Justice League S01E06-7: So I Heard You Talk To Fish

Justice League, Season 1, Episodes 6-7: The Enemy Below

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FUCK YEAH AQUAMAN!

Talking to fish and proud of it

Oh yes, I loved Aquaman in his 'Neptune King of the Seas' super-hardcore naked muscular chest with long hair and Viking beard phase. I loved it so much, and evidently Warner Bros does to, if their casting choice of Jason Momoa as Aquaman is any indication. I mean, yeah, Aquaman spent most of his career as a comic-book superhero in orange scale armour and green pants, but come on. Would you not rather have this?

As one of DC's most major superheroes -- don't laugh, the dude's comic is one of the longest-running ones out there -- it's a bit of a bummer that he isn't on the show's League roster, but hey, at least he got a supporting role very early in the show!

Anyway, this episode is the first to have a major guest star. Aquaman, king of Atlantis, attacks a submarine, the U.S.S. Defiant, and actually was quite ready to leave them to drown. The Justice League (well, again, several of them: Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter) show up and beat up the Atlantanean warships. Superman negotiates with Aquaman and succeeds in earning his permission for saving the crew... but not the submarine. There's a nice little moment where both Superman and Wonder Woman recognize what Atlantis is -- Superman from his prior encounters with Aquaman in his home series, and Diana presumably from being a demigoddess. I also liked Green Lantern's more pragmatic approach, noting that leaving a nuclear submarine in the hands of someone who attacks vessels without provocation is insane, but Superman is more interested in peace.

Sadly, to the detriment of the story, we don't really learn why Aquaman and the Atlantaneans are so exasperated with the surface-dwellers other than vague 'trespass into our territory' and 'pollution' being thrown around here and there. But Aquaman is facing pressure from his military generals like General Brak to take the fight to the surface-dwellers. Aquaman and his wife, Mera, decide to follow Superman's advice and take it up with the world conference, if only to build a peaceful world for Aquaman's infant son. There's a nice little show of subtle political maneuvering from Aquaman's treacherous brother-vizier, Orm, when he tells Brak to stand down because his king knows best. It's a pretty neat moment that shows that Orm is biding his time, a nice bit of subtlety usually lost on comic book villain portrayal on the small screen. His plan in general, which hinges partly on a mixture of assassination and anti-surface-dweller hate propaganda, and the whole political plot that runs through much of the first part really makes me happy to watch this two-parter

I do like how even while vying for peace, Aquaman still goes around with the regality of an angry arrogant king, going around smashing cars on the way to the world conference and kind of threatening them if they do not make peace with Atlantis. Despite Superman trying to mediate peace which 'takes time', Aquaman walks out and gets shot at with a bazooka. There's a hilarious bit of reality where doctors have no idea how to handle Atlantanean physiology (one of which includes being unable to get an IV line because Aquaman's skin is tough) upon which Batman makes a dramatic entrance with the supremely intelligent revelation that... Aquaman needs to be put into a tank of seawater.

Honestly I find this just so hilarious that Batman's entrance is set to such dramatic music when his advice is "hey, let's dip Aquaman in salt water."

Of course, Orm takes over as king in Atlantis, having some creepy vibes with Mera and 'hiding' the prince for safety reasons. Man, Orm is disgusting. Batman sets up a trap for the assassin, Deadshot, by using J'onn as a decoy Aquaman... and what follows is a pretty cool action sequence as Deadshot manages to evade Batman and Wonder Woman through the sewers and the streets. (Though there's no excuse but plot to have the manhole cover stun Superman for a good chunk of the chase) And a nice, hilarious moment of 'getting crap past the radar', as the cool kids on TVTropes call it, where Deadshot implies that he'll spill information if they make it worth his time... while looking Wonder Woman up and down. Batman has several moments of off-screen interrogation -- a hilarious moment, too -- upon which Deadshot spills that whoever paid him paid him with Spanish doubloon gold.

Meanwhile, Aquaman knocks Green Lantern out to return to Atlantis himself. Man, Aquaman is just a huge impatient arrogant asshole! It's hilarious and fun. Aquaman returns to Atlantis to find that Orm has riled up a portion of his military against him, and Aquaman himself is taken into custody. The League (minus Batman) shows up slightly later, and are also taken into custody, sentencing to die by drowning.

Apparently the Atlantaneans, who can breathe in water... have an execution chamber... where they drown people? Um. The weird helmets that cause them to be unable to focus enough to use their powers is suspect enough, but honestly, death by drowning? That didn't make sense. But queen Mera smashes the execution chamber open and frees the League.

Meanwhile, in one of the show's darker moments, Orm chains Aquaman up above a volcanic fissure, and hangs his newborn child next to him, before blasting the rock outcropping and allowing it to sink down to the lava. Orm, of course, doesn't just kill the two of them outright, allowing Aquaman time to break one of his arms free from his bonds... but the rock is sliding down too fast, and Aquaman is forced to slice off his left arm to be able to break free. Aquaman, sans one arm, returns to the throne to meet up with Mera and the League. It's a pretty brutal moment, and also shows just how far Aquaman will go to protect his son. Aquaman replaces his missing arm with a kick-ass hook, while revealing that Orm is likely to use the plutonium he took from the submarine (Aquaman ordered the submarine to be left alone) to power up a weapon to melt the Antarctic polar caps, a last-ditch weapon built by the Atlantaneans. The League, plus Aquaman, head off to the Antarctic and we get a pretty cool scene of the League fighting the Atlantanean forces, including Aquaman summoning a giant whale to fuck up a platoon.

Aquaman, Green Lantern and Batman break through the gauntlet while the other Leaguers hold off the Atlantaneans, and we get Aquaman facing off against Orm in combat, while Green Lantern uses his power ring to protect Batman while he disarms the device. The earthaquakes causes Orm to lose his footing, and Aquaman lets his treacherous half-brother fall down into the deep dark crevice, while Batman, who successfully disarms the reactor, notes that 'we did it', refusing to take single credit for deactivating it. Aw, Bats, you do care.

The two-parter ends with Brak and Orm's loyalists arrested, while Aquaman himself resolves to continue working for peace.

It's definitely a different episode, in that the character that receives the most focus is Aquaman, who won't show up again until like a season later. But it's a very nice bit of worldbuilding and showing how the League deals with a brash, arrogant and uncooperative ally. Aquaman's temper and impatience is shown to be detrimental most of the times -- but at the same time the show consistently shows that he has a good side, like never arming the doomsday weapon despite building it, and the whole noble sacrifice to save his son. There's a bit of mutual respect between Green Lantern and Aquaman at the end of the two-parter after Aquaman helps save the surface world, with John being super-suspicious and super-opposed of Aquaman as an ally from the get-go.

Thinking about it, there's a lot of parts that could've been done better, ways to make Aquaman more sympathetic and perhaps to show that he truly has changed in the end, but perhaps just showing that he's willing to accept help in taking down Orm, when he was all one-man-show when he headed into the world conference or when he escaped from the hospital, is enough? It's a shame that while fighting the Atlantanean army does give some decent action sequences (on Aquaman's part in particular) Orm and Brak themselves are pretty bland and unimpressive villains when push comes to shove. It's a rather bold move meant to show Orm more as a political schemer, perhaps, but I found Orm especially unimpressive.

Oh well, still a pretty enjoyable two-parter, that's for sure. The scripting will continue to be slightly weak at places for a good chunk of these earlier episodes, especially for the non-Batman, non-Superman characters, but they find their groove soon enough.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Aquaman (a.k.a. Arthur "Orin" Curry) is the bastard half-breed child of an Atlantanean princess and a human man. He's appeared in TAS canon before as a guest star in a Superman episode in his original beardless orange-and-green-bodysuit design. His appearance in the Justice League uses his 90's era redesign as this hardcore king of the seas design.
• In the original comics, Aquaman lost his arm to a swarm of piranhas controlled by the supervillain Charybdis, but the producers thought it felt odd since Aquaman himself can command sealife, so they improved on it by making this a literal life-and-limb decision.
• Despite being a relatively prominent Batman villain, this is the first appearance of Deadshot, a.k.a. Floyd Lawton, in the TAS-verse. I mean, you all watched the Suicide Squad movie. You know who Deadshot is. Best sniper in the world, very mercenary, as he's shown here. As a small side-note, Deadshot's role in this episode was apparently a last-minute swap from Black Manta, another one of Aquaman's most prominent enemies, because it didn't make sense for a character like Black Manta to be super-mercenary. Also adds a nice touch of hypocrisy to Orm's big human hate-speech when he employs some to do his dirty work.
• Aquaman and Mera's infant son is unnamed in the show, but is named Arthur Curry Jr in the comics. Tragically, he was eventually murdered by a different supervillain, Black Manta. 
• King Orm is Aquaman's treacherous half-brother, and is better known as Ocean Master in the comics. He's never referred to by his comic book alias (a fact common to Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter, who both have only been referred to as Diana and J'onn respectively throughout the show so far), and he wears a pretty generic Atlantanean garb instead of his comic book counterpart's black-and-purple costume. In the comics, Orm is notably Aquaman's fully-human half-brother as opposed to being fully-Atlantanean like he was in the show. New 52, which this show preceeded, would later follow suit in revising Orm's identity as Aquaman's fully-Atlantanean half-brother. 
• Summer Gleeson, a recurring character from Batman: the Animated Series, makes a short non-speaking cameo among the reporters that gather outside the hospital.

Justice League S01E04-5 Review: No Man Escapes the Manhunter

Justice League, Season 1, Episodes 4-5: In Blackest Night

Ah, yes, Justice League's first season operates exclusively with two-parters, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, each individual story is afforded more runtime and feels more complete with a larger buildup. On the other hand, more filler-y episodes feel like a massive drag. We won't quite reach the largest bores for quite some time, though, so we have some fun here.

Also, we are starting to get into the formula of having a couple of the League members be absent in every story. In this two-parter, Batman and Wonder Woman are the ones absent. Batman's absence is expected considering last episode established him as being a mere part-timer, but Wonder Woman's absence is handwaved with her being on another mission. We'll get less and less explanations for the absence of these heroes, but let's just assume they're fighting their own supervillains in their downtime.

The story for this two-parter is a nice one, actually, and I think one of my favourite ones from the first season. We are first introduced to a weird tribunal of judges in space with lots of aliens, who send these Manhunter robots to Earth to apprehend Green Lantern, John Stewart (whose real name we first learn this episode). We have a short sequence showing John as a civilian just wandering his own neighbourhood, talking to some old friends and stopping a robbery -- notably, John doesn't seem really worried about his secret identity. There's a nice bit of racial portrayal in here without being overtly preachy about it.

Of course, the Manhunters arrive, and the Justice League (well, four of them -- Flash, J'onn, Hawkgirl and Superman) show up to fight them, which is actually pretty cool, but Green Lantern shows up and relinquishes himself without comment. The Leaguers follow suit to the planet Ajuris-5, and he's got zero approval rating there even from his fellow Green Lanterns. We witness the trial and a witness, Kanjar Ro, tell a story about how in pursuit of Kanjar Ro, Green Lantern's ring caused a volcanic reaction that caused a neighbouring planet, Ajuris-4, to explode, killing billions. Green Lantern himself pleads guilty to the cause.

It's a pretty cool setup, to be honest. John himself feels very despondent, and while Kanjar Ro's testimony is suspect -- he is a self-admitted smuggler, of course -- John himself is willing to accept punishment.

Of course, the other Leaguers want to prove his innocence. Flash makes a right fool out of himself trying to be Lantern's lawyer, and apparently the court of Ajuris-5 solved the 'lawyer problem' by executing the lawyers who represent someone who is sentenced to death. Now as much as this doesn't make sense, and as much as it doesn't make sense for Ajuris-5 not to put Kanjar Ro in trial as well for smuggling, it makes for some really entertaining moments. Meanwhile, Hawkgirl gets into a brawl with the alien Green Lanterns (without rings!) and absolutely owns the space cops until Kilowog realizes that, yeah, he needs to help John Stewart out.

Kilowog's character defense is heartwarming enough, but the judges actually raise some pretty good questions. Why do the Green Lanterns have such power with their destructive rings to combat good and evil? They are power left unchecked, having the right to dispense justice relatively arbitrarily, to which Kilowog has no defense. Of course, five Guardians of the Universe, the little Yoda-men who gave the Green Lanterns their power rings, show up... but not even their testimony can really reverse the judges' sentence.

While all this is taking place, Superman and J'onn (in fancy space clothing!) head off to investigate the ruins of Ajuris-4, and note that the moon is orbiting a planet that no longer exists, and finds a giant hologram device. A brief assassination attempt by Kanjar Ro, which is foiled by Hawkgirl, who catches up with them and they discover that, hey, apparently the Manhunters paid off the space pirate to frame John Stewart. They manage to quite dramatically save Green Lantern and Flash from the gas chamber by breaking it and then revealing that Ajuris-4 is still intact.

Now let's just ignore the plot holes of why no one from Ajuris-4 has bothered to contact Ajuris-5 or any of the other planets... just assume the Manhunters put some kind of communications scrambling device or whatever. Or why Kanjar Ro himself is not on trial. Let's just accept this fun little plotline exploring guilt and accountability and a pretty cool little frame-up plot.

The Guardians reveal that the Manhunters were the predecessors of the Green Lanterns, until they realized that the Manhunters' ability to judge between right and wrong was flawed without being living things and whatever... but apparently the Manhunters are intelligent enough to lead a rebellion, and we see them assaulting Oa, and we get a cool action sequence of the Justice Leaguers and the five alien Green Lanterns taking the fight to the Manhunters. J'onn J'onzz gets the coolest action scene ever as with the same deadpan expression on his face, he just phases straight to the command center of the Manhunters, phases his hand into the Manhunter's head and rips out his brain. Yeah, Manhunter wars!

(Also, like the Imperium last episode, the Manhunters basically got themsleves genocided by the Justice League. They are robots, though, so it's more... okay?)

The lead Manhunter manages to take out the Guardians on the planet, beat down John Stewart and absorb the power of the central power lantern of Oa, growing to a large proportion... but John Stewart aims his ring at the transformed Manhunter, recites the Green Lantern oath... which sucks in the mass of energy before dispersing it out? Okay, they really could've gone with a more sensible way of taking him out other than 'suck in all the energy'. It's honestly the weakest part of this otherwise quite excellent two-parter.

There is a pretty human moment near the end when Gallius Zed and the others tried to apologize to John, but he kind of brushes them off with a 'yeah well you should have', and recognizes the League as his true friends who believed in him even when he himself didn't. It's perhaps not being the greater man by not being all-forgiving, but it's very human.

Of course, John, you didn't exactly believe in yourself and was ready to be executed, so, um... yeah, I guess you're just angry that they were being dicks to you?

Yeah, it's a great two-parter. It explores Green Lantern both as a character and as a concept, by showing the existence of the Guardians and the Corps, and exploring their accountability. The short scene showing John Stewart as, well, John Stewart, just a dude that walks around his neighbourhood, is pretty fun. We see a development of his previous character traits, portraying him as very firm in answering to his crimes and more or less accepting of his punishment from the get-go. We get a lot more screen time for Hawkgirl, who still is pretty blood-thirsty and battle-hungry, but ultimately is loyal to her friends and I do love the moment when she calls out Gallius Zed and the others for being high-and-mighty without knowing all the facts. J'onn is glorious in his deadpanning, but it's obvious that he isn't just a Spock or Soundwave clone because he does show emotion... his voice and expression is just so gloriously deadpan.

Overall, a pretty fun two-parter. I think it probably could've spent some time exploring the concepts of the Green Lantern Corps and less on Flash making lawyer jokes (the dude was honestly kind of useless throughout the episode, wasn't he? I mean, kudos for trying, but jeez), it could've had a better finale sequence than just John Stewart plot armouring the way out of the fight (or maybe a better explanation with how the lantern is powered by willpower?), but the action scenes were glorious, John Stewart got a lot of character time, and honestly I think I like this episode more than I should. Perhaps this episode would've been better served shown later down the line, where we actually care more about John Stewart's fate or character progression instead of on a point where we're not even sure who he is as a person... as well as for the Green Lantern Corps too, at a lesser extent, but still, what an awesome way to introduce John Stewart to us in any case.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The story is adapted from the two-parter "No Man Escapes the Manhunter" arc from the original Justice League of America comics (#140-141), which stars Hal Jordan in basically the same dilemma that John Stewart finds himself in. 
• On a different and more depressing note, John Stewart's greatest failure in the comics was actually to fail to prevent the destruction of the planet Xanshi due to his arrogance during the Cosmic Odyssey event, which  
• Kanjar Ro is an alien warlord that first debuted in one of the earliest Justice League comics with the power to immobilize people with his gamma gong. Throughout his career as a DC comics villain Kanjar Ro primarily fights the Green Lanterns and the Hawk-family. 
• The Green Lanterns that appear in this episode all have names and are supporting characters in Green Lantern's comics, though only three are identified in the episode itself. Kilowogg, the large pink-skinned brute, is one of the most prominent of the alien Green Lantern supporting characters. The alien dude with a beard and orc fangs is Arkiss Chummuck, the little round bouny alien is Galius Zed. The two unnamed and unvoiced Green Lanterns are Larvox (the one-eyed sausage) and either Tomar Re or his son Tomar Tu (the bird-beaked orange alien). 
• The Manhunters are a race of robot peackeepers whose backstory more or less mirror what is presented in this episode. In addition to that, the name 'Manhunter' has been used by numerous (at least eight) characters in the DC comics, most prominent among them being Kate Spencer. Oh, and J'onn J'onzz himself, the Martian Manhunter.
• First appearance of the Justice League's all-purpose starship, the Javelin. Presumably Bruce Wayne donated it alongside the Watchtower. 
• "In blackest night", of course, is a reference to a portion of the Green Lantern's oath. It will also later be used as the title of one of Green Lanterns' larger arcs in the comic books involving the black lantern rings. 
• Flash asks Hawkgirl about the existence of a 'Hawkboy', a reference to Hawkman.

One Piece 838 Review: Cracker Strongkt

One Piece, Chapter 838: Bropper

The main parts of the chapter is Luffy fighting against Cracker, but we do get a bit of other subplots for a couple of pages. Before we delve into the Luffy/Cracker fight, let's talk about the little subplots first. We've got Nami scaring the shit out of the Homies with threats about Big Mom. We've got Chopper (who insists on being called Brother Chopper, what?) and Carrot finding themselves in some weird Wonderland Mirrorland thing with weird spatial dimensions and whatnot, but it's apparently connected to all the mirrors in Whole Cake Island, and they intend to make full use of it. Brulee's still out of commission, apparently. Brook and Pedro's infiltrated the body of a biscuit soldier and are planning to use it to get into the castle. We've got Big Mom discussing the problem of the Straw Hats with her own hat. Sanji's shaking in fear as elsewhere his two older brothers, "Sparking Red" Ichiji and "Electric Blue" Niji show up. They both look like utter douchebags.

With all the progression of the little subplots done, let's talk about the bulk of the chapter. 

Luffy uses a Kong Gun to shatter Cracker's sword and... rip his body in half. I expected him to be some kind of weird logia biscuit thing but a smaller man shows up and cuts down into Luffy's Gear-Fourth-Haki arm and draws blood. It's not a case of 'two small dudes pretending to be a big dude, but apparently that's Cracker's real body and he looks a lot more badass than the big fat deformed lumbering dude. He's also got a weird log-shaped hair thing. Apparently the big body is just one of many biscuit armour that Cracker can create with his Devil Fruit: the Biscuit Biscuit Fruit.

(The blood we saw before was jam. Because of course.)

Cracker then summons a literal army of his biscuit armours, noting that it took a fair bit from Luffy just to take care of one armour, let alone all of them. Luffy... either moves his arms very fast Gatling-style or he spawns four extra arms with his rubber body, and launches six fists straight down at the army of biscuit armours, as a Gomu Gomu Kong Organ, but he barely cracks the biscuit soldiers' shield while Cracker's main body goes in with the sword.

Yeah, Cracker's not going to go down that easily. And now that he doesn't look like a total fool I'm actually excited to see this fight go on for a bit. Yeah, the Yonko aren't going to be pushovers at all. 

My Hero Academia 105 Review: Psychoanalysis

My Hero Academia, Chapter 105: Shiketsu High Creeps Up

We start off with a page of Uraraka assessing the situation, which is a cool little fake-out foreshadowing for Fake!Uraraka's appearance later on in the story. By putting her at the beginning of the chapter, complete with monologue, whether unconsciously or not the reader just kind of accepts that, hey, it's Uraraka when Fake!Uraraka shows up. 

The weird older-looking student from last chapter (hereafter known as Lady Clayface until we get a proper name) gives several long speeches and I like her. She's like trying to psychoanalyze Midoriya and the other students from U.A. There's a bit of a cool action sequence of Midoriya trying to figure out what Lady Clayface's powers are, which initially appears to be invisibility or teleportation or something that allows her to continually sneak up on Midoriya. She gives a bit of a speech about hiding your presence and whatever, before asking Midoriya what his motivation of being a hero is, wanting to learn more about Midoriya.

This is interrupted by a group of other Shiketsu students, most prominently a Drider-esque half-spider half-man that summons giant webs from the ground. There are a lot of cool looking designs there, and Midoriya is attacked by weird blasts including giant rock jaws, detachable rocket arms, laser blasts and giant toy shark things. "Uraraka" shows up to try to save Midoriya but the attacks from the Shiketsu students causes her to fall down. 

Midoriya goes through a bit of a 'I can't let anyone get hurt' spiel, before leaping forwards and catching "Uraraka", before jumping up and pulling off a Sanji, smashing the mountain apart with a single kick. There's a bit of a reverse-impact blowback thing in Midoriya's new specialized boots that will allow him to not take as much recoil damage, which is awesome! They really should've gotten the support team to give Midoriya something similar to his arms in the first place, but hey.

As Midoriya and "Uraraka" are hiding from the other Shiketsu dudes, "Uraraka" tries to slap one of the balls on Midoriya, but he just knocks it aside, having known that "Uraraka" was actually Lady Clayface, and then notes that he knows Uraraka. She can use her gravity powers on herself after the recent training, and she isn't one to show up half-cocked without a plan. When asked why he saved her when he knows it's not Uraraka, Midoriya notes how he can't let her fall -- she doesn't have gravity powers, after all.

Then Lady Clayface's face goops down like slime to reveal her true identity, and she's like super-interested in wanting to know about Midoriya's personality. Man, creepy stalker villains are the best villains. 

Justice League S01E01-3 Review: The Brave and the Bold

Justice League, Season 1 Premiere: Secret Origins

Ah, the Justice League of America! The culmination of several seasons of the highly-acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series cartoon shows, widely accepted to be one of the, if not the, best cartoon adaptations of superhero comics out there, keeping very faithful to multiple incarnations of the character throughout years and years of comics, TV shows and movies, a tone light-hearted enough for children yet serious enough for adult viewers to enjoy, a then-absolutely-excellent animation quality and amazing voice acting being employed. Moreover, the TAS universe (DCAU, whatever) was highly praised too (rightfully so) for its maturity and modernization of old concepts without butchering them too much.

I grew up with Batman: the Animated Series. It was the cartoon of my childhood, barring perhaps the exception of Pokemon. And a couple of years after Batman, the cartoon series formed a movie, first. Batman and Superman. Which I own a VCD of, and probably watched at least two dozen times already. And then came Justice League, which brought together not only Batman and Superman, but also all the other big-name superheroes from DC Comics. It was the first successful long-running attempt at having a Justice League cartoon on air after SuperFriends, which is mostly remembered now for being... well, being SuperFriends.

A while back I had this poll on the site asking viewers to vote which superhero cartoon TV show they would rather have me review. Teen Titans initially took the lead by a huge margin, but when the Justice League trailer was released in July, Justice League, which has consistently beaten the others for second place, gradually creeped up in the numbers until it firmly beat out Teen Titans as first place. I think I will still do reviews of the Teen Titans cartoon in the future, but for now their predecessors, the Justice League, takes center stage.

See, what makes up the Justice League? It's a group formed out of the most powerful, most popular and most iconic of DC Comics' retinue of literally hundreds of superheroes. Traditionally comprised of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman (dubbed the DC Trinity), Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter, plus many, many other supporting characters that go in and out of the league. Modern, New-52 (DC's rebooted continuity) inspired adaptations like the animated and live-action movies tend to swap out Aquaman and Martian Manhunter out for Cyborg and Captain Marvel Shazam, but the cartoon goes with the traditional lineup, with the small swap of Aquaman into Hawkgirl to represent the Hawk-family, another one of DC's bigger IP's, and to have more than one female member of the cast.

So, this first episode... is actually a small mini-movie, spanning the length of three traditional episodes. And as far as things go, it's... actually not that good of an introduction episode. Other attempts at introducing all DC superheroes at once -- the animated movies Justice League: War and The New Frontier respectively -- actually do a far better job at giving all seven of their characters a proper introduction. Not so for Secret Origins, the first three-parter movie for this movie.

Ironically, as a huge fan of the series, I've actually never watched the first episodes that started it all. Funny, huh?

Yes, Batman and Superman hardly needed introductions. They have four and three seasons' worth of cartoon adventuring under their belt at this point, so going through the whole origin story spiel would not work that well here, though the show does an admirable usage of them as the initial point of view characters. After the short prologue with the astronauts on Mars, we have Batman going around doing Batman things as he investigates a science installation that has apparently been taken over by shape-shifting aliens, and while Batman does put up a good fight, Superman ends up showing up and giving Batman a hand, but the aliens manage to take out Superman and blow up the giant satellite dish before falling down in a horribly grotesque pile of limbs and organs before reforming and running away. Sometimes I am surprised by how much violence the TAS crew manage to get away with as long as they're not done on humans. It's a nice little set-up showing that, yeah, not even Batman and Superman can take care of all the threats in the world, especially threats that come from outside the world. It's the same premise for the genesis of the Justice League in most incarnations. The powerful alien Starro in the very first Justice League comic, Darkseid in New 52 incarnations, Steppenwolf in the upcoming live-action movie, the Center in New Frontier...

Here, our group of aliens will later be identified as the Imperium. Or the leader is, anyway.

We spend most of the first part of the three-parter focusing mostly on Superman and Batman, with a short cameo by Flash (who is the only one out of the other five to have appeared before in TAS continuity), and we are shown a bit of a setup for a more... global take as Superman redoes the plot of Superman IV and dismantles the world's supply of nuclear weapons and presents himself as Earth's guardian. It's a pretty ambitious thing which, while well-intentioned, was definitely wrong since Superman himself gets taken out during the course of the three-parter. Meanwhile, Batman's investigations find out that aliens have infiltrated Earth, and later on meteors carrying organic versions of H.G. Wells' martian tripods start slamming down all over the world. Batman, Superman and the American military are unable to take down the tripods, while Superman suddenly suffers from a psychedelic headache and buggers off. It's a bit of a 'darkest hour' feel as reporter Snapper Carr (who's going to be a bit of a constant presence in the earlier episodes) report about the world being invaded and whatnot, with its protectors gone.

At this point we finally get the 'secret origins' of... well, two of the main characters. We see Wonder Woman, or rather, Diana, in Themyscira having a short argument with her mother, and eventually making the choice of sneaking out to protect mankind. We aren't really given any context what Themyscira is other than the vague godliness and out-of-time-ness of the whole thing. Meanwhile, more directly relevant to the plot and far more explored by the episode is J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, who Superman and Batman discover is being held prisoner in a military facility... not by evil government agents, but by the shape-shifting aliens that have taken over those agents.

I do love how the show plays on the audience and Batman's perceived paranoia by having them see J'onn's original, less human alien form and go straight to 'alien invader!' causing J'onn to morph to his more human-like form which is, in hindsight, quite inspired by Superman's costume. A scuffle with a lot of alien starfighters and while Superman, Batman and J'onn gave a fair fight (with some pretty cool demonstration of J'onn's phasing abilities) they are outnumbered until the rest of the Justice League shows up -- Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl.

We're... not really sure who Green Lantern and Hawkgirl are at this point, beyond the quick justification that J'onn has summoned all of them there. Green Lantern gives a quick 'sorry, I was in space doing space cop things' justification for him being late, and we have met other Green Lanterns before in one episode of Superman: TAS... but apparently Superman and Batman know who the two of them were. I think the show would've definitely been better helped showing the two of them responding to the call somewhat? I dunno.

The Justice League, now assembled, listen to J'onn's talk about the history of Mars -- the invaders showed up and massacred all of J'onn's people, which we actually see on-screen as J'onn's group of rebels are shot down one by one, with J'onn himself being the final member who managed to unleash a chemical weapon that froze the invaders and sealed them underneath Mars, before the astronauts from the prologue unleashed them when they accidentally opened the tomb... and, oh, apparently Senator Carter, the astronaut-turned-senator who supported Superman in dismantling nuclear bombs, is one of these aliens.

It's a decent if generic alien invasion plot, and what follows is just a couple of action scenes that serve to highlight the newcomers' superpowers and personalities. We get Flash being super-reckles juxtaposed against Green Lantern's more serious, more strategic coach-like mind. We get Hawkgirl giving this speech about how only strength matters in her home planet of Thanagar. We get J'onn being absolutely stoic about everything yet still conveying emotion. We've got Batman being suspicious about everything yet not overdone because he still knows to pick his allies. But ultimately it's all kind of repetitive since it's just them fighting the same alien robots, and defeating them in a different way, and it honestly felt just like something that happens without much fanfare.

There's a bit between parts 2 and 3 where Batman is apparently 'killed' (or 'he's gone', because the show skirts the words 'kill' and 'dead') by the aliens, but honestly who buys this little plot twist? Batman shows up near the climax when the other Justice League members are brought before the Imperium, who is this hovering alien organ-blob, and does a basic 'reverse the polarity' thing on the aliens' machine, causing their attempt to blot out the sun to fail, and apparently the aliens melt in the sunlight.

We did get a very, very disturbing image of the Imperium attacking J'onn with tendrils that pierce his skin and go through his body, though, before the Justice League start laying waste and, um, literally murdering all the invaders by causing them to melt in the sunlight, including the Imperium and Senator Carter. It's pretty obvious that these aliens, faceless blobs as they may be, are sentient, so seeing the Justice League quite callously performing what can be called as an alien extermination felt honestly out of character. Not that they don't deserve it for what they did to J'onn's race and to Earth, but still.

At the end of this invasion, Batman launches this satellite base, the Watchtower, and suggests the formation of the Justice League though he removes himself from the group because he prefers to work solo. I do like the implicit trust between Batman and Superman in the three-parter, no doubt grown through their own crossover in the Batman/Superman movie, and how Batman trusts Superman to lead the League, trusting the group enough yet distancing himself from them. J'onn definitely gets the most focus among the newcomers, and can I say that I just love J'onn J'onzz? I always liked him, and seeing him in his cartoon form again in the first time after a decade... wow, it's amazing how likable J'onn is from the get go.

Slightly more disappointing are Flash and Wonder Woman. Hawkgirl and Green Lantern are quite well-defined and while the show doesn't give them much screentime in this episode, their personalities and powers are quickly shown to us. Flash is just... kind of annoying early on in the series, especially how he hits on every being with a vagina so much -- something that is thankfully toned down to playful levels in subsequent episodes, and I get that he's supposed to be the child-appeal character and the joking member of the group to lighten up the scenes. And, well, he certainly managed to do that. But the scripting and voice acting in these earlier episodes honestly don't work that well. And Wonder Woman, wow, I just don't know what happened to her. Her voice acting and lines are just utterly bad here, with the voice actress sounding like she's phoning it in. Thank goodness this is going to be a temporary situation.

Regardless, though, it's a serviceable start to the Justice League. Doubtless these characters will be explored at a later time, and we definitely need some answers to just who these new characters are and what their background are. I mean, I already know, but of course it's fun to re-waetch it again. It's definitely awesome just how much of the opening is devoted to J'onn J'onzz, exploring his backstory (which is kind of loosely adapted to get rid of the h'ronmeer curse and the white/green martian civil war, but still close enough), which is great because compared to the rest of the cast he's definitely the least well-known of the group to the non-comic-book reading audience.

All in all, a rather enjoyable episode.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• I won't spoil too much about the origin stories of the Justice League members because they will be the spotlight of some later episodes. But the Flash in this series is Wally West, the third Flash and successor to Barry Allen (due to Wally being the Flash in the comics at the point of the show's run). Green Lantern in this series is John Stewart, the fourth human Green Lantern, because, again, Hal Jordan was dead in the comics during the time of the show's run and the showrunners opted for Stewart as opposed to Kyle Rayner (who actually appeared before in an episode of Superman: TAS) to add some racial diversity. Hawkgirl in this incarnation is Shayera Hol, based on the Silver Age incarnation of the character, an alien from the planet Thanagar. 
• While this is the first appearances of John Stewart and Hawkgirl, Superman apparently knew Green Lantern well enough to call him by his first name, and Batman recognizes Hawkgirl.
• Snapper Carr, the reporter that keeps showing up in this episode (and will show up in small roles for many, many future episodes) is the 'young and hip' sidekick to early incarnations of the Justice League of America. Snapper Carr was envisioned as a neutral, non-superhero mascot of the team that children can identify with... but ended up being relatively unpopular and turned into a treacherous villain in his final appearances in the Justice League comics. More modern incarnations have restored his heroic nature, albeit as a supporting character such as a scientist, an agent, and on occasion, a reporter and chronicler of the JLA.
• The Imperium is loosely based on the White Martians from the original comics. They are an army of shape-shifting aliens that massacred J'onn's Green Martian people, and are sealed within Mars until they are released, and the White Martians was the first threat fought by the revamped Justice League in the 90's comics with a relatively similar story structure where Batman is thought to be killed halfway through the story.. Though whereas the White Martians were actual residents of Mars in the comics, the Imperium here is explicitly said to have invaded from a different planet and stole the martians' shape-shifting power.
• The Imperium also references the classical science fiction writer H.G. Wells' novel, War of the Worlds, in the design of their tripods, which are all but identical to the martian tripods in that novel -- giant, three-legged vehicles with indestructible beams, and using a black smoke to blot out the sun. Like the martians in Wells' novel, the Imperium is defeated by something that is trivial to mankind -- sunlight in the Imperium's case, and bacteria in the martians' case.
• General Wells, one of the generals that had a relatively large speaking role in the three-parter, is almost assuredly a reference to H.G. Wells as well. 
• Senator J. Allen Carter is a reference to the protagonist of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter novels, a man who is transported to (guess where) Mars. John Carter's story had been adapted into comic form by both Marvel and DC comics before.
• Superman disarming the world's nuclear weapons was the plot of the movie Superman IV: The Quest of Peace, though in here he actually goes around disarming the weapons instead of just putting them in a little bag and lobbing it into the sun. 
• While the Green Lanterns in the TAS universe seem to have outgrown the classical weakness of the colour yellow, the gas that took out John Stewart was yellow in colour in possible reference to that fact.
• Senator Carter at one point calls the Justice League "Earth's mightiest heroes", an epithet commonly used by Marvels' super-hero team the Avengers.
• While forming the League, the Flash off-handedly makes a joke about calling themselves the Super Friends, a reference to the old cartoon adaptation of the Justice League.

Movie Review: Batman - the Killing Joke

Batman: The Killing Joke

I read the Killing Joke at a relatively young age. I was a big Batman fan back in the day, and I kept wondering how this cheerful Batgirl I see in the cartoons and some of the older comics ended up paralyzed. I mean, Oracle is cool as all hell, but as a kid I wanted all the big 'event' comics, and apparently Barbara was shot in this apparently super-acclaimed comic called the Killing Joke.

Wow, what a fucked-up comic I bought home that day. It was revolutionary in that it was one of the first comics to explore such a dark theme of Batman and Joker's fucked-up relationship, how they revolve around each other, it explores the 'One Bad Day' mentality of the Joker and gives the most iconic (and now kinda definitive) origin of the Joker, it has the shock factor of having Joker go after Gordon in his home, shooting his daughter and then trying to drive him insane. It's far from perfect -- a lot of criticisms can be lobbied at the book, most notably reducing Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, into a weak character who had like four pages of screentime total and crippled without much of a fight, and then literally used as shock value in-universe. And the ending was something that I never liked, even if I grew to appreciate the myriad interpretations it had I always thought the ending deserved something with more... oomph instead of just Batman and Joker laughing.

But man, there were so many themes going on in that comic. The whole 'one bad day can drive a normal man to madness', but people like Gordon (and thus the reader) have the choice to stay sane and strong and uphold the book. Evil people will try to convince themselves that other people are as bad as they are. There's the whole duality between Batman and Joker, their similarities (literally one bad day and the deaths of loved ones by circumstances out of their control fucked the two of them up) and their eternal dance that can only end with one of their death, and humanizing Batman even more here by having him actually offer to help Joker despite all that he's done. Yeah, the story has problems, but it has a lot of other great themes.

But warts and all, it was one of the definitive Batman/Joker stories, and one of the most iconic and pivotal Batman stories of all time. So when DC started making movies based on comic book stories, it's a matter of time before this one made the cut.

THERE IS NO SANITY CLAUSE

The question is, how will they go about it? Even without the brutality and dark comedy of Joker shooting Barbara in her own home, and then stripping her to take photos to torment Gordon (with a bit of rape subtext that has been subject to debate for years and years) the whole point of the Killing Joke was the psychological ramifications of madness and the unending conflict between Batman and the Joker. It isn't something you'd want to air on a Saturday morning for little kids. Plus, the artwork is horrifying... even when drawn in DC Animated's crispier art style.

So when the animation adaptation is announced, I was happy. As much as I have mixed feelings about the original comic book, the simple notion of hearing that Kevin Conroy and Mark fucking Hamill -- the voices of Batman and Joker from Batman: the Animated Series... nay, the definite voices of Batman and Joker period -- will be reprising their roles made me super-excited for this adaptation. And for the most part? Whenever the two are on screen together, holy shit, their voices were music to my ear. And a lot of the iconic scenes from the Killing Joke, from Joker's origin story, to Joker shooting Barbara, to Batman meeting the poser in the asylum with the skin makeup, to faithful reproductions of panels with Joker's hollow sunken eyes, to Batman going on a rampage on the local thugs to look for Joker, to the creepy throne of baby dolls, to the nightmare carnival ride with the weird midget things... so much was reproduced faithfully from the comic, so much lines of dialogue lifted from the comics, that it was beautiful. And hearing one more time Joker's rants that waffle between insane ramblings to jokes to anger at what the world did to it and his desire to prove that normal people are just like him... it's a wonderful script, and, again, it is definitely the reason that Alan Moore's comic is held in high regard.

Of course, the movie should, by rights, be held in high regards, too. Great voice acting, great script, pretty decent animation... it's basically the Killing Joke, just animated and read by Mark Hamill (and oh boy what an excellent job Hamill did with his last work as the Joker) and Kevin Conroy.

Well, so long as you ignore the first one-third of the story, that is.

See, Killing Joke, the movie, adds around... oh... 30-40 minutes of extra screentime of wholly original material. Which expanded on Batgirl's role in the story. Which I was honestly very, very excited about when I heard what was going to happen. The Killing Joke was a pretty short comic, especially compared to other comic books that got turned into movies. And, don't get me wrong, Killing Joke was an excellent Joker story, balancing between his anarchic insanity and some reason for his character's existence... but it was a shit Batgirl story, and it kinda disgusted me because, hey, I'm a Batgirl fan as much as I am a Batman or Joker fan. The fact that this led to Barbara refusing to fall to one bad day and rise up from the ashes as Oracle has allayed a lot of my dislike to her having like three pages in the whole thing, but it is still valid criticism that Barbara Gordon was reduced to nothing but a plot device in the original comic book, reduced to nothing but a plot device as a motivation tool for Batman and Gordon.

If there was one thing that really needed to be changed in the Killing Joke, it was this facet of the story, and trailers showing Batgirl in action beating up thugs made me smile. Yeah, this was the way to go. Expand Batgirl's story, and make it so that when she gets shot, it's not as dehumanizing as it initially was in the comic.

Except... the movie adaptation actually makes it worse.

Sorry if I rant a lot about the Batgirl prologue, but that bit being the only real new material to the movie and the rest being super-faithful to the comics with awesome voice acting, this is the part I really needed to talk about, I think.

See, we get to see a prologue of Batman and Batgirl fighting crime in the beginning... which doesn't really paint Batgirl in a very flattering way. Having Batman's sidekicks be worse than him and get angry because Batman refuses to acknowledge their incompetence is nothing new -- every single member of his little bat-family has been through it. But spending so, so much time focusing on Barbara angsting about 'he loves me, he loves me not' both in and out of cape? That is just weird and adds nothing to the story later on. It just paints Barbara as this lovesick girl, and reduced to a mere two-dimensional love interest -- a different feminist stereotype than damsel in distress and died-to-motivate-the-hero, perhaps, but still a very unflattering one.

And honestly, Batman's relationship with Batgirl has always been that of a surrogate father or uncle. It was Batman's adopted son, Dick, that dated Batgirl, and after having that relationship in mind for years it is honestly jarring and absolutely wrong to see them fuck. There's the age gap, and the weird parental surrogate thing going on, and there's how Batgirl is written... she's so... subordinate to Batman, so eager to earn his respect, yet somehow this translates to sex? Having her biggest priority during her ranting is why Batman doesn't pay attention to her, instead of trying to analyze the Paris's obsession... this felt like something out of a fanfiction instead of something that should be latched on with the quality of scripting that the actual Killing Joke parts got. Honestly, after all the rap that the comic book version of Killing Joke got for its portrayal of Barbara, you'd think this movie would do better.

We get a small subplot of Batgirl having to chase down Paris Franz, who is this crime dude fighting his own uncle, a big kingpin, and having an unhealthy obsession with Batgirl. Like, flirting and using date rape gas and shit. I guess it's meant to be a parallel to Joker and Batman's relationship? And Batgirl beating Paris into a pulp might be a parallel to the whole 'one bad day' allegory? None of this really ends up amounting to anything, though, because Barbara quits being Batgirl, and then her role gets reduced back to how she was in the original comic -- does nothing, gets shot, and stays out of the picture. Oh, yeah, she does get a stinger where she returns as Oracle, but honestly that scene was so unindicative that anyone who doesn't already know who Oracle is won't understand what's going on.

And honestly, does any of the prologue really add anything to the story? Did the dull romance accomplish anything? Did the whole insipid subplot about chasing the creeptastic douchebag Paris mean anything in the long run? None of this adds any weight to the movie, and you're left wondering what was the point of showing Batgirl for the first twenty plus minutes if it's not going to do anything to the movie?

Sigh.

Honestly, I think the first thirty minutes do as much disservice to such a beloved character like Batgirl as shooting her and leaving her like a sacrificial lamb did.

Oh well.

Mark Hamill's Joker is excellent and you should watch the movie for him, if nothing else. It's the definitive Joker, blending the gleeful, cheerful sadism with a slightly darker (but not overboard) take on the character, with certain uncharacteristically lucid moments. And you even get him singing at one point. Yeah, there is a reason when people debate about Ledger vs Leto vs Nicholson vs Cesar, I'll just point at Mark Hamill's Joker.

So yeah. Killing Joke the movie is still a very good Batman and Joker story. But it's an even shittier Batgirl story than the original. Poor kid can't catch a break.


DC Easter Egg Corner:

• The monitor with a montage of pictures of Joker is a treasure trove of this, with scenes from 70+ years' worth of Joker stories... ones I noticed are...
• We get a cameo of Joker with Harley Quinn in her New 52 look. Notably, Harley Quinn's character sprouted to life as a random extra mook in Batman: the Animated Series... of which the voice cast of this movie is from.
• We get a reproduction of Jason Todd's dead face after Joker kills him, though in the comics Jason's death happened after the events of Killing Joke -- the GCPD taking drastic measures against Joker was one of the things that actually led into the events of Death in the Family.
• Laughing fish, which is based on a pretty iconic 70's Joker comic which was later adapted into an Emmy-winning episode of Batman: the Animated Series.
• A reproduction of the cover of Batman #1 (which itself is homaged with the more well-known the Man who Laughs comic), the comic that contains Joker's first appearance, with Joker holding playing cards with Batman, Joker and Robin's faces.
• The first appearance of Cesar Romero's Joker in the old TV series with Joker disguising himself as a clown -- you might also recognize the clown mask as the same one used by Heath Ledger's Joker in the Dark Knight's opening scene.
• Joker on a folding chair at a beach, holding a green can while birds fly around him, is a reproduction of a scene from Tim Burton's Batman, starring Jack Nicholson's Joker.
• An animated adaptation of Heath Ledger's Joker with the green vest and all sitting calmly in a jail cell from the Dark Knight. 
• The Laffco factory is a setting from Batman: The Animated Series, which I'm not sure has appeared in other Batman material.
• One of the few lines not really lifted from the comic during the actual Killing Joke segment was the "I swear to god" "swear to me" line from Batman and a random thug, which is one of the iconic and memetic lines from Batman Begins. Which I'm 99% sure wasn't in the original comic.
• The newspaper clipping that Gordon showed off is a reproduction of the very first comic book cover featuring Bat-man, though with him choke-holding Joker instead of a random mook. I think in the comic this was just a random nondescript comic instead of a reference to Detective Comics #27.

One Piece 836 Review: Convenient Introdump

One Piece, Chapter 836: The Vivre Card that Lola Gave

Well, that was disappointingly short. We get several pages of just a flashback to catch readers up on Lola -- which, to be honest, has been quite some time since she has been relevant -- so yeah. We also get confirmation that Lola's father, mr juice dude, is called Pound. There's a bit of random internal conflict between Randolph, Brulee and Cracker, all of whom had gathered around... and Randolph's just weird because he kind of disappears from the plot after his re-introduction. There was a weird bit where the tree homies are apparently scared to death (literally to death) by Cracker? We got them introdumping about the whole Vinsmoke thing and the whole 'I've captured your friends' thing to Luffy and Nami, before Brulee transforms... some... things into animals? I honestly didn't follow some of the events and sequences in this chapter. 

Oh, and Nami's vivre card (that definitely belongs to Big Mom) drives the Homies away because it marks her as untouchable. Raise your hand anyone who didn't see this coming the moment Lola was brought back into the story. No one? Good.

Apparently Brulee's mirror doesn't kill the people it traps if it shatters. Also, Cracker can split his arms apart if he knocks on them, so he faces luffy with eight sword arms and a shield made up of a cracker. "Thousand Arms" Cracker has a bounty of 860 million... which is quite high. In comparison, Luffy and Law are both 500 million, Ace was around the 500 million ballpark too, Doflamingo was 350 before the bounty was frozen by the government... But bounties aren't really indicative of strength, because Luffy did a lot of things the government isn't aware of and Doflamingo has had his bounty frozen for a long, long time. So I dunno. Cracker doesn't look like he's going to be a big threat.

Regardless, the fight will be definitely more interesting than this chapter.