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
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'.
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