Justice League Unlimited S01E01 Review: My Name is Oliver Queen

Justice League Unlimited, Season 1, Episode 1: Initiation

Almost half of the entire expanded League

I was looking forward to reviewing Justice League Unlimited, and I still think that Justice League Unlimited is one of the best superhero television series out there. It doesn't really deserve that rep until the second season's plotline, but even from the very first episode it's clear what the series set up to accomplish. A huge expansion of characters like never before seen. It has gone a long way since the very first episode of Batman: The Animated Series where it's just Batman waging a one-man war against the criminals of Gotham City. Justice League Unlimited was an absolutely surprising experience for me as a child, introducing me to so many new characters. As a veteran DC comic reader who's consumed way too much comic than the average human being, watching this episode really brings me back to when I was a little kid, being introduced to the first time to characters like Green Arrow and Captain Atom, who is an A-lister and a veritable high B-lister respectively among the DC heirarchy, but two characters who back then I had never seen before.

And I loved them. JLU operated on single-20-minute-episodes instead of the 40-minute-two-parter formula like Justice League, and thus it had to make every minute, every second, count. Sometimes this involves introducing new characters and concepts. Sometimes it's to explore one of the older 'big seven' cast members, or one of these previously introduced superheroes. Sometimes we even have to move plot threads along, and it's absolutely impressive how well Justice League Unlimited does this, while still delivering generally consistently self-contained episodes, great action scenes, great scripting and being very faithful to the comics.

This takes place fair amount of time after the end of Justice League's final episode, the Starcrossed three-episode mini movie, and back then Superman and J'onn promises to rebuild. How true they are! The Watchtower is larger, and we see that the League has been recruiting. Extensively. We see old guest stars from Justice League like Aquaman, Doctor Fate, Etrigan and Metamorpho combined with superheroes that are prominent in the comics, members of the JLA and JSA, as well as some more obscure ones, dudes like Nemesis and Crimson Fox that even I am hard-pressed to identify even so many other stories after that Saturday morning in front of Cartoon Network when I first watched this episode.

I have to be someone else.
I have to be something else.

Such a massive endeavour, if handled poorly, will be confusing and annoying to old-time viewers, which is why the first episode deals with it from the point of view of a single character. We start off not with the promise of huge, world-altering events and a cast of 50-strong superheroes, but with a robbery in a random supermarket, stopped by Green Arrow, this wisecracking archer who shoots arrows that explode into nets and punching gloves. It is a character that's a lot truer to Green Arrow's comic-book personality, and as popular as the grittier, angst-ridden, Batman-esque take on the character in CW's live-action Arrow -- which I like for completely different reasons -- this fully adapts the very 'fight for the little people', roguish, wise-cracking vigilante that worked so well as Hal Jordan's foil in the comics.

Green Arrow fighting a bunch of thugs gets interrupted by a different Green Lantern -- our good buddy John Stewart, who's now bald and sporting a beard. Green Lantern is as different a brand of superhero as you can get from Green Arrow. Green Lantern is a space cop whose routine before lunch is to fight aliens threatening to blow up planets, while Green Arrow stops robberies with boxing-glove arrows. And Green Arrow ends up in the Watchtower, seeing... well, a gigantic fuck-ton of colourful superheroes just hanging around. There's a dude whose head's on fire! A dude wearing a robotic armour! A freaking giant man! A faceless dude in a trenchcoat and a fedora! It's an exciting prospect, and while not all of these characters get much screentime, the premise of the show -- that we'll be exploring a smattering of these superheroes in their adventures -- is palpable.

And Green Arrow's character is defined very on. As he watches Superman give a speech to the assembled army (what else can you call it?) of superheroes, Green Arrow notes how he operates at street-level, and this isn't the place for him. They offer to bring him home, but he gets roped into following a mission. Green Lantern leads Green Arrow and two other superheroes -- Supergirl and Captain Atom -- to investigate some weird things in Chong Mai.

It's a great smattering of characters that, again, explores the whole concept of JLU very well, in addition to contrasting with each other in an episode that surprisingly has a fair amount of political undertones. Green Lantern is the a member of the old guard, acting as the veteran leader as well as the instructor to these new Leaguers, and his well-established personality as a military man and a team leader makes him suitable for this. Green Arrow is established as being a very liberal rebel, not afraid to challenge the orders given to him from the larger-than-life superheroes like Green Lantern and J'onn J'onzz, but ultimately good and heart and thinks of the people first. Supergirl is another returning character, though one that sat out the entirety of Justice League, and is presented as a relative child, who agrees far more with Green Arrow's idealism as opposed to Captain Atom and Green Lantern's wider point of view about politics and jurisdictions. Captain Atom is a strict military man who's all about discipline, and a bit of an asshole, which plays as a harsh contrast to Green Arrow's idealism. "I think you're what I marched against in college."

The scripting is a lot tighter than Justice League, with every single line of dialogue either using as exposition for the episode's situation, or used to develop the interpersonal relationship. Captain Atom falls short in this due to his stiffness, but Supergirl's interactions with Green Lantern and Green Arrow is very well done. Green Lantern plays the role of a strict teacher and mentor figure, not giving a shit if Supergirl is Superman's cousin, setting boundaries and criticizing her more hot-headed heroism. But he's definitely learned from the older Justice League episodes when he tried to train, and while he still admonishes Supergirl for her recklessness at the end of the episode, he also remembers to throw in well-deserved praise. Hawkgirl's "you see us as soldiers, not people" speech evidently got through to John.

Meanwhile, Green Arrow acts like Supergirl's older brother, sort of. It's a bit of a pity that Superman and Supergirl had so little screentime together in JLU, but at least Green Arrow's there for her. They both agree in their idealism, and Green Arrow encourages Supergirl's slight bouts of immaturity, like sticking a tongue at the stiff Captain Atom. Green Lantern and Captain Atom may be used to working as professional army-men, but Supergirl is, at her heart, still a teenager and Green Arrow, again, cares more about the people, and throughout the show Green Arrow's perspective as someone who will keep the League, a group of godlike beings, grounded, is a very important aspect of the character.

The plotline of the episode is relatively simple, with the main conflict being how the League should navigate a diplomatically complicated situation, where the people of Chong Mai refuse the League's help and claim that the League has no jurisdiction in their country. Green Arrow and Supergirl refuse to let the little people suffer, putting them into conflict with the obeys-orders Captain Atom. Of course, this gets thrown out of the window when the gigantic flaming skull robot monster Brimstone shows up, which they fight with awesome flourish as we alternate between the four superheroes' various power sets. Green Lantern gets taken out after the first fight to allow the newcomers to show off their skills, and Green Arrow gets to save the day by shooting the carbon rod into Brimstone's nuclear core. It's a pretty cool action scene, for sure, and I definitely went 'holy shit' when I saw Captain Atom explode in the sky. It's Supergirl's shocked grief and subsequent rage that sells it, I think. Of course he's fine, because apparently they can gather his radiation and pump it into a new suit (which was a hilarious visual scene) but back then it was a bit shocking.

It's a nice, simple episode that doesn't lose its appeal to older viewers as it tackles political themes and delivers great characterization for its main characters. The final scene has Green Arrow deciding to join after seeing Black Canary, and Green Lantern praising Supergirl after a stream of criticism. And while the older seven members get a significantly reduced role, they make it pretty clear that they're not going to be cut out entirely. Green Lantern's role as a mentor, J'onn's role as the watchman that sends the Leaguers on their missions, Superman giving a speech, and Batman talking to Green Arrow at the beginning and end of the episode are all very effective scenes that both portray them as the bigger-than-life characters that they deserve to be, while still keeping them fun and human. Definitely a very strong episode and a great opening to something wonderful.

Justice League Roll Call:
Yeah, we'll be needing this. Mostly because it's helluva fun to spot all the superheroes. 

• Speaking Roles: Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Supergirl, Captain Atom, Batman, Martian Manhunter, Superman
• Non-Speaking Cameos: Wonder Woman, Flash, Atom Smasher, Shining Knight, Booster Gold, Waverider, Doctor Light, Elongated Man, Doctor Mid-Nite, Rocket Red, Vigilante, Hourman, Red Tornado, Fire, Ice, Wildcat, Starman, Hawk, Dove, Metamorpho, Huntress, Question, Stargirl, S.T.R.I.P.E., B'wana Beast, Aquaman, Doctor Fate, Zatanna, Creeper, Johnny Thunder and the Thunderbolt, Crimson Avenger, Etrigan, Orion, Vixen, Aztek, Crimson Fox, Steel, Gypsy, Mr Terrific, The Ray, The Atom, Sand, Blue Devil, Nemesis, Vibe, Obsidian, Black Canary, Commander Steel
• Major Villains: Brimstone

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Because going through all the characters that are "introduced" in this episode would be insane, let's just talk about the ones that star in this episode.
• Green Arrow: Oliver Queen, a notoriously hedonistic playboy, was stranded on an island during a shipwreck and forced to defend himself with nothing but a bow. Idolizing Robin Hood, Oliver Queen fashioned an identity modelled off him after his return to Star City, becoming a hero both as a vigilante that helped the little people and cleaning up his family's enterprise from corruption, and joined one of the very first incarnations of the Justice League. Also, he's got a five-season live-action TV adaptation which... is actually a lot darker and less idealistic than his comic-book portrayal.
• Captain Atom: Nathaniel Adam was a USAF officer framed for a murder, but the military gave him the option to opt out of execution by participating in a military experiment involving an alien ship and a nuclear bomb. Adam was thought to have perished in the explosion, but in reality it teleported him 20 years into the future, while also transforming him into a silvery, metal being comprised of energy. The transformation gifted Adam with super-strength, flight and the ability to generate and manipulate nuclear energy.
• Supergirl: While there have been various versions of Supergirl across the years, the DCAU's version of Supergirl is a brand-new take of the character. This time, instead of being Superman's cousin, she is Kara In-Ze of the planet Argo, neighbouring Krypton which also died off after Krypton's destruction. Superman rescued her from a stasis pod, the sole survivor of Argo, and adopted her as his cousin.

• Brimstone: While not named in the episode proper, the giant flaming skull-faced giant is identified to be Brimstone by the script and all other supplementary material. In the comics, Brimstone's origin is a bit different -- he is an artificial being sent by Darkseid as a part of an invasion force.
• Out of the 'new' Justice League members, Supergirl and Steel are supporting characters in Superman: the Animated Series; Creeper and Zatanna had debuted in Batman: the Animated Series, while Doctor Fate, Aquaman, Etrigan, Orion and Metamorpho have all made appearances in Justice League, with all but Metamorpho originating from either Batman: TAS and Superman: TAS.
• Due to the 'Bat-Embargo', which prevented the use of all Batman-related characters except for Batman, none of the supporting Bat-family characters (Alfred, Nightwing, Batgirl, Robin) or villains will appear in Justice League Unlimited. 
• The name 'Justice League Unlimited' was first used in Batman Beyond several years before the debut of the show, as the name that the League takes in the future. Within the Justice League Unlimited show itself, the Justice League is only ever called the Justice League.
• Copperhead, Cheetah, Shade and Star Sapphire make cameo appearances in J'onn's console.