Justice League Unlimited S01E09 Review: Challenge of the Superfriends

Justice League Unlimited, Season 1, Episode 9: Ultimatum

Most live-action adaptations for Amanda Waller, be it Arrow or Suicide Squad, tend to downplay her more complex comic-book characterization in favour of a more two-dimensional "win at all costs" savage, all-in general who's not opposed to collateral damage or killing her own people to win. While not unfaithful to the source material, Amanda Waller's greatest and most memorable role in the comics, for me, has to be that she is part of the government, and that she's not a dirty cop or a corrupt politician, not exactly. She's an extremist, she is cold-blooded, but there is absolutely nothing the superheroes can do to touch her. It's like Lex Luthor, in a sense, but where Luthor is an egomaniac, Amanda Waller is more... paranoid, so to speak. It's like how Batman would prepare for the worst eventuality, except Amanda Waller is far more willing to push the kill button than Batman ever will be.

So how does that translate into Justice League Unlimited? In stark contrast to previous enemies like Ares or Amazo or Darkseid, the League cannot defeat Amanda Waller. Not traditionally, anyway. The earlier episodes of Justice League Unlimited have set up the theme of growing public distrust of superheroes, and the question of just how involved superheroes should be in politics. It's a question that's relevant, with Green Arrow's team taking down a nuclear monster 'for the greater good' in the pilot, with Diana, Hawk and Dove shutting down a civil war, with Luthor's own talk about how superheroes are stunting human evolution. To this end, Amanda Waller introduces the world to a group of new superheroes, the Ulti-Men, who refuse to kowtow to the Justice League and are being super-nice, super-cheesy and kind of irritates Superman by out-corny-ing him.

Oh, and the Ulti-Men are very thinly-veiled references to the old racial-representative characters from the old Superfriends cartoon. The thing is, the Ulti-Men themselves aren't evil, they're just conditioned to love Cadmus, and are government-sanctioned, a counterpart to the Justice League's expansion. They have a slightly more commercialized outlook to the superhero business as well, relatively similar to Booster Gold in several episodes past, and even design-wise they look absolutely busy, with random lines and extra accessories and details to make their design look as busy as possible -- something that I find is absolutely true with a lot of the New 52 and Rebirth designs.

And while the Ulti-Men are pretty happy with their lives as superheroes, this particular batch soon discover that, hey, their entire lives has been a lie, that their memories of being recruited by Cadmus have all been implanted in their head, and they're just the latest in a batch of identical Star Wars-esque clone army with a limited shelf life. The Cadmus villain this time around is Maxwell Lord, a very important character from the comics, who actually is a lot nicer in this adaptation than the source material. Lord is a very suitable character for commercializing the Ulti-Men, acting as the businessman cover to keep the name Cadmus out of sight of the public... but of course, the Ulti-Men's unstable bodies break down, and Longshadow of the Ulti-Men overhears Lord, Waller and Professor Hamilton discussing this.

The poor Ulti-Men are just pawns in a huge conspiracy set up by Project Cadmus. Nay, they are just the latest disposable pawns... and they lash out. They let loose with their elemental powers, breaking apart Cadmus and engaging the Justice League, and it's a taste of how the next two seasons of Justice League Unlimited will be, where the stories will be a lot more focused and more interconnected with each other.

And the action scenes in this episode! I say this every time, but it's an amazing series of action scenes both in the beginning where the Justice League and the Ulti-Men rescue an oil rig from weird magma creatures, as well as the end where the League clash against the Ulti-Men. Aquaman in particular gets to be the most badass of the bunch in action scenes, beating up Shifter when he turns into a freaking dinosaur, before just literally standing there and not giving a single shit when Downpour unleashes a tsunami onto him. "King of the seas. Remember?" -bitchslap-

Oh, and we get some fun villains as Bizarro and Giganta make brief returning appearances before being taken out by the Ulti-Men.

Of course, physical action isn't the only impressive thing that this episode delivers, because Amanda Waller manages to be impressive in her own rights. She butts heads with Batman, the character in the League that's most similar to her as a paranoid normal human with insane amounts of resources... and while Batman does go all "mine's bigger" when Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman step up next to him, Waller proves that her untouchable status and her knowing things... with two words: "rich boy", implying that she knows Batman's freaking secret identity... means that she's a far, far more dangerous foe than someone as hammy and emotional as Lex Luthor. Waller knows when she's beat, allowing the four Justice Leaguers to leave with Longshadow, the one Ulti-Men that sided with them, while taking away the rest of them, but it's honestly a hollow gesture. Longshadow only has a short time before he dies like the rest of the Ulti-Men, and Waller knows that. And the fact that she has left an impact with the League, and more importantly, proven that she can walk away from them unscathed without even lifting a fist, proves how much more different breed of villain Cadmus really is.

Speaking of which, I haven't really spoken much about the League in this episode, have I? Because they're mostly just there to drive the story along. It's very much the Ulti-Men and Cadmus's story. Yes, Batman does have his badass lines at the end, and Wonder Woman is super-protective of Longshadow throughout the episode, while Superman and Aquaman are just badass motherfuckers throughout it all... they don't really do much other than just act like themselves. But it's okay.

It's a very excellent episode to build up the Cadmus conspiracy even more, as well as introducing us to Amanda freaking Waller, and the Ulti-Men plot works on so many levels. The younger members of the audience can enjoy a series of fights with impressive animation (seriously, great work on the water and lightning powers, animator guys) and colourful costumes. The geeks among us can snicker at the hilarity of the cheeky Superfriends references. The older audience who understand the full ramifications of having your entire life be a lie, and that your short life is disposable to a conspiracy that's so much bigger than you, get a far more nuanced story. So yeah, they combined one of the most depressing and darkest stories throughout Justice League with an insane Superfriends reference party.

(For what it's worth, Longshadow never appears after this episode, so it's implied that he just died offscreen sometime after this episode)

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Roles: Aquaman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Longshadow
• Non-Speaking Cameos: Aztek, Dr. Light, Red Tornado, Shining Knight, Starman, Nemesis, Ice, the Ray, Crimson Fox, Obsidian, Steel, Supergirl, Hawk, Dove, Gypsy, Atom Smasher, Booster Gold, Elongated Man
• Major Villains: Wind Dragon, Juice, Shifter, Downpour, Maxwell Lord, Giganta, Bizarro, Emil Hamilton, Amanda Waller

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Bizarro was last seen in the Superman: TAS episode "Little Big Head Man", apparently hanging out in Bizarro World. While no real explanation for his sudden return to Earth and to villainy is given, eagle-eyed viewers will see that Bizarro World is one of the planets destroyed by Brainiac in "Twilight". 
• First appearances of Amanda Waller, Maxwell Lord and the Ulti-Men. 
• Amanda Waller, also known as "The Wall", "White Queen" and several other nicknames, is a ruthless government official who was first introduced as the one behind the formation of the Suicide Squad. Soon, her role began to expand beyond the small sphere of Suicide Squad, and she became leader of various powerful organizations such as Checkmate, ARGUS and Project Cadmus at various parts of her career. She doesn't have any superpowers, but her general resourcefulness and ruthlessness has proven very adept at handling situations such as, well, this episode. 
• Maxwell Lord IV, in the comics is a resourceful businessman with a hatred of powerful people. In an attempt to rival Lex Luthor, Maxwell Lord brought sponsorship of the Justice League of America, under the guise of setting up a worldwide peacekeeping organization. This led to him being instrumental in the formation of the Justice League International, where he struggled with his conscience on several parts on whether to really believe in the League's cause, to simply use them as tools or just remain neutral and profit from them. 
• Superfriends references:
• Superfriends is one of the earliest attempts to adapt superheroes into cartoon, and is godawfully cheesy. The first two seasons of Superfriends starred only a couple of superheroes (Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman) fighting 'villains' alongside annoying kiddie characters made up for the show, while telling cheesy stories with morals. The final season, Challenge of the Superfriends, had a larger ensemble cast of Justice League versus Legion of Doom, but also introduced a lot of brand-new superheroes, which are infamously remembered nowadays to 'fill' racial quotas. The Ulti-Men are homages to these brand-new characters:
• Wind Dragon is a reference to Samurai, both in his race as well as his power to manipulate the wind.
• Longshadow is a reference to Apache Chief, both of whom have powers to enlarge themselves. 
• Juice is a reference to Black Vulcan, both in race and his electrical powers.
• Downpour and Shifter are a reference to Zan and Jayna, the Wonder Twins. Zan and Downpour share the power to control water (though Downpour is a lot more impressive), while Jayna and Shifter can transform into animals.
• The four Justice League members that show up throughout the episode -- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman -- are four of the five superheroes that are the main characters of the first two seasons of Superfriends.
• Giganta and Bizarro are two members of the Legion of Doom, a recurring group of villains in the Challenge of Superfriends part of the Superfriends series. Giganta even got to fight Longshadow, where in Superfriends she was the arch-enemy of Apache Chief. 
• There's a rabid animal in STAR Labs that can briefly be seen, a reference to Wonder Dog, one of the other Superfriends-original characters. 
• The lava creatures that attack the oil rig are based on monsters-of-the-week from a Superfriends episode.
• The Ulti-Men's headquarters are somewhat based on the Superfriends' Hall of Justice.
• Batman flies into battle on the freaking Whirly-Bat, which is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo. The Whirly-Bat is a little one-man helicopter that's absolutely hilarious, and is basically a little chair with a rotor on top of it. It's Batman's method of aerial transportation throughout the Golden and Silver Age comics, and is absolutely goofy as all hell.