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.
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