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Justice
League Unlimited
Fearful Symmetry
Original Airdate - 09/04/04
This
week on Justice League Unlimited, Supergirl is plagued
by nightmares where she is even more reckless and dangerous
than Green Lantern said she was. She visits Martian Manhunter
because his duties not only include coordinating the largest
global team of superheroes but also serving as Justice League
Counselor.
J'onn
shows that he has the gentle touch when it comes to the
ladies, suspending her from the team till she gets over
it. Supergirl commiserates with Green Arrow in the Watchtower
cafeteria when The Question overhears their conversation.
This is the first appearance of The Question in the Bruce
Timm/DC Universe and he's pretty cool. Half Batman, half
conspiracy nut, he believes that Supergirl's nightmares
are actually repressed memories and somehow tie into a larger
conspiracy that he has been tracking. The trio of heroes
visit S.T.A.R. Labs where Supergirl was once treated for
injuries following a fight with a rogue Superman (I believe
a reference to Superman: The Animated Series, but
correct me if I'm wrong.)
S.T.A.R.
Labs provides no clues, but the heroes are attacked immediately
after leaving the building. Clues found on their attackers
lead them to a retired General who was forced out of the
Army after not being able to take down Superman when he
turned evil. Again, the trio come up short on clues. Soon
after they leave, the General is visited by what appears
to be a clone of Supergirl named Tea (short for Galatea).
Tea
wears a costume very reminiscent of DC's continuity problem
child, Power Girl. Tea and the Justice League trio eventually
rumble in the streets of Metropolis which is a very satisfying
solution after weeks of nonviolent finales. Supergirl, whose
DNA must be easier to clone than Superman's, is ultimately
a pawn in a larger scheme which has yet to be revealed.
I've
commented many times that the format of the show does not
lend itself to great storytelling. 30 minutes is just not
enough time to establish new characters and have time left
for the plot. Fortunately JLU is trying to work
around this flaw by developing larger plot lines within
each episode so that each season can be counted as one massive
storyline. Teen Titans has had great success with
this, but JLU is really taking its sweet time about
it. In fact a larger plotline may not even be in the works
and I'm just trying to make a sweater out of loose plot
threads.
Anyway,
kudos for trying, but get on with it already.
Jeffrey
Combs, who was excellent on Deep Space 9, is just
as engaging here as The Question. The Question made a better
impression on me as a character during his half an hour
appearance here than he ever has during the last 10+ years
of comic reading. It was also nice to see the return of
Dr. Hamilton, a long time Superman:TAS cast regular,
now turned mastermind lackey.
Overall
Fearful Symmetry is the best episode of JLU we've
seen to date but the show has yet to really knock my socks
off.
Derek's
Continuity Corner
Like Hawk and Dove, The Question is a Steve Ditko creation.
Unlike Hawk and Dove, Ditko didn't create him for DC. The
Question first appeared at the now-defunct Charlton Comics.
In the early eighties, DC bought up the rights to all but
a few of Charlton's superhero (or Action Hero, as they called
them) titles.
Originally pretty
much just a guy with no face (a mask) and a take no prisoners
or b.s. attitude in fighting crime, writer Dennis O'Neill
revived him in the late eighties as a man searching for
answers. He started out pretty hard-boiled, and then went
zen, all the while struggling against overwhelming corruption
and evil in Hub City, the place where he had spent time
as a television reporter in his real identity as Vic Sage.
The Question's
last major appearance in comics was in the mini-series Cry
of the Huntress, where he saved The Huntress' life and eventually
started dating her -- a thread that will be picked up on
later in the JLU season, in an episode written by the great
Gail Simone.
As for Power
Girl/Tea -- Goodson's right. She's a continuity problem
child. Once upon a time, there was an Earth-2, where Kara
was rocketed to Earth as a young woman, not as a teenager.
So when she met her cousin Superman, she was already in
her twenties. For some reason (probably so DC could claim
she wasn't really just an Earth-2 Supergirl) she
took the name Power Girl.
But after Crisis
On Infinite Earths and the John Byrne revamp of Superman,
Power Girl's origin just didn't work anymore. For awhile,
writers tied her in to Arion, Lord of Atlantis,
a fantasy title that they wanted to make closer to DC continuity.
They claimed that she was actually several thousand years
old, placed in suspended animation through most of mankind's
development, and given a false set of memories of being
Superman's cousin.
Right.
Now two things
loom on the horizon for Power Girl: Continuity-fixing expert
Geoff Johns writing JSA, of which she is a member, and rumors
that DC will soon be sort of undoing Crisis and recreating
Earth 2.
Let us all lie
down for a while.
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