Justice League, Season 2, Episodes 11-12: A Better World
I have never realized just how pivotal this episode would be as we go on into the next three seasons of Justice League, but without spoiling anything, let's just say that the events of this episode will have a pretty huge impact down the line. And can you blame the writers for doing that? It is indeed a wonderful episode.
The episode opens with a grim confrontation between Superman and... President Lex Luthor? Clancy Brown and George Newbern absolutely steal the show as Luthor's sliminess, his constant "you need me to make yourself look good. You need a villain" lines, Superman audibly trying to hold his anger in, and some really great cuts as Superman incinerates Lex Luthor and burns him to nothing but a black soot stain. It's great that the death was definitely implied and shown, but we don't get to see anything graphic. Just Superman's eyes shining red, we cut away to Batman and Wonder Woman beating up other goons while Luthor's horrified scream rings out, Batman going "do you smell something?" and the two of them walking up to the Oval Office with surprised and horrified looks.
Superman is super-powerful, and the question really begs is that why doesn't he just take control? It's a topic explored in many alternate-universe Elseworlds stories like Red Son, Kingdom Come, Injustice, various Crime Syndicate stories, and many others, all of which dabbled with the idea of Superman trying to rule the world. We skip ahead after Superman killing Luthor to a totalitarian utopia where the seven members of the Justice League rule over a crimeless world. Yes, free speech is outlawed, no public protests, you can't even argue with a waiter about bad service without Justice Lord SS robots arresting you, the Justice Lords' first instinct of any trouble is to kill first and ask questions later, Lois is all but a prisoner... and, yeah, all things considered it's kind of a better world, and better to be ruled by Extremist!Superman and Batman rather than to have, say, Luthor or Darkseid or Despero or any one of the many real-life scumbag world leaders, y'know, rule... but on the other hand, it's a slightly different shade of evil when it boils down to it.
The show takes a good half of the first episode to establish the Justice Lords' new world, and honestly without any indication that this is supposed to be an alternate universe it was a bit of a shock when I first watched this episode as a kid. As someone who kind of have experienced the bad side of protesting mobs I can't help but cheer for Lord Hawkgirl and Lord Green Lantern taking down a mob of university students, but on the other hand, y'know, it's free speech, and campus unrest over wars waged for no reason is something that rings true. But the lengths that they go to brutalize the protesters, and the fact that one of the most likable characters of the DCAU, Lois Lane, is basically a prisoner of love in Lord Superman's apartment, is definitely a sign that they have gone from being extremist leaders to despots with a moral code.
(The fact that the episode aired coincidentally around the time America decided to invade Iraq is a nice little parallel, too)
Lord Batman discovers the universe where our Justice League hangs out in, and over various conversations between the Leaguers, the show reveals that apparently one of the reasons they went evil (or, well, extreme) was that Flash died*, most likely thanks to Luthor. The Lords want to bring their totalitarian brand of justice to the regular world, but to do that they want to take the Justice League out of commission, which they do by having Lord J'onn pose as a friendly inter-dimensional doppelganger, only for the Lords to spring a trap on the League. In the process, Hawkgirl is accidentally injured and had to be hospitalized, while Lord Batman imprisons everyone in specialized cells in the Batcave.
*In the comics, whenever DC comics kills off a Flash, the tone invariably gets darker and edgier, usually not for the better. Barry Allen's death during Crisis on Infinite Earths, Bart Allen's death during Infinite Crisis/Final Crisis, Wally West being wiped out of existence in New 52...
Meanwhile, the other five Justice Lords head off into our world right in time when Doomsday shows up. Doomsday is, of course, one of the most iconic Superman villains for being the one that actually managed to kill Superman. Now Doomsday never got a chance to show up in Superman: the Animated Series, and this is his debut in the TAS-verse. We get a spectacular fight scene which showcases the Lords' brutality against a brainless monster. Well, mostly brainless, anyway. Lord Superman ends up lobotomizing Doomsday at the end of the fight, making him an absolute non-threat... which is very cathartic, to be honest, considering how bland and boring of a villain the comic book version of Doomsday is. It's a great sequence taht's both triumphant and dark at the same time. Yes, in a meta-sense the Justice Lords' lack of restraint and their quick thinking and their extreme methods is probably why Doomsday was taken out with minimal casualties and they probably saved our Superman from biting the bullet, but on the other hand, this was an angry rage monster. What would the Justice Lords do with more... human villains? What if they met one of the more sympathetic villains like Mr. Freeze, Harley Quinn, Solomon Grundy, Cheetah or Ventriloquist? Or simply an out-of-control hero like Metamorpho? Thankfully, we don't go that dark.
Meanwhile, our Batman finds that, hey, Lord Batman is literally him, and not even Batman can outsmart himself without causing a paradox, but the only thing that can outsmart Batman is something that the Dark Knight cannot prepare for. And Batman tells Flash to improvise, which he does by faking his own death. Lord Batman's uncharacteristic outburst of concern and horror when he realizes Flash had flatlined was a very nice touch from the showmakers that show that, yeah, despite these characters being evil versions of the Justice League, they were still the characters we all know and love, just ones that lost their way.
Flash frees the other Leaguers and head off to rescue Hawkgirl from Arkham Asylum... we see a disturbingly sane Joker acting as the main warden of a prison full of lobotomized Batman villains (in a great visual gag, Scarface is the one that was lobotomized instead of Ventriloquist). The Leaguers end up failing a password test, and had to fight against an army of Superman robots in a pretty cool, if fillery, fight scene.
The biggest and most awesome part of this episode, though, was the fight and conversation between the two Batmans in the Batcave, where Kevin Conroy absolutely nails talking to himself. The action as the Batmans sneak through the Batcave is honestly secondary to the excellent lines and scripting done in this episode, where they debate ethical concerns about a world without free will, about the good that fighting crime from the dark and the sunlight, about going to the extremes to actually make change, to make a world where no child will lose their parents to a random punk... it's surprisingly dense and very deep and well-written, easily one of the best exchanges in the entirety of superhero cartoons. Hell, this is how you stop two heroes from fighting each other. Not "WHY DID YOU SAY MARTHA".
Here are two best parts of that argument:
-Lord Batman: "What are you hiding for?"
-Batman: "I do my best work in the dark."
-Lord Batman: "I used to think that, too. But what have you ever accomplished from there? Besides scaring a few punks half to death and putting a few more in jail."
-Batman: "It all adds up."
-Lord Batman: "Not fast enough. If you really want to make a difference, change the system instead of just patching it, you've got to step into the sunlight. Take over like we did."
...
-Lord Batman: "A world where there's no crime. No victims. No pain."
-Batman: "And no choice! Who elected you anyway?"
-Lord Batman: "Who elected you? The problem with democracy is that it doesn't keep you very safe."
-Batman: "It has other virtues. But you seem to have forgotten that."
-Lord Batman: "I didn't forget! I just chose peace and security instead."
-Batman: "You grabbed power!"
-Lord Batman: "And with that power, we've made a world where no eight year old boy will ever lose his parents to some punk with a gun!" [dramatic beat]
-Batman: "... you win."
Batman is someone who still struggles with the pain he suffered as an eight-year-old child even so many year later, and Lord Batman bringing up that, yes, grabbing power, security, peace and all that to create a world where the tragedy that befell not only Batman but also so many other children (just look at the many Robins!) even after he became the Dark Knight... yeah. There's definitely solid argument for both sides of the coin and even right now I cannot safely say that I wouldn't pick Lord Batman's vision of the world.
Of course, as the two Batmen go on a drive to hunt down the Justice League, our Batman ends up pointing out that, hey, mom and dad would be fucking ashamed of what Lord Batman had done, and he ends up switching sides. Lord Batman shows up to save the Justice League from the police and get them to the teleportation room, in a nice reversal of 'beat up the doppelganger and pretend to be him' trope.
We then proceed to the long-awaited Justice League vs Justice Lords fight. Obviously the League has an advantage in that they have two extra manpower in Batman and Flash, but on the other hand, the Lords are well-prepared to kill, and the League needs something that... the Lords aren't prepared for. Which, in this case, is teaming up with Lex Luthor. There's a bit of an annoying deus ex machina with Luthor's power-negating gun, but Luthor is the type of guy to be walking around with a power-negating gun. So. The fight was short and not as impressive as other more epic ones throughout Justice League's career, but we have some absolute highlights like the J'onn double martian serpent monster battle, or Flash machine-gun-throwing rocks at Lord Superman, or Wonder Woman using her tiara to whack Lord Wonder Woman in the face to save Batman... and Lord Superman definitely crosses the line when he was well-prepared to execute Flash during their fight, which was the point that our Superman and Lex Luthor shows up to take out the Justice Lords.
Of course, the price for Luthor's allegiance in this fight is a full pardon for his past injustices, and the satisfaction to know that he has taken out a Justice League team all by himself... but how much has he changed? Is it worth it bringing Luthor in? There was no easy way out short of Batman pulling a Tower of Babel scenario (and TAS's Batman isn't that cold-hearted and paranoid yet). Is Superman allying with Luthor a sign of how the League is still optimistic enough to offer villains a second chance, or a way of succumbing to a different kind of darkness that could've been easily avoided? Luthor ends up wanting to dabble in politics at the end, so it does mean that the events that led to the Lords' creation might very well still happen. Nothing is ever clear, but they successfully managed to drive the Lords back with a very epic righting of the American flag by Superman. I'm not American and I don't care for patriotic displays for America, but I have to admit that this moment is indeed badass.
It's a great Superman moment, too, which is kind of overshadowed by the awesome Batman-v-Batman ethical debate. Superman, despite being, y'know, Superman, isn't perfect. He isn't god, he isn't an all-knowing being who can find the solutions for everything. He has to do his best and sometimes his best isn't enough, and he can only hope that his best will be enough without betraying his principles. Also, Superman didn't make it to his first merit badge as a Boy Scout. That was a hilarious note to end this surprisingly deep and excellent episode on.
The episode opens with a grim confrontation between Superman and... President Lex Luthor? Clancy Brown and George Newbern absolutely steal the show as Luthor's sliminess, his constant "you need me to make yourself look good. You need a villain" lines, Superman audibly trying to hold his anger in, and some really great cuts as Superman incinerates Lex Luthor and burns him to nothing but a black soot stain. It's great that the death was definitely implied and shown, but we don't get to see anything graphic. Just Superman's eyes shining red, we cut away to Batman and Wonder Woman beating up other goons while Luthor's horrified scream rings out, Batman going "do you smell something?" and the two of them walking up to the Oval Office with surprised and horrified looks.
Superman is super-powerful, and the question really begs is that why doesn't he just take control? It's a topic explored in many alternate-universe Elseworlds stories like Red Son, Kingdom Come, Injustice, various Crime Syndicate stories, and many others, all of which dabbled with the idea of Superman trying to rule the world. We skip ahead after Superman killing Luthor to a totalitarian utopia where the seven members of the Justice League rule over a crimeless world. Yes, free speech is outlawed, no public protests, you can't even argue with a waiter about bad service without Justice Lord SS robots arresting you, the Justice Lords' first instinct of any trouble is to kill first and ask questions later, Lois is all but a prisoner... and, yeah, all things considered it's kind of a better world, and better to be ruled by Extremist!Superman and Batman rather than to have, say, Luthor or Darkseid or Despero or any one of the many real-life scumbag world leaders, y'know, rule... but on the other hand, it's a slightly different shade of evil when it boils down to it.
The show takes a good half of the first episode to establish the Justice Lords' new world, and honestly without any indication that this is supposed to be an alternate universe it was a bit of a shock when I first watched this episode as a kid. As someone who kind of have experienced the bad side of protesting mobs I can't help but cheer for Lord Hawkgirl and Lord Green Lantern taking down a mob of university students, but on the other hand, y'know, it's free speech, and campus unrest over wars waged for no reason is something that rings true. But the lengths that they go to brutalize the protesters, and the fact that one of the most likable characters of the DCAU, Lois Lane, is basically a prisoner of love in Lord Superman's apartment, is definitely a sign that they have gone from being extremist leaders to despots with a moral code.
(The fact that the episode aired coincidentally around the time America decided to invade Iraq is a nice little parallel, too)
Lord Batman discovers the universe where our Justice League hangs out in, and over various conversations between the Leaguers, the show reveals that apparently one of the reasons they went evil (or, well, extreme) was that Flash died*, most likely thanks to Luthor. The Lords want to bring their totalitarian brand of justice to the regular world, but to do that they want to take the Justice League out of commission, which they do by having Lord J'onn pose as a friendly inter-dimensional doppelganger, only for the Lords to spring a trap on the League. In the process, Hawkgirl is accidentally injured and had to be hospitalized, while Lord Batman imprisons everyone in specialized cells in the Batcave.
*In the comics, whenever DC comics kills off a Flash, the tone invariably gets darker and edgier, usually not for the better. Barry Allen's death during Crisis on Infinite Earths, Bart Allen's death during Infinite Crisis/Final Crisis, Wally West being wiped out of existence in New 52...
Meanwhile, the other five Justice Lords head off into our world right in time when Doomsday shows up. Doomsday is, of course, one of the most iconic Superman villains for being the one that actually managed to kill Superman. Now Doomsday never got a chance to show up in Superman: the Animated Series, and this is his debut in the TAS-verse. We get a spectacular fight scene which showcases the Lords' brutality against a brainless monster. Well, mostly brainless, anyway. Lord Superman ends up lobotomizing Doomsday at the end of the fight, making him an absolute non-threat... which is very cathartic, to be honest, considering how bland and boring of a villain the comic book version of Doomsday is. It's a great sequence taht's both triumphant and dark at the same time. Yes, in a meta-sense the Justice Lords' lack of restraint and their quick thinking and their extreme methods is probably why Doomsday was taken out with minimal casualties and they probably saved our Superman from biting the bullet, but on the other hand, this was an angry rage monster. What would the Justice Lords do with more... human villains? What if they met one of the more sympathetic villains like Mr. Freeze, Harley Quinn, Solomon Grundy, Cheetah or Ventriloquist? Or simply an out-of-control hero like Metamorpho? Thankfully, we don't go that dark.
Meanwhile, our Batman finds that, hey, Lord Batman is literally him, and not even Batman can outsmart himself without causing a paradox, but the only thing that can outsmart Batman is something that the Dark Knight cannot prepare for. And Batman tells Flash to improvise, which he does by faking his own death. Lord Batman's uncharacteristic outburst of concern and horror when he realizes Flash had flatlined was a very nice touch from the showmakers that show that, yeah, despite these characters being evil versions of the Justice League, they were still the characters we all know and love, just ones that lost their way.
Flash frees the other Leaguers and head off to rescue Hawkgirl from Arkham Asylum... we see a disturbingly sane Joker acting as the main warden of a prison full of lobotomized Batman villains (in a great visual gag, Scarface is the one that was lobotomized instead of Ventriloquist). The Leaguers end up failing a password test, and had to fight against an army of Superman robots in a pretty cool, if fillery, fight scene.
The biggest and most awesome part of this episode, though, was the fight and conversation between the two Batmans in the Batcave, where Kevin Conroy absolutely nails talking to himself. The action as the Batmans sneak through the Batcave is honestly secondary to the excellent lines and scripting done in this episode, where they debate ethical concerns about a world without free will, about the good that fighting crime from the dark and the sunlight, about going to the extremes to actually make change, to make a world where no child will lose their parents to a random punk... it's surprisingly dense and very deep and well-written, easily one of the best exchanges in the entirety of superhero cartoons. Hell, this is how you stop two heroes from fighting each other. Not "WHY DID YOU SAY MARTHA".
Here are two best parts of that argument:
-Lord Batman: "What are you hiding for?"
-Batman: "I do my best work in the dark."
-Lord Batman: "I used to think that, too. But what have you ever accomplished from there? Besides scaring a few punks half to death and putting a few more in jail."
-Batman: "It all adds up."
-Lord Batman: "Not fast enough. If you really want to make a difference, change the system instead of just patching it, you've got to step into the sunlight. Take over like we did."
...
-Lord Batman: "A world where there's no crime. No victims. No pain."
-Batman: "And no choice! Who elected you anyway?"
-Lord Batman: "Who elected you? The problem with democracy is that it doesn't keep you very safe."
-Batman: "It has other virtues. But you seem to have forgotten that."
-Lord Batman: "I didn't forget! I just chose peace and security instead."
-Batman: "You grabbed power!"
-Lord Batman: "And with that power, we've made a world where no eight year old boy will ever lose his parents to some punk with a gun!" [dramatic beat]
-Batman: "... you win."
Batman is someone who still struggles with the pain he suffered as an eight-year-old child even so many year later, and Lord Batman bringing up that, yes, grabbing power, security, peace and all that to create a world where the tragedy that befell not only Batman but also so many other children (just look at the many Robins!) even after he became the Dark Knight... yeah. There's definitely solid argument for both sides of the coin and even right now I cannot safely say that I wouldn't pick Lord Batman's vision of the world.
Of course, as the two Batmen go on a drive to hunt down the Justice League, our Batman ends up pointing out that, hey, mom and dad would be fucking ashamed of what Lord Batman had done, and he ends up switching sides. Lord Batman shows up to save the Justice League from the police and get them to the teleportation room, in a nice reversal of 'beat up the doppelganger and pretend to be him' trope.
We then proceed to the long-awaited Justice League vs Justice Lords fight. Obviously the League has an advantage in that they have two extra manpower in Batman and Flash, but on the other hand, the Lords are well-prepared to kill, and the League needs something that... the Lords aren't prepared for. Which, in this case, is teaming up with Lex Luthor. There's a bit of an annoying deus ex machina with Luthor's power-negating gun, but Luthor is the type of guy to be walking around with a power-negating gun. So. The fight was short and not as impressive as other more epic ones throughout Justice League's career, but we have some absolute highlights like the J'onn double martian serpent monster battle, or Flash machine-gun-throwing rocks at Lord Superman, or Wonder Woman using her tiara to whack Lord Wonder Woman in the face to save Batman... and Lord Superman definitely crosses the line when he was well-prepared to execute Flash during their fight, which was the point that our Superman and Lex Luthor shows up to take out the Justice Lords.
Of course, the price for Luthor's allegiance in this fight is a full pardon for his past injustices, and the satisfaction to know that he has taken out a Justice League team all by himself... but how much has he changed? Is it worth it bringing Luthor in? There was no easy way out short of Batman pulling a Tower of Babel scenario (and TAS's Batman isn't that cold-hearted and paranoid yet). Is Superman allying with Luthor a sign of how the League is still optimistic enough to offer villains a second chance, or a way of succumbing to a different kind of darkness that could've been easily avoided? Luthor ends up wanting to dabble in politics at the end, so it does mean that the events that led to the Lords' creation might very well still happen. Nothing is ever clear, but they successfully managed to drive the Lords back with a very epic righting of the American flag by Superman. I'm not American and I don't care for patriotic displays for America, but I have to admit that this moment is indeed badass.
It's a great Superman moment, too, which is kind of overshadowed by the awesome Batman-v-Batman ethical debate. Superman, despite being, y'know, Superman, isn't perfect. He isn't god, he isn't an all-knowing being who can find the solutions for everything. He has to do his best and sometimes his best isn't enough, and he can only hope that his best will be enough without betraying his principles. Also, Superman didn't make it to his first merit badge as a Boy Scout. That was a hilarious note to end this surprisingly deep and excellent episode on.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- The idea of the Justice League discovering and fighting an alternate universe ran by evil counterparts of the Justice League has been around since Earth-3's Crime Syndicate (Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Power Ring and Johnny Quick). The idea of an alternate universe where our Justice League became evil thanks to a key event in which Superman kills a villain that killed a loved one will be revisited in the 2013 game Injustice: Gods Among Us, where Joker took Luthor's place as the villain that killed Lois Lane instead of the Flash.
- Justice Lords Costumes:
- Lord Superman's costume, being mostly black with a silver insignia, is a reference to the older Superman's appearance in Batman Beyond, which itself probably draws inspiration on the black-costume-silver-insignia funeral garb look that Superman sports shortly after his resurrection.
- Lord Batman's costume is somewhat based off Batman Beyond, with some 'armoured Batman' design cues making it in.
- Lord Wonder Woman sports a mainly-red costume that covers most of her body except for her head and arms, which might be a reference to Donna Troy's second Wonder Girl costume, which looks mostly similar to that, substituting the 'W' golden insignia for a bunch of golden stars.
- Lord J'onn J'onzz's costume has him wear a black bodysuit, which is a look that would bleed into the comics (I'm not sure which came first) where more modern incarnations of J'onn would wear a full-body suit in addition to his iconic red cape and X chest insignia.
- Lord Green Lantern and Lord Hawkgirl are just the normal designs with some colours inverted and switched around. Oh, and Lord Hawkgirl has a cool-looking new helmet, and Green Lantern has shaved his head. This won't be the last time we see a bald John Stewart in this show.
- Lex Luthor becoming elected President just to spite Superman is a plotline that ran through the 90's and 00's, where Lex Luthor was elected President of United States.
- Doomsday! Doomsday is, of course, most well-known among comic-book fans as this muscular spiky super-strong super-evil alien that showed up of nowhere and straight-up kills Superman in one of the biggest comic-book events of all time. Of course Doomsday gets a backstory later and Superman is revealed to have recovered from his death with a combination of Kryptonian physiology and some wacky super-technology shenanigans, but the fight with Doomsday taking out the Justice League before going punch-to-punch with Superman is definitely a homage to their iconic battle. It's very cathartic for me to see Justice Lord Superman to just go 'nope fuck you not this time' to Doomsday.
- In the Justice Lords universe, we have short appearances of Batman: TAS and Superman: TAS characters. Lois Lane, the Joker and Poison Ivy appear in speaking roles, while Two-Face, Ventriloquist and Scarface have non-speaking cameos. The costumes of Nightwing, Batgirl and Robin appear in Justice Lord Batman's Batcave. Our universe's Lois Lane and Ron Troupe also show up, technically their first appearance in Justice League (previously they only showed up in a dream sequence).
- Batman's secret code, 91939, is a reference to Batman's debut in Detective Comics #27, published in 1939.
- Wonder Woman throwing her tiara as a boomerang is a homage to the 70's Wonder Woman live-action TV show, where Wonder Woman often used her tiara as such a weapon.
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