Justice League S01E12-13 Review: Hunger Games

Justice League, Season 1, Episodes 12-13: War World

War World is one of those episodes that really didn't work, or probably would've worked better if it had been reduced to a single-episode outing as opposed to stretching it out over two episodes. Honestly the concept wasn't bad. Superman captured by an alien overlord and forced to fight in a Gladiator-style match with the threat of having a planet's population destroyed if he doesn't entertain the games? A supporting character, the previous champion, so disillusioned with fighting that he forgot the reason he was fighting before -- to protect his homeworld? It's honestly the grounds of a very interesting episode if executed well.

Instead, it... flopped. You know something is wrong when the best parts of the episode is Green Lantern and Hawkgirl's misadventures as they try to track down the missing Superman and Martian Manhunter, bickering like an old couple... and when the subplot becomes infinitely more interesting than the main plot, you know something is wrong.

This is one of those episodes where Superman is inexplicably weak just to serve the plot. Mongul does not threaten him with blowing up a planet of innocents until halfway through the story, so why didn't Superman and J'onn just bust out of the prison in the first place and fly off? There's also little to no justification as to what Mongul has to gain by ruling the population of Warworld with what's basically a hybrid of the WWE and the Hunger Games. So what if he distracts the populace? What is he doing with them? In Hunger Games and Battle Royale it at least serves as entertainment to the rich and scare tactics to the poor. No wonder the comics dropped the whole 'gladiator planet' angle after its first appearance and returned Mongul to his alien warlord roots.

This episode really felt like it was a script that didn't quite make it into production in Superman: the Animated Series, and they dug it out and expanded it to shove in J'onn, Hawkgirl and Green Lantern (it's telling that this episode has the most absent characters to date). And even then, Hawkgirl and Lantern are off doing their own thing, while J'onn's honestly superfluous to the plot. The moment that Superman and J'onn wake up on Warworld, J'onn comes down with a sickness that disables his martian abilities due to 'something in the air', and just... ends up being kind of dead weight for most of the episode, before escaping and reduced into an audience member for the rest of the two-parter.

Green Lantern and Hawkgirl are easily the most interesting parts of the episode, just bickering and arguing like an old married couple, with Lantern being officious and serious, while Hawkgirl being 'beat people up' first and think later, and it's awesome when we cut away from the doldrums of the predictable Warworld plot to see them muck around. This is really the first time that Hawkgirl has gotten any decent characterization, too, and it's great.

It's a shame that the Warworld plot ends up being so boring, honestly. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the boring fight between Superman and Draaga that's dragged on for too long? Maybe it's Draaga's rather irritating voice (get some lozenges, dude)? Maybe it's Mongul's plan that doesn't make sense -- if all he needs is entertainment, why even bring in random people like Superman that can say 'fuck you I don't play by your rules' on live TV? Maybe its Superman kind of just being a pushover? I dunno.

Draaga's built up a lot, yet for all the buildup he gets he's kind of shit, being easily beaten down by Superman despite his huge bluster, and after returning to Warworld with GL and Hawkgirl by sheer power of coincidence, he ends up getting one-shotted by Mongul, and only manages to punch out the tyrant after Superman softens Mongul up a bit. Honestly I get why they had to have Draaga be the one to take down Mongul as the dude's been built up throughout the episode, but honestly other than being a part of the plot, Draaga himself is such a bland and uninteresting character that I honestly don't care at all about him. Ditto Mongul, to be honest, despite finding him interesting most of the time in that alien despot way whenever he shows up in a comic book. Here he just feels incompetent and idiotic.

I dunno. I guess there are a couple of nice moments, with Superman's victory against Draaga and saying 'fuck you' on public television inciting the public to rebel against Mongul's rule... but overall it felt like too little plot is stretched out over forty plus minutes of screentime without enough meat between them. It's easily the weakest of the episodes so far.

DC Easter Egg Corner:

• The episode is an adaptation of the comic-book storyline Gladiator (Superman #28-32) which re-introduces Mongul and the War World to the post-Crisis continuity.
• Mongul is a classic Superman villain, initially introduced as an alien warlord that tricked Superman into activating the Warworld, basically a Death Star, before being defeated. After the Crisis revamp, Mongul's origin story was revised into, well, this episode, basically... though he pretty quickly regains his alien warlord with a fetish for creating giant planet weapons. Mongul later dies, and is succeeded by his son, Mongul. Who totally looks like a carbon copy of his father. His most memorable story is "For the Man Who Has Everything", which we'll see later down the road in this cartoon.
• Draaga first appears in the comic that this two-parter is based on, and would later appear several times later as an antagonist challenging Superman in fights.