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Justice
League Unlimited
Double Date
Original Airdate - 06/04/05
Late
one night, The Huntress just happens to be out for a walk
near the house of the man responsible for killing her father.
Security lets her meander into the house and into the man's
bedroom, just because. Not really sure what she's doing
there, Huntress begins cleaning her crossbow, when it suddenly
goes off. Imagine her surprise when half a dozen arrows
sail into the sleeping body of the man responsible for killing
her father. Oops! C'est La Vie.
Unfortunately
for Huntress, Martain Manhunter doesn't believe this story
unfolded by chance. Anticipating that The Huntress would
try and assassinate crime lord Steven Mandragora, J'onn
had him moved to a JLU safe house. J'onn scolds Huntress
and then kicks her out of the League.
Instead
of being escorted out like you might in a lower-class group
like The Defenders or something, Huntress wanders the halls
and eventually finds The Questions obsessing over his conspiracy
therories. She offers him information about Cadmus and maybe
some light petting in exchange for helping her find Mandragora.
The
Question agrees. Wouldn't you? That is the question.
It
isn't too long before the duo find the safe house, but they
are not prepared when they discover Black Canary and Green
Arrow protecting it. Rather than discussing it like adults,
a four way brawl ensues during which Mandragora escapes.
Now Black Canary and Green Arrow must find Mandragora somewhere
in the city before The Question and The Huntress can. It's
like The Amazing Race in spandex, which, come to
think of it, would be a good twist for next season.
This
was a great episode. The two teams of heroes interacted
nicely together, giving a lot of opportunity for humor and
character development. The whole episode blended comedy,
action and romance well. Rob and Amber, however, totally
got on my nerves.
Since
Huntress villains aren't at the top of anyone's list of
great characters, crime lord Steven Mandragora came off
as an albino version of Kingpin, without the class. He was
the only weak point in an otherwise fun-filled half hour.
Amy
Acker, Fred from Angel,
voiced The Huntress. Spot the Joss Whedon connection in
the following: Kin Shriner, Jeffrey Combs, and Morena Baccarin
reprised their roles as Green Arrow, the Question, and Black
Canary, respectively. Jeffrey Combs stands out from the
others because creepy is just in his nature.
Derek's
Continuity Corner
What to do when you want to use a comic book character and
DC won't let you? The publisher has certainly let Bruce
Timm run wild through their universe, with two notable exceptions:
Blue Beetle and Tobias Whale. We now know why JLU couldn't
use Blue Beetle, but what can you do with the Whale?
This
episode's villain, Steven Mandragora, combines the name
of the guy who took out the Bertinellis in the comics with
the look of the closest thing Black Lightning (not Black
Vulcan) has to an arch-enemy, that pesky overweight albino
Tobias Whale. In the comics, the Huntress disposed of her
parents' killer and set the stage for Batman's general distrust
of her as a "loose cannon," just as in this episode
J'onn J'onnz understood that her need for vengeance would
outweigh her sense of justice.
So Mandragora occupies even less of a hallowed place in continuity
than, say, Joe Chill, at least as far as actual appearances
go. But Whale surfaces for air from time to time. Since DC
banned his usage, it's possible that they have some strange
plans for him. If not as a spokesperson for Greenpeace, perhaps
Tobias will appear briefly in Infinite Crisis then
die in a really stupid manner.
In appearance,
the animated Mandragora also resembles a Batman Beyond villain,
the Invulnerable Man. It's quite possible that the final
confrontation in "Double Date" may have sown the
seeds for Mandragora's son to grow up and become that character.
With how surprisingly tightly wound the Timm-verse continuity
has been, it would not be surprising to see that pay off
in a season or two.
Goodson
failed to note the appearance of long-time DC espionage
expert King Faraday. Here, he seems like a high-ranking
but run-of-the-mill federal agent, but when he first appeared
in Showcase, it was definitely to cash in on the
relatively new James Bond craze. (Showcase also
adapted Dr. No to comic book form.) The feature
was titled I, Spy, but did not spin off into its own book.
Faraday
resurfaced in the 80s, occasionally working with the New
Teen Titans. When DC folded the Charlton heroes into their
continuity, Faraday also butted heads with Sarge Steel and
The Question, then went on to become an agent of Checkmate.
His
current fate in continuity remains unknown, but with the
new focus on Checkmate in The OMAC Project, he seems sure
to reappear in comics soon. Don't be surprised if he aids
the JLU in their covert battle with The Cadmus Project,
which, interestingly enough, parallels what's going on in
DC Comics right now.
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