Justice League, Season 1, Episodes 4-5: In Blackest Night
Ah, yes, Justice League's first season operates exclusively with two-parters, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, each individual story is afforded more runtime and feels more complete with a larger buildup. On the other hand, more filler-y episodes feel like a massive drag. We won't quite reach the largest bores for quite some time, though, so we have some fun here.
Also, we are starting to get into the formula of having a couple of the League members be absent in every story. In this two-parter, Batman and Wonder Woman are the ones absent. Batman's absence is expected considering last episode established him as being a mere part-timer, but Wonder Woman's absence is handwaved with her being on another mission. We'll get less and less explanations for the absence of these heroes, but let's just assume they're fighting their own supervillains in their downtime.
The story for this two-parter is a nice one, actually, and I think one of my favourite ones from the first season. We are first introduced to a weird tribunal of judges in space with lots of aliens, who send these Manhunter robots to Earth to apprehend Green Lantern, John Stewart (whose real name we first learn this episode). We have a short sequence showing John as a civilian just wandering his own neighbourhood, talking to some old friends and stopping a robbery -- notably, John doesn't seem really worried about his secret identity. There's a nice bit of racial portrayal in here without being overtly preachy about it.
Of course, the Manhunters arrive, and the Justice League (well, four of them -- Flash, J'onn, Hawkgirl and Superman) show up to fight them, which is actually pretty cool, but Green Lantern shows up and relinquishes himself without comment. The Leaguers follow suit to the planet Ajuris-5, and he's got zero approval rating there even from his fellow Green Lanterns. We witness the trial and a witness, Kanjar Ro, tell a story about how in pursuit of Kanjar Ro, Green Lantern's ring caused a volcanic reaction that caused a neighbouring planet, Ajuris-4, to explode, killing billions. Green Lantern himself pleads guilty to the cause.
It's a pretty cool setup, to be honest. John himself feels very despondent, and while Kanjar Ro's testimony is suspect -- he is a self-admitted smuggler, of course -- John himself is willing to accept punishment.
Of course, the other Leaguers want to prove his innocence. Flash makes a right fool out of himself trying to be Lantern's lawyer, and apparently the court of Ajuris-5 solved the 'lawyer problem' by executing the lawyers who represent someone who is sentenced to death. Now as much as this doesn't make sense, and as much as it doesn't make sense for Ajuris-5 not to put Kanjar Ro in trial as well for smuggling, it makes for some really entertaining moments. Meanwhile, Hawkgirl gets into a brawl with the alien Green Lanterns (without rings!) and absolutely owns the space cops until Kilowog realizes that, yeah, he needs to help John Stewart out.
Kilowog's character defense is heartwarming enough, but the judges actually raise some pretty good questions. Why do the Green Lanterns have such power with their destructive rings to combat good and evil? They are power left unchecked, having the right to dispense justice relatively arbitrarily, to which Kilowog has no defense. Of course, five Guardians of the Universe, the little Yoda-men who gave the Green Lanterns their power rings, show up... but not even their testimony can really reverse the judges' sentence.
While all this is taking place, Superman and J'onn (in fancy space clothing!) head off to investigate the ruins of Ajuris-4, and note that the moon is orbiting a planet that no longer exists, and finds a giant hologram device. A brief assassination attempt by Kanjar Ro, which is foiled by Hawkgirl, who catches up with them and they discover that, hey, apparently the Manhunters paid off the space pirate to frame John Stewart. They manage to quite dramatically save Green Lantern and Flash from the gas chamber by breaking it and then revealing that Ajuris-4 is still intact.
Now let's just ignore the plot holes of why no one from Ajuris-4 has bothered to contact Ajuris-5 or any of the other planets... just assume the Manhunters put some kind of communications scrambling device or whatever. Or why Kanjar Ro himself is not on trial. Let's just accept this fun little plotline exploring guilt and accountability and a pretty cool little frame-up plot.
The Guardians reveal that the Manhunters were the predecessors of the Green Lanterns, until they realized that the Manhunters' ability to judge between right and wrong was flawed without being living things and whatever... but apparently the Manhunters are intelligent enough to lead a rebellion, and we see them assaulting Oa, and we get a cool action sequence of the Justice Leaguers and the five alien Green Lanterns taking the fight to the Manhunters. J'onn J'onzz gets the coolest action scene ever as with the same deadpan expression on his face, he just phases straight to the command center of the Manhunters, phases his hand into the Manhunter's head and rips out his brain. Yeah, Manhunter wars!
(Also, like the Imperium last episode, the Manhunters basically got themsleves genocided by the Justice League. They are robots, though, so it's more... okay?)
The lead Manhunter manages to take out the Guardians on the planet, beat down John Stewart and absorb the power of the central power lantern of Oa, growing to a large proportion... but John Stewart aims his ring at the transformed Manhunter, recites the Green Lantern oath... which sucks in the mass of energy before dispersing it out? Okay, they really could've gone with a more sensible way of taking him out other than 'suck in all the energy'. It's honestly the weakest part of this otherwise quite excellent two-parter.
There is a pretty human moment near the end when Gallius Zed and the others tried to apologize to John, but he kind of brushes them off with a 'yeah well you should have', and recognizes the League as his true friends who believed in him even when he himself didn't. It's perhaps not being the greater man by not being all-forgiving, but it's very human.
Of course, John, you didn't exactly believe in yourself and was ready to be executed, so, um... yeah, I guess you're just angry that they were being dicks to you?
Yeah, it's a great two-parter. It explores Green Lantern both as a character and as a concept, by showing the existence of the Guardians and the Corps, and exploring their accountability. The short scene showing John Stewart as, well, John Stewart, just a dude that walks around his neighbourhood, is pretty fun. We see a development of his previous character traits, portraying him as very firm in answering to his crimes and more or less accepting of his punishment from the get-go. We get a lot more screen time for Hawkgirl, who still is pretty blood-thirsty and battle-hungry, but ultimately is loyal to her friends and I do love the moment when she calls out Gallius Zed and the others for being high-and-mighty without knowing all the facts. J'onn is glorious in his deadpanning, but it's obvious that he isn't just a Spock or Soundwave clone because he does show emotion... his voice and expression is just so gloriously deadpan.
Overall, a pretty fun two-parter. I think it probably could've spent some time exploring the concepts of the Green Lantern Corps and less on Flash making lawyer jokes (the dude was honestly kind of useless throughout the episode, wasn't he? I mean, kudos for trying, but jeez), it could've had a better finale sequence than just John Stewart plot armouring the way out of the fight (or maybe a better explanation with how the lantern is powered by willpower?), but the action scenes were glorious, John Stewart got a lot of character time, and honestly I think I like this episode more than I should. Perhaps this episode would've been better served shown later down the line, where we actually care more about John Stewart's fate or character progression instead of on a point where we're not even sure who he is as a person... as well as for the Green Lantern Corps too, at a lesser extent, but still, what an awesome way to introduce John Stewart to us in any case.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- The story is adapted from the two-parter "No Man Escapes the Manhunter" arc from the original Justice League of America comics (#140-141), which stars Hal Jordan in basically the same dilemma that John Stewart finds himself in.
- On a different and more depressing note, John Stewart's greatest failure in the comics was actually to fail to prevent the destruction of the planet Xanshi due to his arrogance during the Cosmic Odyssey event, which
- Kanjar Ro is an alien warlord that first debuted in one of the earliest Justice League comics with the power to immobilize people with his gamma gong. Throughout his career as a DC comics villain Kanjar Ro primarily fights the Green Lanterns and the Hawk-family.
- The Green Lanterns that appear in this episode all have names and are supporting characters in Green Lantern's comics, though only three are identified in the episode itself. Kilowogg, the large pink-skinned brute, is one of the most prominent of the alien Green Lantern supporting characters. The alien dude with a beard and orc fangs is Arkiss Chummuck, the little round bouny alien is Galius Zed. The two unnamed and unvoiced Green Lanterns are Larvox (the one-eyed sausage) and either Tomar Re or his son Tomar Tu (the bird-beaked orange alien).
- The Manhunters are a race of robot peackeepers whose backstory more or less mirror what is presented in this episode. In addition to that, the name 'Manhunter' has been used by numerous (at least eight) characters in the DC comics, most prominent among them being Kate Spencer. Oh, and J'onn J'onzz himself, the Martian Manhunter.
- First appearance of the Justice League's all-purpose starship, the Javelin. Presumably Bruce Wayne donated it alongside the Watchtower.
- "In blackest night", of course, is a reference to a portion of the Green Lantern's oath. It will also later be used as the title of one of Green Lanterns' larger arcs in the comic books involving the black lantern rings.
- Flash asks Hawkgirl about the existence of a 'Hawkboy', a reference to Hawkman.
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