genuinely wants to get better. By the end of the story, it’s actually gained a rather hard edge – Harley obviously hasn’t done much of anything wrong besides stealing a car and taking Ronnie for a joyride (… NOT LIKE THAT!!!…), but the world is conspring against her.  Her last few lines in the fight with Batman are genuinely tragic; the script builds up a ton of sympathy for a nominal villain in about 10 minutes’ worth of writing, which is pretty remarkable.

Of course, even with the sobering final act, the main point of this episode is that it brings the funny in a big way. Virtually all the gags are a lot of fun, from Harley’s flirty behaviour with Bruce (and nearly figuring out his secret) to Ronnie’s crazed father to the comical animation used throughout the episode. Check out Harley and Bullock’s poses when she first steals the car – it’s very much like something out of Looney Tunes.

The only real down point of the episode is that the whole Boxie plotline just seems like an unnecessary diversion away from the main plot.  It works as a way to break up the chase sequences, but it’s a bit extraneous, as well as being an almost purely action scene in an episode that doesn’t really care about such things.  Thankfully, things get better soon afterwards, as General Vreeland shows up in the Tank and we’re quickly dragged back into the screwball comedy we started with. Which, really, is all that matters in the end.  Harley would enjoy a more poignant showcase the next season, but this balance of humour and pathos is really what defines the character in my eyes.

Grade: B+. Very much a madcap farce in style, executed successfully, with a nice edge at the end.

Random Thoughts:

• Holy crud, Ronnie looks like an anime chick for her last couple of scenes. She practically grows Lisa Hayes‘ mullet in that screencap above.
• Sure, that “SANE” gag is a lift from The Simpsons, but it’s still awesome.
• I once again cite Ronnie as one of my favourite supporting characters from this show.  She’s a little bit more interested in him than in later appearances here, but it’s still pretty obvious their relationship isn’t much more than friends.  Since Bruce doesn’t really have any friends, this slots her into a pretty unique place.
• Only 10% off? Harley has low standards for clothing sales…
• Geez, this episode is like a shipper’s heaven.  Harley’s around Ivy, throws herself at both Bruce and Batman, and the fact that Ronnie’s got the same hair colour as her ‘friend’ Ivy doesn’t go unnoticed.
• This is exactly the type of episode that Robin wouldn’t have appeared in if it wasn’t for the network mandate that he feature in the new season as a regular.  He’s basically extraneous to the entire story.
• Notice how I avoided any shots of Harley in the bootie shorts? No inflation of the viewership count on this one with creepy people looking for… images.

Line of the Episode: “Good evening, child… WORSHIP ME, FOOLS!!!” It’s not really in character for Crane (more Maxie Zeus), but it’s a funny start to a very funny episode.

Next Justice League: Harley gets to play girl reporter in “Wild Cards.”

Next Time: The second half of our Harley double-bill… and the more famous of the two. Based on the Eisner-award winning story, it’s “Mad Love.”

Written by Stan Berkowitz
Directed by Dan Riba
Originally Aired: November 22, 2003
DVD: Justice League, Season Two

Summary: Gorilla Grodd assembles a team of his own to battle the Justice League, who seem to be falling apart at the seams.

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Arc Notes: In spite of all appearances and a rather ambiguous ending, this episode has very little impact going forward, which is one of its biggest problems.

Debuting Characters: First appearances of Killer Frost and Giganta

Returning Characters: Grodd’s first appearance since “The Brave and the Bold.” Shade’s first appearance since “Fury.” Parasite, Sinestro and Clayface make their first Justice League appearances (although, as noted earlier, where Sinestro’s Static Shock appearance fits into the DCAU timeline is up for debate).

Team Members: Full Team

Focal Characters: GL, but not really.

Background:

The focus of this episode is on the eponymous Secret Society, a name with a reasonable amount of history at DC.

The name is based on the Secret Society of Super-Villains, a group which was formed in the 1970s as a new villain team.  The series has a heavy Kirby influence, with the original team being organized by Darkseid.  Beyond characters like Grodd and Sinestro, who also appear in the animated version, the team was filled out with Star Sapphire, a pair of Flash villains, and, oddly, a pair of heroes: the returning Captain Comet, with a clone of Paul Kirk (remember him from waaay back when we talked about them in “In Darkest Night”?)  What’s interesting about this version is that they were actually the star of their own title in the early 1970s, turning into an early anti-hero team simply out of necessity.  It’s an interesting series from what I’ve read of it – four comics plucked out of a quarter bin a decade ago.

The next gathering was chaired by another gorilla – but this time, it was the Ultra-Humanite making his debut in the albino gorilla form that we’ve encountered a few times already in Justice League.  This story was annual JLA / JSA team-up in the pages of Justice League America.  As usual, the main attraction is the George Perez artwork, but they’re decent enough stories, if a bit repetitive in parts.  A couple of panels in this were blatantly swiped by Perez for JLA / Avengers, which is pretty cute when you think about it.

After that, the Secret Society kind of faded into the background, usurped by the returning Injustice Society for the rest of the 80s. DC recently brought the name back in the excellent mini-series Villains United, one of the many excellent build-up series to Infinite Crisis (that were seemingly tossed aside when the actual event hit).  Villains United had another benefit, as it spawned the excellent Secret Six ongoing by Gail Simone.

Stan Berkowitz talked about the process of bringing the second dc supervillain team to the screen in an interview with the world’s finest

Bruce and Rich wanted to do a Secret Society story, and then everyone sat down and talked for a long time about which villains to include. A lot of our decision-making had to with choosing villains whose powers were comparable to those of the different members of the League. Like all our stuff, it was very much a group effort.

- Stan Berkowitz, June 20, 2006

Thoughts on the Episode:

I was talking the other day (Ed. Note: … back in May…) about how different people place different priorities on critiquing animated productions. Some people put most of their emphasis on the animation quality, some people put it on story, and some – like me – try to find a balance. But once in a while, other factors come into consideration.

The flaws of this episode are numerous, but the biggest issue is that it overpromises and underdelivers. Justice League may have been almost entirely episodic in its approach (one of the easiest ways to distinguish between the original series and Unlimited, in fact), but if an episode is going to tease major developments in its ongoing storyline as its main hook, that storyline needs to be followed up on or the underlying episode will lose whatever weight it had in the first place.  Here, a very weak episode to begin with is seemingly saved by an ending that makes the viewer think that they’ve just seen one of the more important episodes in the series’ run.  Instead, the episode is left isolated, and, looking back, the whole thing just seems like a waste of time.

Essentially, this episode is set up in such a way to make the viewer believe that it’s the genesis of long-term problems within the League.  Green Lantern takes the lead in complaining that they’re not ordering efficiently as a unit, leading to some training sessions.  However, when push comes to shove against the Society, the team doesn’t function well.  It’s no surprise that they ultimately do pull things together at the end, but when asked about the heated feelings, rather than chalk things up to Grodd, the script makes it apparent that the feelings were there all along, even though there’d been no prior hints.  And that just doesn’t make any sense given what’s already been seen.

Which is fine since a bit of tension running through a team isn’t a bad thing. But after the entire episode is devoted to revealing and building tensions between the league members, the events of the episode are never mentioned again.  Sure, there’s more tension between Hawkgirl and Green Lantern going forwards, but that’s sexual tension, not the type of “professional” problems that are dealt with in this episode.  Wonder Woman never talks about men all being run with their egos, Green Lantern never complains about not being team leader, and Superman never gripes about being concerned about looking out for his more vulnerable teammates.  Having these issues materialise out of thin air is like something out of a bad fanfic, and not something I’d expect out of a writer like Berkowitz.  But he at least ends the episode on an ominous not e that makes the viewer feel as though their reward for sitting through this is that there’ll be more on the ‘divided team’ plotline in the future.  Of course, the advantage of writing a site like this is that I can evaluate this episode somewhat retrospectively and say that it wasn’t.

The other major problem is on the villain side of things, specifically that everything’s rather shallow. A hallmark of Justice League and the DCAU in general is the work on making the villains into appealing characters with interesting, if not realistic, goals.  Here, Grodd’s endgame doesn’t stretch beyond destroying the Justice League (granted, given the rest of his plans, I suppose that kind of fits his character).  But the story avoids even the simple motivation of Grodd wanting to get back at Flash for defeating him the first time around. All he cares about is the generic aim of destroying the League.  It’s a marked contrast with Injustice for All, where Luthor had the same goal, but also cared about curing his condition.  Without that added layer, the Secret Society winds up being one-note as villains, and, even worse, when the League ultimately gets a second chance at them, they’re dispatched of in a humourous manner, rather than in a serious conflict.

This story has some of the poorest animation in the series; There’s a great screencap floating around of Batman with shading under his nose that makes him look like Hitler, for instance (it’s from the scene where he confronts the Society by himself in Part 1).

Secret Society is laudable in a few areas. Seeing villains like Clayface, Sinestro, and Parasite again is nice, and Killer Frost and Giganta are better female villains than the new ones introduced earlier in “Fury.”  And there’s some legitimately funny moments in it, like Giganta’s team-building exercises and her failure during the initial heist. But in the end, the episode is a waste of time.

Grade: D+. If there had been a better plot, if the characterization had gone anywhere, if the villains hadn’t been made to be made such a joke in the final act… then maybe it would be decent.  But, hey, if you want to see the heroes beating the bad guys in front of a crowd of strangely captivated football fans, then this is the episode for you!

Random Thoughts:

• The second half has a couple of neat moments to it.  This is one of the better uses of the J’onn Gambit, as it makes sense but isn’t predictable. The idea of J’onn squaring off against Clayface is, as far as I know, unique; it’s a shame, as they’re a good match as antagonists.
• Flash’s attempt at playing Batman is the highlight of the episode without question, although it’s bittersweet in that he was always the least-utilised member of the League and this just hints at the potential that was in him as a solo character.
• Time has sadly taken away the impact of the Britney clone being blown off the stage by Grodd’s airship.  But it’s still good for a chuckle. Sadly, they didn’t borrow the name of any of the various versions that were floating around DC during Britney’s height; I imagine this one produced a lot of pre-packaged pop that kids liked in those days.
• … is it just me, or did Shade sneak a peek at a giant-sized female private area?

Line of the Episode: “You overplayed your part… yo.” New Rule: anytime Batman say s “yo”, it gets line of the episode.

Line of the Episode #2 (in spite of the horrid infighting dialogue, there’s a couple of good ones): “look buddy. I know Batman. I once ratted out a counterfeiter to Batman. And believe me, you are no Batmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan….”

Next Justice League: The last DCAU of Mr. J and Harley *sniff.* Plus the scene that launched a thousand fanfics.  And about six different inside jokes.  Lots of fodder in the DCAU’s tribute to Jack Bauer, “Wild Cards.”

Next Time:  I need to do something lighter. And what’s lighter than the story of a psychologist who gets obsessed with a sociopath, starts dressing in a fetish outfit and begins killing people, right? An animated remake of the Eisner Award-winning “Mad Love.”

Written By: Greg Weisman
Directed By: Jay Olvia (Part 1), Sam Liu (Part 2)
Originally Aired: November 25, 2010
DVD: Full episodes are available to U.S. viewers on the Cartoon Network website.

Summary: After a disappointing first day in the Hall of Justice, Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad investigate a situation at Cadmus Labs that rapidly spirals out of control.

Notes: I know the blog’s been dormant for most of the year, but I couldn’t resist this, could I? Turns out that my new practice doesn’t leave me as much time for writing that I can’t bill a client for… but with the holidays coming, let’s see how things work out. Expect this to be the most timely entry for this show, however – I at least want to finish off season two of Justice League first, which will give Young Justice some time to find its sea legs.

Arc Notes: This is why I don’t like covering up-to-the-minute stuff – there’s plenty of plot points that I’m sure will be touched upon in later episodes, but are vague for the moment.  The most significant was the establishment of the behind-the-scenes antagonists called “The Light.”  Also, Speedy walked away from the team in this initial episode, but publicity photos reveal that he’s going to be on the team eventually.

Debuting Characters: It’s my understanding that Aqualad was created for this show, but apparently he’s also spinning out of Brightest Day in some form, albeit with a different origin (I’m not reading the series).  Virtually every other character has appeared in animated form at some point.

A couple of characters who were background elements at best in the traditional DCAU had more significant roles here: the Jack Kirby-created Guardian (wearing an outfit more reminiscent of Grant Morrison’s Manhattan Guardian take on the character in Seven Soldiers – high recommendations on that one, by the way) and Dr. Desmond, who was the first Blockbuster.  His close resemblance to The Hulk was always pointed out, and he appeared in a few scenes in JLU.

(He should be distinguished from his brother, the second Blockbuster, who was the main antagonist in Chuck Dixon’s run on Nightwing in the 90s.)

Dubbilex is another Kirby creation, but this time from his return to DC in the 1970s. Superboy, Dubbilex, Cadmus and the Guardian were all tied together by the 1990s Superman writing crew around the time of The Death of Superman, which this pilot takes many of its cues from.

Background: Since just about all the characters are familiar, a few words about the name this series has taken up.

Through no real intent on their part, DC wound up creating a “second generation” of sidekicks in the early 1990s.  As noted above, the Death of Superman storyline gave the world a new Superboy.  A new Robin, Tim Drake, had revived the character in the early 1990s and was the lead of one of DC’s bigger books at the time.  And Mark Waid introduced… well, kind of an ‘anti-sidekick’ for Wally West in the form of Impulse, a kid speedster with an attention span that was measured in milliseconds.  And in the midst of a mostly forgettable Wonder Woman run, John Byrne gave the world a new Wonder Girl.  And in the pages of Impulse’s own title, he ran afoul of another female teen hero named Arrowette, a heroine without a connection to Green Arrow and company but rather a girl struggling under the influence of the DCU version of a crazy stage mom.

The building of new characters to a critical mass did not go unnoticed by DC editorial.  Although Young Justice is commonly thought of as a Peter David book, he wasn’t the team’s first writer.  Former Spider-Man writer Todd Dezago was called into a JLA meeting by editor Eddie Breganza and presented with a typical Grant Morrison (then in the midst of his legendary JLA run) story concept: that the JLA would be taken out of action and it would be left to the young heroes to save the world.  The idea eventually manifested itself as the graphic novel JLA: World Without Grown-Ups.  The story, by Dezago with art from Mike McKone and Humberto Ramos, was successful enough to lead to another one-shot, Young Justice: The Secret.  When that worked, DC greenlit a regular Young Justice series.

But when it hit newsstands, it wasn’t Dezago writing – he had been replaced by Peter David as a result of an internal conflict. We’ll cover the tumultuous history of Young Justice itself in the next review.

Thoughts on the Episodes:

I always admire when a television show starts off in media res – I don’t believe that a viewer needs to be spoon-fed every detail.  DC animated series haven’t really settled on any one approach for their pilots; Baatman TAS and Teen Titans both tossed the viewer into the action without much in the way of background material. On the other hand, Superman, Static Shock and Batman Beyond made their debuts with traditional multi-part origin storylines. Young Justice makes the choice to put the viewer in into the episode headfirst and let them catch up to the story.  While it doesn’t really work for the first ten minutes, the fact that the remaining 30 minutes are essentially devoted to an excellent action sequence that, in combination with the high production values, makes this the best pilot in the history of DC Animation.

The first ten minutes bear discussion, because they are an awkward sequence that doesn’t paint the show in the best light.  After opening with a series of attacks by various cold-based villains (a plot point that is noted, but not followed up on) to establish the major players, the action transfers to the Hall of Justice.   The action inside the hall isn’t very good, though, as it devolves into a clichéd “we’re ready / no you’re not” conversation.  It doesn’t really make sense, and it’s made even more painful that most of the points are delivered by a petulant Speedy.  His argument at least feeds the viewer some interesting information (the Hall is a front for teleporters to the Watchtower, as in Brad Meltzer’s JLA), but the main point is to take Speedy out of the story.  The entire scene is something of a muddle to get through, and even watching it the second time around while writing this review it still wasn’t engrossing.  I do give the producers credit for not pulling out the trick of Speedy returning to the team to bail them out at the end; the longer he stays away, the longer tension will build for his eventual return.

Once that scene is out of the way, the meat of the story begins while the remaining sidekicks break into Cadmus.  The episode does a good job of holding off on the reveal of what’s going on in Cadmus for a couple of minutes, (although frankly Cadmus has been used as scientific villains for so long in animated form that it’s fairly easy to know what’s coming).  The first half builds up to the big reveal of the brainwashed Superboy, whose turn against Cadmus takes up most of the running time of the rest of the story.  Superboy is written as much more brutal than normal for someone with the “S”-shield on their chest, with a fighting style so aggressive that the other heroes are forced to call him off at one point.  With Superman somewhat unfairly having a reputation as a more passive character, turning his clone into someone with the personality of JL’s Hawkgirl has the potential for interesting storytelling.  Superboy’s obviously going to be the “new to the world” character in this version, as well – that seems like a requirement for any teen team story (cf. Starfire from Teen Titans).  There’s also obvious something brewing with Superman having difficulty accepting a clone of himself, which will make for some interesting plotlines.

The characters all settle into their roles quite neatly – while, in theory, Aqualad is team leader, Robin drives more of the action.  The nature of the villains means that he doesn’t do a lot of direct fighting – even before Blockbuster, most of the creatures are out of his league – but the script finds plenty of opportunities for him to do tech work.  Although this is Dick, it’s very much reminiscent of Tim’s role in Young Justice.  Kid Flash is, well, Wally West all the way through – humourous, slightly cocky, and as the last scene shows, a skirt-chaser.  It’s pretty easy to see him as the predecessor of his Justice League counterpart, which is a nice touch.  Aqualad is going to be the ultimate blank slate, a character with no preconceptions, and I suspect that how the show treats him is going to determine how the show does from a characterization standpoint since he’s going to be the one where the writers are ahead of every viewer.

Beyond the high quality of animation, the production design of the Cadmus creatures is excellent – they’re all suitably creepy, while sharing a global design similarity that you’d expect from a legion of clones.   What’s really noticeable in comparison to the old DCAU days is just how much better the productions are getting at co-ordinating the action scenes; there’s a kinetic level in this show that’s similar to that of Crisis on Two Earths, with each of the characters having distinctive styles.  Kid Flash’s, in particular, turns him into someone who’s rebounding off every surface to make attacks, which is a joy to watch at times.

The voice acting is generally solid, although both Aquaman and Superboy sound a little too old for their ages.

Going forward, I have concern about Batman using a group of teen heroes as the JLA’s black ops unit, but that’s balanced out by another Young Justice tribute of using the JLA’s original cave HQ as their staging areas.  And by getting the heroes out of costume right away, it’s obvious that this isn’t going to be another Teen Titans situation where there’s no secret identities in play – a definite improvement.

While I’ve seen better pilots, in terms of superhero animation this was about as good as it gets.  Here’s hoping that the solid creative team behind this show (showrunner Greg Weisman working for DC Animation is the equivalent of Brad Bird moving to Pixar) means that it’ll keep getting better; if it does, this will be the DCAU successor we’ve been waiting for since Justice League took its final bow.

Grade: B+.  I want to leave a little bit of room in the hopes that this will get even better with time, but this was a great start for the series.

Random Thoughts:

• Your Justice League roster as of episode one, complete with code numbers:
  • Superman (01)
  • Batman (02)
  • Aquaman (06)
  • Flash (04)
  • Green Arroow (08)
  • Wonder Woman (who obviously had minimal design put into her look)
  • Black Canary
  • Hal Jordan
  • Jon Stewart (huh. Thought he’d been completely eliminated from the animated side of things after his removal from CO2E)
  • Captain Marvel
  • Zatara
  • J’onn J’onzz (07)
  • Captain Atom
  • Hawkman (wearing what looks like a cross between the traditional outfit and the Hawkworld one, which I liked a lot)
  • Hawk(girl/woman)
  • Red Tornado (16)
• On the subject of the code numbers – which were a cute touch – my guess is Wonder Woman’s 03 and Hal is 05.
• Speaking of Hal, it looks like the League has the awkward “double GL” structure from Dwayne McDuffie’s JLA run.
• Hopefully they keep up with the location cards – saves me a lot of work in figuring out which city the action is taking place in.
• Since Zatara’s never really been featured as anything more than a plot device in the comics, my assumption is that he’s going to be knocked off at some point, clearing the way for Zatanna to come into the series.  The full team doesn’t really have a magic-based character (Green Lantern sort of serves that role most of the time, at least in terms of visual impact), although another YJ member would breach the usual seven-member limit.
• One goof that I noticed: project Kr started on the 52nd sublevel, but had moved up to higher in the building by the time the team escaped.
• My guess on the true identities of “The Light”? I’ll go off the beaten path (that it’s Luthor and his cronies) and say that the name isn’t a swerve… after all, what’s a teen team that doesn’t fight Doctor Light?

Line of the Episode: “No, Speedy’s Green Arrow’s sidekick!” “Well, that makes no sense.”

(Kid) Flash Line of the Episode:  (nice to see that Wally’s going to be the comedic heart of yet another team) “He doesn’t like to be called an it.”

Next Justice League: I swear, I’m going to get drunk enough to be able to sit through “Secret Society” one of these days.

Next Young Justice: Cartoon Network indicates that the series will start airing regularly in January.

In order:

• Spoilerman… er, Superman, complete with mature Starro parasite, from “The Call“
• A Barry Allen-style Flash (the belt is horizontal, rather than two diagonal bolts merging, which is sually a sign that it’s Barry). This is the only figure of the five that doesn’t have an in-universe equivalent, but Barry does show up in JLU Season 3.
• Power Ring. While a true “evil John” never appeared in animated form, my guess is that this is based off the original character model for Power Ring from Crisis on Two Earths, when that was set to star the DCAU GL and not Hal Jordan.
• Batman Beyond. No explanation needed, aside from saying that it’s a bit closer to the animated model than the usual figures.
  • EDIT – an e-mailer pointed out to me that it’s possible this is an Epilogue-era Terry, which would be pretty cool if true.
• Mr. Terrific, complete with T-Spheres (which barely appeared in JLU, but he had a significant role as J’onn’s successor  in mission control).

Between that and the core JLA finally being completed in DCUC scale with the announcement of J’onn, it was a good announcement.

Written by: Robert Goodman
Story by: Paul Dini & Robert Goodman
Directed by: Atsuko Tanaka
Originally Aired: February 28, 1998
DVD: Batman: TAS, Volume 4

Summary: Robin becomes involved with a young girl, only to find that her father is hiding a dark secret.

Arc Notes: Clayface is captured by the authorities at the end of this episode; he eventually finds his way to crime boss Morgan Edge’s private collection at some point between this episode and Justice League.

Background:

I was passed a request for this episode, and since Clayface also plays a key role in “Secret Society,” this is as good a time as any to talk about him.

Clayface is an interesting case as a villain, as he’s got a longer history than all but a few Batman villains. In fact, the famous Detective Comics #40 – which technically features the first appearance of The Joker on its cover – actually boasts a Clayface story within. The original Clayface, Basil Karlo, was an actor upset at a remake of his most famous horror movie who put on a mask and went on a murder spree before being stopped by Batman.

The Clayface name was revived in the sci-fi influenced 1950s. The new Clayface, Matt Hagen, became one of Batman’s first regular foes to boast a set of super-powers. Hagen’s origin in the comics was reminiscent of Eclipso, in that he was an explorer who was given vast shape-shifting powers and resiliency by exposure to “radioactive protoplasm,” Originally, he was limited in his use of the Clayface powers, but eventually turned into a permanent version. Hagan was Clayface for a number of years, until he was killed in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

There have been a number of other Clayfaces over the years (including a female version), but, against all odds, the “current” Clayface is once again Basil Karlo, who acquired Hagen’s powers and turned into kind of an “Ultimate” Clayface. Ironically, the DCAU Clayface is the other way around, as Matt Hagan was an actor before being exposed to chemicals and transforming into Clayface.

(Clayface was one of the few things The Batman did right during its troublesome first season, but I’m not going to delve too deeply into that.)

Thoughts on the Episode:

The DCAU’s team longstanding issues with the very idea of Robin are well-documented (they took a page out of O’Neil / Adams Batman by sending Dick off to college in the early episodes of BTAS, but when the new episodes started that decision was reversed, as Tim Drake was brought in as the new Robin, albeit with a character based more on post-Crisis Jason Todd than Tim’s “athletic fanboy made good” origin. This was Jason’s showcase episode, much like “Robin’s Reckoning” was for Dick, and what’s most impressive is that it largely lives up to that very high standard.

At its heart, this story is a classic tragedy, with Tim falling for a girl who he can’t be involved with. The setup is a good example of the series leveraging its own continuity to create an interesting situation, as while Clayface had been off screen for quite some time it was obvious that his ‘death’ was ambiguous enough to leave the door open to bring him back. While the actual plot certainly isn’t the most complicated ever presented in 22 minutes, it does create a great amount of pathos for Annie before reaching the climax. The story isn’t high on action, but it does build very well, and there’s a lot of nice thematic and character work that effectively carries the episode in lieu of any spectacular combat sequences.

One of the bigger issues in the comic world recently has been the conflict between Batman’s trust issues and his desire to build a family around him. This episode builds off that, as we see that Bruce isn’t entirely trusting of Tim even though he’s been with him for a while. While the actual conflict doesn’t remain for too long – Tim exhibits some independence, but doesn’t actually rebel like Dick did in “Robin’s Reckoning ” – Tim’s more rebellious nature is a fundamental point of this episode. It’s part of what makes it work; from what we know of Dick, this story would have seemed a bit wrong for him. The script is clearly built around Tim, and that’s what makes it so good.

The other underlying theme of this episode is substantially heavier, as it delves into issues of child abuse – the early Clayface confrontations are positively dripping with subtext in that regard, while we also have to question Batman’s motives regarding putting a child in danger as he does with Tim. In fact, Tim attributes his interest in Annie partially to his bad treatment at the hands of his own father (which was chronicled in “Sins of the Father.”) While it may be considered exploitative to put such obviously innocent characters as Tim and Annie in a heavy situation such as this, the story largely treats the subject with an appropriate amount of deference.

One last very positive note about this episode: it takes great care to not tip its hand regarding the revelation of Clayface as the villain. When originally watching this episode, I had “Growing Pains” pegged as a Poison Ivy episode (my mistake; they’d already done something similar with Ivy in “House and Garden”). Instead, the hints are nicely obscured, especially with Robin going out of his way to refer to the evidence Batman collects as ‘dirt’ rather than ‘clay.’

While “Growing Pains”  probably could stand to have a bit more narrative in the chase-heavy first half, it’s a very effective story overall.

Grade: A-. A very solid characterization episode for Tim, with a good twist and some nice animation.

Random Thoughts:

• This is a very clear example of inter-episode continuity, as it directly traces back to Clayface’s previous appearance in “Mudslide.” While the producers liked him, he was allegedly too expensive to animate on a regular basis in his original form.
  • Well, technically “Holiday Knights” aired first, but since Tim’s origin story actually aired after that, it’s safe to say that the Christmas episode just aired out of order.
• By this point, don’t you think mooks like the biker gang would know about Robin instead of just mocking him for being dressed in a costume? The whole “urban legend” thing only gets one so far.
• Speaking of which, the DCAU wiki assumes that the bikers are going to rape Annie, which is… an interesting interpretation.

Line of the Episode: “Glad my Barbara is past her wild years.” Although you need Batman raising the People’s Eyebrow to really complete the effect.

Next Side Story: Well, the Christmas Side Stories are already done, so in preparation for “Wild Cards” it’s time for Harley-fest 2010! Kicking things off will be “Harelequinade”, followed by “Mad Love.”

Next Time: Explore how an episode tries to be significant and falls flat on its face, via “Secret Society.”

One area where Marvel’s always had a massive, massive edge on DC was in the fighting game department. Marvel had the good fortune to have their characters licensed to Capcom, who produced first the X-Men fighter (complete with voices from the animated series) and later the vs. series (which is apparently getting revived fairly soon). DC, on the other hand…

Well, at one point in time seeing the Sunsoft logo would be a good thing, but they were in their fading days here, as evidenced by Aero’s presence. They actually had little to do with this game; my guess is that they still had some residual rights to the DC characters that weren’t Batman (who’d moved to Konami in the SNES era, as you’ll recall). However, the game was published by Acclaim (alternately known as Ack!Lame or Akkrap given their reputation), which was a bad sign. Hm, wonder who actually made it…

Huh. Yes, it’s THAT Blizzard. Diablo. Starcraft. The world’s most profitable glorified chatroom. Well, everyone has to start somewhere….

The game is broken down into a story mode and “battle mode”, but fundamentally there’s no difference between the two other than that you’re restricted from using the three villains in story mode and the order’s pre-defined.

The roster features six JLA members, although since this was developed between the Death and Return of Superman storyline (Supes is rocking the super-mullet) and Morrison’s JLA revival, it’s a bit of a weird mix. Anyway, the big three are the obvious choices for a game like this, so they’re in.

You have no idea how long it took to get these three shots, since the intro sequence locks up on SNES9x more times than not. Anyway, Flash is obvious, and it’s Wally sporting his early-90s look with the white eyeshields. Aquaman’s in his last vestiges of pre-Peter David revival, and… wait, Green Arrow? I don’t remember Ollie having been a significant JLA member around this time; not sure why he’s here instead of the more obvious pick of Green Lantern.

The villains don’t get character intros, but suffice it to say that they’re Cheetah (seemingly only in the game for her butt-flashing victory pose), Despero (in the armour sported by his DCUC and Total Justice figures) and, naturally, Darkseid.

The game is actually kind of a decent fighter; the animation quality is above average for an SNES game, although it’s certainly not as fluid as something like Street Fighter II. Blizzard did at least take the time to make the heroes play a little bit like their actual counterparts; for example, Superman has his full slate of powers, but since he’s not a skilled fighter he doesn’t have any kicks.

Flash is probably the easiest fighter to get into the game with, as he has a E.Honda-esque button-mashing punch flurry that’s enough to win most fights by itself if it lands. Other powers include a teleport and a projectile whirlwind. He also has one of my all-time favourite fighting game attacks – a dragon punch, but one that starts off with a dash. This thing lands for about four hits sometimes and takes up almost half the screen. I think part of the reason I have rose-coloured glasses regarding this game is that Wally’s so comically overpowered.

For this review, I ran through the game as Wonder Woman, and she’s also pretty fun to play as. While lacking a projectile of her own, she has a projectile block using her bracelets. Since this game was released around the height of Mortal Kombat mania, her lasso plays just like Scorpion’s, except you don’t get to choose what attack follows. She also can fly (although she only has one attack from that position, unlike Superman) and has a neat dashing kick that rolls forward into a second attack that covers a lot of space. She’s a fun character to play as, especially once you start chaining her attacks together. The projectile shield works better in theory than in practice, however; it took me a long time to get that screenshot of her turning back the tornado.

The other characters aren’t as much fun as Wonder Woman and Wally, but their influences are clear. Batman relies on Batarangs and a very useless “smoke bomb” attack that takes about two seconds from your first clue to actual execution; he’s a major disappointment (and if anyone was going to have a Scorpion-like attack, you’d think it would be him). Aquaman is the powerhouse, justly so, while Green Arrow is obviously heavily reliant on various projectiles (he shares a freezing attack with Superman, another sign of the MK influence). Cheetah is a bit of a Blanka clone, very hard to get close to, and she has that neat ground-and-scratch animation. Despero’s so forgettable that I didn’t even get a screencap of him, but he’s good at countering flyers. And Darkseid obviously takes after M. Bison, complete with double-foot-stomp attack.

The game as a whole has taken, frankly a bit too much slack over the years; sure, the story mode – featuring the heroes trying to gain revenge on Darkseid for his destruction of a… military base… is horrible, but the graphics are generally very good (look at the detail in Cheetah’s), the music’s genericized versions of the more famous themes of the various characters,  and the pace of the action isn’t too bad. The biggest problem lies with the AI, which seems to jump from passive punching bag to special spamming wrecking machine with a small change in difficulty level. And, of course, the roster is very limited; even the first Street Fighter had more characters, albeit with only eight of them playable.

But if you can get past the gameplay limitations (it does feel stiff at times, and the balance isn’t great), the poor voice work, of the premise and the very fact that Superman could be beaten, even up, by Green Arrow in a fight, then it’s an interesting experience. Not the best licensed fighter on the SNES by a long shot, but given the slim pickings for DC fans, it’s either this or figure out how , and I’ve got better things to do with my time than that. Blizzard fans might find it interesting to see where their beloved studio started. For people who don’t get a bit of a thrill just by being able to play as Batman, though, there’s obviously much better fighting games on the SNES.

But if you’re reading this site, I suspect I know where your loyalties on that question lie already.

(That said, the MUGEN versions of DC characters that use their Amalgam characters in specials? Pretty awesome.)

Story by John Semper Jr., Ernie Altbacker
Teleplay by John Ridley
Directed by: Another weird uncredited director
Originally Aired: May 3rd, 2003
DVD: (grumbling)

Summary: Toyman arrives in Dakota on the trail of an old friend, but it turns out that they’re conspiring to threaten Static’s girlfriend.

Arc Notes: Static’s first meeting with Superman. Some loose ends are tied up from Toyman’s second S:TAS appearance, “Obsession.”

Guest Stars: Superman

Villains: Toyman, Darcy

Background:

This one’s a bit timely, as I’m writing the review after having flipped to Cleveland vs. Boston in the NBA playoffs (I’m still having a hard time watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs after my beloved Kings were eliminated). It turns out, the original idea for the episode was for this to feature the return of (current Cavs pivot) Shaquille O’Neal to the series, as series co-writer John Semper explains:

It was the usual combination of happenstance and circumstance – Alan Burnett wanted to have Shaquille O’Neal come on as a guest star again… I thought it would be fun to bring in Superman and have Shaq and Superman meet for the first time. That would make it a bit of history, since Shaq is such a Superman fan. This took a bit of convincing on my part, but finally Burnett seemed okay with the idea.

John Semper, interview with The World’s Finest, May 1, 2003.

However, the life of an NBA Superstar made a hookup impossible, although it wasn’t for a lack of trying:

We could never connect up with Shaq. No matter how hard we tried, he was totally unreachable during his off season. The most ironic thing was when he unexpectedly turned up at the Tower Records right next to where Warner’s Animation is located. He was buying CDs, just like any other customer. Somebody in our studio who was over there spotted him, came back and told Burnett. Burnett went racing over to see if he could find him, but Shaq had left before he got there. So, again, no Shaq.

John Semper, ibid.

After the success of the two Batman episodes, however, the Static Shock team decided to go ahead with a non-Shaq Superman appearance, and therefore tried to settle on a villain.

We’d already used Braniac in the Justice League two-parter, so he was out. The brilliant Paul Dini, whose office is right next to Burnett’s, popped in for a visit and we asked him for suggestions. He recommended Toyman. The rest is history.

John Semper, ibid.

Thoughts on the Episode:

The reason a lot of people don’t like Superman is that they think he behaves exactly like he did in this episode. This is the very definition of the “World’s Biggest Boy Scout” version of the character that annoys people so much, and watching this episode it’s easy to see why.

The shame is that this is actually a solid enough plot, following up on the S:TAS episode “Obsession.” That one (another one of my favourite non-Darkseid S:TAS stories) saw Toyman obsessed with one of Lana Lang’s models, who turned out to be one of his own creations. It was another example of the awesome creep factor of the DCAU version of Toyman, and the “living doll”, Darcy, was a nice addition to his background. Here, Darcy is brought back (in a nice plot twist that makes you say “oh, that makes sense” once you figure it out), but it’s a pretty generic body-switching plotline that’s largely comprised of some paint-by-numbers action sequences with a bit of interaction between Superman and Static in the middle.

The good plot work with Darcy is tempered somewhat by the rather poor characterization given to Toyman… or, more specifically, the bad vocal direction. Instead of the creepy voice work common in S:TAS, he just seems rather generic here, more like the Super Friends version. The sexual tension between him and Darcy is almost entirely absent; understandable, since Static Shock is a younger-skewing show, but still removing an important part of Toyman’s character.

Bruce Wayne made some appearances when Batman showed up on Static Shock, so logically Clark Kent should make an appearance along with Superman, and that presents the best part of the episode. Clark still isn’t much of a journalist, but he does get to figure out what’s going on with Virgil’s teacher and provoke a funny befuddled denial from Virgil and Gear. Plus, Clark finally gets a new suit after about five years.

While Clark doesn’t come off too badly, Superman’s just terribly written in this episode. Even though the Justice League producers acknowledged that their first-season dialogue for him was pretty awful, it was never this offensively bland. Superman just has no edge to him, and the episode as a whole suffers for it. To the episode’s credit, it does at least make a concerted effort to ensure that Static’s the focus rather than Superman, but the way Superman’s written in this one, a wet paper bag would be a more appealing co-star.

Inasmuch as the concept was decent, this one was just a miserable failure of execution.

Grade: D. Ugh. Just a bad, bad episode, but at least they tried to leverage an old storyline into something new. Don’t go out of your way to watch it.

Random Thoughts:

• Every human has an electrical aura? Kryptonians too, I guess.
  • In fairness, Superman’s “aura” has been established for a long time; it’s how he gets his invulnerability, as well as his vulnerability to magic and Kryptonite.
• I think this is the only time that DCAU Superman sports comic-accurate blue eyes.
• We’ll venture back to Static Shock for one more episode at the conclusion of the first season of JLU.

Line of the Episode: Yeah, like I’m going to give any of the limp dialogue in this episode that kind of credit.

Next Justice League: Grodd’s first attempt to assemble a team doesn’t go well at all in “Secret Society.”

Next Time: I’ve got a request, so it’s back to B:TAS.

Written by Dwayne McDuffie
Directed by Butch Lukic
Originally Aired: November 29, 2003
DVD: Justice League, the Complete Series

Summary: Superman is apparently killed, and while the League mourns his loss he has to team up with Vandal Savage to fight killer cockroaches.

Arc Notes: Aquaman is established as the unofficial “eighth member” of the team (explaining his presence at some sessions of the “inner council” of JLU); Vandal Savage’s final appearance; Batman is confirmed to only have part-time membership status.

Featured Characters: Superman, Vandal Savage (not as a bad guy)

Other Team Members: full roster, plus Lobo forcibly joins the Justice League for the story.

Other Villains: Metallo, Toyman, Livewire, Weather Wizard, Kalibak

Returning Characters: Cameo-fest! Here’s the list:

• Katma Tui and Kilowog’s first appearances since “Hearts and Minds”;
• Tomar Re and Lavox’s first appearances since “In Blackes Night”;
• Kalibak, Lightray and Orion’s first appearance since “Twilight”;
• Second episode in a row to have Dr. Fate, Aquaman and their spouses on-screen;
• First appearance of Hippolyta, Copperhead and Star Sapphire since “Fury”;
• First appearance of Luthor since his pardon at the end of “A Better World.”
• First appearance of Deadshot since “The Enemy Below”

Debuting Characters: Another bunch:

• First JL appearance of the members of the Revenge Squad save Kalibak, Kyle Rayner, Alfred, Bibbo, Maggie Sawyer, Perry White, Lana Lang, Volcana, and the Kents;
• First appearance of the “real” Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen in JL (an alternate Lois appeared in “A Better World”, while Jimmy appeared in a dream sequence in “Only a Dream.”.
• First mention of Dr. Ray Palmer, who’ll turn up in his heroic identity in JLU.

Background:

The funny part about The Death of Superman was that while the actual story itself was well-done, the combination of the news cycle and the Superman books’ then-weekly publishing schedule meant that DC was churning out a lot of material right after Superman #75 hit stands. While most false “deaths” in comics tend to last for a year’s worth of stories or so – if you’re lucky – for Superman at the time, twelve issues would get burned through in a little under three months. The writers therefore stretched the follow-up storyline, “Funeral for a Friend”, out across eight issues before beginning the next phase of the storyline, which would eventually lead to Superman’s return.

The funeral issues themselves are generally regarded as the best issues of the ongoing storyline, as they wind up telling a very effective storyline of how people deal with the death of both a public figure and someone close to them, with the added undercurrent of how Lois deals with Clark’s apparent death without being able to acknowledge that her fiancée and Superman were the same man. It’s a testament to how wrapped up I was in this storyline that, even without thinking, I was able to remember which covers I wanted to include in this piece, but also the order the books appeared in. This was some fine comic book soap opera storytelling.

(The cover of the first issue of the storyline is one of my favourites of all time. It’s a really powerful image.)

Onto some more relevant business, there’s a lot of cameos in this episode, most of which we’ve talked about before. But the driving plot of the first episode – beyond Lobo’s appearance – is the grouping of Superman Villains into what’s colloquially known as the “Superman Revenge Squad”, a name that originates in 1962. Originally a group of WWII-era alien villains who teamed up to take on Superboy, they were revamped in the post-death era into a grouping of Superman’s more prominent foes who’d gained prominence after the revamp: Morgan Edge, Maxima (who was actually a JLA member during the “Doomsday” storyline and the immediate aftermath), Barrage, Riot and Anomaly.

The animated version is a completely different cast:

• Toyman, who does the most damage in these episodes, first appeared in 1943 as one of Superman’s “fat man in a suit” brigade of villains. DC’s tried to revamp him multiple times over the years, but Timm et al. really hit one out of the park with his creepy animated version, which plays more like a Batman villain than anything else. Confession time: I really liked the mecha-obsessed Japanese teenager Toyman. He’s apparently shown up on Smallville, but well after I stopped watching the show.
• Metallo, who was technically the first S:TAS villain, although back then he was plain old John Corben. Aside from Luthor, he’s one of the most frequent Superman antagonists. Metallo is another recent Smallville debutee, the poor guy.
• Livewire, S:TAS’ answer to Harley Quinn (or Lock-Up and Renee Montoya), a character who emigrated from the animated series into the comics. Sadly, her character background’s a lot more dated than others of her ilk, as the shock jock thing really makes her seem dated. However, she’s a great visual character and unique enough that she’s shown up on Smallville as well.
• Weather Wizard, whose presence here seems largely to provide some atmosphere during the fights by ensuring it’s raining.
• Kalibak, who we’ve also met before.

Thoughts on the Episode:

This one’s certainly a rivet gun episode, but between the sheer volume of cameos (which wouldn’t be touched again until Justice League) and a near-perfect second half, it works out better than an episode lacking a continuous narrative really should.

Beyond the weird villain grouping, the plot of the first half of the episode wasn’t as bad as I recalled from when I originally saw this episode. I recall being very disappointed that they’d burned the Superman “death” storyline on such a mundane set of villains and circumstances, seemingly simply to work in a comedic Lobo appearance at the expense of real character work and emotion. Part of that still remains; there could be more darkness and emotional punch in the first half, especially as the other heroes kind of get the short end of the stick in the mourning aspect. On the other hand, seeing the episode play out in full length really makes the first half seem more palpable, as the episode is more about Superman’s legacy, and how he’s inspiring in both powered (first half, albeit off-screen) and non-powered (second half) forms.

With that context, the first half of the story makes a lot more sense – by not really dealing with the people who know the secret, the story focuses on Superman’s influence on people who knew him solely as his superheroic “mask” and not as Clark. The exception to this is Batman, who of course has a bit more insight into Superman’s human side and therefore takes it, as Wonder Woman points out, harder than anyone else as a result (he is a bit of a jerk for not showing up at the funeral, but then again he was probably still avoiding Lois). Batman’s denial also allows for the nice bonus of Alfred getting a full scene for the first time in JL; of course, he’d play a far more significant role in the season finale.

Although the first half is quite good, the second half of the storyline is one of the finest single episodes the DCAU team’s ever put together. The first few minutes, with Superman exploring the dead earth largely in the absence of  dialogue (and accompanied by a great, epic score) is slightly reminiscent of Wall-E, although the team was probably going for more of a Kamandi feel. After the first half of the episode was weakly supportive of Superman by having his friends talk about how great he was while having powers, this half is about showing that Superman is awesome even though he doesn’t have powers. Superman’s survival instincts are never really played up in other stories, but by forcing him to improvise transportation and weaponry, he comes across as much more self-reliant. Then it gets taken to a whole other level when he fights off the cats and not only wins, but eats the leader and fashions a cape and shirt from his hide.

The introduction of Vandal Savage is done well; while a relatively silent first ten minutes is certainly a great change, Superman did need someone to talk to and a reformed Savage makes for a great choice. He was always presented as a civilized caveman, but this appearance emphasizes the civility, finally allowing him the chance to embrace the last component of the Bond Villain Playbook by sitting down to a quiet dinner with an enemy while showing off his headquarters. Even thought Superman and Savage don’t share much of a history, the pairing works, with Savage’s gleefully over-the-top role playing off Superman well. It’s a shame that after such a tremendous episode Savage was never used again, but then it’s not really possible to top the sending off he received here.

Although the in-story ending is quite good, the actual ending shown on screen is poignant and touching: Savage makes his peace with his actions, and he sees how humanity – the race that he was the last surviving member of for centuries if not millenia – will, in spite of his own misguided efforts, endure. It’s a great coda, once again largely told without dialogue. Not that McDuffie doesn’t get credit for writing the scene, but the restraint used in this episode is admirable.

This is another episode that probably deserved to be longer; the fight that ends with Superman’s apparent “death” didn’t really get built up at all, and the false death probably should have been an episode break in and of itself. Additionally, the funeral certainly could have stood to have some more substance to it. Of course, the old mantra of better to have too much plot than too little certainly holds true here.

Grade: B+. Struggles a bit too much in the first half before the great second part.

Random Thoughts:

• The time machine was of course first seen in “The Savage Time”, Part 1. It apparently has the same “can’t cross your own subjective timeline” restriction as, say, the TARDIS.
• Superman’s comlink is #02, presumably because Batman, as the designer of the Watchtower, is #01 in spite of his part-time status. Write your own Prisoner gag with that information.
• The JLA sport black armbands reminiscent of those that came with Superman #75, and which every hero sported during the Funeral storyline.
• Kyle still has his Hal Jordan-esque brown hair in this episode; the next time he’s seen in JLU, he has his comic-accurate black hair.
• No explanation is given as to why Kalibak’s just hanging out on Earth all of a sudden, since the last time he was seen was when he was fighting off Brainiac in “Twilight.” Then again, Darkseid is apparently dead at this point in time, so it’s not as though he’s got much direction in his life.
• Weather Wizard is also a curious choice, as he’s a Flash villain. He’d be in his proper place in the Flash-focused “Flash and Substance” in JLU, hanging out with the rest of the Rogues.
• Wonder Woman confirms Batman’s “part-time” status with the League, which clears up the continuity thread left hanging by the end of “The Call.” That episode noted that Bruce had never really been a League member, although it’s hard to get confused when Batman’s later shown to be grabbing meals in the Watchtower cafeteria and has his own quarters on Watchtower 2.
• I love how Aquaman and Mera are talking with Fate and Inza. It looks like they’re planning on grabbing something to eat after the funeral since Mera presumably found a babysitter for the evening and wants to have some fun on her first free night in forever.
• Savage’s line about buying the DVD of Superman’s funeral was probably a dig at DC’s merchandising frenzy in the aftermath of the original death storyline.
• Interesting how GL, and not Wonder Woman or J’onn, was the hardest for Savage to kill. Then again, GL probably was the member most directly adversarial to Savage in prior appearances.
• The first couple notes of the B:TAS theme were normally used sparingly, but here they’re tossed out for Batman smacking down Copperhead. You know, the guy Hawkgirl got to verbally tap out in his last appearance by flying really high.
• Hawkgirl’s “home base” of the Grand Canyon is reminiscent of the first appearance of the most recent comic version, Kendra Saunders, in the first issue of JSA v1.
• What an awesome line read from Dana Delaney on Lois’ venting at Luthor.
• It seems for all the world that there’s a foley effect missing as Lobo rips apart the Watchtower.
• Flash riding Lobo’s bike cracks me up every time.
• Superman’s line about a bail jumper makes me think a Lobo series, as kind of a sci-fi Dog the Bounty Hunter, would work.

Line of the Episode: “True, but that doesn’t mean I’m not good company. Say… do you want to come over to my house?”

Runner-up: “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you could’ve taken Batman, either.” Superman knows that (say it with me) Batman always wins.

Flash Line of the Episode: “There are so many reasons why that shouldn’t have worked.” How that didn’t turn into a line about Flash staring at Diana’s butt I’ll never know, because the animators sure drew it that way.

Next Justice League: Into every blog a little crap must fall. I guess I have to recap the worst episode of the second season by a galactic  mile, “The Secret Society,” which is appalling in its anti-continuity.

Next Time: Toyman makes a guest appearance on Static Shock in “Toys in the Hood.” (Assuming it’s still up on Youtube, of course.)