Justice League Unlimited S03E05 Review: Rogues' Revenge

Justice League Unlimited, Season 3, Episode 5: Flash and Substance

This is probably one of my favourite episodes of Justice League Unlimited, and would probably rank pretty highly among the favourite episodes of superhero fiction ever. It's the episode that really shows why I love this incarnation of the Flash, and why I threw a little hissy fit that it's boring old Silver Age Barry Allen that would be the star of the TV show. I grew to love Barry Allen all the same, of course, but still, rewatching this episode rekindles my love for my definitive Flash, Wally West.

See, Wally's just... a young kid. Sure, he's grown up somewhat over the years, but both in the original source comics (where he's a sidekick that succeeded the dead Barry Allen) he's a fair bit younger than the rest of the league. And where the rest of the league are larger-than-life figures, with Diana being a literal goddess among men, Flash is just... such a regular guy. Even someone like Superman with a boring reporter day job is still the last survivor of his planet. The only other person that feels like an everyday dude is John Stewart, and he's part of an intergalactic space cop army and has a military background. We didn't really know much about Flash as a person, with the character even sitting out almost an entire season. He had several great episodes over the years, of course, and his status as the heart of the team is unquestionable, but we never really got to see Wally West, the person.

And he's... so delightfully just identical to Flash the person. He's just a kid with superspeed! He's absolutely beloved in Central City, because having superspeed means he has the time in-between saving people from telepathic gorillas to make nice with the hot dog sellers, fishermen, taxi drivers and the old ladies in his town. He's just so nice! And he's just so absolutely proud of his very humble home, being genuinely excited that his apartment is on the same floor with a laundry. Is it not appropriate that Central City hnours him with a museum dedicated to him?

Yet at the same time, Flash does, pretty innocently, act like a complete buffoon. Batman, who's worked with Flash for so long (and also is BFFs with another red-suited beacon of hope and justice) understands why Flash is so effective as a hero, and despite being, y'know, fucking Batman, agrees to Flash's invitation to show up at the unveiling of the Flash Museum despite Wally himself not thinking that Batman would even consider doing it. Orion, on the other hand, is the God of War of Apokolis. He doesn't understand why the hell someone would act like a complete moron. And it's these two different viewpoints that we see the life of Wally West.

Another lens we see the Flash from is that of his villains. Apparently they have a bar! Flash's villains are easily the most colourful Rogues' Gallery ever out there, and I'm sad that not many of them are represented in the JLU, or even the actual Flash TV show. This episode focuses on the Rogues, whose roster has Captain Cold, the Trickster, Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang (who apparently left the Suicide Squad). It's basically the traditional roster, minus Weather Wizard (associated more with Superman in the DCAU), Heat Wave (busy as one of the members of the Legion of Doom) and Abra Kadabra.

And seeing these four villains in a bar being grouches and talking about how the Flash ruins their lives is just a highlight. Yes, it's very light-hearted, but seeing Captain Cold talk about mortgage payments and how his wife will force him to bag groceries for a living, or Mirror Master being sad because he's reduced to 'merely' stealing sports car shipments, or the hilarious montage of the Rogues ordering non-alcholic drinks (cherry cola! Decaf soy lattte!) to end with Captain Cold asking for milk, and when everyone looks at him he just gives the very lame excuse of his ulcer acting up.

It's all light-hearted stuff without being too cheesy, and fits in perfectly with the rest of the DCAU. The Flash (regardless of whether it's Jay, Barry, Wally or Bart) is a breed of superhero that's fast vanishing from current comics. Just an optimistic nice guy. Every single story seems intent on turning their superheroes into the next brooding Batman clone, or into an angry psychotic extreme Wolverine/Punisher clone. Characters like Captain America get turned into a Hydra agent for no reason, Superman spends more time brooding about his place in the world than actually saving people, and even live-action adaptations of Green Arrow turn him into a grim, dour vigilante instead of an ultra-liberal Robin Hood figure. Hell, even Flash's own live-action series has gone through a fair amount of grimness as well. The thing is, anti-heroes is such the norm of the current superhero genre, being viewed as the cool, modern ones, that these more traditional heroes are being waved off as being too kiddy and immature and not at all engaging.

Which isn't true, of course. 'Fun' stories is honestly intrinsic to the superhero genre in general. And while some movies do go overboard to the point of stupidity (Batman and Robin, I'm looking at you) I really, really appreciate superhero material like Legends of Tomorrow, Flash or Guardians of the Galaxy that isn't afraid to be fun while still telling engaging stories.

And by god, this episode is fun. It helps that Flash's enemies are very colourful, too. There's a disco ball laser fight sequence against Mirror Master. Captain Boomerang unleashes a literal giant jet-powered boomerang upon Central City. We get the requisite mirror-world fight. Batman and Orion join the madness halfway through, too, which is just entertaining not in the action scenes they bring into the table, but also the unspoken respect Batman has towards Flash (while still acting like an exasperated daddy sometimes) while Orion himself begins to see that Flash's well, flashiness is backed up with substance. He genuinely is a nice, bubbly guy, and means all of what he says. Yes, people erect monuments in his honour, but when half of the museum is wrecked in the fight, Flash's response is a happy shrug because no one got hurt. And hey, he got on TV!

One of the best scenes in the episode is when Flash, Batman and Orion break into the villain bar, to find the Trickster drowning his sorrows in non-alcoholic drinks. See, the Trickster is the friend no one likes. He's clearly a bit off his rocker, and is a bit too loony even for the other Rogues' tastes. And he's just moping around due to the lack of respect he gets. See, good guys break into a bar to get information, and if it was 24 or James Bond, Trickster would be beaten up at the end of the scene. Hell, Batman himself would've broken a finger or two, slammed Trickster's face on the table, or hung him from the roof with a zipline. Orion certainly seems quite eager to break some bad guy bone.

But Flash? Flash's different. He doesn't threaten force, but he just sits down next to James (not Trickster, mind you), and talks in the nice, friendly tone that he uses for the taxi driver or the fishermen in Central City. He just speaks to his enemy like a friend, telling James that, yeah, he needs to take his meds, he needs to return to the mental hospital, because they can help him. Flash knows that the Trickster is honestly just a dude that's really sick, and mostly harmless, and Batman, being someone who deals with maniacs regularly, understands this intimately.

It harkens back to episodes in Batman: TAS where Batman tries to take a lighter tone with more harmless villains like Harley Quinn or Ventriloquist, earning their respect and their brief retirement from crime. Not all our villains are complete monsters like the Joker or Darkseid, after all. Flash won't hesitate to throw down with the likes of Mirror Master or Captain Boomerang, though at the same time he also makes it clear that he wants to avoid actually hurting them too much.

Orion, meanwhile, is confused. Why the hell is Flash wasting so much time on a pathetic loser like Trickster? Batman notes that, yes, Orion doesn't quite get it, at least not until the final part of the episode. Orion only really understands at the end of the episode, apologizing to Flash for being demeaning about him and his jokey attitude. He posits the theory that while Flash is a very capable and powerful hero adored by the masses, he 'plays the part of the fool to hide a warrior's pain'. And, well, that may be partially true, but Flash just shrugs it off, because that truly is the essence of what he is -- he just wants to take the bad guys down without anyone else getting hurt, and he's happy enough.

We also get some cool scenes courtesy of Orion and Batman, and I am so glad that despite the setup being done with the two Captains being scared of Batman as he stalks towards them with the theme music it's takes Batman summoning Flash from the mirror dimension that allows the takedown of the Rogues.

Special mention goes to the Rogues. Captain Boomerang aside, this is the first time we've actually seen them outside of a brief cameo in 'Eclipsed', yet the episode showing them hanging out in a bar quickly establishes their status as long-running enemies of the Flash, and the voicework and dialogue given to them is amazingly well-done and establishes their personalities well. Trickster's crazy and unpredictable, and later ends up just being kind of pathetic. Mirror Master is just full of anger and kind of the 'brute' of the team. Captain Boomerang is cocky and confident. Captain Cold is kind of pathetic as well, but in a way that's more like 'man, I'm a failure' instead of Trickster's 'god, shut the fuck up, James'.

Sadly, they don't appear again in JLU, and I'm sad that the TV version of the Flash fails to explore this side of Flash as a character, instead spending way too much time being tied up in mysteries about Zoom and Savitar no one cares about.

As a final bonus? A crap-ton of love is just spread for the Flash mythos with an inordinate amount of Easter Eggs. That still work.

"Dude, soon as you finish your drink, turn yourself in!"

Man, Flash is just such a bro.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Superheroes: Flash, Batman, Orion
• Non-Speaking Superheroes: Rocket Red, Hawkgirl, Superman, Green Lantern, Vixen, Ice, Red Tornado, Wonder Woman
• Speaking Supervillains: Mirror Master, Trickster, Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang
• Non-Speaking Supervillains: The Top, Weather Wizard, Thinker, Dr. Alchemy, Mr. Element, Turtle Man, Abra Kadabra, Fiddler

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Captain Boomerang mentions his tenure for Task Force X has ended, though he was apparently let out after five years due to good behaviour. 
• The Rogues:
• Captain Cold: Leonard "Lenny" Snart is one of the few villains that could call himself Flash's arch-enemy, and considering he's just a man with a cold gun and his competition is a psychotic vengeful speedster from the future and a super-intelligent telepathic gorilla, that's saying something. Snart was raised by an abusive father, and while experimenting with methods to stop the Flash, Snart developed the cold gun, and later was one of the most important and founding member of the Rogues, as he grew obsessed in his desire to defeat the Flash. Captain Cold maintains a code of conduct for the Rogues, mainly revolving around inheriting the mantle of another Rogue upon the death of one of them, as well as swearing off drug usage. They also have a code about not killing unless if it's absolutely necessary.
• Mirror Master: There have been two Mirror Masters over the years, the first, Sam Scudder, used a simple mirror gun to get into mirrors and fought Barry Allen, but died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. He was replaced with the Scottish Evan McCulloch, who had more powerful powers than Scudder, with the ability to enter mirror dimensions and even transform into mirrors himself. McCulloch was associated strongly with Wally West's Flash and the Rogues. The DCAU version of Mirror Master seems to be a combination of Scudder (he doesn't have a Scottish accent) and McCulloch (Wally's enemy, as well as having mirror dimension abilities).
• Trickster: James Jesse was a circus acrobat who invented shoes that allowed him to walk on air, and engaged the Flash when he committed a series of crimes across Central City. He wasn't as unhinged in the comics, and was instrumental in the Underworld Unleashed storylines, where he conned his way through the most powerful beings of the world such as the demon Neron, and later converted into good and worked for the FBI, before being caught up in an absolutely complex storyline where everyone is hunting for him and Pied Piper (chained together with explosive cuffs for good measure) and Trickster ultimately dies protecting his friend. 
• Other than those, other prominent Rogues like the Top, Weather Wizard, Abra Kadabra, Fiddler, Dr. Alchemy, Mr. Element, Thinker and poor, poor Turtle Man show up at the bar and as statues on the Flash museum. Dr. Alchemy and Mr. Element are actually different personas that Albert Desmond has adopted, though there has been other impostors and successors for both supervillain names. So.
• Linda Park, the reporter, is also a reporter in the comics and would rather be Wally West's love interest and eventual wife. 
• Easter Eggs in the Flash Museum:
• Gorilla Grodd holding the mind-control helmet from his first appearance in Justice League. 
• A globe that depicts the race Superman and Flash had in the Superman: TAS episode 'Speed Demons', itself harkening back to multiple times that Superman raced various Flashes. 
• Jay Garrick's helmet on a baby,
• Reverse-Flash's symbol.
• The Kid Flash costume, which is another point that people like to make that Teen Titans is canon to the DCAU. 
• Flash's apartment has a treadmill, which is almost assuredly a reference to the Cosmic Treadmill, a time travel device in the comics powered by Flash's super-speed.
• Flash keeping his suit compressed into a golden lightning-bolt ring is identical to how Barry Allen keeps his costume.
• Flash's day job as a forensics scientist is actually that of Barry Allen's. In the comics, Wally is a mechanic. 
• Early in the episode Flash mentions that his uncle is coming for the coronation, which is, of course, a reference to his famous uncle, Barry Allen. The Flash Museum in the comics was actually built in Barry Allen's honour as well. 
• Trickster is voiced by Mark Hamill (famous for his DCAU role as the Joker), who has played Trickster in live-action form in both the 1990 and 2014 Flash TV series. Trickster's appearance here harkens back to the live-action version played by Hamill more than the traditional version of the character. 
• The Flash standee that Orion punches for 'startling' him is from the Lightspeed Energy Bars advertisement Flash does in 'Eclipsed'.