Justice League Unlimited S03E12 Review: Secret Society - Civil War

Justice League Unlimited, Season 3, Episode 12: Alive!

Oh man. Justice League Unlimited's second season, in no uncertain terms, is the epitome of superhero cartoon serialization, with very few, at least from the DC side of things, to ever come close to it. Young Justice, maybe. And while season three of Justice League Unlimited has less overt serialization beyond the themes that every crime in the season has been related to the Secret Society.

But god damn did season three go out with a bang.

"Alive" is the first episode in Justice League Unlimited's final two-parter episodes, and it's an amazing one. Sure, the sudden reintroduction of Darkseid into things is a little iffy, but it's one that made relative sense for long-time watchers of the series, harkening back not just to plot threads from Justice League, but also Superman: the Animated Series. And in any case, Darkseid, as always, is more plot device than actual character, the ominous, single-minded ultimate threat in the DC universe that can't be reasoned with. So we'll talk about him later.

Because, man, there's so much ground to cover here. Luthor and Grodd have both been built up throughout the episode (and, really, throughout all five seasons of Justice League) as the major players in the villains' side, and Tala has been this relatively major side-character with the hilarious gimmick of sucking up to whoever's in charge, and that ends up being important here.

Luthor has always been a more effective leader than Grodd, the questionable bit of that Roulette episode aside. It's not that Grodd is stupid, it's just that Luthor is just so much more effective and has so many contingency plans in action to prevent treachery that the other villains follow him... but Luthor has always been more stick than carrot, and and his huge, overbearing ego has always been his downfall. Even when he was the leader of the original Injustice League, the fact that everyone was only sticking around for money and didn't really care for Luthor's goals (his one-track revenge then, his one-track Revive Brainiac now) and any excuse is about good enough to toss Luthor out of his throne.

Which is where we go back to Tala. Tala has always been happy to suck up to people more powerful than her, and loyalty is something she doesn't really care about. Amanda Waller and Felix Faust when she worked as a member of Cadmus, and now she easily goes back and forth between Luthor and Grodd. While Grodd isn't the nicest of people, he knows how to be polite, how to make deals, while Luthor is openly derisive of Tala, being way, way too obsessed with Brainiac. (There's a love triangle joke there somewhere) So as the Legion of Doom flies off into space in their skull-base-starship, and Luthor's open mockery of Tala reaches a climax, she decides to spring Grodd out. And, well, a lot of people -- especially crappy ol' Goldface, who got the brunt of Luthor's "anyone else wants to try to talk back to me?" speech earlier in the episode -- are happy to stand behind Grodd.

And my god, just as how the JLU fighting the Ultimen were thrilling as we jump from one power to the next, seeing the Secret Society (I use the terms Secret Society and the Legion of Doom interchangeably, bear with me) just collapse and unleash all sorts of superpowers is just amazing. We have major recurring villains like Killer Frost and Parasite fighting alongside characters who never even got a single line of dialogue like Merlyn and Hellgrammite, and it's amazing. There are, obviously, some stand-outs as we jump from one character to the next, as some of the villains aren't even sure that there's a fucking coup d'etat going on on the top floor.

We have characters just launching all sorts of awesome powers. Heatwave shoots fire blasts. Rampage and Bizarro go on a full-on super-powered beatdown. Electrocutioner blasts electricity. Giganta goes full-on giant and unleashes the fury that which hell hath no upon Grodd, and Tala knocks her down with a simple shot to the face. KGBeast shooting guns. Silver Banshee screaming. Evil Star doing some weird energy absorbing thing. Fastball throwing explosive blasts. Toyman hides from the conflict, gets chased around by scary ol' Killer Frost and her huge ice slides and stuff, before showing that, holy fuck, this dude has some really scary yo-yo skills. (Also, how wince-inducing was that crack on Toyman's face?)

Actually, can we talk about how awesome that Killer Frost/Toyman fight was? Between the scary, creepy music, to Toyman's switch from hiding into just calmly walking and doing yo-yo tricks, turning Killer Frost from the confident ice psychopath to someone desperate to make just one more ice wall to stop Toyman?

And in it all, Luthor and Grodd just rampage around and try to beat each other. Obviously, Grodd being a gigantic gorilla with a huge space cannon he has the advantage, but Luthor's a lot faster, jumping around and using Fastball as a hostage, then relying on his loyalists as a distraction while he goes around trying to do something. Though he did try to whack Electrocutioner in the head with a fire extinguisher, and causes Tala's magic to backfire onto herself with his contingencies.

But while the supervillain fight climaxes pretty quickly with A takes out B, then C takes out A, then D takes out C and I will never get tired of rewatching that because I have the mentality of an eight-year-old, the final confrontation between Grodd and Luthor is amazingly crafted. It's a fight a long time coming, and both Clancy Brown and Powers Booth are just amazing voice actors that brings so much gravitas into these two characters. Luthor attempts to put up a fight with some fancy as metal glove things, but Grodd overpowers Luthor and could've easily snapped the bald man's neck, but Luthor knows how to goad Grodd, and tries to get him to use his mind-control powers on him...

Upon which Luthor activates a contingency that turns Grodd's mind control powers back on himself, forcing him to walk into an airlock and flushing him out. And as Luthor regains control of the Secret Society, Killer Frost decides to cut her losses and join the winning team, freezing a large chunk of the Grodd loyalists solid -- and it's not shown on-screen, but the implication is definitely there. These people are dead, and it's shocking, too, because while you may not care about KGBeast or Hellgrammite, the ranks of the people frozen by Killer Frost includes long-runners like Parasite and Shade. Yes, it's the finale two-parter and it's rather wise to clean up the slate of unnecessary characters before we move into the finale.

To make long story short, in his relative desperation to get Brainiac back, Luthor uses Tala and it's this desperation that probably fucks him over. We also get a brief bit of warning when a mysterious dude in a chair, the enigmatic Metron (I squeed when I saw him -- always liked Metron) and warns Luthor, a warning he very predictably ignored.  Whether Tala intentionally did so, or if it's just a side effect of trying this untested fact, Brainiac was not the only major Superman archenemy that died in this particular plot of space. Darkseid is reborn, and immediately kills everyone on board. Or so we think -- Sinestro, MVP of the Secret Society, manages to save the Luthor loyalist and slowly bubble-float them back to Earth, where they end up showing at Justice League headquarters with Luthor giving the mother of all understatements: "we have a little problem."

But in-between Darkseid swiftly putting an end to the already fractured Secret Society, he's actually a decent contender for a great 'final boss', so to speak.  While part of me is sad that we're never getting a proper Justice League versus Secret Society mega throwdown, the conflict that happened within the Society did make sense -- how else is a supervillain alliance that keeps exchanging one crazy bully for another really going to stand? -- at least we did get to see the entirety of the Secret Society in action, which is something. And Darkseid, within literal seconds of his rebirth, quickly booms his way to Apokolips, puts into halt the on-brewing civil war there (these villains and their civil wars...) and it's an amazing scene to see every single person there, actual characters if you've been following the show's long history, just stop whatever the fuck they're doing and bow down. And Darkseid clearly gives no shits. He has a fancy new armour, he's not going to care about treaties with New Genesis because, well, that's going to be next.

So yeah, it's definitely a thrilling conclusion. A good chunk of the Secret Society is wiped out, including Grodd, and Luthor and the tattered remains has to return to Earth to warn our heroes about the fuck-up that he's made. While some people deride the decision to turn Luthor into a one-note man obsessed with getting Brainiac back, I'd also argue that it's a very in-character moment for Luthor -- he has always wanted knowledge and power, and he has had a track history of being obsessed with Superman to the point of ridiculousness. Thankfully he seems to be back in form by the end of the episode. And in any case, this episode still remains one of my all-time favourites to just boot in and rewatch, because, shit, supervillains fighting!


Secret Society Roll Call:

• Speaking Superheroes: Metron
• Non-Speaking Superheroes: Superman, Captain Atom, Red Tornado, Green Lantern, Dr. Fate, Orion, STRIPE, Metamorpho, Atom Smasher, Batman, Wonder Woman
• Speaking Supervillains: Lex Luthor, Gorilla Grodd, Tala, Darkseid, Atomic Skull, Bizarro, Brainiac, Sinestro, Weather Wizard, Killer Frost, Toyman, Giganta, Bernadeth, Kanto
• Non-Speaking Supervillains: Cheetah, Blockbuster, Bloodsport, Volcana, Heatwave, Fastball, Rampage, Evil Star, Major Disaster, the Key, Silver Banshee, Angle Man, Parasite, Crowbar, KGBeast, Monocle, Merlyn, Electrocutioner, Lady Lunar, Star Sapphire, Dr. Cyber, Neutron, Hellgramite, Shade, Copperhead, Dr. Destiny, Virman Vundabar, Mantis, Lashina, Mad Harriet, Stompa, Granny Goodness

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Here's a bit of a little list of how the Legion of Doom civil war was split up:
• Luthor's loyalists include Giganta, Cheetah, Atomic Skull, Toyman, Sinestro, Star Sapphire, Bizarro, Heatwave, Volcana and Evil Star. Oh, and Killer Frost defects to Luthor at the end.
• Grodd's loyalists include Tala, Blockbuster, Goldface, Fastball, Bloodsport, Rampage, Weather Wizard, Major Disaster, the Key, Silver Banshee, Angle Man, Parasite, Neutron, Shade, Copperhead, Crowbar, KGBeast, Monocle, Merlyn, Electrocutioner, Lady Lunar, Dr. Cyber and Hellgramite. Plus Killer Frost, initially.
• Among the supervillains that definitely survive we have the 11 Luthor loyalists (bar Evil Star, though he shows up next episode), and while it's pretty unlikely for any supervillain to survive the cold vacuum of space and the explosion of the Legion's base, special mention goes to the ones that are frozen by Killer Frost and are definitely dead. This includes long-running characters like Parasite, Shade, Copperhead and Weather Wizard, but also relative nobodies like Fastball, Rampage, Blockbuster, Goldface, the Key and Hellgramite. Several of the Grodd loyalists for whatever reason stand and interact with Team Luthor during this scene, but other than the 11 who fought alongside Luthor, none of them are shown within Sinestro's safety bubble.
• Giganta refers to Grodd's betrayal by frying her brain in "To Another Shore", as well as Grodd basically quickly setting up shop with Tala. Luthor's power-nullifying belt is last seen used against Dr. Polaris in "The Great Brain Robbery". Darkseid was killed within Brainiac's main body in "Twilight", all the way back in Justice League's second season, and his death plunged Apokolips into a civil war which we see in "The Ties that Bind".
• Luthor's quote, "meet your new lord and master", was the same line that was used by Kanto to introduce Darkseid in the final episode of Superman: TAS's season finale.
• A bit of a more obscure Easter Egg, Luthor's passcode is 06-06-69, which is the reference to the day that Warner Brothers first merged with DC comics, and is one of the reasons the DCAU was made possible.