Justice League S02E17-18 Review: Legion of Doom

Justice League, Season 2, Episodes 17-18: Secret Society

The series has done the big super-villain team twice before with two incarnations of the Injustice League, and we see the point of view of the luckless Shade as he mentions how both Injustice Leagues got completely fucked over. The first incarnation of the Injustice League fell apart due to Batman manipulating each member's vices and selfishness, while the second incarnation also fell apart due to Arisia's own agendas. So it's a bit of a challenge to write an episode that's basically going on the same premise as two previous ones that isn't a retread.

And the story starts off pretty strong, with Shade, our point-of-view character for a good chunk of the first episode, gets recruited by this cute (if large) lady, Giganta, and brought to meet Gorilla Grodd, who is just so smooth that you buy that this talking gorilla is a big criminal mastermind. Shade airs his disappointment that someone tried to do the 'Injustice League' thing again after being part of a losing group twice, but Grodd assures him that his new 'Secret Society' is different. Every member of the group has a bone to pick with a member of the Justice League. Grodd hates Flash for frying his brain, Parasite and Sinestro are known quantities from Superman: TAS that hates the Man of Steel, while newcomers Giganta is devoted to Grodd while Killer Frost just wants to kill. And Shade wants money, and their later seventh member, Clayface, is motivated by wanting to return to normal, something that Grodd promises. And not having so many big names like Luthor and Ultra-Humanite means that there's no real fighting for power, leaving only Grodd in charge. The trust-fall exercises is a bit dumb, I admit, but the concept as different from the ego-bound Injustice Leagues is pretty decent.

Meanwhile, the Justice League themselves are being put through a traditional conflict, the team breakup. Unlike Teen Titans, which puts the team through a breakup as the first (or third, depending on episode order) episode, the Justice League does it nearly on the end of the second season. And the catalyst is Green Lantern and J'onn J'onzz coming into an argument for being so un-sync with each other that they can't even catch Shade despite outnumbering the C-list villain.

This is a rare episode that the entire team shows up, which is definitely a treat, and it shows the differing personality problems that makes them not work that efficiently as a team. Which is a bit of a strange thing to explore so late in the series, honestly, but hey, let's roll with it. Apparently the team's teamwork is so shit that Green Lantern's attempts to have the League fight against robots and cardboard-pop-ups ended disastrously. Part of it is because Green Lantern is trying to enforce his own military attitude towards a group of volatile personalities, part of it is because Grodd's subtly increasing their negative, aggressive attitudes, but a different part is what this episode acknowledges -- all of them have some sort of deep-seated problem with each other in some way. And it's not something that's brushed off at the end of the episode as something that Grodd did, either. The negative feelings are all something that they must acknowledge they have, and something they just have to accept and move on.

But the teamwork is kind of something that comes differently to each of the members. Superman is so used to tanking hits because he's, y'know, invulnerable. Yes, Hawkgirl and Flash could've helped him take less hits, but Superman's point is valid -- any hit he takes is a hit that the not-invulnerable Hawkgirl and Flash doesn't have to. Which ticks the space viking lady Hawkgirl off. Flash is busy being kind of immature, Wonder Woman is high and mighty, Batman just plain sees the exercise as a joke, while J'onn ends up noting that he's survived the loss of a family, and he'll survive the loss of another. The 'take charge' attitude that half the team (Superman, Batman, Lantern) has irks the other half, and things just fall apart.

And I think J'onn's comparison of the seven of them being a family ends up being an appropriate argument as to why this episode works so late in the series. The team has grown close to each other that they've became less of a team and more of a family, and families do tend to let resentments build up within themselves until they explode in an ugly fashion, taking some time off each other before realizing that they do need each other. Granted, a telepathic gorilla is helping to catalyze those emotions that they boil over far more severely than they would've, but Grodd and the League themselves establish that Grodd's only escalating feelings that are already there.

The League ends up breaking up, allowing them to take some time off to assess their own egos. Hawkgirl and Green Lantern have a short moment where Hawkgirl tells Lantern that he thinks of them more as soldiers than people, while some serious sexual and romantic tensions build up. Between Lantern telling Hawkgirl that he'll give his life for her, and Hawkgirl herself going to protect Lantern when he's wounded in battle, it's some nicely well-written tension especially considering what happens to Hawkgirl later on. Flash, the 'heart' of the team and the youngest of them all, actually is the one that's still going around trying to take down the Secret Society, and quickly calls up Batman. Batman is also more job-oriented, I guess, and goes off to help Flash after a couple of snide remarks.

And the rest of the League is lured to a trap by the Society, and it's a bit telling that they all end up showing up when a different member summons them, mature enough to swallow their pride despite still seething over their previous fight. They all get trapped and bound in stasis pods or something like that, and of course there are all cool battles between the League and the Society that showcases all their powers -- something that I haven't brought up quite yet. Between the various flashy powers that the Society shows off, it's just amazing to see and it's just the icing of the cake on a pretty fun episode.

There's a bit of an annoying point where J'onn and Clayface transforms to each other, one of them gets frozen, and "Clayface" ends up being put in the position to execute the League publicly before revealing himself to be J'onn pretending to be Clayface. It's a kind of a predictable plot twist, one that's a bit annoying, really, but it's a nice way to set up the huge Justice League vs Secret Society grand battle royale at the end of the episode. I mean, yeah, it comes a bit out of nowhere that Grodd would want to execute the League publicly, but hey, why not?

Add the rather bittersweet ending to cap off the awesome fight involving 14 people with unique powers, and it's just amazing. Superman just finger-flicking Grodd halfway through the stadium, Flash creating a vortex to suck out Killer Frost's air, Shade revealing that he knows kung fu (shame he's up against, y'know, Batman), Wonder Woman using her lassoo to whip Parasite around, Wonder Woman 'would punch a lady', Sinestro creating giant yellow beam monsters (why can't John be more creative with his ring?)...

It's a great episode, and I haven't even talked about the villains yet! Grodd, Shade and Clayface get the bulk of the screentime, but the rest are pretty well-developed. Grodd being this chatty overlord villain is pretty entertaining, and his voice is just fun to listen to. Shade as this cynical fellow that's just tired of losing and tired of everything is very fun, too, and it's a shame that he doesn't get much more focus in the series. Him trying to kung fu Batman is hilarious, up until he breaks his knuckle on Superman's chest and runs away screaming 'I know this wouldn't work!' Clayface is easily the most tragic of the group. As one of the few returning villains from Batman: TAS, Clayface is still tragic. All he wants is to be returned to his normal human self, and his "what kind of man would do something like that?" when he's referring to the treatment that Morgan Edge did to him -- split him up over several barrels and keep him in the basement -- is heartrending. The fact that he most likely was killed off for real when Flash stabbed him with so many fireworks and sends him blowing up over the skies of the stadium... yeah. Poor Matt. Why couldn't someone pay for his treatment? Jeez.

Giganta gets a quick origin story as a female gorilla that Grodd changed into a shapeshifting human, which makes Shade kind of all hot under the collar and it's hilarious. Giganta is also portrayed as super-girly despite being a bit of a brute powers-wise, which is hilarious. Killer Frost is also amazing, with her design looking awesome, and her sleek voice just makes her ice puns actually, y'know, cool. It's amazing that both Giganta and Frost are voiced by the same person (the masterful Jennifer Hale), really. Frost's more sadistic and tomboyish than Giganta, and it shows. Parasite and Sinestro are the one that get the least development out of the Society, being the two heavies of the team. Parasite can be forgiven since he's gotten a fair amount of screentime in Superman: TAS, and he's just doing mostly the same thing here, whereas Sinestro, despite being so interesting in the comics, barely gets any lines.

Oh well, at least Sinestro knows to create cool monsters, tigers and constructs with his ring! John Stewart rarely makes anything more interesting than bubbles, platforms, walls and generic shapes.


DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Secret Society is the name of a supervillain group in the comics was created first by Darkseid and later by the Ultra-Humanite, but the most iconic incarnation is the huge army created by Alexander Luthor Junior during the buildup to Infinite Crisis, which basically included... every villain active in DC at that moment, so much that it's easier to list the ones that aren't part of the Society. This version of the Secret Society had several newcomers to the DCAU:
• There has been several villains named Killer Frost, all of whom are villains associated with Firestorm, but this one seemed based on the second Killer Frost, Louise Lincoln, based on her design. (Crystal Frost wore a dress, and Caitlin Snow wasn't invented at the time of the series aired) Louise Lincoln recreated the experiment that turned her mentor Crystal Frost into the first Killer Frost, in order to avenge her accidental death at the hands of the superhero Firestorm.
• Giganta is an enemy of Wonder Woman, and used to be a brutish cavewoman that was able to increase her body mass into a giant. Comics!Giganta was a scientist who transferred her mind into an ape and then into a human body with superpowers, whereas this version of Giganta started off as Grodd's ape lover that was turned into a superpowered human.
• This marks three more old faces, with Parasite and Sinestro returning from Superman: TAS, and Clayface returning from Batman: TAS. This would mark Clayface's final appearance in the DCAU where he apparently got blown all to hell. 
• Morgan Edge, the businessman that the Society assaulted to obtain Clayface, is a Superman villain and one of the leaders of Intergang. 
• Batman notes that he was able to tell that Clayface was impersonating Flash because Clayface gave himself away by having the "yo" vocal tic, ("You overplayed your part, yo.") which is a reference to the episode 'Eclipsed' where Flash's commercials had him use "yo" all the time. Considering how long Clayface's been absent, and he probably had to crash-course study Flash's mannerisms to impersonate him, it's a clever storytelling bit, actually.
• The shot of the Society arranged in a straight line with a backlight while they arrived at the stadium is a nice little reference to the opening credits.
• The shot of the League and the Society running towards each other is a reference to the opening sequence of Challenge of the Superfriends, and considering the roster of the Secret Society, it does share several members with CotS's Legion of Doom (Grodd, Sinestro, Giganta).