Was reading an interview with Nathan Fillion the other day in which he confessed to being a big sci-fi and comic fan – Of course he’s well known for being in Firefly, but often as not, actors in sci-fi stuff aren’t necessarily fans of the genre. But he mentioned he did voice acting in a new Justice League cartoon – Justice League: Doom.
Naturally I was interested, as some of my favorite (and completely ridiculous in most cases) cartoons from kid days included Challenge of the Superfriends – where they battled the Legion of Doom every week (and of course usually won, with the Legion escaping at the last minute every week to start trouble the following Saturday – amazing how job security works in the superhero world). You can watch nearly all of the COSF episodes on YouTube these days if you are interested.
Anyway, so I got the DVD from Scarecrow and watched it. I liked it, and I think you will too – but there are some aspects I think they could have done better. MAJOR SPOILER ALERT from here on out – stop now and watch before reading further!
1) So first – This group of the Justice League has the usual players (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash) plus a few others (Green Lantern – not always a member in my memory; some weird guy named Martian Manhunter, and another guy named Cyborg (who ends up a member by the end of the show). The Legion has a completely different ‘cast’ than in the past, save only Cheetah, the longtime nemesis of Wonder Woman. I was not familiar with any of the others – none of them were in the ‘old’ Superfriends-Legion of Doom ‘competition’. And where’s Aquaman?
2) So there were some weird (and interesting) changes for the JLA here – apparently Wonder Woman can now fly – when did that start? And Green Lantern can now be rendered nearly useless through the powerful use of ‘guilt’ (more on that below)?
Batman here follows the currently popular ‘true vigilante’ profile of him seen in the recent Batman movies and the less recent Frank Miller Dark Knight series – he’s in it for real, he doesn’t f around, and woe to anyone who gets in his way (friend or foe, doesn’t matter). For being one of the perennially most popular and known comic book heroes out there (and for putting up with as many cheesy portraits of him as have been done – you know who you are) – I have to say this Batman is the bad-ass he should always have been, and it works very well.
3) The Legion of Doom yet again has the Hall of Doom based in a swamp, although it apparently doesn’t fly around and save their bacon at the end like before. Still though, it was cool to see it back. Far cooler in many ways than most of the JLA’s tech, to be sure, and definitely has some evil ‘style’ to it.
4) So the plot in a nutshell – the JLA breaks up a weird museum robbery with some wacky high-tech gang with costumes and names based on a deck of cards (yes, I’m not kidding) But they determine that the gang couldn’t have come up with such tech, so they start seeking its source – ultimately leading them to the Legion. The leader of the Legion turns out to be a man named Vandal Savage, who is apparently immortal and has been biding his time to take over the world, but first he must get the JLA (and half or more of the Earth’s population) out of the way via a horrible solar flare bomb). So each member of the Legion ultimately turns out to be a personal nemesis of each member of the JLA, and they naturally trap or seemingly waylay each member in turn after stealing valuable data from Batman’s computer on how to do it.
While the mad scheme is on the verge of execution, the JLA shows up to save the day, and after a series of battles and related mayhem, they do. But it ends on an interesting note. Earlier the JLA found out that Batman had been tracking all of them in terms of how to take each of them out were they to go against the cause of good. The others are pretty po’d about this and have a vote to boot him out of the JLA – but he’s allowed to speak in his own defense – he says basically that any/all of them should have been doing the same thing, and that if they aren’t realistic about that happening (one or more JLA member going AWOL) then he offiically quits – he then leaves the room. Superman comes into the room before Batman is about to leave a few minutes later and says they didn’t vote him out, but still give him crap about what he did – Batman pretty much gives him the hardnosed response but they end up allies as it ends, just like before. Bad. Ass.
5) I was disappointed to not see any of the other classic Superfriends villains here – ‘Metallo’ is apparently now Superman’s nemesis – not Lex Luthor? Come on. LL was the ultimate villain – more ego than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney combined, and always ready to destroy everything, sometimes even to his own detriment. Like The Repugnicans when they get in power – he usually way overreaches and has to be smacked down. At least Metallo was smart enough to pack Kryptonite in a bullet and shoot Superman right where it counts, from which he almost doesn’t make it.
Batman’s nemesis Bane seems tough (and seems to be able to get bigger on demand by sucking in more ‘blood fluid’ from some pack on his back) – but like all fatally flawed villain power packs, once Batman notices this, he severs the tubes and Bane shrinks back down and snivels on the ground like a loser.
Star Sapphire, as mentioned before, besides having some sort of blue lasers to combat Green Lantern’s green lasers, gets inside his head and turns him into a crying baby until Batman (who else) all but smacks him out of it.
6) One key factor in the old COSF was the constant barrage of ridiculous insults used by the Legion (in addition to whatever zany scheme they had cooked up) against the SuperFriends. While they never seemed to do much more than prompt some ‘holy ___, Batman!’ statement from Robin in most cases – they were hilarious – and sorely missed here. Plus had they used them here, it might have made Batman even madder (assuming that was even possible) and that could have been badass too 🙂
Will we see the Legion again? Well, they locked everyone up good this time by the end (big surprise) but never count a good villain, comic writer/artist, or money-seeking comic syndicate out – I suspect we haven’t seen the last of them…muhahhaha!
candybowl
