JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, SEASON THREE (2005-06)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

The story goes that the producers of JLU thought that Season 2 was going to be the show's final hurrah, and that's why the last episode was meant to be a circular callback to the beginnings of the DCAU, with 1992's BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES. Then someone gave the order for 13 new episodes, which would end up being the last ones made under the DCAU banner (though a new more DTV movies were made afterward). I don't have a hard time believing this, for Season 3 has a much looser feel than Seasons 1 and 2. While those seasons were preoccupied with the geopolitical results of having an army of superheroes operating under League auspices, Season 3 is nothing more than a salute to the 1978 cartoon series CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER FRIENDS. As in CHALLENGE, the heroes of JLU Season 3 are still the stars, technically. Yet in both shows, the heroes' opposite numbers, the villains, are the ones who initiate most of the action in the episodes-- though for some reason, the villain-group doesn't use the classic name "Legion of Doom."

Luthor is the MVV (most valuable villain) in this quasi-Legion. In the next-to-last Season 2 story, he's separated from his merger with the computer-intelligence Brainiac, and the components of the criminal computer are dispersed across the universe. For some reason that the writers never fully explain, Luthor's torqued off at the separation, and the closest one gets to an explanation is a line from one episode in which Luthor says he felt like "a god" when merged with Brainiac. This could have been worked into a general concept of the "deity envy" Luthor experienced whenever Superman outclassed him, but none of the scripts here delve deeply into the Luthor-Superman psychology. I'll also note that all of the episodes are either fair or poor, with no outstanding mythicity here.

I AM LEGION (F)-- Gorilla Grodd recruits Luthor for his reworked Secret Society, which now includes dozens of members, not unlike the expanded Justice League. Grodd tantalizes the scientist with a fragment of Brainiac, with which Luthor hopes to re-integrate with the computer (who also speaks to Luthor invisibly, though this was probably meant to be in Luthor's imagination). The sinister simian forces the aggrieved villain to sing for his supper, by joining two other villains to make a raid on Blackhawk Island for a mothballed super-weapon. But the villains are opposed by three Leaguers, as well as by the last surviving Blackhawk. Of the seven WWII pilot-heroes, who more or less met the League in the JL episode "Savage Time," only the one named "Chuck" makes it to old age-- and that character was probably chosen because the character was named for the BLACKHAWK co-creator Chuck Cuidera.

 SHADOW OF THE HAWK (F)-- This is one of the few Season 3 developments to build on the soap-operatic lives of the heroes. In the comics, Hawkman was the first hawk-hero at DC, debuting in 1940 with "Shiera" as his main squeeze, who only became "Hawkgirl" a couple of years later. Subsequent iterations of the Hawkman franchise always paired Hawkman and Hawkgirl as a team, but JUSTICE LEAGUE was the first iteration to spotlight Hawkgirl as a solo crusader. In "Shadow," HG is approached by archeologist Carter Hall, who has evidence of Thanagarian rulership in ancient Egypt. Intrigued, HG accompanies Hall to an ancient Egyptian pyramid, but both Batman and Green Lantern think Hall's some sort of stalker. It turns out that Hall believes that he and Shayera are reincarnations of the two ancient lovers who ruled Egypt, and the archeologist has even designed his own Hawkman outfit, complete with wings (presumably based on extrapolated Thanagarian tech). The drama of the possible "reunion of lovers" trope is interrupted by a tomb-raider named Shadow-Thief, and by Batman as well. "Shadow" is at least an interesting fusion of two divergent origins for separate DC hawk-heroes.

CHAOS AT THE EARTH'S CORE (P)-- Supergirl, Stargirl, STRIPE, and Green Lantern get stranded in the subterranean domain of Skartaris, the location of DC Comics' one successful sword-and-sorcery series, Mike Grell's THE WARLORD. This gives the writers the chance to salute not only titular hero Travis Morgan but three-four of his support-cast. All the heroes unite to prevent the theft of a kryptonite cynosure by two Society villains: Metallo and Silver Banshee. Metallo is captured but Grodd remotely shorts him out before he can talk, and this incident provides the League with the first inkling of the Society's activities. Stargirl is made to resent Supergirl just to create phony drama.      

TO ANOTHER SHORE (P)-- Like "Chaos," "Shore" is largely aimed at celebrating another DC icon of yesteryear: the "Viking Prince" feature co-created by Joe Kubert. However, the scenes emulating Kubert's elegant artwork are the only good ones. Grodd reels off to the other villains a windy story about how the god Odin bestowed immortality upon the Prince, making it impossible for him to die. This led the warrior to set sail for the Arctic, where he apparently gets around the spell of Odin by getting deep-frozen-- presumably without being conscious of his "living death." But the ship of the Viking is about to be unearthed from its ice-tomb, and Grodd sends some villains to rip off the secret. The inanity of Grodd's plan-- to obtain immortality based in legends he can't even verify-- spoils a decent battle between the villains and the League, and the conclusion in which Wonder Woman figures out a way to give the Prince a "Viking funeral." On the soap-opera front, J'onn J'onzz steps down as leader, feeling that he's become alienated from his adoptive culture, and seeking to learn more about humans. This might have spawned a decent episode had there been time to do one.

FLASH AND SUBSTANCE (F)-- Flash is about to have his heroic career celebrated in Central City, and he begs Batman to attend. The crusader does so, dragging the "New God" Orion along with him, so that three heroes are on call when three Flash-villains attempt to gang up on their frequent opponent. (Technically, there's a fourth Flash-villain involved, The Trickster, but in a clever twist, Flash reveals that he's not really dangerous when he takes his meds. Trickster is voiced by Mark Hamill, who played the character in the live-action FLASH series.) This is one of the better "homage" episodes, seeking to boil down what made the 1960s FLASH comic so successful -- even though technically the hero involved is Wally West, who took over the mantle of The Flash from his Silver Age mentor. 

DEAD RECKONING (F)-- This is partly a homage to the Deadman franchise, given that much of the story hinges on the undead spirit seeking to avenge the (apparent) slaughter of his allies, the warrior-monks of Nanda Parbat, by the Society. Grodd's acquisition of some mystic power from this city plays into his plot to take over his former home Gorilla City and to turn everyone on Earth into an ape. This goofy plan helps Luthor take over the Society, placing Grodd in prison. However, obtaining the Brainiac fragment from the super-ape doesn't solve Luthor's little problem.

 PATRIOT ACT (F)-- The title is an odd choice for what is essentially a homage to another of DC's 1940s super-teams, the Seven Soldiers of Victory. That group was comprised of Green Arrow, his sidekick Speedy, the Star Spangled Kid and his sidekick Stripesy, the Vigilante, the Shining Knight, and the Crimson Avenger. Only Green Arrow had a major standing in the League up to that point. The characters of the Vigilante and the Shining Knight had made many minor appearances in the cartoon, as had Stargirl and STRIPE, who were modern analogues of Star Spangled Kid and his partner. Speedy had no association with the JLU, while the Crimson Avenger only made non-speaking cameos. So "six soldiers of victory"-- excluding the Avenger-- are available to face the new threat, and as it happens, only a couple of them, Stargirl and STRIPE, have super-powers. The villainous General Eiling from Season 2 takes a superman-serum, which just happens to make him look like the "Shaggy Man" character from the Grant Morrison LEAGUE run in the comics. Eiling attacks the heroes during a parade and largely overwhelms them, though the semi-ordinary heroes are saved by even more ordinary forces. Eiling departs without killing anyone and is not seen again.

THE GREAT BRAIN ROBBERY (F)-- In an episode showing the heroes being pro-active, the heroes attempt to use Flash's brain, due to previous contact with Grodd, to locate the super-gorilla. Unfortunately just as they begin their procedure, Luthor's trying to probe Grodd's brain, and the two processes cause Luthor and Flash to switch bodies. While the League spends the episode trying to catch a super-fast Luthor, Flash has to play the part of the leader of the Secret Society, amid villains who would cheerfully kill him if they knew his identity. "Brain" has a clever moment in which "Luthor" has sex off-camera with "his" girlfriend, the sorceress Tala, in so discrete a manner that most young kids won't know what's going on.

GRUDGE MATCH (F)-- Huntress, despite not being on good terms with Black Canary, notices that she's off her game. Her investigation uncovers the Society's revival of Roulette's "Metabrawl," which now involves using devices to mind-control superheroines into being the fighters. Again, the writers only loosely suggest that the paying audience is brought in by the attractions of seeing hot women fight one another, with Black Canary being one of the hottest attractions. Huntress frees Black Canary, and the two of them must seek to liberate Roulette's other captives-- one being a certain super-powered Amazon. The episode sports a lot of good battles, but they have a special nuance since they concern the "fair sex" in combat.

FAR FROM HOME (P)-- Supergirl, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow get shifted to the era of the Legion of Super-Heroes by the only two heroes not controlled by evildoers: Brainiac 5 and Bouncing Boy. Most of the episode is fighting between the heroes and the villains of the day-- the Legion's most celebrated badguy-group, the Fatal Five-- but there's also a historical prophecy that makes the Leaguers wonder if one of them may never return to the 21st century. However, all goes well in that the Girl of Steel takes a shine to the Boy of Intellect, mirroring a similar romantic fling in the comics.

ANCIENT HISTORY (F)-- Since his previous appearance, Carter Hall has started his hero-career as Hawkman, and he still wants to date Shayera because he believes that they're reincarnated lovers. Green Lantern, even though he's dating Vixen, is visibly jealous, not to mention confused, since in "Epilogue" he learned that a future-version of himself would wed Hawkgirl and spawn a superhero-son. However, the triangle is resolved by the villain of "Shadow of the Hawk." In this iteration, the old Hawkman comics-villain is not just a crook with a gimmick; he's a shadowy creation of Hawkman's own soul, given substance by Thanagarean tech. The Thief brings together the two Hawks and the Lantern in order to show them that Carter Hall's theory is true, insofar as the Hawks are spiritual descendants of the Egyptian Thanagareans. Hawkman re-absorbs his errant fragment, but the episode leaves the conflict unresolved for eternity-- should Hawkgirl's romantic life be guided by oracles of the past, or of the future? I suspect that the writers wanted that ambiguity and would not have rendered a verdict with all the time in the world.

ALIVE! (F)-- Luthor's inability to figure out how to reunite with Brainiac makes him a bigger jerk than usual, and so girlfriend Tala decides to release his enemy Grodd from bondage. (Talk about covert naughtiness: it's strongly suggested that Tala was banging the ape before hooking up with Luthor and intends to do so again once the mad scientist is out of the way.) Before Grodd's release, Luthor is visited by Metron of the New Gods, who foresees that the human's quest for supremacy will bode ill. There's a big battle between the villains loyal to Luthor and those partisan to the gorilla, but the conclusion ends with Grodd's defeat. Luthor uses Tala's magic in an attempt to reconstitute Brainiac, but for some reason, the spell revives Darkseid, out of circulation in the DCAU since the end of the SUPERMAN series. Darkseid returns to Apokolips and rallies his minions for a direct assault on Earth.

DESTROYER (F)-- This is, I suppose, a callback to the ending of the SUPERMAN series, where Superman became majorly torqued after Darkseid brainwashed him to act the villain. As for the rest of the League, they're obliged to work alongside their long-time foes to repel the warriors of Apokolips, while it falls to the Man of Steel to trounce Darkseid. However, Luthor doesn't fight in the trenches. With Metron's help, the scientist gets ahold of the thing Darkseid wants most-- the Anti-Life equation-- and uses it as bait to lure the overlord into his apparent destruction, and that of Luthor as well. Superman does not believe that either evildoer is truly gone, and the series ends on a clever note: the villains' reward for fighting for Earth (admittedly after creating the danger) is a five-minute head start, after which the heroes come after them. The writers, who meant to end the show with a story focused on Batman, still manages a similar moment for the final shot. 

I think this conclusion glosses over the fact that Superman remains the real genesis of the costumed superhero idiom in comics-- despite a few outliers like the Clock (1936) -- though I would qualify that statement by saying that the BATMAN comic was arguably the first GOOD costumed hero comic. But to return to the LEAGUE subject, I think both JLU and its predecessor series offer top-of-the-line formula superhero stories. I don't think the writing staff ever managed to consistently tap into the deeper mythic discourse offered by the best superhero comic books. But television superheroes just don't have the comparative associative freedoms, so "really good formula" is still better than one can usually expect.               
              

                           

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, SEASON TWO (2005)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Until I rescreeened Season 2's episodes back-to-back, I'd never noticed how heavily the stories referenced two previous animated storylines. 

One was the plot-thread with which the 1996-2000 SUPERMAN cartoon concluded. In my review I asserted that I didn't think the serial's writers came up with a compelling characterization of the title hero, and it didn't particularly help that the last arc of the series dealt with Superman being brainwashed by "false father" Darkseid. Superman inevitably breaks free, but the events of the arc turn some of his former allies-- particularly Professor Hamilton-- and possibly cost the hero some of his sunny disposition. We don't see much of the traumatized Man of Steel in the two seasons of JUSTICE LEAGUE, but I think that in JLU the writers wanted to portray Superman as more obsessive and morally conflicted because of his trauma.

The second storyline appeared in "A Better World," a second-season episode of JUSTICE LEAGUE. In an alternate world, the Justice League became corrupted after Flash died at the hands of Luthor and Superman summarily killed the evildoer. This led the heroes to become an oppressive world government, an idea the writers probably derived from the successful 1990s series THE AUTHORITY. I thought, and still think, that the emphasis on "things falling apart" when Superman was compromised in some way also descended from Mark Waid's mediocre 1996 series KINGDOM COME. However, I admit that the JLU writers were going for a more sociopolitical angle, critiquing the show's own heroes in terms of a "who watches the watchmen" ethic. (The familiar phrase appears in the season's last episode.)

THE CAT AND THE CANARY (F)-- The first season teased the fan-fave DC romance of Green Arrow and Black Canary, but the second season builds "Greenary" up big-time. In this iteration, Wildcat, originally a tough boxer in a costume, trained Black Canary in the fighting-arts, and she talks Arrow into helping her when her old mentor becomes obsessed with illegal cage-fighting. The Canary plans to fight Wildcat to make him see reason, but Arrow, perhaps out of misplaced gallantry, takes her place in the cage. Half-killing Arrow in the ring is enough to make the aging boxer-hero realize that he's almost crossed a line-- which speaks to the second season's critique of power, albeit in a purely personal manner.

THE TIES THAT BIND (F)-- Mister Miracle and Big Barda, Earth-dwelling refugees from Apokolips, are drawn into an internecine war on that world of evil, when their buddy Oberon is kidnapped by Granny Goodness. The two heroes reach out to the Justice League, but J'onn doesn't want the group involved with Darkseid's former flunkies fighting for power. This is pretty cold even for the Martian hero, and the script, partly by luminary Jim Steranko, isn't even consistent on this point. In any event, only the Flash volunteers to help Miracle and Barda in their mission to rescue Darkseid's brutal son Kalibak from Granny's rival, Virman Vundabar. The episode is mostly an excuse to celebrate the richness of Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" concepts, and as such a showcase, it's a decent enough outing.

                     

THE DOOMSDAY SCENARIO (P)-- Both the aforementioned Emil Hamilton and Doomsday return from the SUPERMAN series, and this time Hamilton is allied to a bunch of movers and shakers: Amanda Waller, General Eiling, the sorceress Tala, Professor Milo and Professor Hugo Strange (both from the BATMAN series). Strange doesn't do anything in the entire season, but Milo turns loose Doomsday when Waller fires him. Superman fights Doomsday, and that's about it.

TASK FORCE X (P)-- This is an odd episode, in which ramrod-stiff military man Rick Flag leads three felons-- Plastique, Deadshot, and Captain Boomerang-- to invade the League's Watchtower in order to unleash the menace of the robot Annihilator. (Also, another old Bat-TV foe, The Clock King, serves to coordinate the operation.) I suppose the whole thing serves Cadmus' purpose to erode the security of the League, but the episode has little if any future impact on the season's developments, and seems like little more than an excuse to spotlight Task Force X, aka The Suicide Squad.

THE BALANCE (F)-- This is certainly a more "balanced" episode than the JUSTICE LEAGUE tale from which it descends, "Paradise Lost." Felix Faust possesses the armor-shell of the Annihilator, returns to Tartarus, and kicks out Hades. The god Hermes persuades Wonder Woman that this state of affairs compromises a cosmic balance, so she must enter Hell to thwart Faust. Hawkgirl goes along for the ride, and the two heroines are able to overcome their acrimony by stomping Faust and returning Hades to his throne. The death-god strongly implies that he's Diana's true father, though nothing ever comes of this implication.

DOUBLE DATE (F)-- While "Cat and the Canary" celebrated an already established romantic duo, that of Arrow and Canary, "Date" invents a brand-new hookup: the Huntress, Mafia princess turned superheroine, and The Question, heroic conspiracy-freak. Huntress wants to avenge her family's murder by the crime-boss Mandragora, but since he's in the government's protective custody, she needs Question's hacking skills to find him. However, the League has assigned Arrow and Canary to protect the mobster. The two couples throw down at first, but they team up when it's evident that Mandragora is trying to escape US custody without rolling on his old mob-buddies. Huntress overcomes her desire for bloody vengeance and gets a new boyfriend in the bargain.

CLASH (F)-- Lex Luthor appears to be miraculously cured of his Kryptonite cancer, and he runs for US President. Superman is torqued by this state of affairs, so much so that he's annoyed at anyone who doesn't take Luthor's villainy seriously-- including new member Captain Marvel. Luthor mousetraps Superman into looking like an officious fool, not to mention ending up fighting the Captain. The Captain doesn't continue with the League, and Batman reveals that this was all a big frameup by both Luthor and his Cadmus allies.

HUNTER'S MOON (F)-- The League responds to a distress signal from outer space, and the team assigned to investigate is made up of Hawkgirl, Vixen, and Vigilante. This is the first speaking role for golden-oldie hero Vigilante, who reveals that he resents Hawkgirl for having betrayed the Earth to her Thanagarian people. In addition, Vixen is somewhat leery of the winged heroine, since HG had a thing with Vixen's current heartthrob, the John Stewart Green Lantern. The source of the signal turns out to be a contingent of Hawkgirl's people, who hate her for betraying them, which weakened their struggle against their Gordanian opponents. As in "The Balance," the heroes are able to overcome their animosities through their League "esprit de corps," though "Moon" is better since it's involving cultural loyalties.

QUESTION AUTHORITY (G)-- This is the first of a four-part arc dealing with Cadmus seeking to take out the League for good, partly in response to the Question hacking the Cadmus system and learning their secrets. The Question, however, is deeply distressed when he accesses info about the confidential "Justice Lords" incident. The somewhat addled hero instantly believes that the history of the alternate world will be duplicated in this one, so he attempts to kill Luthor so that Superman will not do so and so become corrupted. However, Luthor, manifesting a mysterious super-strength, defeats Question and turns him over to Cadmus. Question is tortured for information, but Huntress talks Superman into invading the Cadmus facility to rescue her boyfriend. However, one Cadmus conspirator, General Eiling, has called upon League-member Captain Atom, still a member of the Air Force, to serve as a Cadmus watchdog. 

FLASHPOINT (G)-- Though Huntress escapes with Question and Superman defeats Captain Atom, Luthor launches a new counter-offensive against the orbiting Watchtower. Luthor hacks the JL computer and causes a cannon to fire down at Earth, destroying an uninhabited Cadmus site. Though no one is killed, the villains succeed in making the nearby civilians think that the superheroes caused chaos trying to strike back at their enemies (though I don't know how much the citizenry knows about the secret Cadmus project). The government becomes highly suspicious of the League despite the heroes' attempts to defend themselves. Amanda Waller is also deceived by Luthor's chicanery and orders a direct attack on the satellite, consisting of dozens of mindless Ultimen clones, all under the control of the vengeful Supergirl-clone, Galatea.

PANIC IN THE SKY (G)-- Six of the League's seven founding members surrender themselves to US authorities to allay society's fears. Batman alone scorns the gesture ("he took it better than I thought he would," says Superman). While the founders are elsewhere, the Watchtower is attacked by Galatea and the Ultimen, so that most of the defending heroes are more in the nature of bit-players. Supergirl takes center-stage as she squares off against her clone, who tries to beat the Girl of Steel to death so that Galatea can be the only Supergirl. Despite a lack of blood or bruises, the SG-G is one of the show's best hand-to-hand fights. However, arguably despite Supergirl's triumph Batman makes the biggest contribution, for he shows Waller evidence of the Luthor hack. However, when Batman and Waller seek to arrest the evil scientist, he bests them as he did Question and reveals that he's become a cyborg thanks to an invasion by Brainiac, an invasion of which Luthor wasn't consciously aware. 

DIVIDED WE FALL (G)-- The Luthor-Brainiac cyborg escapes, and unleashes robotic doubles of the Justice Lords, as if to task the heroes with their negative images. The Flash, rather than being the sacrificial lamb whose death brings about the world's corruption, uses his super-speed powers to separate Luthor from his cyborg parts. This excess of speed almost does cost Flash's life, as he enters the domain of "the speed force," but a chain of his League friends pulls him back. Superman is mightily tempted to take vengeance on Luthor anyway but is able to keep from going the way of the "Justice Lord" Superman. In fact, in a public address the Man of Steel proposes disbanding the League, which action would make a good deal of sense given what seems to be the season's critique of unified power. However, Green Arrow, the one most skeptical of the League's oversight, persuades the group not to call it quits. The League does survive for another season, though in line with Superman's decision not to be continue an "army" of superheroes, fewer DC stalwarts appear in Season Three, even in cameo roles. I guess that's the main significance of the title, but the League is only diminished, not "divided," and it doesn't really "fall." The "army"-like nature of the League didn't even appreciably affect the plots; it just allowed the writers to revisit a lot of favored, if under-rated, DC characters.

EPILOGUE (F)-- Before JLU was granted one last season of 13 more episodes, the producers expected "Epilogue" to be not only the final LEAGUE episode, but the conclusion of the DCAU as well, bringing things back full circle to 1992's BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES. The main story takes place fifteen years after the conclusion of the BATMAN BEYOND series and begins with Future-Batman Terry McGinnis paying a visit to an aged Amanda Waller. McGinnis believes that his mentor, the equally aged Bruce Wayne, tampered with McGinnis's genes in utero, so that McGinnis was born not with the genes of his mother's husband, but with those of Wayne. The big reveal-- which is now 20 years old-- is that Wayne didn't do the deed, but Waller did, for she was a late convert to the belief that "there must always be a Batman." There's just one flashback scene involving the 21st-century members of the League, including a younger Wayne-Batman, so technically it's not a JLU adventure. Still, the scenes between McGinnis and crotchety old Wayne are rewarding, if not especially profound.

                 

                                   
          

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, SEASON ONE (2004-05)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

The two seasons of JUSTICE LEAGUE were better than average superhero entertainment. But the format-- consisting of episodes that were always either two or three parts long-- didn't take advantage of the greater story-time, except that the fights were longer and more spectacular. UNLIMITED tended to focus upon done-in-one episodes with occasional multi-parters and generally made the narratives tighter and more streamlined. 

Taking place a few years after the previous show, JLU now encompasses a plethora of DC's heroes, both famous and obscure. I imagine newbies were confused by a lot of characters who were given little or no introduction, but arguably there's a simple anti-military sociological theme this time, involving the attempts of world governments to manufacture their own superheroes.

INITIATION (P)-- The opening episode isn't particularly complex on any level. A nuclear-powered robot goes on a rampage in Asia, and three heroes-- Green Arrow, Captain Atom, and Supergirl-- are assigned to stop the marauding automaton. Arrow plays the role of reluctant candidate, a street-level hero who's drafted into the more cosmic adventures of the JLU. The episode ends by suggesting Arrow's interest in female member Black Canary, but this does not pay off until Season Two.

FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING (F)-- I've never agreed with the many fans who raved about the Alan Moore comics-story on which this was based, as I found it predictable. Batman and Wonder Woman visit the Fortress of Solitude to celebrate the Man of Steel's birthday, and they find Superman paralyzed by an alien plant. The plant feeds the hero pleasant visions of his enjoying a happy married life on Krypton, and while he slowly tries to overcome his Lotus-eater fate, his friends fight the villain responsible for the attack, alien overlord Mongul. The story is somewhat simplified but is adequate.

HAWK AND DOVE (P)-- Wonder Woman's Olympian foe, Ares God of War, gives a giant robot, the Annihilator, to one of two warring Euro-nations. The Amazon thinks it's a good idea to choose as her team-mates two warring brothers, warlike Hawk and peacenik Dove, to end this threat. The Dove gets the main role of managing to pacify the killer robot, which only works because the script says it does.

FEARFUL SYMMETRY (F)-- Supergirl's having bad dreams in which she kills people, so she turns to the JLU for aid. Green Arrow and The Question (the latter now re-imagined as a conspiracy freak) help the Girl of Steel uncover a government project, Project Cadmus, the first of many covert US government operations. Cadmus has created a clone of Supergirl, known as Galatea (after the Greek myth of the statue-that-comes-to-life). This evil Supergirl, designed to look like the comics-character Power Girl, is one of the show's better concepts and provides lots of action. In addition, this episode re-introduces Professor Emil Hamilton, who had been a semi-regular character on SUPERMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES. In the comics, Hamilton is a goodguy-scientist-who-turns-bad, and from here on in, he plays a major role in unleashing the monsters of Cadmus on the League.  

KID STUFF (G)-- The season's only concrescent myth-tale plays with an idea that's probably occurred to every child: "what would it be like to be free of adult oversight?" Sorceress Morgaine Le Fay is betrayed by her immortal (and permanently juvenile) son Modred, who exiles all adults on Earth to another dimension, including the League. But Morgaine can make it possible for the heroes to cross back to the Earth-plane, by de-aging them to kids. Writer Henry Gilroy does a fine job giving kid-personas to Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern. (Somehow Morgaine's spell also de-ages her comics-foe The Demon to an even younger age, but I'll allow it because it made for good comedy.) Eventually all is set right, except for Modred, who pays a substantial price for his desire for independence.

THIS LITTLE PIGGY (F)-- The sorceress Circe escapes captivity but instead of seeking revenge, she simply wants to let loose and have fun. However, on encountering Batman and Wonder Woman, the witch resorts to tradition and changes the Amazon into a pig. No longer able to think, the little piggy gets loose and Batman must engage the unusual talents of the super-obscure hero B'wana Beast to find her. But the standout moment takes place when Batman has to exercise a hidden talent to save Wonder Woman from becoming pork rinds.

THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD (F)-- Here's the first JLU episode to spotlight one of the C-list heroes. Booster Gold, a guy whose tendency to showboat compromises his position in the League, is given minor crowd control duty during a crisis, only to find another crisis in the making. It's a reasonably clever script, though I didn't come out of it thinking BG any more than a C-lister.

THE RETURN (F)-- At the end of the episode "Tabula Rasa," the super-android Amazo, created by Luthor to destroy the League, transcended his programming in Nietzschean fashion and zoomed off into space. Here, he becomes assailed by doubt and returns to Earth to demand that his creator give him a meaning to his existence. Neither the League, nor a special weapon designed by Luthor and The Atom, can stop him, but Luthor does give the android a satisfying lecture on self-determinism that also has a certain Nietzschean ring, and even suits Luthor's megalomania.  

ULTIMATUM (F)-- More Cadmus clone-antics, as they unleash five new heroes plainly patterned after five SUPER FRIENDS characters: Super Samurai, Apache Chief, Black Vulcan, Zan and Jayna. However, the clones soon learn that they all have limited lifespans, and they go on a rampage, forcing the League to take them down. There's a cute in-joke when the "Apache Chief" character squares off against the JL version of Giganta, since the two characters contended in the SUPER FRIENDS show.      

DARK HEART (F)-- Self-replicating nanobot-aliens invade Earth, and the League must stop them. There's some decent sci-fi concepts here, though it's never more than a standard invasion yarn. General Eiling, a CAPTAIN ATOM villain who will become part of Cadmus in Season Two.

WAKE THE DEAD (P)-- Solomon Grundy is revived, becoming a mindless force of destruction with a special magic that even Amazo and Doctor Fate cannot overcome. This simple story is mostly meant to spotlight the return of Hawkgirl to the League, though many citizens, and even some heroes, still resent her.

THE ONCE AND FUTURE THING (F)-- The season's only two-parter takes League members into two different time-eras: the Old American West and the future of BATMAN BEYOND, thanks to a new version of the classic . The first part is a mini-celebration of DC's various Western characters-- Bat Lash, Jonah Hex, El Diablo, and Pow-Wow Smith-- though there are so many characters, along with three Leaguers, that El Diablo doesn't get any lines. In addition to all that, their main villain in Part 1 is Tobias Manning, which is the regular cognomen of Terra-Man. Part 2 allies the League with Future-Batman, Future Bruce Wayne, and various others to track down Chronos, who suffers a unique, extra-legal punishment.

 

                           

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, SEASON TWO (2007-8)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

Though Season Two's mythicity rates the same as that of Season One, the final season of LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES is more appealing in a kinetic sense. It's as if the producers realized in the first season that they couldn't duplicate the quirky appeal of the Legion-comics of the Silver Age and so switched to an approach more like that of the hyperviolent Image Comics of the 1990s.  

The design for Two's "Big Bad," Imperiex, fairly screams "Image," but a new inductee to the hero-group-- a Superman-clone nicknamed "Superman X"-- is not much different, with his eyes all black cornea with green irises. Superman-X summons the 31st-century heroes to his era, that of the 41st century, to defeat the world-destroying tyrant Imperiex. Instead, the villain time-travels to the 31st century and begins a new reign of terror there, unleashing such familiar menaces as the Fatal Five and the Legion of Super-Villains. The Legion tries to compensate by bringing 21st-century Superman to their aid-- this time looking to be in his twenties rather than a teen. But Superman-X, with his Ahab-like obsession with stopping the future overlord, is the real "face of Superman" for the season.

There's a somewhat better usage of comics-plots than I found in Season One. The story of Timber Wolf's mutation by his ruthless scientist-father is extended by an adaptation of a story in which a different Legionnaire was accused of causing a death. In contrast, there's a completely original, and reasonably affecting, episode focusing on Lightning Lad and his two siblings. To be sure, though, said tale includes a comics-derived incident in which the aforementioned Legionnaire loses an arm and must have it replaced by a robot limb (a good fifteen years before Luke Skywalker suffered the same fate in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK).

The greater possibility of death increases the tension of the conflicts. As in the comics, Triplicate Girl loses one of her duplicates, which means that she must adjust to a new fighting-pattern, not to mention taking on a new cognomen. Superman-X is given a "would you kill Hitler as a child" moment, and Brainiac 5-- who as noted earlier is a humanoid computer rather than just a really smart guy-- has to confront his cyber-ancestor, the original Brainiac. There's also a little bit of Eros to balance the increase in Thanatos-- mostly in the suggestion of a thing between Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad-- though I still think the producers missed a beat by not building up the romantic element from the first. But as indicated above, the greater concentration of action-sequences is Season Two's biggest asset. 

                   

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1979)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I don't think most Edgar Allan Poe stories lend themselves to feature-film adaptation. Thus, I'd usually rather see an adaptor "juice up" an adaptation of a problematic work like Poe's USHER in order to make the film work according to the necessities of cinematic storytelling, rather than plod his way through a script with absolute fidelity to the prose source.

Of course, there are good deviations and bad deviations. Alan Birkenshaw's 1989 HOUSE doesn't even make a token effort toward keeping faith, and so it's just rubbish, consisting of all sorts of junk, including the kitchen sink. However, when Richard Matheson adapted USHER for Corman in the 1960 film, he apparently realized that the audience would need some reason for the house to be so malefic. And so Matheson imported, possibly from Hawthorne, the idea that the house was pervaded with the degeneracy of the Usher ancestors-- which works dramatically, even if it doesn't have much to do with Poe.

TV-scribe Stephen Lord does something similar to Matheson in working out a new scenario for this TV-film. After the principals have lurked about for the first hour of the movie, Roderick Usher (Martin Landau) reveals to the viewpoint character Jonathan (Robert Hays) that the reason the house constantly shifts and shakes is because Roderick's ancestors performed rites of devil-worship there. I don't think this was a particularly good idea. However, as long as we don't see cartoon devils running around, Usher's superstititon can be relegated to his own demented fantasies.

Somewhat better is Lord's alteration of the viewpoint character. Whereas Roderick's visitor in the story is just an old school chum, Jonathan is an architect who knew Roderick in school, and Roderick summons him to attempt shoring up the unstable edifice. Jonathan, having no idea what he's getting into, brings along his new bride Jennifer (Charlene Tilton).

Though it takes a while for Jonathan to learn the history of the house, Lord immediately lets the POV character in on Lord's big change about the last two surviving Ushers. In the prose story, Roderick is afflicted with an illness that makes him hypersensitive to loud sounds and other sensory impacts, while his sister Madeleine suffers from catalepsy-- which situation leads Roderick to entomb his sibling, maybe not quite innocently. In the movie, both Roderick and Madeleine suffer from the same disease, and Madeleine (Dimitra Arliss), rather than going mad after getting buried alive, is the epitome of that trope known as "the madwoman in the attic." Indeed, the first time Jonathan meets the crazy lady, she tries to kill him with an axe.

If in the story the crumbling house is the objective correlate to Roderick's disintegrating mind, here monstrous Madeleine lines up with the self-destructive house. Roderick and his servant Thaddeus (Ray Walston) confine her in a room, but she gets loose again, menacing poor confused Jennifer. Oddly, the house itself "kills" the madwoman with one of its tremors, dropping some masonry on Madeleine. This gives Roderick the justification to nail his sister into a coffin. But she gets better and breaks free, pushing the nails out of their holes with her bare fingers. She kills the servant and menaces both of the innocent bystanders, and frankly, Arliss makes one of the better cinematic Madeleines, her eyes weeping tears of blood. She seems okay with just killing everyone in her path. Roderick belatedly decides he's doomed to die by her hands (and by the evil will of the House, I guess), though that begs the question as to why he imagined he could triumph over the cursed house by working on its supports. Anyway, at least the filmmakers got that part of the Poe story more or less right, since Roderick dies fighting with Madeleine, allowing the two innocents to escape. I gather the budget didn't allow for a model-house sinking into a tarn, so lightning hits the house and the vile dwelling goes up in flames. 

Apparently the production was somehow linked to the Classics Illustrated comics-line, since there's a quick shot of CI's cover of their USHER adaptation before credits roll. I don't know how good the comic was, but I've seen far worse USHER films than this one.

   

                          

MONSTER ISLAND (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

I almost want to create a neologism for movies that look a lot like the once-celebrated Pixar brand of animated features-- "Pixar-rips," maybe. The Mexican-financed CGI flick MONSTER ISLAND has at least the general look of a Pixar film, as well as a comfortable sort of "be yourself" moral. Not surprisingly, ISLAND lacks the wit and distinctive design-sense in the better Pixars. Still, I've seen much worse in the realm of original kid-vid movies.

For once, the title's accurate in that most of the story takes place on the island. For the first half hour, middle-schooler Lucas lives with his widower-father Nicholas, coping with school bullies and flirty girls. Nicholas constantly badgers Lucas to regularly dose himself with a special inhaler, to stave off some "attacks" to which their family is vulnerable. However, when Lucas attends a party of his schoolmates without using his inhaler first, he's somewhat torqued to learn that without that chemical, he turns into a huge, winged orange monster. He manages to reach his dad, and Nicholas reveals that though he sacrificed his ability to change into a monster somehow, the rest of their family-- including Lucas' late mother-- dwell on a special island called Calvera. 

I suspect that director/co-writer Leopoldo Aguilar was not too concerned about his universe, for it's never clear to what extent the human world knows about Calvera, or if there's any connection to the multifarious types of creatures there with regular humans. Lucas manages to reach Calvera to learn more about the family he never knew, which includes his big orange grandmother and an uncle named Norcutt, who seems to be a "recessive" type of creature since he looks like an ordinary human. Every entity on Calvera, no matter his or her bizarre shape, wears clothes and lives in a peaceful city, and thus aren't really "monsters" except in the sense of not looking like human beings. Their only problem is that some mysterious malefactor has been kidnapping Calvera's citizens. Hmm-- who could it be? Could it be the one resident who feels as isolated from his people as Lucas did from his middle-school peers? 

          

 If ISLAND offered nothing beyond Lucas's struggle with his monstrous identity, or Nicholas' desire to protect him, the film would have earned only poor mythicity from me. However, I rather liked Norcutt, who's motivated by "monster envy" to the extent that he's been draining off something-or-other from captive Calverans. His purpose is to transform himself to a powerful, malicious entity-- in other words, what most people think of when they hear the word "monster." Monster-Norcutt is the movie's only reasonably well-designed critter, and though ISLAND is supposed to be a comedy, its best scene is a big battle in which Lucas and Nicholas, both of whom are in monster-form, contend with Norcutt and his two bulky henchmen. Otherwise, there's not much here, though as I said ISLAND at least looks better than a lot of cartoon kid-vid and would probably be reasonably satisfying to munchkins.  ISLAND apparently made enough dough that three years later that Aguilar made another cartoon feature, which despite the name of MONSTER ZONE, seems to have nothing to do with ISLAND.

THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, SEASON ONE (2006-7)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

At some point of my hardcore comics-fandom, I remember thinking that DC Comics' LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES ought to have been perfect for a Saturday morning kids' cartoon. After all, the Legion had started in 1958 as a toss-off notion in a SUPERBOY comic. That one story-- which showed three superheroic teens from the 30th century interacting with 20th-century Superboy-- grabbed enough fans that DC developed the idea of the Legion into a successful franchise, still being published today.

Since the Warners Animation series lasted two seasons, it can't be considered a total failure. Still, it can't be called a success either, and since producer James Tucker has a fair range of good and bad in his animation career, I tend to think that the juvenile fantasy of the sixties LEGION just wasn't transferrable to the "future" of the 21st century. The teen heroes of the comics were barely even one-dimensional as characters, so their appeal in the Silver Age depended largely on writers being able to come up with ingenious uses of their multifarious powers, linked to a few very basic "teen torment" tropes regarding guilt, sexuality, et al. 

Tucker's LSH, though, tries a little too hard to quickly re-imagine the Legionnaires as two-dimensional characters, but without really coming up with anything compelling. Though many members make token appearances in the show, the producers sought to concentrate on seven core Legionnaires-- Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Bouncing Boy (the inevitable comedy relief for the most part), Phantom Girl, Timber Wolf (given a Wolverine-ish makeover), Triplicate Girl, and Brainiac 5 (who's a cyborg rather than a humanoid with a computer-like intelligence). These characters are also the gateway for 21st-century Clark Kent as he joins the future-supers club-- though, for reasons that may be tied to a trademark challenge around that time, the hero is always called "Superman" rather than "Superboy," despite the fact that he looks to be as much a teen as the other heroes.

The main problem is that in the first season at least, the stories just seem overly derivative, and that might be the main reason that young viewers just didn't choose LSH over whatever competed with it on other channels. There's a "haunted spaceship" episode, a "crisis of confidence" episode, and an "interfering parent" episode. The writers loosely adapted some decent comics-stories-- the origin of Timber Wolf and of the daffy "Legion of Substitute Heroes," the Legion's struggle with the colossal space-monster, the Sun-Eater. However, at no time does the series seem grounded in even a very simple space-opera universe. There's also a near-total avoidance of the romantic element, which I think was a crucial reason the sixties series both caught on and prospered for decades. Ironically, though I'll be reviewing the second and final season separately, I have a feeling I'm going to see the same flaws in that review-- a show that needed to reach young viewers, but may be greater interest to old farts, who get the in-joke when the "haunted spaceship" is given the name "Quatermass."