Justice League Unlimited S03E11 Review: Romeo & Juliet

Justice League Unlimited, Season 3, Episode 11: Ancient History

The third season of Justice League Unlimited didn't quite try to be as serialized as its second season, but it does know that it is the last entry into the DC Animated Universe. (Batman Beyond was produced and concluded way, way earlier before JLU entered play) So while the Legion of Doom plot was running, we still had to conclude a couple of outstanding plotlines, and this one decides to tackle the tricky business of concluding the Hawkman/Hawkgirl reincarnation storyline. And while we didn't quite get much in lieu of a definite conclusion, it's a definition that felt so much more well done than the 'well, I guess I'm going off with my new love interest' that last episode did with Supergirl and Brainiac 5. At the end of this episode, Shayera picks neither Hawkman or Green Lantern, and neither does Green Lantern break up from Vixen. I guess the moral of the story is a big "fuck you" to destiny and let things play out naturally, whether it happens to sync itself with destiny or not? Both Lantern and Shayera are beholden to different kinds of destinies. Lantern knows that in the future he's 'supposed' to get together with Shayera and make Warhawk. Shayera is being told by Carter Hall that she's 'supposed' to get together with him to fulfill the whole reincarnated lovers destiny they have. And the show makes it clear that both couplings have a not insignificant amount of chemistry behind them.

Still, though, it's an episode that's a bit bizarre. We've gotten the first part of this flashback in Egypt all the way back in "Shadow of the Hawk", but here we learn that even in ancient Egypt, the Thanagarian pharaohs Katar Hol and Chay-Ara had a bit of a complication in the form of Bashari, a soldier that looks suspiciously like John Stewart. It's an awfully weird plot 'twist' that seems to imply that, what, Shayera/Chay-Ara's destiny is always with Bashari, the man she cheated on her husband with? It makes it so that whoever she chooses it seems awfully muddled that Shayera is always stuck with someone from her past.

Add that to the weird combination that apparently reliving her Chay-Ara days via the plot device called the Absorbicron, Shayera suddenly decides to relive the part of her destiny that she ends up with Bashari/John, and goes all in on wanting a baby -- especially when the future existence of Warhawk is revealed to her, as she tries (though not as upfront as Bashari in the past) to renkindle the romance she used to have with John. Because whatever the case of destiny and true love and whatever, trying to come in the middle of an established relationship is something that still doesn't sit well with me because it'd be a dick move, whether it be Bashari in the past or Shayera in the present. Thankfully, Shayera still understands her boundaries when it comes to John as he's still in a relationship with Vixen, and the sparring session she has with Vixen makes it clear that at the very least, Shayera likes Vixen enough to respect her, and while they both acknowledge that Shayera still has feelings for John, but won't be that huge of a thorn in the current John/Vixen relationship (despite her little joke about how in Thanagar she could assassinate her love rivals)... up until the weird Absorbicron flashback.

Compounding the odd direction the writers chose to take with Shayera is the fact that "Shadow of the Hawk" ended beautifully with Shayera deciding to create her own path in life and rejects any kind of this mystical mumbo-jumbo. And yes, actually reliving her past life via plot device is a different and more significant event compared to Hawkman's words, but will it really change Shayera's personality that much?

Or maybe this is all a commentary on how real-life relationships tend to be absolutely messy with all those pesky feelings getting in the way of the bro code (or sis code, in this case) and you can use anything as a justification for your love? Maybe why Shayera is so affected here is because the new information about Bashari-x-Chay-Ara and Warhawk shows her destiny with John, who she wants to be with, whereas the past talk about destiny involves Carter, who Shayera doesn't want to be with? It's weird, it's messy, but it is in this messiness that the episode actually works to some degree. It's not the worst character change that I've ever seen, but in a show as well-written as Justice League Unlimited it's a bit annoying that Shayera's final journey didn't end in a high note. It's not bad, it's just... oddly underwhelming, that the love life that Shayera finds in John outside her supposed reincarnation cycle ends up actually being part of it, just to slam down the John-x-Shayera thing as being the one true ship.

I suppose I have been bitching a bit too much about the ending of the episode, that I'm ignoring the rest of the episode. It was actually decent, with the episode first being set up to uncover Hawkman's secret, only for the Shadow Thief -- here revealed to be the personification of Carter Hall (or Katar Hol)'s deepest, darkest desires, and has been setting it all up, kidnapping Green Lantern and Carter Hall, and luring Shayera to the place where the three of them could be placed in the Absorbicron together. After defeating Shadow Thief in a bit of a silly 'deny the evil demon's power by not fighting' trick, Carter leaves, acknowledging that he and Shayera are not meant to be together.

And I suppose that John still stays with Vixen, though his note to Shayera that if/when they get together it'll be on their own terms rings a little hollow considering the fact that now destinies both past and present are even clamouring for Shayera-x-John. And while we never actually get to see Shayera and John get together (since the show ends) the final scene of Shayera going to Batman for information about Warhawk that she's going to be a little bit more proactive in nailing down her man.

I dunno. It's a bit muddy, and while it's not necessarily bad -- scripting, action and the beautiful artwork used in the flashbacks are all well done -- it's an episode that left a bit of a strange taste in the mouth. It's not bad, it's just... confusing more than anything and really even ten years after I've watched this episode when it aired, I still don't know whether I like this episode or not.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Superheroes: Green Lantern, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Vixen
• Non-Speaking Superheroes: Batman
• Speaking Supervillains: Gentleman Ghost, Shadow Thief

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• A fair amount of the flashbacks pay homage to previous episodes. Bashari and Chay-Ara's kiss replicates, frame-for-frame, John and Shayera's first kiss in "Wild Cards", while Hath-Set's interactions with Chay-Ara and Katar mirrors Kragger's role as someone trying to ruin Shayera and Hro Talak's romance by implying that a third party is involved. Hath-Set even shares the same voice actor as Kragger.
• Shadow Thief paraphases the Green Lantern oath when he says that 'blackest night beats brightest day'.
• Gentleman Ghost (a.k.a. Jim Craddock), one of my favourite minor villains, actually makes sense as someone to be included in this episode even if he doesn't have much relevance beyond being the villain that Hawkman helps to take out early on. Jim Craddock was killed by two gunslingers in the 19th century, and promises to haunt the Earth until the spirit of his killers has moved on to the afterlife... but his killers happen to be the ever-reincarnating spirits of Khufu and Chay-Ara, which means that he's trapped on this plane of existence as the Gentleman Ghost ever since.
• Katar briefly mentions Teth-Adam as the leader of a neighbouring country. Teth-Adam is the real name of the anti-hero Black Adam, who is Captain Marvel's biggest archnemesis and his predecessor as the wielder of the powers of the wizard Shazam. 

Justice League Unlimited S03E10 Review: Whirlwind Romance (with Time Travel!)

Justice League Unlimited, Season 3, Episode 10: Far From Home

I have to admit that despite being a huge, huge DC fan... I never cared that much of the Legion of Superheroes. Oh, sure I know who they are. I've read some stories in them, even. I know Saturn Girl, Chameleon Boy, Brainiac 5, Bouncing Boy, Lightning Lad, Proto the weird Ditto creature, and I even cheered when the Fatal Five showed up here (having remembered seeing fascimiles/clones of them when I read the 90's Superman comics). I even recognized who Valor is to get relatively excited when Mon-El revealed his identity in Supergirl's second season. But I've never really cared for them all that much. I'm not sure why I didn't care for them. Maybe it's the insanely large amount of rebots that the Legion has had over the years. Maybe it's because their status as being detached from the 'mainstream' time period makes it hard to think of them as part of the overarching DC universe, despite them being one of DC's more iconic (if less mainstream) parts. I dunno.

Maybe I'll watch that Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon that debuted in 2006, to orient myself to the characters. We'll see.

But it is indeed true that Justice League Unlimited's mission statement would eventually bring them to the Legion in the 31st century, as it explores all of the DC universe. But it honestly gives the Legion itself second billing, because the main character here is Supergirl, co-starring her two makeshift uncles, Green Arrow and Green Lantern. Supergirl is one of those characters,a little  like Huntress last episode, whose character has been built up across all of JLU, yet this is a chapter in her story which I felt was underwhelming, especially since this is Supergirl's last appearance in the series.

Granted, the action sequences is nothing short of amazing. There's the first fight between Supergirl, Green Lantern and Green Arrow against the Fatal Five, a very colourful group of baddies (I always loved Validus's weird looking design), but most epic would be Supergirl single-handedly taking on two dozen Leaguers all at once.

But the episode itself, I feel, fell short. The big thing that the episode tries to do is to give Supergirl an exit on the show as a metaphor for growing up and forming your own identity away from your parents (or larger-than-life cousin, in this case), but it didn't really feel that well-done. Brainiac 5 and Bouncing Boy are just kind of there, with Bouncing Boy just being a hilarious side-character, while Brainiac 5 is just kinda nice. There's the brewing mystery of something that the Legionnaires are not telling the Leaguers, and that mystery is the fact that Supergirl never returns back to the 21st century in the history books. Of course, despite the fake-out and the Crisis homage as Green Lantern cradles Supergirl's seemingly-lifeless body, it's apparently because Supergirl falls in love with Brainiac 5 and decides to stay in the future with him.

It's... a bit weird, really, and while the show does give some mutual flirting between the two ("maybe I was just trying to cop a feel") it never really feels that organic and unlike the show's previous attempts to inject a love-interest-for-the-episode in Hawkman, Brainiac 5 showing up as Prince Charming and charming Supergirl away from her family is just weirdly done. B5 is nice enough, of course, and while there's the underlying current that it's supposed to be a metaphor for falling in love with a nice person that your family doesn't approve of thanks to his backstory, other than a few brief lampshades by Green Lantern and Superman's "does this boy have a name" bit at the end, there's not much really made out of that.

It's not that the episode is completely devoid of any strong moments, mind you. Supergirl seeing how much she can unleash herself in the 30th Century is well-done, as is how Green Lantern notes there's nothing he can teach her anymore, but beyond the lack of Superman I don't feel like the show does enough to really justify having Supergirl  just literally abandon every single friend and family member to stick around with a bunch of kids, of whom she's only met two of for the duration of a day or two. All the talk about not really fitting in doesn't work because Supergirl just exchanges one army of superheroes for another, and her 'growing up' has already been explored with her many solo adventures -- be it teaming up with Green Arrow or Stargirl, or her one-woman fight against Galatea -- it's a bit odd, really.

I dunno. I guess in this setting if Kara wanted to go back and forth between the 21st and 31st century it's just barely any more inconvenient than someone taking an intercontinential flight, but at the same time I can't feel that this felt a little weak. Maybe it's because the Fatal Five, despite their colourful designs, doesn't have much in lieu of a personality beyond being evil. Maybe it's my personal apathy for the Legion. Maybe it's because I felt like the huge plot of the episode didn't entirely make sense and neither did the ending. The Supergirl/GL/GA chemistry works amazingly well, though, with Lantern and Arrow acting like Kara's two surrogate uncles or elder brothers, both supportive and protective at the same time. Yet maybe if I've seen Superman actually being an overbearing parental figure towards Kara, the episode would pack more punch, but as it is, it feels like a huge plot development that didn't feel like it needed to happen.

But hey, after Justice League Unlimited's near-perfect streak of great episodes, it's about time that one or two didn't entirely hit the mark, right?

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Superheroes: Brainiac 5, Bouncing Boy, Supergirl, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Superman
• Non-Speaking Superheroes: Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Phantom Girl, Colossal Boy, Chameleon Boy, Blok, Shadow Lass, Ultra Boy, Timberwolf, Wildfire, Steel
• Speaking Supervillains: Emerald Empress, Mano, Persuader, Tharok, Validus
• Non-Speaking Supervillains: Robotic holograms of Queen Bee, Dr. Cyber, Atomic Skull, Blockbuster

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Legion of Super-Heroes are a team of young super-heroes operating in the 31st (sometimes 30th) century, and were most famously featured in Golden/Silver-Age stories when a young Superman (then Superboy) accidentally traveled into the future and became a member of the team. Each member have a Legion Flight Ring, which explains how every single person appears to be able to fly. Over the years, real-life reboots both hard and soft has given many, many variations of the 31st century setting, and I admittedly have never really been interested in the Legion's history enough to research them. The Legion previously appeared in DCAU canon in the Superman: the Animated Series episode "New Kids in Town".
• Brainiac 5, a.k.a. Querl Dox, is the descendant of the original Brainiac. Which is a bit weird because in DCAU's canon Brainiac is a supercomputer that went wild, but in the original comics Brainiac started life as a Coluan, a different alien species. In the comics, too, Brainiac 5 has had romances with Supergirl, who herself has also became a member of the Legion in some stories.
• Bouncing Boy,  a.k.a. Chuck Taine, is a superhero with the powers to turn into a giant ball and bounce around, and honestly there's not much else beyond that.
• The Fatal Five is a group of supervillains that menaced the Legion of Super-Heroes, though I'm sure I've seen them transported into the present day once or twice in the comics. Their ranks consist of the Emerald Empress, Mano, Persuader, Tharok and Validus, and various different versions of each character have appeared in the many, many reboots and revamps that the Legion of Super-Heroes has had, in addition to more traditional successors of a mantle.
• The shot of Green Lantern cradling a thought-to-be-dead Supergirl is a homage to the iconic cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, where Supergirl was killed by the Anti-Monitor and was picked up by Superman in a similar fashion.
• The team of Green Lantern, Green Arrow and Supergirl harkens back to their team-up in the first episode of Justice League Unlimited... sans Captain Atom, but he's a bit of a dick.
• While Green Lantern cuts off Bouncing Boy's talk about how he's the father of someone, it's totally a reference to Warhawk, who Green Lantern met during his last time-travel escapades during JLU's first season finale, which he briefly references. 

Justice League Unlimited S03E09 Review: Lady Superhero Cage Fight

Justice League Unlimited, Season 3, Episode 9: Grudge Match

It is so, so welcome to have Question, Black Canary and Huntress back in an episode again. Also, Hawkgirl and Vixen. This is an episode filled with relative callbacks to previous episodes, both relationship wise (the rivalry between Hawkgirl and Vixen, Question and Huntress's relationship, Canary and Huntress's old rivalry) and setting wise (Roulette returns!), one that once more demonstrates that you can make a story about girl power without going into ham-fisted strawman feminist rants. Live action Supergirl, take note. For the superhero genre, the depiction of female characters have been... a long and hard road. Sure, it's been a lot better now, in no small part thanks to the internet having a trigger-finger at going batshit angry at any depiction of women that's stereotypical, but perhaps that's a necessary evil. And even then, it's not quite enough -- the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been a decade-old juggernaut, but even their big-name female character, Black Widow, still isn't good enough to get a movie for herself, and Captain Marvel keeps getting pushed back and back even more.

But looking back on the however many decades have passed since superheroes were introduced to children via old comics with simplistic dialogue, to this cartoon released in 2004, and now, as of the time that I'm writing this review, it's 2017 and the first real good female superhero movie has finally graced the silver screen. It's a long and hard path to get there, where back then your typical women are the likes of Lois Lane and Julie Madison alternate between being eye candy, love interests, damsels in distresses... and on their worst, like poor Katma Tui or Kyle's girlfriend, they get killed off to have our male heroes punch the air and declare grief-fueled vengeance. Even Wonder Woman, a rarity among the male-filled superheroes of that time, was reduced to a secretary in the early pages of the Justice Society, and had the embarrassingly sexist weakness of losing all her powers if bound by a man. Yes, things eventually got out of that peahen and strong female characters began to rise up and define themselves, but it's still an uphill battle.

Which is where Justice League shined. Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl are amazing characters, Shayera Hol in particular having one of the most solid story arcs throughout the five season run of the show. But they're not content with just having their two primary female leads be strong characters, and when the cast expansion happened in Unlimited, female characters both old and new get a chance to shine. Supergirl, Huntress, Black Canary, Galatea... the show isn't afraid of putting them in important roles. Important action roles, at that. And I cannot believe how amazing the portrayal of women are in an episode that has scantily-clothed women fight in a cage fight tournament, which sounds like someone's weird fetish fantasy. Yes, there's a degree of fanservice in all this, but that doesn't take away from the fact that all the women involved are powerful warriors in their own right who just happen to be wearing slightly more revealing clothing.

But it definitely delivers. Yes, some of the women are dressed in questionable scantily clad costumes, but the fights are still amazingly crafted and animated, with the great concept that Roulette has mind-controlled some of our female heroes, and the different battle styles that a brawler like Black Canary has, or the more feral, primal animal-based Vixen, or the walking juggernaut that is Wonder Woman, is amazingly done. Mind you, the setup to get there is a bit suspect. If Roulette, and by extension, the Legion of Doom, has fucking Wonder Woman under her control, you'd think that they would do something more productive other than forcing them to fight in a cage fight to earn money from the betting viewers. And if it's money you want you really could be doing something more productive with that, surely?

But after we get past that bit of ridiculousness (and Luthor mocks Grodd for 'turn men into apes' plan?), Roulette sets it up in a rather neat way. We know the Legion has been asking for cuts from their members, and we know that Luthor's main goal is to revive his buddy Brainiac, so Roulette and Tala getting angry at each other gives Roulette an idea -- all-female fight!

This leads to Huntress, who's now independent since her estrangement from the league last season, seeing Black Canary struggling to fight a couple of random pickpockets, and after a brief discussion with the Question, Huntress decides to go off an investigate on her own, finding Canary participating in a cage fight against another female Leaguer, Fire. Which leads to the first of many awesome superhero fighting scenes. It helps, mind you, that Fire's abilities is just so damn well-animated despite it just being her shooting green fire.

Huntress asks Canary what the meaning of this is, and I love how clever the show quickly acknowledges that Huntress doesn't just angrily beat Canary up without questioning her. Is this a sting operation? Is she being blackmailed? Turns out mind-control is the name of the game, and while Huntress manages to break Canary out of her thrall, Roulette's right-hand-man, Sonar, shows up to whack them and incorporate the two into Roulette's latest match.

Again, there's the question as to why Roulette doesn't try to mind-control the two, but I guess Luthor gave her only so many mind-control chips? They fight, as Huntress and Black Canary have to tag-team against Vixen and Shayera. Again, the show does very well at portraying the different fighting styles. Obviously Vixen and Shayera use their powers to their advantage, with Vixen jumping around like an angry animal, while Shayera uses her 'flying charging mace-to-the-face' fighting style. But even Canary and Huntress, the two 'normal' people in the episode, are once more contrasted. Huntress's fighting style is less acrobatic, far more judo and aikido-esque as she makes use of her opponent's faster momentum to whack them around. Canary is far more violent, charging in and using high kicks to barrage her opponents.

And as much as I question the long-term validity of this Metabrawl model as something Roulette is doing to get money, god damn if it isn't really entertaining. And then the score and Roulette's hammy announcement picks up and Wonder Woman is unleashed upon the four other leaguers, and just like Evil Flash last episode, Evil Wonder Woman is a walking force of nature. The 'we are soooo fucked' face on the faces of Canary and her friends is amazing to behold, and she just absolutely destroys everything in her path. Good thing she can be shut down by shutting off the same mind-control device, or Hawkgirl's probably dead in that fight.

Canary and Huntress end up being the ones that take down Roulette and Sonar, and it's amazing to see that Roulette can pull off a pretty cool action scene on her own. Sonar, that loser, ends up losing in a scream-to-scream fight against Black Canary. The villains are down, and that final scene where Canary and Huntress decide to have one last match is as awesomely shown as that first Green Arrow vs Flash crossover -- two powerful characters we've grown and love, who's just mucking around with each other and sparring just for the hell of it.

Add that to the amazing scripting in the episode, and it's easily one that's very fun to watch once you get over the ridiculousness of Roulette's master plan. And the Question might have only shown up for like two minutes, but he makes the most of it. Between his absolutely shitty attempts at phone sex ("What are you wearing?" "Blue overcoat. Fedora." "You really stink at this." -beat- "Orange... socks?") and the sheer ridiculousness that they snuck in a phone sex joke into a cartoon, to Question suddenly interrupting Huntress's introdump about Canary with the hilarious line of "Ah ha! 32 flavours, as I suspected!" because Baskin Robins is totally part of some giant conspiracy, to Shayera's deadpan lines when she's freed of the mind control, to the pants-shittingly hilarious lines that everyone has when Wonder Woman enters the field, the episode's just so fun and action-packed that I can overlook its shortcomings.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Superheroes: Black Canary, Huntress, Question, Fire, Vixen, Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman
• Non-Speaking Superheroes: NIGHTWING!
• Speaking Supervillains: Roulette, Lex Luthor, Tala, Brainiac, Sonar
• Non-Speaking Supervillains: Shatterfist, Hellhound

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The events of "Double Date", where the Question and Huntress fought Black Canary and Green Arrow, as well as Huntress's expulsion from the League in that episode, are brought up by various characters in this episode. Shayera and Vixen also take note of their brief passive-aggressive quarrel in "Hunter's Moon" and how they have gotten along since then. Black Canary also notes of how she last tangled with Roulette's underground arena in "The Cat and the Canary".
• The team-up of Black Canary and Huntress is an allusion to their role in the then-running Birds of Prey series, a team of female superheroes that primarily stars Huntress, Black Canary and Oracle (a.k.a. Barbara Gordon/the first Batgirl).
• Nightwing! The city that Huntress and Canary investigates is explicitly called Bludhaven, which, in the comics, is where Nightwing operated out of in his solo miniseries after he quit the Teen Titans. In the DCAU canon, Nightwing showed up after the ambiguous timeskip between Batman: the Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures and the show keeps it relatively ambiguous what Nightwing has been doing, although hints at a superheroing career outside of Gotham City. As always, the Batman Embargo has kept all Batman-related characters other than Batman himself from appearing in Justice League Unlimited, so it's a neat bit for them to sneak Nightwing in, mullet and all.
• Sonar, a.k.a. Bito Wladon, is seriously one of the more pathetic villains I've seen in DC comics lore. He's nominally a Green Lantern enemy, and he waves around a magic tuning fork that absorbs and unleashes sound waves, whose big motivation for his crimes is to make his small country of Modora be famous in the media. He would later have his technology stolen by a second villain called Sonar who wears a skintight orange-and-blue outfit under a lab coat.
• The two pathetic fighters in Roulette's first brawl are Hellhound & Shatterfist. Hellhound is a Catwoman antagonist, who trained under the same martial arts master as Selina did and adopted the Hellhound mantle as a silly 'dog-beats-cat' metaphor. We briefly saw Shatterfist before in "Clash" as a member of the Cadre, a supervillain team that Batman and Superman didn't even care enough to acknowledge properly as they discuss Captain Marvel while beating them up.

Pokemon of the Week #17: Araquanid

#752 Araquanid, the Water Bubble Pokemon

Okay, we're back with this. Right, from now on I'm going to do a different kind of randomization, because sometimes I just luck on something I don't particularly have much to talk about (like the previous entry, Pansear), so I'll just talk about things that I'm slightly more interested in talking about, and that'll change from week to week, whether that be generation or type. So let's pick one of the newest generation of Pokemon, Araquanid. 

Araquanid is one of the generation's two new dual-typed Water/Bug Pokemon, the other being one of my favourites from the generation, Golisopod. Where Golisopod is a far more offensive creature with a drawback ability, Araquanid is far more defensive. It has a pretty high base Sp. Defense of 132 and a respectable Defense of 92, and its offensive capabilities leans more towards the physical, which is nice because Araquanid gets access to two pretty devastating new physical moves -- Liquidation and Lunge, which are water and bug respectively. He also gets Crunch and the newly-buffed-to-insanity Leech Life, and via TMs get X-Scissor and Waterfall, as well as Poison Jab for that coverage. In the games, Araquanid and his pre-evolution, Dewpider, is found in the Malie garden during the day (in the night their fellow water-dwelling insect Masquerain takes over).

Also, Araquanid looks like a super badass spider monster. We've had spider Pokemon previously, of course, mainly Spinarak and Ariados, who are chunkier spiders; and Joltik and Galvantula, based on the tarantula spider. All the spiders in Pokemon have six legs, though -- someone really needs a lesson in biology.

Meanwhile, Araquanid is this gigantic, thing with spindly legs, a truly alien and bug-like face with long, sideways eyes, gigantic mandible fangs, little bubble cushions on his joints and a bubble of water around its head. It looks sinister, like some enemy out of a sci-fi game, and I love Araquanid for it. See, spiders and myself have had a... strange history over the years. I used to be an arachnophobe as a child, but over the years exposure therapy and Spider-Man movies have kind of flipped it upside-down. Now I'll freak out over real-life spiders, but I've grown so fascinated with the amount of things a spider can do -- which is a lot. See, spiders have invaded every surface of the world's land other than Antarctica due to the sheer variation of them and their adaptations to catching prey.

You'd think that the water would be safe from spiders, but, oh no. Meet the diving bell spider, otherwise known in the scientific community by the name Argyroneta aquatica. There's a Japanese variant (which I bet Araquanid is based on), too, though for the life of me I can't tell the difference. Some spiders, like the raft spider, can walk on the water surface and fish for tadpoles and fish babies, but the diving bell spider takes it a degree further. See, the diving bell spider, despite spending its entire life underwater, cannot breathe underwater. So it goes up to the surface, grabs a bubble of air with its web, and pulls it down into the aquatic plants to create a personal little dome of air in the pond it's living in, secured by web. Diffusion of oxygen and carbon dioxide can actually happen between the spider's air bubble and the water around it due to the relatively small size of the bubble, so there's no problem for the diving bell spider. When it wants to hunt, it just pulls a small bubble around its abdomen (where the spider's version of lungs are located) and swims around, being a demonic underwater spider that chomps down on anything it can find.

So Araquanid is the diving bell spider flipped around. Whereas the diving bell spider is a land creature who lives on land by carrying a bubble of air,  Araquanid is an aquatic creature who migrates onto the land by carrying a bubble of water. It's so insanely weird and awesome that they didn't just adapt the animal whole-sale and actually added a little variation to it.

I also do like that Araquanid has very few poison moves -- it learns Toxic (everyone does, really) and Poison Jab via TM, but just like Galvantula, I appreciate how not every spider is given poisonous attacks. Nearly every RPG game likes to just dumb spiders down to 'poisonous' and 'web', where they have so many other different things you can adapt into an RPG system.

Araquanid's Pokedex entries are conflicting on whether it's a savage predator or a misunderstood beast, though. The Sun entry claims that Araquanid headbutts smaller Pokemon to suck them into  its water bubble and drown them, presumably to then be ingested with those creepy-looking fangs. Its Moon entry, on the other hand, talks about how Araquanid cares for others, and protectively brings vulnerable weak Pokemon into its water bubble. So either Araquanid uses its bubble to both hunt and protect weaker Pokemon, or it's just a poor clumsy big dude who thinks that, hey, the water bubble keeps him alive, so clearly these smaller weak Pokemon can be protected by my bubble too! Except they drown. Or something. At the moment of writing this episode, Bulbapedia has not listed any appearances of Araquanid in anime or manga, although presumably they'll go for the gentle scary protector part. Nintendo never likes villifying their Pokemon. 

Araquanid's name is also awesome. Mixing arachnid and aqua? Genius! Its Japanese name, Onishizukumo, is based on onigumo, literally using the kanji for ghost/devil spider. Onigumo actually refers to a different spider, the orb weavers, that has nothing to do with how Araquanid is based on or looks.

Also, to close this off, while regular Araquanid is a cool green-and-blue thing, shiny Araquanid looks like a goddamned Predacon, with purples and dark reds all around. Awesome. 

Movie Review: Spider-Man Homecoming

Spider-Man: Homecoming [2017]

Spider-Man Homecoming is the...  fifteenth? Sixteenth? Movie in the media juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that's before we count like 8 or 9 seasons of television over at ABC and Netflix. Now superhero movies tend to be commonplace nowadays, and this is Spider-Man's sixth outing to headline a movie all by himself.

One of the biggest hyped-up moments of Captain America: Civil War, other than the whole superhero fight thing going on, is the inclusion of Spider-Man into the Marvel universe. After years of Sony fighting and refusing to cooperate with Marvel, somehow a miracle was struck and a Spider-Man within the MCU was given to us. While the recent weeks were plagued with bouts of controversy regarding Sony's own "Sony-Marvel Cinematic Universe" and whether it's in-continuity with the bigger MCU (basically, I think that it's going to be headlined by other Spider-Man bigshots like Venom and Black Cat, while Spider-Man himself will remain off-screen and it can kinda pass off as being part of the MCU? Something like that?), but let's talk about this movie itself. 

Spider-Man is a superhero that holds a special place in my heart. Tobey Maguire's geeky portrayal of Peter Parker was iconic as he swung through the skylines of New York City back in 2002, revitalizing the concept of a serious-but-fun superhero movie alongside 2000's X-Men. Spider-Man struck a chord with many kids all over the world because he's, well, a kid who's given great power and thus have to learn to use them responsibly. He's not a billionaire genius, he's not an demi-goddess, he's not the god of thunder, he's not the last survivor of a dead world. Hell, he's not even old enough to drive! While Andrew Garfields' Amazing Spider-Man series has been met with rather unfair controversy (the movies, while not amazing, were not terrible at all), Tom Holland's more youthful version seen in Civil War was met with relatively unanimous praise. He's a lot younger than either of Garfields or Maguire's Spider-Men, and he marries various aspects of both portrayals that make them likable, being a hero of the small people, having to balance school life and superheroing, trying to prove that he is good (to Tony Stark if not the New York public this time around)... Spider-Man as a superhero in general has always been one that stuck close to the ground -- not just in-universe, but also out there. He's a character arhcetype that is supposed to strike a chord with the younger members of the audience who's also struggling with school and dating and internships and being a geek.

I suppose there's a fair bit of meta-commentary too, where Tom Holland's Spider-Man constantly being compared with his two predecessors would make the creators be as neutoric as, like Peter in this movie, every single action, every single casting call, is met with huge scrutiny and comparison by the fanbase.

But here we have it, in 2017, nearly a decade after Iron Man launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe... a Spider-Man movie set in the MCU. And is it everything you'd hope it would be? Yes and no. Like this year's earlier Wonder Woman, it's a very solid origin story, an entertaining movie through and through, has a great character arc for the protagonist... but doesn't really deviate much from the general superhero movie formula. Which, in my opinion, is perfectly fine!

We start the movie a brief recap of the events of Civil War from Spider-Man's point of view, where he records his manic experiences with the long-suffering Happy Hogan, featuring some neat cameos from the scenes in that movie, and the sheer thrill that he's finally part of the Avengers, holy shit, he stole Captain America's shield and everything! And then he's returned back into New York and he's just... chomping at the bit to do something bigger. Peter Parker's story here is one of soul-searching, as he searches for a bigger meaning and a bigger role in life, as he tries to get out of his father figure's (well, Tony Stark is more jerk-ass mentor/big brother than father, but the comparisons are made) omnipresent watch and try to solve things by himself.

The origin story is briefly glossed by, with the radioactive spider bite mentioned in passing and Uncle Ben's death alluded to but not spoken out loud, and, well, it focuses more on Peter's journey to try and prove that he is better than the kid in underoos that Tony Stark thinks he is. The movie alternates between three or four sub-plots that is masterfully intermarried together in the final act: there is Spider-Man trying to work through his now super-advanced suit's capabilities; there is the school stuff where Peter's superheroics causes him to bail out on his friends all the time; there is the Vulture's own story; and there's Happy being a dick. It's amazing how all the sub-plots end up being interconnected with each other in the end -- Peter's otherwise-irrelevant high school girlfriend turns out to be Vulture's daughter, and that ride in the car as Vulture starts to piece together that Peter is Spider-Man is tense as all hell. And it's a plot twist that was foreshadowed but I certainly didn't see coming. The plot twist that the big moving job that Happy keeps talking about is actually the thing that Vulture wants but keeps resisting to raid up until the final climax is less subtle, but also well done. 

I feel that without this intermingling of superheroics and civilian life -- Peter using the Decathlon trip to Washington D.C. to fool Happy's supervision in order to investigate the Vulture; Liz being Vulture's daughter; Ned hacking into the spider-suit to unlock its full potential -- the movie would be a lot more annoying. The school life stuff is a double-edged sword. Put in too little of it, and you'll suffer from the 'overstuffed and lifeless' complaints that Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3 suffered from. Put too much of it and you're wondering why the fuck is this marketed as a superhero movie and not a teen comedy. And while the cast of the teachers and school classmates do try their best, the school stuff tend to be relatively weaker in my opinion -- although seeing the cringe-worthy 'oh man, Peter has to bail on his friends in this super-important-socially party' is definitely a clasic Spider-Man moment. 

Tom Holland's portrayal is amazingly youthful -- the man's 21, but his generally more boyish and tinier look than the previous two actors who played the web-slinger means that you totally buy that he's not legal to drive yet. It does help that the other characters he interacts with -- Tony Stark, Happy Hogan and Vulture -- are all so much older than him, making all the 'kid' and 'boy' insults make a fair amount of sense.

Tony Stark is the main MCU representative in the movie, although Vulture's whole motivation was partly caused by scavenging all those funky alien and hydra weaponry. Tony acts as Peter's distant mentor, putting a 'training wheel protocol' on Peter's spider-suit and forcing Happy to keep a constant watch over Peter. There are some great lines in the movie that really show how much Tony's progressed since 2008 -- "if you're nothing without the suit, you don't deserve it" is a great callback to the original three Iron Man movies and "I want you to be better" is also a neat bit to the fuck-ups Tony has done throughout Age of Ultron and Civil War. His overprotectiveness over Peter, thanks to involving him in a superhero-beat-up in Civil War, while not made explicit, is also seen here where the man's so scared that Peter's dead -- Tony really feels like an angry father in the scene after the boat. There is significant comparison that Tony does to his own distant father, and it's clear that Tony sees Peter as more than just an intern as he swoops down to rescue Peter twice in this movie -- during his first encounter with the Vulture and in the boat scene -- but thankfully doesn't show up for the climax. Tony's role as a sponsor and a mentor is definitely done well, and I did like him very much respecting Peter's wish at the end and pretending that, yeah, sure, totally a test. 

Happy is hit with a dose of adaptational jackassery in this movie, although his loyalty has always been to Tony so seeing him as this dick who just refuses to give Peter the time of the day is something I can buy. There is significantly more Happy than I thought it would be in the movie. Happy's role is a lot simpler, and probably more antagonistic than peole expected, but eh. 

A good majority of the movie thankfully just focues on Peter Parker -- Tony and Happy are a constant shadow, but doesn't intrude in the movie at all. A good chunk of it is just Peter's journey with his 'friend in the chair' Ned, who's an excitable geek stand-in for the audience. He geeks out over Spider-Man, he does double duty as dude-in-distress, geeky friend and, well, 'dude-in-the-chair'. He's... mildly irritating, but not the worst supporting character I've ever seen. I'm a bigger fan of Karen (K.A.R.E.N.?) the Suit Lady, Peter's own personal Jarvis, who gets unlocked by Ned halfway throughout the movie. I'm a big fan of Karen just trying to give Peter so many options which his suit can do. It's a great power up on Spider-Man's capabilities, with its technological spy enhancement, drone buddy and other capabilities helping to be a more technologically-inclined adaptation of Peter's classic Spider-Sense. The fact that the suit also helps Peter to better control his webbings -- web grenades, web barrage and all sorts of cool gimmicks -- is definitely also welcome... but no moment made me squee harder than when he spreads his web wingsuit.

I can't believe I went this far without talking about the Vulture. The MCU has had its share of boring, flat villains in recent movies -- Kaecillius, Ronan, Whiplash and Malekith being the biggest offenders -- but they went an extra mile with the Vulture. Vulture is played by the original cinematic Batman himself, Michael Keaton, and boy, it's definitely well-done. The fact that the first scene shows Adrian Toomes being screwed over by big corporations -- Stark Industries itself -- is definitely a great mood-setter. Toomes is someone who put everything he has into this new project to salvage the Chitauri technology in New York, only for Stark to take over. And, yes, tony's plans is probably to keep the technology out of dangerous hands but at the same time, it did screw over Toomes. And since then, Adrian Toomes has been working under the radar as a black market seller of powerful weapons. It's a great concept, one that's not exactly fresh but always nice to see. He operates under the radar so he's nowhere as flashy as your Mandarins and Winter Soldiers, but equipped with a small crew with anti-gravity guns and electrical gauntlets and Toomes's own vulture suit (which looks fucking awesome and puts Falcon's bird suit to shame) they run a decent operation.

Of course, this is where Spider-Man finds himself in. You can definitely sympathize with Vulture's motivations and unlike most villains who are just evil for evil's sake, Vulture's motivation -- to build a comfortable life for his family -- is very much understandable. He also operates relatively under the radar especially early on in the movie, berating his troops for shooting weapons in the public, and refuses to do what his buddy Mason (a.k.a. Spider-Man villain Tinkerer) keeps telling him to do. But as Spider-Man encounters the guns on the streets, and starts to investigate the operation, things start to unravel. Toomes's crewmates start to walk out or rebel and Toomes keeps trying to keep things together. Deals are foiled, robbery attempts are foiled, his crewmates are captured or deserted, and he keeps promising his wife that this is going to be 'the last one'. There's no denying that Vulture selling weapons of destruction down to random street thugs is evil, but when you get to see him at home, being a good loving father to Liz (that was still a surprising scene) it's hard not to feel for him. The fact that he's played by Michael Keaton definitely helps.

The two Shockers (the first doesn't really matter) and Tinkerer don't actually do much, which is exactly fine. Shocker has enough scenes acting as Toomes's main muscle, while Tinkerer's main role is just, well, to tinker. After several other Spider-Man movies overloaded with villains who struggle against each other to get adequate screentime, it's definitely the right move to pick one and stick with it. We also get a brief cameo by Mac Gargan (a.k.a. the Scorpion) as a random criminal that tries to buy Vulture's technology before he gets dumped into the ocean, but he doesn't do much either while still being memorable enough to work as the mid-season stinger for what I presume is going to be a Sinister Six themed sequel. I'm only superficially familiar with Spider-Man villains, but I think they did a relatively good job with all that's involved here. 

The action scenes were okay. The fight at the bank felt off, but Vulture and Spider-Man's fights on the plane and on Vulture's base are neat to look at, and while we don't actually see Iron Man and Spider-Man team up against a villain, Iron Man did show up with a new suit to help hold the boat together.

There were some weaker moments, certainly -- I thought both Liz and Michelle, while decently acted, were very flat characters who are 'flat love interest' and 'other girl' respectively. The transformation of Flash Thompson from being a physical bully to a general academic/social rival douchebag is a bizarre one but ends up not mattering in the long run, and there's a bit more Ned than I thought there would be. Generally a lot of the school stuff just barely worked for me, though that might be personal preference -- I certainly see a lot of praises for Peter's high school life scenes, so if that's what it takes to make more of this, then okay, why not?

Overall, it's a great superhero movie. It doesn't do anything particularly new, and there were some weaker moments in Peter's civilian life scenes, but Peter, Tony and Vulture are all well-acted and well-scripted, making the movie definitely pretty enjoyable.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• MCU continuity nods:
• The opening scene with Toomes and the giant Chitauri ships and guns, obviously, take place after the Avengers.
• Various weaponry, including Chitauri guns, a lesser Ultron's pulse-hand cannons, a lesser Ultron's head, Iron Man arc reactors, Crossbones's gauntlets and a couple of older Iron Man suits, are seen at various points as plot devices that Vulture and Spider-Man fight over.
• The Avengers Tower is officially abandoned and the team moves to the 'facility up North', which was seen in Age of Ultron and Civil War. Happy and Tony also mentions that Vision has a room there, which we saw in Civil War. 
• Events directly prior to Spider-Man joining the fight in the climactic battle of Civil War is seen from Peter's perspective, inlcuding the 'Underoos' scene and Ant-Man growing into Giant-Man. The actual airport battle is also shown later on in a Youtube video Peter watches in class.
• The Sokovia Accords from Civil War is taught in Peter's class. There was also a brief comment about how Captain America is technically a war criminal from Peter's coach.
• Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan, both being absent since Iron Man 3, make a return. Pepper and Tony apparently have made up after their off-screen breakup in Civil War. 
• Happy's note that he's been saving the engagement ring since 2008 is a callback to the year Iron Man was released, directed by Happy's actor, Jon Favreau. 
• Principal Morita's office has a photograph of his grandfather, Jim Morita, who was one of Captain America's soldiers in Captain America: The First Avenger. Both Moritas are, of course, played by the same actor. 
• The Damage Control company appeared all the way back in Iron Man, and was credited for fixing the fallout from the Iron Man/Iron Monger battle.
• The opening Marvel logo is heralded with an epic orchestral remix of the old cartoon Spider-Man theme song. 
• Tony calls Peter a "friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man" several times throughout the movie, which, of course, is a moniker his comic-book counterparrt often uses. 
• In one of Peter's classes, there is a lot of pictures of important scientists. Among them are Bruce Banner, Howard Stark and dr. Abraham Erskine. 
• Stan Lee has a cameo, of course, as a random New York resident. Also having a cameo is Captain America as part of videos used in detention and gym class.
• The bank burglars with Avenger masks have masks based not on the movie versions of the characters, but the Silver Age versions of the characters -- most notably seen on Thor, who sports a Viking beard in the MCU and is clean-shaven in the comics.
• Iron Man's armour, while looking similar to the rest of his armours before, has a more silver paintjob based on Ultimate Iron Man. 
• Thor's belt of strength is called Megingjord, if any of you are curious. I know I was.
• Peter's 'homemade' Spider-Man suit is based on Ben Reilly's Scarlet Spider suit, complete with hoodie, except with the colours reversed. This homemade version was briefly seen in Civil War in blurred Youtube video shots. 
• Iron Man giving Spider-Man a super-advanced spider-suit brings to mind the Iron Spider Armour from the comics, which is one of the bigger plot points of the comic book version of Civil War. The following scene with Tony introducing Peter to journalists is also similar to his public unmasking in that comic.
• Karen telling an upside-down Spider-Man to 'kiss her' is most likely a reference to the iconic upside-down kiss in the 2003 Spider-Man movie, whereas Spider-Man saving Liz from falling down the elevator shaft is framed similarly to Gwen Stacy's death in Amazing Spider-Man 2. 
• Aaron Davis notes how he's worried for powerful weaponry being fired in the neighbourhood where his nephew lives. Aaron Davis, in the comics, is the identity of the superhero Prowler (which is apparently shown in Karen's database as his criminal nickname), whereas his nephew is Miles Morales, otherwise known as the second Spider-Man.
• Mac Gargan has a scorpion tattoo on his neck, alluding to his comic-book alter ego, the supervillain Scorpion. He also alludes to other villains colluding together to take down Spider-Man, which is a reference to the Sinister Six team, a group of Spider-Man villains that band together to take down the Spider. 
• Jackson Brice (a.k.a. Montana in the comics) is the first Shocker that gets killed by the Vulture. In the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, he donned the Shocker mantle, though in nearly every other adaptation of Spider-Man, Herman Schutlz is the Shocker. 

Justice League Unlimited S03E08 Review: Flashor? Lexsh?

Justice League Unlimited, Season 3, Episode 8: The Great Brain Robbery

One of the biggest strengths of Justice League Unlimited is that it's not afraid to embrace humour, something that modern DC endeavours seem to forget. By its definition, superheroes and comic books should be fun and enjoyable, not just high-tension darkness and grimness all the time. Even in Justice League's darker episodes (Starcrossed and the season two's Cadmus storylines, respectively) episodes still have time to work in some comedic one-liners or awesome rousing moments. And this episode is another example of that kind of humour extrapolated well into an episode that still felt like it had an insane amount of tension and plot relevance going on.

So I can't believe Justice League went so long without doing the Freaky Friday body swap episode, which is among the list of many, many 'obligatory episodes' in a sci-fi/fantasy setting. It's been some time since I watched Superman, Batman or Batman Beyond, though I can't on the top of my head remember an episode where this particular plot point is used. So of course one of the more plot-relevant episodes for the Legion of Doom storyline involves this. But at the same time, it doesn't fully embrace comedy and reducing the show into nothing but slapstick ha-ha jokes for all comedy, but rather still has a genuinely engaging plot.

So, basically, Luthor's takeover of the Legion ends up not really satisfying anyone. Luthor's still obsessed with bringing back Brainiac and the ultimate enlightenment he received from their bond, but none of the Legion really cared, leading to Dr. Polaris making vocal disagreements towards Luthor. Luthor decides to probe Grodd's mind for answers, right at the same time that Mr. Terrific attempts to track Grodd by hijacking the psychic link that Grodd used to mind-control Flash way back in Justice League. Of course, this ends up causing them to switch their minds, with both characters finding themselves within each other's bases, trapped in each other's bodies. It's also the exact opposite spectrum of characters to choose from, as far as personality goes. Luthor is all business, whereas Flash is all about making a fool out of himself.

And things get absolutely better from there on as we hear Michael Rosenbaum's chipper Flash voice vocalize Luthor's clinical, dry thoughts and dialogue, whereas Clancy Brown's scary baritone has to deal with a panicking young kid who's improvising and attempting to bluff his way through an entire secret base full of villains. I would obviously be doing the episode a disservice if I tried to clinically go through why this is funny, but both voice actors and the script are just so amazingly well done that it's just a riot to watch.

At the same time, the League's investigation towards the existence of a new version of the Secret Society -- a far, far larger conglomeration of villains than they ever suspected -- is confirmed at the end of the episode, both by Luthor's presence hijacking Flash's body and what Flash himself saw. Meanwhile, the Legion itself gets to see that Luthor himself is a threat and it's a nice, amazing display of just the sheer raw power of a speedster, something the DCAU canon never got a chance to do since they never introduced Reverse-Flash. Seeing Luthor-in-Flash unleash insane amounts of power -- breaking down doors, taking down entire squadrons of superheroes, threatening to use Reverse Flash's iconic vibrating-hand trick... all set to Green Lantern telling the others that, no, it's not that Flash is an idiot that he can't do any of these. Rather, everything that Luthor-in-Flash is unleashing upon the superheroes are dangerous things that will hurt those on the receiving end, which, as we saw a couple of episodes back, is the exact opposite of a superhero like Flash will do.

Flash-as-Luthor is also amazingly awkward, trying to figure out who he is and trying to maintain his cover to avoid being lynched by three dozen supervillains. Going from hilariously mundane situations like talking to Dr. Polaris in the bathroom ("Are you going to wash your hands?" "No. Cause I'm evil.") to the hilarious and disastrous way that Flash-in-Luthor tries to give a leadership speech in front of the entire Legion (and ends up actually discovering the Legion's plan when he pulls off a 'well, can anyone in the class tell me what we're going to learn today?' trick)... and, in one of the DCAU's most overt innuendo scenes, Tala, the resident seductress, pulls Flash-in-Luthor into her room and it's all but directly stated that they fuck in which apparently Flash is so much more 'attentive' than Luthor ever was.

Grodd, meanwhile, knows what's going on, but pissed off at the Legion for betraying him and pissed off at Flash for being, y;know, his arch nemesis, he's just going to sit back and watch the show. Oh, Grodd.

Luthor-in-Flash is a lot more action-oriented, of course, and is more awesome than funny, although it does give us the hilarious treat of Luthor attempting to discover Flash's identity in the bathroom (always the bathroom with these switcheroos) and takes off Flash's cowl... only to find out that he has no idea who the fuck Wally West is. It's one of the high points of the episode, with Rosenbaum delivering the deadpan Luthor method of speaking, neatly filling a plot hole of what a supervillain would do if he entered a hero's body, and a nice rib at superhero secret identities in general.

The plan that Luthor made (and Flash-in-Luthor has to go through to avoid blowing his cover) is stealing a shipment of money, making the 'greatest single robbery' in history according to Polaris, who takes up the role of the most prominent voice in the Legion's forces. A combination of Flash-in-Luthor attempting to sabotage the operation and Luthor-in-Flash's rampage in the Watchtower allowing him to send out a message. We get a pretty awesome fight scene in which Dr. Polaris makes use of his magnetism to fuck up poor Steel, whereas concurrently in the Watchtower Mr. Terrific makes a pretty great use of gravitation tricks and Luthor-in-Flash's lack of restraint to whack him onto the ground. Dr. Fate (who previously had his bell-helmet rattled with vibrations in another hilarious bit) gets to reverse the mind-switch.

Luthor, back in his own body, sees that Dr. Polaris is attempting to take over with the excuse that, shit, maybe Luthor's still mind-hijacked, and either way he's bound now so Polaris is pulling a Luthor, basically. But Luthor shows that, well, he's really Luthor, because with a press of a button he quickly reverses Dr. Polaris's power, causing him to fuck himself up and puts him in the brig. Unlike Grodd, Luthor has contingencies for every single supposed-ally, and his whole 'augment my fellow villains' powers' thing that Grodd had him doing throughout the season has allowed Luthor to have contingencies... for all the villains. So yeah, Luthor's reign is settled.

It's a fun story filled with action and comedy bits, and even minor characters get their bit, be it awesome or funny. There's Grodd not giving two shits about the whole thing. There's Polaris being an awesome Starscream-esque character throughout it all. There's Mr. Terrific outsmarting Luthor. There's Green Lantern, who makes his close friendship with Flash very evident in various scenes. There's Bizarro's hilarious "am you Bizarro's mommy?" line. There's Tala's constant gravitating towards whoever's the strongest leader, as well as her visible disappointment that the actual Luthor (who's not as good in bed) is back. There's Sinestro using his ring in an actually creative way... and that's not to mention the large amount of villain cameos... I so love Legion of Doom centric episodes.
It manages to be funny, epic and awesome all at the same time, and also actually move the plotlines forward. Luthor solidifies his reign over the Legion of Doom, while our heroes know some measure of the Legion's power if not the specific locations of their base.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Superheroes: The Flash, Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, Dr. Fate, Red Tornado, Dr. Light, Steel
• Non-Speaking Superheroes: Booster Gold, Ice, Elongated Man, Stargirl, Captain Atom, Starman
• Speaking Supervillains: Lex Luthor, Tala, Gorilla Grodd, Dr. Polaris, Sinestro, Rampage, Angle Man, Bizarro, Evil Star
• Non-Speaking Supervillains: Brainiac, Lady Lunar, Giganta, Copperhead, Puzzler, Mirror Master, Parasite, Silver Banshee, Star Sapphire, Livewire, Psycho-Pirate, Cheetah, Shark, Neutron, Queen Bee, Black Mass, Shade, Atomic Skull, Dr. Destiny, Merlyn, Dr Cyber, The Key, Toyman, Dummy, Puppeteer, Gentleman Ghost, Sportsmaster, Thinker, The Top, KGBeast, Goldface, Nightfall, Shark, Weather Wizard, Dr. Spectro, Sonar, Monocle, Tattooed Man, Crowbar, Electrocutioner, Bloodsport, Blockbuster, Javelin, Heatwave

DC Easter Egg Corner:

• The episode's title is a homage to The Great Train Robbery, a Michael Crichton novel, and the Legion actually does a great train robbery themselves, hijacking a train.
• Michael Rosenbaum, Flash's voice actor, is also the live-action actor for Lex Luthor in the then-airing TV show Smallville, which was apparently the genesis of this particular plot point.
• Mr. Terrific refers to how Grodd took over Flash's mind in "The Brave and the Bold", which left a psychic resonance between them. In addition to that, events of the previous episode, "Dead Reckoning", is mentioned by various members of the Legion of Doom.
• Grodd makes a brief reference to Charlton Heston, who's an actor that starred in Planet of the Apes.
• Luthor-in-Flash at one point threatens to vibrate his hands, posed as a gun, through someone's head, which is the signature move of Flash's iconic archnemesis, Reverse-Flash.
• While in the DCAU Green Lantern's ring doesn't display its comic counterpart's weakness to the colour yellow, here Luthor-in-Flash makes use of yellow jelly to get past Lantern's shield.

Justice League Unlimited S03E06 Review: Gorillas and Possessions and Manta Rays

Justice League Unlimited, Season 3, Episode 6: Dead Reckoning

(Bit of a mixup between uploading dates for episodes 6 and 7, sorry)

One of the biggest problems of expanding a show's cast to include... well, five times the amount of characters means that the show needs to strike a delicate balance between starring returning characters and giving those lesser characters in the background a chance. It's a tricky balance, because star the old characters too much and you kind of lose the whole point of the 'Unlimited' tagline and just turn this into Justice League, season three. But star the new characters exclusively and you run to the same problem that Brave and the Bold arguably runs into in the later seasons -- DC fanboys will squee when X obscure character gets featured, but at one point, who cares about all these characters you introduced when they're not going to matter in the long run? Like, we had an episode that featured Hawk and Dove early in JLU's first season, but they never mattered after that episode. JLU has been relatively good with this, particularly in season two, focusing on a group of recurring characters as a secondary set of main characters (Question, Huntress, Green Arrow, Supergirl) but there's some cracks to the formula, because, like the oft-criticized Captain Atom's heel-face-turns in season two's finale, some of the characters just aren't developed all that well.

So, yeah, this episode focuses on the original trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, and throws in Deadman -- a classic C-lister -- into the mix. Yes, a team-up of the DC trinity might not seem an exciting prospect since this is the fifth season of Justice League and we've spent nearly every episode of the original series with most of all three of them hanging out. But at the same time, it's also important to show that these three still exist as characters, and are still ultimately important to the storyline despite their drastically reduced roles.

Also, we're building up Grodd's Legion of Doom's plans, and we see a full-on invasion of the immortal, mystical temple-city of Nanda Parbat. The DCAU doesn't often embrace the mystical elements of the universe, generally relegating it to Wonder Woman or Dr. Fate centric episodes (and even then the magic tends to be more magical blast and less metaphysical personifications of karma) but here it's embraced wholeheartedly. In a rather strange plot thread, Grodd's master plan for this episode is... to use the mystical energy from Nanda Parbat to fuel his devolution ray that will turn every human being on earth into an ape.

Which, while a hilarious plotline, is one that probably would've made more sense to be told earlier in Grodd's career as a supervillain instead of here when he's supposedly the card-carrying big bad equitable to Luthor last season. But hey.

A good chunk of the episode's earlier parts is devoted to giving us a crash course to Deadman's history and powers. Helpless to do anything when the sorceress Tala counters his possession ability, and seeing his master gunned down by the evil Black Manta Devil Ray, Deadman shows up in the JLU watchtower and recruits the trinity's help. (Of course, Batman is also one of Deadman's master's pupils, because the dude trains with all of the kung fu masters).

The episode also has the Justice League finally uncover the truth behind the Legion of Doom -- that they're actually organized under the heels of Grodd. Previous episodes all had hints that our heroes, like Supergirl and J'onn, discover about how the villains are all strangely coordinated and protected from telepathic scans. but here is where the League finally discovers their existence. In a storyline that involves ghostly possession and having the trinity get turned into gorillas. It's weirdly hilarious, and one that might be more appropriate on a throwback-to-the-Silver-Age cartoon like Batman: the Brave and the Bold, but even with JLU's more grounded style of storytelling the plotline still works to some degree.

It's an episode that's more concerned with wacky superheroing and action scenes than having strong emotional moments, which might fool you into thinking it's a filler episode, but it also has one of my favourite moments in the DCAU. Earlier during the League's clash against the Legion, Deadman decides to not kill Devil Ray and pay for his master's death with blood, because, shit, that's not what heroes do. But during the climax, Devil Ray is about to kill Wonder Woman and Deadman is forced to jump into Batman's body to protect Diana... by having Batman pick up a gun and shoot Devil Ray dead. Yes, it was mostly accidental, and Devil Ray's death was caused by falling into the doomsday device more than the show that Dead-Batman fired, but still.

It's just such a shocking moment because of how utterly insane it is. Batman with a gun? Batman killing? Batman's absolutely outraged face as he mentally forces Deadman out and tosses the gun away. Deadman's punished by Rama Kushna for his act of murder, and while Deadman doesn't mean it, he doesn't actually feel sorry about it and it's implied that somewhere in Deadman's subconscious, he actually does want to kill Devil Ray for what he did to his master.

It's such a refreshing bit to return to the 'Batman does not kill, ever' after so many modern superhero vigilantism ends up subscribing to the Punisher/Rorschach edginess by having vigilantes murder villains as the rule rather than the exception. Nolan's Batman skirts the line with "I won't kill you but I don't have to save you", but the DCEU's version of Batman -- as much as it's arguably a deconstruction of the character -- goes around slaughtering people with a high-speed tank and as awesome as those action scenes are, there's always a nagging feeling at the back of my mind that wished that Batman is returned to something more... traditional, like DCAU's version of Batman.

Maybe this is the reason why, between JLU and Batman Beyond, Batman quits the Justice League and prefers to run solo?

Deadman's not the only one who's punished for this, because Grodd has to pay for his Silver Age plot. Turning every human being into an ape? Lex Luthor is disgusted that the plan is so ridiculous, but more importantly -- that Grodd failed. He had so many resources, a literal army of supervillains, but his plan failed, and Luthor decides to do just exactly what Grodd did earlier in this season. Show him who's boss. Luthor takes Grodd down in front of the entire Legion, and even Grodd's staunch supporters like Tala quickly change their loyalty to Luthor, which shows, again, the nice balance between the grounded tones of JLU and the willingness to embrace the more esoteric parts of DC's culture.

And while the episode is pretty standard beat-em-up storytelling until the Deadman and Luthor bits at the end, you can't deny that the action sequences are just fun. Seeing colourful characters like Tala, Atomic Skull, Rampage and all sorts of other weird villains just try their best to handle the full might of DC's three most iconic and powerful superheroes is just amazingly fun to watch. The dialogue is still smart, with the trinity bickering around like a couple of old friends, both Luthor and Grodd having great monologues, and even lesser characters like Tala and Bizarro getting some nice lines too.

Also can I just say how utterly hilarious the visual gag of Luthor being turned into a bald gorilla is?

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Superheroes: Deadman, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Mr. Terrific, King Solovar
• Speaking Supervillains: Lex Luthor, Tala, Devil Ray, Atomic Skull, Rampage, Bizarro, Gorilla Grodd
• Non-Speaking Supervillains: Circe, Star Sapphire, Major Disaster, Goldface, Blockbuster, Dr Polaris, Volcana, Puzzler, Sonar, Copperhead, Dr Cyber, Tattooed Man, Cheetah, Lady Lunar, Nightfall, Sinestro, Monocle, Merlyn, Dummy, Livewire, Queen Bee, Angle Man, Javelin, Fastball, Crowbar, Black Mass, Evil Star, Bloodsport, Tsukuri, Psycho-Pirate, Weather Wizard, KGBeast, Dr. Spectro, The Key, Shark

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Deadman, a.k.a. Boston Brand, is, as he retells his origin story here, a circus trapeze artist who was murdered during a circus performance. His spirit was summoned by Rama Kushna, the Hindu personification of karma, and tasks him to become a spirit of justice, because he cannot truly pass otherwise. He adopts the identity of 'Deadman', based on his stage name and persona, and uses his ability to possess anyone to fight crime. He operates initially in Gotham City, and later from Nanda Parbat, featured here.
• Batman refers to the fact that he has history with Deadman, and has worked with him before... which never actually took place in any previous episode, but in a tie-in comic book to the Batman: the Animated Series cartoon.
• We have a brief mention of how Tala is released from a mirror prison, which happened to her courtesy of Felix Faust in 'the Balance'. She has apparently completely renounced Cadmus since then, embracing proper supervillainy.
• Giganta's arrest in 'To Another Shore' is also mentioned by Devil Ray (who escaped off-screen after that episode) and Tala, and Giganta's... unusual relationship with Grodd, first alluded to in 'Secret Society', is mentioned by Tala. The events of 'To Another Shore', where J'onn managed to extract some information from Giganta's mind, is also mentioned by Mr. Terrific. More continuity goodness is also mentioned when Diana notes that Grodd built a Secret Society in the episode of the same name.
• Batman also references Luthor's last known activity, which is raiding Blackhawk Island in 'I Am Legion'. 
• Deadman makes a reference to Star Trek's transporters when he notes that 'when they beam down on that TV show they never miss'.