Justice League Unlimited S01E07 Review: Future Janitor Man

Justice League Unlimited, Season 1, Episode 7: The Greatest Story Never Told

Man, he just screams 'douche'.

Man, I loved this episode. I remembered it very fondly as a kid, and it was my very first introduction to the superhero Booster Gold, a character who I would easily rank among my top ten to twenty DC superheroes of all time. And honestly, it's such a wonderful way to tell a story, putting the star of the show, Booster Gold, in the middle of an unrelated adventure as a far more epic battle unfolds in the background. I'm too tired tonight to really research on just which specific stories or literature terms it means, but let's just pretend, say, we had Lord of the Rings... but told entirely from the eyes of, oh, some random elven archer.

As a more seasoned DC fan, it's also very exciting to see what they do with Booster Gold, and just how true they stayed to the source material. Booster Gold is a very interesting character, and I loved how the episode plays off Booster Gold's douchiness, while still making him quite pitiable. We see some really jackassery things that he does. First, the whole scenes dedicated to how Booster tries to get commercial deals and whatnot (this, by the way, is a huge misstep on the showmakers' part not to bring Flash in for a small role, considering Flash's own experiences with commercial deals), how after beating a robot he's far more interested at having his robot buddy Skeets show off his backstory to an unimpressed crowd, how he tries to pretend how other more successful superheroes are like his sidekicks and buddies, how no one on the JLA actually likes him, and his scenes while bugging the long-suffering Martian Manhunter is just so funny. Booster actually acts with a resounding YES! at the sight of a huge world-shattering crisis, because he sees it as a way to get rich quick.

J'onn, by the way, is absolutely wonderful this episode, barely able to hide his dislike of Booster Gold as he roll-calls a lot of minor superheroes (what good are the likes of Dove or Vigilante against Mordru?) before finally sighing and letting Booster go along. Hell, even fucking Vibe gets to be picked before Booster Gold, and make no mistake -- before live-action Cisco Ramon in The Flash was a thing, comics!Vibe was far, far less interesting.

In any case, we do see that Booster isn't 100% a fraud -- he did beat a giant robot early in the episode, and his actions throughout his own plot does show that he is at least a semi-decent superhero... but everyone just plain don't like him thanks to his egomaniacal fame-and-fortune tendencies. And while being a decent superhero might get him into the Justice League, that doesn't mean that the other superheroes like him all that much. He gets stuck with Elongated Man on crowd control duties, and to add insult to injury, every single big-name hero just tells him to, y'know, stick with crowd control even when Elongated Man gets called in... for some reason where they needed two stretchy guys.

We get a look at the less glorious side of superheroing, where Booster just has to settle for rescuing ant farms, getting mistaken for Green Lantern (so many times! Even though, as Booster points out, his costume isn't even close to green!) and generally feeling miserable for himself. J'onn, Batman, the actual Green Lantern and even fellow-loser Elongated Man kind of shut Booster Gold out, and you feel kind of sad for the dude... but at the same time Booster is such an egomaniacal dunderhead that you don't feel that the others are being dicks for putting Booster down.

Of course, something far more disastrous happens, when Booster Gold sees an explosion in STAR Labs, where he finds out that hot scientist Tracy Simmons is in trouble when her co-worker gets transformed into a walking black hole. Booster sees his chance of being a superhero, but his attempts to get reinforcements gets shut down, as 'the boy who cried wolf' would tell you. It was hilariously funny to see J'onn being an unintentional dick, too.

It's more or less a pretty standard episode after that, with Booster Gold trying his best to contain the black hole and woo the pretty scientist lady, with hilarious moments like having to help a pregnant woman deliver her child in the middle of stopping the black hole scientist. Oh, and fighting a gigantic sentient building and whatnot. While all this is fun, we get a cool character moment where Booster notes how he isn't used to this kind of hard-work, pouring his heart out to Simmons that he came to the past (our present) because he's a failure in the present (our future). Of course, though, he ends up finding enough strength in Simmons' encouragement, being brave enough to save the day.

Skeets, meanwhile, acts as Booster's personal Jiminy Cricket and I actually went NOOOO when Skeets was sucked into the black hole. What a fun, supportive little robot buddy Skeets is.

The scripting of the episode is absolutely on-point, too. Booster Gold has the perfect combination of an irritating, douchebaggy voice while not being unsympathetic, Skeets is also on-point, and even the short roles by Elongated Man and Martian Manhunter are both highlights in an already great episode. Come on, Elongated Man telling people that he's like 'Plastic Man and Batman rolled into one' because he can stretch and do detective things? That's hilarious. Booster telling J'onn how his hard-to-pronounce name is not marketable? Booster telling Elongated Man that they'll need him when they need a vase? Squeaky wheels? Man, this episode is engaging for its script alone, if not for its great storytelling.

At the end of the day, though, Booster gets confronted by Batman for leaving his post. He has a chance to tell the world of his accomplishments, though, how he saved the day while Mordru was rampaging in the background... but he keeps his mouth shut. They won't believe him, most likely, and it's a small humbling lesson for him. He did get the girl, though, earning himself a hot date with Tracy Simmons, so there's some small silver lining to his whole ordeal.

So yeah, it's easily one of my favourite episodes in showing how differently a story can be told, and, man, I just love this episode and Booster Gold. It's a shame that Booster will never have another line outside this episode, most likely due to guest voice actor issues, but hey, this episode's good enough that I almost don't mind.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Roles: Booster Gold, Skeets, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Captain Atom, Green Lantern, Elongated Man
• Non-Speaking Roles: Batman, Hawk, Fire, Shining Knight, Vigilante, Ice, STRIPE, Stargirl, Superman, Dove, Dr. Light, Huntress, Vibe, Aztek, Supergirl, Johnny Thunder, Atom Smasher, Starman, Crimson Avenger, Blue Devil, Rocket Red, Wildcat, Dr Mid-Nite
• Major Villains: Mordru, Daniel Brown

DC Easter Egg Corner:

• Bosoter Gold: Booster Gold's origin story is more or less identical to what is depicted here. Michael Jon Carter was born in the Gotham City of the 25th Century, a disgraced football player who worked as a security guard in a museum. With a combination of several pieces of technology -- the security robot drone Skeets, a Legion flight ring, Brainiac 5's force field belt and Rip Hunter's time bubble, Booster Gold traveled to (and later was stranded in) our time. He adapts the moniker Booster Gold, and was a huge jackass in self-promoting, similar to how he is here. He enjoys a stint as a main character of the Justice League of America/Justice League International during the 1980-1990's period, often being partnered up with the Blue Beetle as 'those two losers'. More modern stories have shown that Booster Gold has a specific purpose in the timeline, as it would be his destiny to train the greatest Time Master of all -- his son, Rip Hunter.
• Mordru: We don't get to see much of the dude, but Mordru the Merciless is one of the Lords of Chaos, clashing frequently with the Justice Society of America (primarily the Lord of Order Doctor Fate), the Legion of Super-Heroes and Amethyst the Princess of Gemworld. His power, well, is basically really freaking powerful magics.
• Plastic Man is mentioned several times by Elongated Man (we covered Elongated Man's origin a couple episodes back). Plastic Man is never actually physically seen anywhere in the series -- whether it's legal reasons or simply the staff never getting the opportunity to do so, though, Plastic Man is a very rare example of a DCAU character who was mentioned but never seen. In the comics, Patrick "Eel" O'Brien is formerly a thug working for a supervillain, who fell into a vat of mysterious chemicals during a shoot-out against Batman and gained the ability to transform his body into any shape he wants to. Batman saw potential in the confused man, and took Plastic Man under his wing and for a relatively long period of time Plastic Man was actually a central member of the 2000's incarnation of the Justice League of America.
• At one point, Booster encounters Superman and Batman combined into one form with one half being Batman and the other half being Superman, speaking with Wonder Woman's voice. Bizarre as it is, it's actually based on a character from the comics -- the Composite Superman.
• Grodd, Joker and Darkseid were briefly mentioned by Booster Gold.