Justice League, Season 1, Episodes 24-26: Savage Time
A couple episodes ago we dealt with the Golden Age of comics with its glorious campiness, weird catchphrases and non-realistic common-sense-defying themes. Sometime down season two we'll deal with the Dark Age, with the darker 'kill villains' style approach that was popular during those times. As the first season finale for Justice League, they chose to tackle the World War II era comics. Not the embarrassing "slap a Jap" style propaganda, but the awesomeness yet surrealness of injecting superheroes as people who fought in the war. It also gives the show a chance to explore non-powered superheroes that didn't really make sense outside the context of World War II, like the Blackhawks and Sergeant Rock.
Now as a non-American I will be the first to admit that super-patriotic wartime stories just isn't my cup of tea, but there is a reason that this show is titled 'Justice League' instead of 'Justice League of America'. The League is supposed to represent ideals, not just a single nation, and I think the show does a decent job even while portraying the superheroes as allied with the Allies.
And the excuse plot for using World War II as a setting actually is quite relevant as well. Vandal Savage has been one of DC's greatest villains, this unkillable immortal super-intelligent man who is present in so many influential spots during the timeline. And while the Justice League (sans Batman) arrives from space, they see a huge energy explosion on Earth, and arrives to see... well, a despotic world ruled by Vandal Savage. They are confronted by an armoured Batman (think a more athletic version of the Bat-Armour from the Dark Knight Returns or Batman v Superman) leading an army of Bat-soldiers. Batman doesn't go with the League to the past, but it's always cool to see 'resistance leader' versions of beloved characters in these apocalyptic future events, and, wow, Batman is just awesome. He gets minimal lines and just exists to be a character that the League can directly observe the effects of the bad future on, and to create a time machine for the League to return to the past... but he does get a very awesome line. J'onn tells alternate!Batman that if they fix the timeline, this version of Batman will cease to exist. Batman unhesistantly says "nothing would make me happier". Man, Batman, you awesome.
The creators of the show note one of the weaknesses of the pilot three-parter was that splitting the team up only has them beat up the same old enemies all over again. An attempt at doing something similar in 'Paradise Lost' tries a different approach by having Batman be a detective, J'onn and Flash fight a giant snake, while Superman and Wonder Woman beat each other up. But 'Savage Time' gives everyone a radically different role in the World War II era, which is definitely to the show's credit. First we have Superman, Flash and Hawkgirl do battle against the weird Nazi mruderwheels, while J'onn and Wonder Woman try to infiltrate Vandal Savage's base. Green Lantern, initially with the first group, ends up running out of juice (seriously?) for his ring and ends up trapped behind enemy lines, while J'onn and Diana ends up getting separated themselves. Each character has something to do, and each group meets several guest stars from the WWII era.
I feel that the show tries to inject way too many characters, but to be honest the Blackhawks and Easy Company are pretty generic anyway and their presence is a very cool nod to fans of the characters, while less-knowledgeable viewers can just treat them as particularly efficient Allied soldiers. Sergeant Rock, Bulldozer and Blackhawk are relatively well-defined in their relatively short roles, though, and we did get a very, very awesome 'HAWK-AAAAAA' sequence that's awesome yet captures the wonderful corniness of the oldest, earliest comics. Something that I didn't quite get as a kid yet appreciate so much more now that I'm more well-versed in comic book lore is paying homage to the older, less well-known aspects of DC comics like the cowboy comics, the World War II comics, Golden Age superheroes, Camelot comics...
While I get depowering Green Lantern with him running out of energy for his power ring, Superman is honestly just quite inexcusable. Really? He has trouble with a bunch of 1940's airplanes and he can't even topple one of those weird murderwheels? Moreso than being beaten up by magical villains, aliens or Metamorpho, this is the worst depiction of Superman's power level in the entire series, with Hawkgirl and the Blackhawks racking up a higher kill-count while fighting the biplanes. When Superman has been shown (and will be shown) to have no trouble punching his way through entire fleets of super advanced alien warships, this is honestly a bit of a weak point. Again, there really is no excuse for Superman not to just zoom straight to the Nazi headquarters, bust down the walls and drag Vandal Savage and dump him in a prison. But no, he gotta fight the planes and take half an episode to do so.
The three-parter builds Vandal Savage up as a decent threat not because he's powerful (though he does have that fancy electric glove), but because of the ramifications he has on history. Savage put Adolf Hitler (mentioned only as der Fuhrer, but we do see his face) in a freezer -- which is hilarious, while he uses knowledge of modern technology given by his future self to create bomber planes and giant indestructible murderwheels, and hams it up quite a bit, the three-parter puts most of its focus on the Leaguers themselves.
John Stewart has gotten a huge amount of focus in the first season, and this episode focuses more on the man behind the ring. While it's a bit of an annoyance that Green Lantern cannot bring the full capability of his power ring to bear on evil Nazi forces, it is pretty cool to see John's capabilities as a soldier, someone who refuses to give up and exemplifies the willpower and fearlessness that is common among all bearers of the emerald ring. From working alongside Sergeant Rock and the Easy Company and very quickly earning their respect, to using survival tactics to sneak up onto Vandal Savage's ship and proving the most instrumental in slowing Savage's ship down and fooling the rest of the Nazi fleet to do the same, allowing the combined forces of the League and the Blackhawks to take them down.
Hawkgirl, herself an intergalactic cop (though this isn't made clear yet at this point, I think), is probably the most warrior-like among the League, and her reaction to John being put in distress is put to stark contrast to the Flash. While Hawkgirl is undoubtedly worried for Green Lantern, she knows that the mission comes first, and she has to put the needs of the many over the needs of the few, to quote Spock. John may be her good friend, but he's out of the danger of the murderwheels, while the group of bleeding, wounded soldiers that are actively being chased down by the Nazis require her attention in the then and now. Flash, on the other hand, as the youngest of the team, is far more concerned about helping his buddy, and his pleas for John to stop joking and come out while zipping around the ruined town is pretty sad. Hawkgirl does end up redeeming herself by saving John when he manages to get Savage's ship to crashland into the ocean -- that's one thing Captain America doesn't have. An alien buddy with angelic wings.
Honestly, though, John definitely channels his inner Captain America here. Several years before Captain America: the First Avenger hit the theatres (though I'm definitely not familiar and probably will never be familiar to Captain America's source material) John Stewart goes through an action sequence eerily similar to what the good Captain did to defeat the Red Skull -- ride a ground vehicle to catch up with the villain's huge bomber plane, jump on, confront the psychotic Nazi supervillain one-on-one, and then crashlanding the plane.
Superman was kind of just around, hanging out with Hawkgirl and blowing up wave after wave of Nazi biplanes. They are quickly joined by the four-man Blackhawk team, lead by, um, Blackhawk. There's a nice bit of racial inclusion (which the Blackhawks originally was even back in WWII, albeit with more racist stereotyping) as the Blackhawks note that they don't belong to any country, they just want to stop the Nazi atrocities. Likewise, the German scientist that helps Diana later in the three-parter also notes how not all Germans are Nazis.
Diana probably gets the premier screentime here after all the John stories, because she and J'onn J'onzz find themselves at the company of Steve Trevor, who any DC fan will recognize as Diana's WWII-era boyfriend. Steve and Diana's attraction is explored well, and Steve going to quickly respect Wonder Woman from just a female soldier to, well, freaking Wonder Woman, lifting tanks and taking down entire armies single-handedly. Wonder Woman develops a respect for Steve for risking so much despite not having any powers -- which probably is also a factor in her attraction to Batman. Steve and Diana end up sharing several kisses throughout the course of the three-parter. We did get a nice, melancholic moment in the present day where Diana visits the aged Steve Trevor at a retirement home.
J'onn J'onzz doesn't get to do much beyond sneaking around and discovering the full extent of Vandal Savage's plans and powers of immortality, but he does get a couple of awesome scenes with taking out and posing as Savage's Nazi torturer. Oh, and at one point when he divebombs one of the Nazi bombers J'onn actually breaks through the sound barrier -- a couple of scenes after Superman gets shot out of the sky by a mere missile. Man, Superman, it's a good thing next season will be a lot nicer to you. Flash gets a cool moment in the climax by, well, basically riling up an entire fleet to get ready and shoot the Nazis out of the sky.
Vandal Savage is defeated, and apparently history is returned to normal when the remaining Nazi generals decide to defrost Adolf Hitler.... despite the whole 'the world is introduced to super-powered beings during WWII' and the fact that the bombers and murderwheels are still, y'know, around. Just underwater. You'd think it would change the timeline somewhat, but apparently not? Well, I'm just assuming the Time Masters or whoever had to clean up the mess behind the scenes.
The three-parter ends with regular Batman arriving at the spot with the time distortion, being more confused than anything when Superman gives him a huge bear hug.
Overall, it's a great three-parter despite my grievances with Superman. They probably could've build Vandal Savage up somewhat as a legitimate threat. Maybe give him Kryptonite or something so the fact that Superman, Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter didn't just go full dr. Manhattan on his ass isn't a glaring error... but as far as WWII-based superhero stories and a season finales go this is a decent one.
We'll be taking a break from Justice League reviews to review the first season of Teen Titans next month, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.
DC Easter Egg Corner:
- Steve Trevor, Easy Company and the Blackhawks were all characters that were most prominent during the World War II era, though the roster of the Blackhawks and Easy Company were trimmed down somewhat compared to their classic rosters. There really aren't any real backstory about them beyond the fact that they're soldiers.
- Vandal Savage needs no introduction to anyone that's been reading my Legends of Tomorrow reviews, but for the uninitiated, Vandal Savage was gifted with immortality and high intelligence thanks to radiation from a mysterious meteorite. He has influenced people at high power during large events throughout history, and throughout his comic book career has tangled multiple times against the JLA and the JSA.
- In the alternate timeline, we get a shot that Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon (Nightwing and Batgirl) are part of it and are in a relationship. We also see Tim Drake (Robin) chasing an unidentified black-haired girl, which kinda-sorta resembles Annie, the little Clayface-girl that Robin bonded with in Batman: TAS. Or maybe it's a stealth reference to Cassandra Cain (Batgirl II)? That's the only other young black-haired girl associated with the Bat-family I can think of.
- While Wonder Woman's lasso of truth doesn't have its truth-telling power yet (it's going to be covered in a future episode), said power is referenced when Diana ties up a Nazi soldier and says how she can be very 'persuasive'.
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