Justice League Unlimited - Review

Justice League Unlimited was a clear continuum of the original series. It was also a highly ambitious project, one that didn’t always pay off. While its predecessor indicated that change was on the horizon after the destruction of the Watchtower and the departure of Hawkgirl, DC really has to learn that rebooting a franchise is not necessarily change for the better. Justice League Unlimited seemed to get lost in the idea of quantity over quality. It featured a much more diverse team at the expense of character development, aside from a select few, the majority of the new cast felt one dimensional and boring, lacking a lot of the charm and whimsy of Justice League.

The series ran for two seasons one comprising of 26 episodes and one shorter 13 episode season tagged on at the end. While the first season adopted an episodic format there was an underlying story arc which came full circle, the second season felt rushed and lacklustre, almost as if they were running out of ideas, not to mention Superman villains’. The show took a darker direction than its predecessor through paying homage to an interesting idea tossed around in the original series. Ultimately this ended up convoluted and unnecessary since it didn’t go anywhere new. The heroes turn up, save the day and suddenly everyone remembers why they like the Justice League! Well duh!

What was memorable about the Justice League for me, were the seven founding members, as I briefly mentioned in the previous review. This is where the series came into its own. The cast were incredibly well developed and complex throughout Justice League and played off each other wonderfully. Whereas Justice League Unlimited (as the name implies) wanted to expand the league and rapidly increase the number of characters by creating a secondary cast, an extra cast and a background cast, to varying degrees of success.

The secondary cast consisted of Green Arrow, Supergirl, Black Canary, The Question, Huntress to name a few. As reoccurring characters with relative contributions to the major plot line, these characters were fleshed out enough not to feel contrived. They were even capable of holding down episodes largely absent of the founding cast members, in particular the Birds of Prey saga. The writer Gail Simone might have had something to do with that. The extra cast were little more than the guest cast of a filler episode – Captain Marvel, Zatanna, Hawkman, Hawk and Dove, Booster Gold, and these were among the worse episodes of the series. It shouldn’t be enough to just have these characters present. The writers have to do something with them other than an extended cameo appearance. And here we reach the crux of the show; it could be downright sloppy at times. The background cast were the background, superheroes that never spoke and were never named. They were simple padding. They were a waste of animation.

The overall problem with Justice League Unlimited is that it never when far enough. It relied far too heavily on the original series to the point that very little progression was made on the already set up cast members. Opting instead to introduce as many new and unfamiliar faces as possible but rather than establishing who they were and most importantly why we should care about them, Justice League Unlimited would immediately return to its comfort zone – the DC trinity. Perhaps if the series had gone the whole route and turned each episode into a one-shot dedicated to an entirely new character, the series would have actually felt unlimited.

In short Justice League ended on a high. Justice League Unlimited began on a low and only got a little better with time. Unfortunately DC seems to be repeating their mistakes with Young Justice.

Rating: 6/10

For fans of: Justice League, Young Justice, The Avengers; Earths Mightiest Heroes 

Justice League - Review

After the success of Batman: TAS (the animated series) and Superman: TAS, DC wanted to expand its newly created “DC animated universe”. So of course the next logical step was to complete the holy DC trinity and produce Wonder Woman: TAS. Nope. Naturally Wonder Woman has yet to receive her own animated series, I imagine it will manifest sometime after her film debut (so never). Interestingly in both instances Wonder Woman has been passed over for the Green Lantern, Hal Jordon, Green Lantern. I’m sure it will surprise no one that the five DC heroes to feature in their own full length animated series were all male. Batman and Superman, unsurprisingly dominate the board. I can understand Green Lantern, but Aquaman and Static Shock? I mean why are these characters deemed a priority over Wonder Woman? Then again, considering that one of the worse episodes (in my humble opinion) centred on Wonder Woman, this was probably a wise decision.

Justice League aired in 2001 and ran for two seasons, 26 episodes a piece. Aside from a stand-alone Christmas special and three extended episodes, each story was presented in a two-part episode arc. The primary cast remained the same throughout the two seasons, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl, seven recognizable, reasonably well-known superheroes combined into one DC powerhouse. Few secondary characters were introduced but the most significant would have been Aquaman and Dr.Fate. Personally this is how a successful superhero outlet should be with a fixed main cast and a reoccurring guest cast. Considering how vast the DC universe is, focusing on only seven was no small feat.

There are several reasons why I enjoy this type of format. The most important is that it allows for stronger character development. A limited cast means that there is much more room to create characters with distinctive personalities, unique powers and identifiable appearances. It also means that once the foundation is set, the characters can be expanded upon. Ultimately they can change and grow, the most prolific of which was Hawkgirl. As with any superhero team genre, the real dynamic is in how the members interact with one another and this was where Justice League came into its own. It effectively captured seven exceptional individuals who contrasted and complimented one another without having to resolve to archetypes such as (though it pains me to admit) Teen Titans.

And now time for the feminist rant. Since the team consisted of two female cast members (one of them being Wonder Woman), a girl power / straw feminist plot was pretty much inevitable. However the ‘sisters are doing it for themselves’ gimmick is not in itself a bad idea – take the episode ‘Grudge Match’ in Justice League Unlimited. It’s all in the execution, namely the straw feminist approach. For those that are not aware, a straw feminist is an exaggerated caricature of feminism (Sarkeesian, 2011) most notably represented in the media promoting radical ideas – like all men are evil. In the episode Fury, the adopted Amazon Aresia develops a plague that will wipe out the male population, leaving Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl alone to stop her. Wonder Woman immediately rejects that this is the Amazon way however Hawkgirl asserts that Aresia is just taking the Amazon dogma to its next conceivable level. At the end of the story Aresia learns that she in fact owes her life to a man but that the Amazon Queen Hippolyta never told her because she did not think he was important. Rather than just portray Aresia as a rogue Amazon with radial ideas, the show deliberately suggested that there was innately something wrong with the Amazonian society and how it devalues men.

This is a classic example of how not to write Wonder Woman because it just undermines the character and her culture. It oversimplifies the Amazons and discredits the all-female society notion as a whole. Writers are often preoccupied with turning the Amazons into a race of man-haters who existed in a world of gender equality. In the beginning of the episode Wonder Woman does help a woman from a rude male driver, but that of course does not constitute an act of sexism. As with many animated universes institutionalised sexism, racism or homophobia is non-existence. The problem of course is that Justice League is aimed at a young audience which would make it difficult to accurately depict any form of prejudice in a manner that is both effective and sensitive. It’s far easier to create a gender balanced world with crazed man-hating Amazons.

Aside from this minor lapse in judgement, the remaining episodes were consistently enjoyable even by today’s standards. Amazingly Justice League hasn’t aged at all. The animation is still wonderfully sleek and even a little reminiscent. The stories are intriguing, imaginative and well-paced, if a little goofy and corny along the way. Not to mention that it served as a platform to introduce new DC characters that might not have generated enough interest by themselves to support an entire series. The only possible downside is that they did tend to rely on Superman/Batman villain’s the majority of the time, which was a bit of shame but not to a large extent. Overall it leaves me with a positive reaction. I recall watching Justice League when it originally aired and not being overly fond of it. Ten years on and I’ve officially changed my mind.

Rating: 7/10

For Fans of: Young Justice, Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes, League of Superheroes.