Justice League, Season 1 Premiere: Secret Origins
I grew up with Batman: the Animated Series. It was the cartoon of my childhood, barring perhaps the exception of Pokemon. And a couple of years after Batman, the cartoon series formed a movie, first. Batman and Superman. Which I own a VCD of, and probably watched at least two dozen times already. And then came Justice League, which brought together not only Batman and Superman, but also all the other big-name superheroes from DC Comics. It was the first successful long-running attempt at having a Justice League cartoon on air after SuperFriends, which is mostly remembered now for being... well, being SuperFriends.
A while back I had this poll on the site asking viewers to vote which superhero cartoon TV show they would rather have me review. Teen Titans initially took the lead by a huge margin, but when the Justice League trailer was released in July, Justice League, which has consistently beaten the others for second place, gradually creeped up in the numbers until it firmly beat out Teen Titans as first place. I think I will still do reviews of the Teen Titans cartoon in the future, but for now their predecessors, the Justice League, takes center stage.
See, what makes up the Justice League? It's a group formed out of the most powerful, most popular and most iconic of DC Comics' retinue of literally hundreds of superheroes. Traditionally comprised of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman (dubbed the DC Trinity), Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter, plus many, many other supporting characters that go in and out of the league. Modern, New-52 (DC's rebooted continuity) inspired adaptations like the animated and live-action movies tend to swap out Aquaman and Martian Manhunter out for Cyborg and
So, this first episode... is actually a small mini-movie, spanning the length of three traditional episodes. And as far as things go, it's... actually not that good of an introduction episode. Other attempts at introducing all DC superheroes at once -- the animated movies Justice League: War and The New Frontier respectively -- actually do a far better job at giving all seven of their characters a proper introduction. Not so for Secret Origins, the first three-parter movie for this movie.
Ironically, as a huge fan of the series, I've actually never watched the first episodes that started it all. Funny, huh?
Yes, Batman and Superman hardly needed introductions. They have four and three seasons' worth of cartoon adventuring under their belt at this point, so going through the whole origin story spiel would not work that well here, though the show does an admirable usage of them as the initial point of view characters. After the short prologue with the astronauts on Mars, we have Batman going around doing Batman things as he investigates a science installation that has apparently been taken over by shape-shifting aliens, and while Batman does put up a good fight, Superman ends up showing up and giving Batman a hand, but the aliens manage to take out Superman and blow up the giant satellite dish before falling down in a horribly grotesque pile of limbs and organs before reforming and running away. Sometimes I am surprised by how much violence the TAS crew manage to get away with as long as they're not done on humans. It's a nice little set-up showing that, yeah, not even Batman and Superman can take care of all the threats in the world, especially threats that come from outside the world. It's the same premise for the genesis of the Justice League in most incarnations. The powerful alien Starro in the very first Justice League comic, Darkseid in New 52 incarnations, Steppenwolf in the upcoming live-action movie, the Center in New Frontier...
Here, our group of aliens will later be identified as the Imperium. Or the leader is, anyway.
We spend most of the first part of the three-parter focusing mostly on Superman and Batman, with a short cameo by Flash (who is the only one out of the other five to have appeared before in TAS continuity), and we are shown a bit of a setup for a more... global take as Superman redoes the plot of Superman IV and dismantles the world's supply of nuclear weapons and presents himself as Earth's guardian. It's a pretty ambitious thing which, while well-intentioned, was definitely wrong since Superman himself gets taken out during the course of the three-parter. Meanwhile, Batman's investigations find out that aliens have infiltrated Earth, and later on meteors carrying organic versions of H.G. Wells' martian tripods start slamming down all over the world. Batman, Superman and the American military are unable to take down the tripods, while Superman suddenly suffers from a psychedelic headache and buggers off. It's a bit of a 'darkest hour' feel as reporter Snapper Carr (who's going to be a bit of a constant presence in the earlier episodes) report about the world being invaded and whatnot, with its protectors gone.
At this point we finally get the 'secret origins' of... well, two of the main characters. We see Wonder Woman, or rather, Diana, in Themyscira having a short argument with her mother, and eventually making the choice of sneaking out to protect mankind. We aren't really given any context what Themyscira is other than the vague godliness and out-of-time-ness of the whole thing. Meanwhile, more directly relevant to the plot and far more explored by the episode is J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, who Superman and Batman discover is being held prisoner in a military facility... not by evil government agents, but by the shape-shifting aliens that have taken over those agents.
I do love how the show plays on the audience and Batman's perceived paranoia by having them see J'onn's original, less human alien form and go straight to 'alien invader!' causing J'onn to morph to his more human-like form which is, in hindsight, quite inspired by Superman's costume. A scuffle with a lot of alien starfighters and while Superman, Batman and J'onn gave a fair fight (with some pretty cool demonstration of J'onn's phasing abilities) they are outnumbered until the rest of the Justice League shows up -- Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl.
We're... not really sure who Green Lantern and Hawkgirl are at this point, beyond the quick justification that J'onn has summoned all of them there. Green Lantern gives a quick 'sorry, I was in space doing space cop things' justification for him being late, and we have met other Green Lanterns before in one episode of Superman: TAS... but apparently Superman and Batman know who the two of them were. I think the show would've definitely been better helped showing the two of them responding to the call somewhat? I dunno.
The Justice League, now assembled, listen to J'onn's talk about the history of Mars -- the invaders showed up and massacred all of J'onn's people, which we actually see on-screen as J'onn's group of rebels are shot down one by one, with J'onn himself being the final member who managed to unleash a chemical weapon that froze the invaders and sealed them underneath Mars, before the astronauts from the prologue unleashed them when they accidentally opened the tomb... and, oh, apparently Senator Carter, the astronaut-turned-senator who supported Superman in dismantling nuclear bombs, is one of these aliens.
It's a decent if generic alien invasion plot, and what follows is just a couple of action scenes that serve to highlight the newcomers' superpowers and personalities. We get Flash being super-reckles juxtaposed against Green Lantern's more serious, more strategic coach-like mind. We get Hawkgirl giving this speech about how only strength matters in her home planet of Thanagar. We get J'onn being absolutely stoic about everything yet still conveying emotion. We've got Batman being suspicious about everything yet not overdone because he still knows to pick his allies. But ultimately it's all kind of repetitive since it's just them fighting the same alien robots, and defeating them in a different way, and it honestly felt just like something that happens without much fanfare.
There's a bit between parts 2 and 3 where Batman is apparently 'killed' (or 'he's gone', because the show skirts the words 'kill' and 'dead') by the aliens, but honestly who buys this little plot twist? Batman shows up near the climax when the other Justice League members are brought before the Imperium, who is this hovering alien organ-blob, and does a basic 'reverse the polarity' thing on the aliens' machine, causing their attempt to blot out the sun to fail, and apparently the aliens melt in the sunlight.
We did get a very, very disturbing image of the Imperium attacking J'onn with tendrils that pierce his skin and go through his body, though, before the Justice League start laying waste and, um, literally murdering all the invaders by causing them to melt in the sunlight, including the Imperium and Senator Carter. It's pretty obvious that these aliens, faceless blobs as they may be, are sentient, so seeing the Justice League quite callously performing what can be called as an alien extermination felt honestly out of character. Not that they don't deserve it for what they did to J'onn's race and to Earth, but still.
At the end of this invasion, Batman launches this satellite base, the Watchtower, and suggests the formation of the Justice League though he removes himself from the group because he prefers to work solo. I do like the implicit trust between Batman and Superman in the three-parter, no doubt grown through their own crossover in the Batman/Superman movie, and how Batman trusts Superman to lead the League, trusting the group enough yet distancing himself from them. J'onn definitely gets the most focus among the newcomers, and can I say that I just love J'onn J'onzz? I always liked him, and seeing him in his cartoon form again in the first time after a decade... wow, it's amazing how likable J'onn is from the get go.
Slightly more disappointing are Flash and Wonder Woman. Hawkgirl and Green Lantern are quite well-defined and while the show doesn't give them much screentime in this episode, their personalities and powers are quickly shown to us. Flash is just... kind of annoying early on in the series, especially how he hits on every being with a vagina so much -- something that is thankfully toned down to playful levels in subsequent episodes, and I get that he's supposed to be the child-appeal character and the joking member of the group to lighten up the scenes. And, well, he certainly managed to do that. But the scripting and voice acting in these earlier episodes honestly don't work that well. And Wonder Woman, wow, I just don't know what happened to her. Her voice acting and lines are just utterly bad here, with the voice actress sounding like she's phoning it in. Thank goodness this is going to be a temporary situation.
Regardless, though, it's a serviceable start to the Justice League. Doubtless these characters will be explored at a later time, and we definitely need some answers to just who these new characters are and what their background are. I mean, I already know, but of course it's fun to re-waetch it again. It's definitely awesome just how much of the opening is devoted to J'onn J'onzz, exploring his backstory (which is kind of loosely adapted to get rid of the h'ronmeer curse and the white/green martian civil war, but still close enough), which is great because compared to the rest of the cast he's definitely the least well-known of the group to the non-comic-book reading audience.
All in all, a rather enjoyable episode.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- I won't spoil too much about the origin stories of the Justice League members because they will be the spotlight of some later episodes. But the Flash in this series is Wally West, the third Flash and successor to Barry Allen (due to Wally being the Flash in the comics at the point of the show's run). Green Lantern in this series is John Stewart, the fourth human Green Lantern, because, again, Hal Jordan was dead in the comics during the time of the show's run and the showrunners opted for Stewart as opposed to Kyle Rayner (who actually appeared before in an episode of Superman: TAS) to add some racial diversity. Hawkgirl in this incarnation is Shayera Hol, based on the Silver Age incarnation of the character, an alien from the planet Thanagar.
- While this is the first appearances of John Stewart and Hawkgirl, Superman apparently knew Green Lantern well enough to call him by his first name, and Batman recognizes Hawkgirl.
- Snapper Carr, the reporter that keeps showing up in this episode (and will show up in small roles for many, many future episodes) is the 'young and hip' sidekick to early incarnations of the Justice League of America. Snapper Carr was envisioned as a neutral, non-superhero mascot of the team that children can identify with... but ended up being relatively unpopular and turned into a treacherous villain in his final appearances in the Justice League comics. More modern incarnations have restored his heroic nature, albeit as a supporting character such as a scientist, an agent, and on occasion, a reporter and chronicler of the JLA.
- The Imperium is loosely based on the White Martians from the original comics. They are an army of shape-shifting aliens that massacred J'onn's Green Martian people, and are sealed within Mars until they are released, and the White Martians was the first threat fought by the revamped Justice League in the 90's comics with a relatively similar story structure where Batman is thought to be killed halfway through the story.. Though whereas the White Martians were actual residents of Mars in the comics, the Imperium here is explicitly said to have invaded from a different planet and stole the martians' shape-shifting power.
- The Imperium also references the classical science fiction writer H.G. Wells' novel, War of the Worlds, in the design of their tripods, which are all but identical to the martian tripods in that novel -- giant, three-legged vehicles with indestructible beams, and using a black smoke to blot out the sun. Like the martians in Wells' novel, the Imperium is defeated by something that is trivial to mankind -- sunlight in the Imperium's case, and bacteria in the martians' case.
- General Wells, one of the generals that had a relatively large speaking role in the three-parter, is almost assuredly a reference to H.G. Wells as well.
- Senator J. Allen Carter is a reference to the protagonist of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter novels, a man who is transported to (guess where) Mars. John Carter's story had been adapted into comic form by both Marvel and DC comics before.
- Superman disarming the world's nuclear weapons was the plot of the movie Superman IV: The Quest of Peace, though in here he actually goes around disarming the weapons instead of just putting them in a little bag and lobbing it into the sun.
- While the Green Lanterns in the TAS universe seem to have outgrown the classical weakness of the colour yellow, the gas that took out John Stewart was yellow in colour in possible reference to that fact.
- Senator Carter at one point calls the Justice League "Earth's mightiest heroes", an epithet commonly used by Marvels' super-hero team the Avengers.
- While forming the League, the Flash off-handedly makes a joke about calling themselves the Super Friends, a reference to the old cartoon adaptation of the Justice League.
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