Justice League Unlimited S03E07 Review: Pawn Takes Rook

Justice League Unlimited, Season 3, Episode 7: Patriot Act

So, yeah, this episode... is a bit political, that's for sure. I'm not an expert in American politics, not being an American myself, but Justice League Unlimited was produced during the Bush presidency and this episode in particular is meant to be a little criticism of America's foreign policies at that time. It also served as a pretty awesome episode that both served as not only a great follow-up to the loose ends of JLU's amazing second season, but also tell an amazingly optimistic superhero story in the process.


Two of the main stars for this episode are the two most vocal (and non-Luthor) members of Project: Cadmus, Amanda Waller and Wade Eiling. Waller has always been depicted as harsh and sometimes takes things a little too far, but always willing to compromise as long as it meant the protection of the general public. Eiling, on the other hand, is your stereotypical super-racist bastard who puts the destruction of a potential enemy as the main priority as opposed to safeguarding the main public. They butted heads before in 'the Doomsday Sanction', but here, after the war is over, Waller is willing to work alongside the superheroes (and control them if necessary) whereas Eiling is more determined than ever to settle his grudges. It's partly misguided motivations, but also partly ego, which causes Eiling to transform into the very thing he hates.

And it's very, very poignant that the seven superheroes used in this episode (as much as the Seven Soldiers of Victory homage excites me) are all, well, just normal humans. None of them are gods like Wonder Woman, none of them are aliens like Superman or Martian Manhunter, and none of them even have superpowers like Flash. Shining Knight and Stargirl have a magic sword and an energy-shooting spear respectively, but that's the extent of the superpowers in their team. Oh, and STRIPE walking around in a mecha works too, I guess... but they're all human. Green Arrow and Speedy are just athletic men with bows and arrows. Crimson Avenger and the Vigilante are people with guns. Yet they are fighting to defend the people, not because of some misguided hatred, but because they know what is right. Protect the weak, protect the innocent, all that jazz.

Whereas Wade Eiling is a man whose intentions might seem noble to himself, but not in practice. He wants to defend himself from superhuman threats, transforming himself into a hulking, indestructible brute with outlawed Nazi science, but he attacks a group of superheroes on a parade, (humans to boot, not aliens or gods or metahumans) and doesn't give a shit about the collateral damage he's causing to the civilians, all in the name of his misguided 'greater good',  despite the League not posing any sort of threat other than, y'know, 'potential threat', the same criticism the showmakers are making towards America during the War on Terror. Yes, it's not subtle, showing the ugly transformation of warmongering general Eiling into a hulking ogre, swatting around patriotic men and women, two of which are actually garbed in America's flag... but it's superheroes.

When questioned about harming the innocents around them by Stargirl -- a teenage girl that Eiling has no problem whacking to the ground -- Eiling talks about acceptable losses.

The selection of heroes chosen here is also interesting, because it tells a different story. The Seven Soldiers are superheroes that are, well, obscure, for the most part. Out of them, only Green Arrow is anywhere recognizable to non-diehard DC fans, and even someone steeped in DC lore like me had some trouble remembering who Crimson Avenger is. And, as I like to point out, Shining Knight and Vigilante are both remnants of genres that have kind of... lost its luster, one being the hero of Arthurian stories and the other being a cowboy. Both are out of their time here in a modern superhero setting (and really, really like hanging out next to each other) and it's confusing to see them when the people who pop up into your head when you say 'Justice League' are colourful superheroes and vigilantes like Superman and Wonder Woman and Batman and the Flash.

And the episode is aware of it. The people of Metropolis are disappointed when Superman's appearance in the parade is replaced with random nobodies, but shit, man, these random nobodies are still heroes, and whatever the public thinks of them, when the General attacks, they fight back to defend the weak. And it's honestly a match that they cannot hope to win -- in the comics, the General is so powerful that the traditional Justice League -- a lineup with Superman on speed dial -- barely defeated him. Here, half of the heroes are just regular dudes that are great with guns or a bow and arrow. Yet they fight anyway, because that's what heroes do. You can't help but cheer on as Vigilante -- a motherfucking cowboy in the twentieth century -- tries his darndest to put a dent in the General's hide, riding a motorbike to slam it on General's face.

And the action scene is amazing and brutal. From the Arrow team's quantum arrows (side-note: how cool was the stealth tie-in with Teen Titans was with Speedy's arrival?), STRIPE's awesome aerial battle against General, Stargirl's attempt to battle Eiling with both cosmic rod and appealing to reason... And Shining Knight's absolutely epic last stand, as he stands entirely outmatched against this hulking brute, intent to fighting to his last, might be folly, but dammit, he's a hero and he's going to fight to his last breath if it means taking down this monster. It's inspiring stuff, and I just absolutely love this episode to bits for giving the lesser-known characters the time of the day. Shining Knight's the indisputable MVP of this particular fight. Go, Sir Justin!

Also, I would like to point out that Shining Knight and Vigilante have the best bickering. It's not just the voices and funny cowboy/knight accents either, it's the scripting. "Sir Justin, if y'want to be watching stuff on my big Tee-Vee with the five-point-one surround sound, you had best watch what you say about mister Clint Eastwood."

In the end, it's the rejection from the same people that Eiling claims to be fighting for that ends up halting the mad soldier's rampage. Ironically voiced by C.C. Pounder (a.k.a. Amanda Waller), the old woman that stops Eiling asks him this question: "How many of us do you have to kill to keep us safe?" It's amazing stuff, showing that even when the heroes lose the battle, they still manage to inspire the good people of Metropolis, inspiring them to pick up the same torch that they did and to do the right thing. No, the Seven Soldiers of Victory barely manage to drive the General away from the city, but they inspired the people to stand up and the sight of the Newsboy Legion kids playing Shining Knight and Vigilante when fifteen minutes ago they were dissing them off for not being Superman is just so heartwarming.

What else? There's so much goodness about this episode, and I'm not even a patriot! It's the values that the heroes represent that matter, but there's just so much goodness contained in this one episode. I haven't even spoken about the hilarious dialogue that Green Arrow spouts, or the amazingly crafted Spy Smasher/Captain Nazi black and white flashbacks... yeah, I think this is my favourite episode in season three, if nothing else because of Sir Justin's epic last stand against the General.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Superheroes: Spy Smasher, Mr. Terrific, Green Lantern, Vigilante, Shining Knight, STRIPE, Green Arrow, Stargirl, Speedy, Crimson Avenger
• Non-Speaking Superheroes: Hawkgirl
• Speaking Supervillains: The General, Amanda Waller
• Non-Speaking Supervillains: Captain Nazi

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The General: In the comics, General Wade Eiling, himself a long-running antagonist of Captain Atom, was transformed into the villain known as the General in the pages of Grant Morrison's JLA comic, transferring his brain from his dying body into the body of a supervillain named Shaggy Man, a gigantic humanoid brute with an indestructible, instantly-regenerating body. 
• The Captain Nazi Project, which stands in for the Shaggy Man here to explain Eiling's transformation, is a reference to the Captain Marvel enemy, Captain Nazi (a.k.a. Albrecht Krieger) who was modified with serums to become powerful enough to fight Captain Marvel. 
• Spy Smasher, the superhero who foiled the Captain Nazi Project, is a vigilante superhero from Fawcett comics, the publishing company responsible for publishing Captain Marvel comics before it was bought by DC. He's not appeared much in mainstream DC comics. 
• The seven JLU members seen here are a homage to the Golden Age superhero team, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, whose lineup included Shining Knight, Vigilante, Crimson Avenger, Star-Spangled Kid and his sidekick Stripesy (who became S.T.R.I.P.E. in his adulthood), and Green Arrow and his sidekick Speedy. Here, Star-Spangled Kid is represented by his successor, Stargirl, who started off her comic-book career as the second Star-Spangled Kid.
• Speedy! Hoh, boy, where to begin? Speedy, a.k.a. Roy Harper (later known as Arsenal and Red Arrow), is Green Arrow's sidekick. Now, Justice League Unlimited is a show produced concurrently with Teen Titans, which also starred Speedy. This episode tends to be what fans point to when they want to argue that Teen Titans is part of the DCAU, because nothing else contradicts that fact, and the fact that Speedy uses the exact same design and voice actor as his appearances in Teen Titans counterpart (albeit changed to fit the DCAU aesthetic) has led many to speculate that Teen Titans takes place in the DCAU, fitting in the timeskip period in Batman: the Animated Series before Robin adopted the Nightwing persona. Which I guess you can do. 
• The group of kids who help out the reserve Justice Leaguers are not named, but are visually based on the Newsboy Legion, a group of (yep, you guessed it) newsboys who are supporting characters in Superman comics.
• The Shining Knight makes reference to fighting Blunderbore, who was Morgaine le Fay in disguise. Morgaine has appeared previously in Etrigan-centric episodes of Justice League, whereas Blunderbore was a powerful ogre that Sir Justin fought, and ultimately caused the avalanche that buried the knight and preserved him until modern day.
• Eiling and Waller both refer to various events of the Cadmus arc that ran throughout the second season, although we did get some details that Cadmus is otherwise disbanded with its members all reassigned. Eiling refers to the events of 'Question Authority' when he talks about how Superman broke into Cadmus's HQ to rescue the Question.
• The Nazi scientist's line about how 'nothing less than an artillery shell can break his skin' is a reference about how Superman's invulnerability is traditionally described with in the Golden Age comics.