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Justice League of America
the TV show
a
dissenting review by
:
Kyle
DuVall 
| Rating: |
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When
Batman: The Animated Series premiered in 1989, most people
were expecting another lackluster action toon riding the coattails
of a popular film. But within its first season, Bruce Timm
and Paul Dini's gorgeous and intelligent series became a watershed
for TV animation. The show's look was unlike anything seen
before, and the writing was sophisticated, clever and, frankly,
better than any other action series, animated or otherwise,
on television. The show's success, even early on, left geeks
hungry for the creative team to embrace more classic characters.
The possibility of a full fledged Justice League cartoon was
a tantalizing dream.
When Timm
went on to create the subsequent Superman animated series
and premiered it with a "world's finest" mini-series, which
teamed Batman and Supes up in a supremely cool, perfectly
tuned story-arc, the hunger got even stronger. Frequent guest
appearances by characters like The Flash and Aquaman on Superman
seemed to signal a JLA show was almost imminent.
Well,
in 2001 the object of our toon fanboy desires arrived with
cartoon network's Justice league, a show which promised to
be a "superfriends for a new generation". Unfortunately, the
advertising flacks who thought that up didn't know how right
they were.
Justice
League delivers the look of Timm's great, previous animated
series, but none of the excellent writing that made Batman
the best animated show on TV for most of its run. Characters
that fans have been waiting to see for years are mishandled,
the villains are uninspired, and the plot basics (good dialogue,
narrative and character consistency, etc) are extremely lacking.
Here's my breakdown.
THE
HEROES:
Superman:
Superman comes off pretty decent in Justice League, especially
since the writers and animators know how much fun you can
have with an indestructible character like Kal-El. Supes gets
thrown through buildings, hit with heavy weapons, buried in
rubble etc. all with considerable glee from the animators.
This is good.
On the other hand, some very slight design changes have been
done to Superman. They've added these weird craggy facial
lines, and a suggestion of circle under his eyes, making Superman
look like he's recovering from a Super-hangover. Also, will
somebody please show the Korean sweatshop animators who work
on Justice League how to draw the S on Superman's chest?!
Batman:
The most previously developed and familiar character in the
series, Batman is done well when he decides to show up. He's
dark, he's clever and he takes the whole super-team thing
with some skepticism. There's still the feeling that the writers
are having trouble deciding how to integrate Batman into the
epic fights the show prefers, but Batman, on the whole, comes
off fine.
The
Flash: Along with GL, the show's worst victim of uninspired
writing. Just as he was in his guest shot on Superman, the
Justice League Flash is a cocky smart aleck who likes
to play off everyone else's grave attitudes. Of course, the
great thing about the incarnation of the Flash who appeared
on Superman was that he could back up all his boasting because
he was also clever and courageous.
But this Justice League flash is little more than bad
comic relief. Whenever there's a fight, Flash runs around
dodging laser beams until he either trips on a rock (ugh),
or bumps his head (groan). Justice League Flash is
not a likable trickster, he's an ineffectual buffoon with
no offensive capabilities or cunning at all. A total waste
of a classic character.
The
Green Lantern: The most bungled member of the Justice
League team. In both comic and animated versions of the past,
the running gag with Green Lantern was that, even with the
ability to create any object he imagines with his Oan power
ring, Green Lantern usually ended up just smashing people
with big green fists. Justice league takes this sad cliché
a step further by taking a character with more cool visual
potential than any other, and basically turning him into a
guy with a ray gun on his finger.
There are no big, green fists in this show, but there aren't
any of the cool power ring creations (giant green manga-style
robots, mythical creatures made from green energy, etc.) from
the best comic books either. The fabled power-ring weapon
of the Green Lantern corps, in this animated version, seems
to be limited to shooting laser beams and occasionally projecting
a big green bubble around somebody. *Yawn*.
Hawkgirl:
Probably the best character on the show. Hawkgirl is a woman
with big bird wings and a mace who likes to SMASH! By turning
Hawkgirl into the team hothead, the writers have taken a forgettable
and underpowered character and turned her into a rampaging,
spaceship smashing dynamo who is more fun to watch than anyone
else on the show. This one, they got right.
Wonder
Woman: Unlike in the comics, the Justice League Wonder
Woman is a new hero fresh off the boat from Paradise Island.
The writers seem to be a bit hesitant with Wonder Woman's
powers: she does the cool bracelet stuff, and she mixes it
up in the fights too, but they always seem to pull up short
of making her the pro-active super-strong war goddess Grant
Morrison made her in his JLA. In terms of personality, Wonder
Woman's lost-and-taken-aback-in-the-man's-world act is pretty
thin. All in all, this Wonder Woman needs to be more Lucy
lawless and less Jennifer Aniston.
Martian
Manhunter: J'onn J'onz is always the character most likely
to fade into the background in the DC universe. In the JLA
comics, the last Martian is cast as the heart and soul of
the team, the spiritual leader if you will, but even then,
he is still crowded out by the icons he keeps company with.
The Justice League Manhunter is as lost as ever, and the character's
powers have been changed. He's no longer a shapeshifter, instead
he can change his density to become intangible (woo hoo) and
his telepathic abilities are definitely less impressive.
The only
writer who ever brought Martian Manhunter to life as a member
of this superteam, for me, was Grant Morrison, who portrayed
J'onn's telepathy as a sort of psychic link that kept the
whole JLA team in synch. This really drove home J'onn as the
heart of the group. While Batman was the strategist, and Superman
was the general, Martian Manhunter became a sort of field
sergeant, coordinating all Batman's plans telepathically.
Pushing Martian Manhunter in the background is not the unforgivable
sin the bungling of Flash and GL is, but it's a shame that
they couldn't pick up a little more on Morrison's concept
of the character.
THE
VILLAINS:
The worst
thing I can remember about Superfriends, even as a kid, was
that, even with the entire rogues gallery of the DC universe
to work with, the TV writers felt compelled to cook up a lot
of half baked new villains, usually alien invaders of some
type, to oppose the Superfriends. I always wanted to see my
favorite comic book villains on the show, and even when the
Legion of Doom showed up in the old series, we still never
got to see the two teams really duke it out. The first season
of Justice League, once again, stumbles in the same way that
the old Superfriends series did. Not only have we not seen
a real classic villain like Lex Luthor or Darkseid, The newly-invented
nemeses of the Justice League have all been pretty characterless
so far.
The first
story arc featured (surprise, surprise) alien invaders. Unlike
the Invaders from Mars storyline Grant Morrison spun in his
debut issues of JLA, the cartoon Martians of the animated
series were completely devoid of any personality or real menace.
They were the old hive-mind type aliens, which, in concept
makes them a pretty implacable adversary, but also means,
in terms of personality, they have to be insufferably bland.
The second
story arc introduced the cosmic nature of Green Lantern in
a big way. We got to travel onto space, check out some of
the wild aliens who comprise the Green Lantern Corps, but
did we get a classic GL villain like Sinestro? No, we got…robots.
Once again, our heroes are faced by an overwhelmingly characterless
opponent, and the robots didn't even look cool (they looked
like midget Sentinels). There's just no fun with these villains,
no scheming, no diabolical plotting, just a lot of big fights
and plot holes.
Season
one also had a storyline that introduced Aquaman and the race
of Atlanteans. The evil Atlantean villain of this arc (I can't
remember his name, that's how much of an impression he left)
was downright campy. As a renegade Atlantean noble seeking
to dethrone Aquaman, this villain and his soldiers looked
like refugees from an old Crash Corrigan serial. The character
designs were downright goofy looking, the dialogue was corny,
and the voice acting was even subpar to 1980's GI joe cartoons
in quality. If the writers couldn't come up with anything
better, why not just build a story around a classic character
like Black Manta? The worst part about the story arc was that,
in the Superman series, the writers could even make Aquaman
cool. On Justice League, the character and the world he inhabits
is sillier than ever.
On Batman,
the writers often excelled at putting new spins on old comic
book ideas (i.e., the invisible man episode of Batman, or
the Android episodes…), but the clichés embraced in Justice
League aren't pulled off with any style. After all, Timm's
versions of The Joker and Lex Luthor have become downright
definitive, and one of the best Batman villains, The Ventriloquist,
was a character created for the animated series. I know the
people behind Justice League can do a lot better than what
I've seen so far.
The producers
have promised that the coming seasons will, indeed, feature
classic JLA villains like Starro, the Injustice Gang, and
maybe even Darkseid. Still, if the writing doesn't improve,
I don't think even the introduction of such classic bad guys
will do much for the show
THE
PLOT HOLES
Justice
League's pilot story arc seemed to be a good harbinger of
the sloppy writing to come. In the first act of the invaders
from mars storyline, The War-of-the-Worlds- style Martian
walkers are invincible death machines that even Superman can't
dent. Later in the story, they suddenly become comic book
cannon fodder that go down quicker than stormtroopers fighting
ewoks. This gaffe was made again in the "In Blackest Night"
story. In the first episode, a half dozen robot manhunters
hand the Justice League their butts on an oan green platter.
But in the last episode, the league is able to mow through
an army of them with casual ease. What's the deal?
Also,
superheros sometimes conveniently forget their powers when
the writers need to keep them in a threatening situation:
witness Superman forgetting his heat vision and Martian Manhunter
somehow not being able to go intangible in the last episode
of "Secret Origins". This shows the writers aren't clever
enough to come up with real perils for such powerful heroes,
a task especially challenging with Superman on the team. But,
then again, as Superchicken says: "you knew the job was dangerous
when you took it…"
Justice
League has more problems at its basic levels, especially with
the character concepts, than the mere first-season awkwardness
that can be forgiven in any show. Bruce Timm needs to can
writer Rich Fogel quick and get back with Paul Dini to get
the show on track, or, even better, bring in some real comic
writers. Green Lantern needs to be re-vamped all together,
and he Flash needs to be handled with some style and respect.
Some have
defended Justice League by pointing out that, for kids, it's
a much better action cartoon than the Pokemon-clones that
choke the airwaves on today's networks. This is true, but
it is notable that Justice league is scheduled in a 9:30 pm
time slot on the Cartoon Network. This means the show is aiming
at the crossover market the excellent Batman and Superman
series created. If Justice League is to survive, the writing
will have to improve, or else the novelty of simply seeing
the Justice League together in animated form is going to fade
real quick. Using the excuse that Justice league is for kids
is a poor excuse for sloppy craftsmanship. After all, Batman
and Superman were just for kids, but they were always intelligently
written and conceptualized.
I have
made many allusions to Garnt Morrison's JLA comics in this
review, and this may seem unfair. Another defense for the
show is that too many of its detractors are put off by the
fact that it isn't exactly like the comics. Personally, I
was never expecting, or desiring, an animated version of Grant
Morrison's comic book work. What I expected was a cool show
of the same quality as Batman and Superman. I wanted this
to be Bruce Timm's translation of the characters. I give the
examples of Morrison's concepts to show that, with a little
creativity, it really is possible to do interesting things
with such a hoary old superteam, and to show the potential
being wasted on Justice League.
On the
up side, at least Justice League's characters actually look
like themselves. Timm hasn't action-figurized the characters
beyond recognition the way Marvel did with their horrible
Avengers series. And the show's emphasis on action is great
too. I don't want Justice League to become mired in spandex
soap operas. Still, it's a shame that, even after waiting
so long for a series like this, I still can barely make it
through an episode without changing the channel.
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