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Justice
League Unlimited
The Return
Original Airdate - 09/18/04
This
week's episode of Justice League Unlimited is a sequel
to the second season episode of Justice League called "Tabula
Rasa." In that episode Lex Luthor discovers a robot
created by Professor Ivo codenamed Amazo. Luthor uses the
robot's naiveté to get him to use his power mimicking ability
to fight the Justice League. In the end, Amazo leaves Earth
in search of a more meaningful existence.
Well,
it turns out he's back. After "pulling a Jordan" and destroying
Oa and the Green Lantern Corps (including Kyle Rayner),
Amazo is on his way back to Earth. No one seems to know
what it wants but every active League member has been called
up to defend Earth.
Meanwhile Supergirl and Steel find Lex
Luthor because they are pretty sure that whatever Amazo
wants, it involves him. Luthor has a plan to deal with Amazo
and takes the duo to his secret hideout, the barber shop.
There Luthor ditches the Super accessories and retreats
into his well defended hideout. The bad news is that the
fortress was made to defend against Superman trying to break
in. The good news is that The Atom was hiding on Luthor's
suit and offers to put his scientific brain into some systems
upgrades to defeat Amazo.
"The
Return" reminded me of a battle royal match in wrestling.
Typically 20-30 wrestlers are put in the ring and the last
man in the ring wins. 90% of the participants are just fodder.
Booking agents put them in the match for a little exposure
and so they can tell their parents at home that they were
on TV.
This
was the first episode of the season to use a full complement
of Justice League members, most of which haven't had their
own spotlight show yet. Unfortunately each one was given
about 5 seconds of screen time and it was always on the
receiving end of a butt kicking. The episode was nice because
fans got to see a lot of familiar faces in action but the
spotlight wasn't very flattering for most.
The
script was tight and filled with a lot of big moments and
unexpected cameos. Kyle Rayner, Dr. Fate, The Atom and Hawkgirl
all made surprise appearances without feeling forced into
the story.
As
in his previous appearance, Amazo's fight scenes rocked.
He's evolved past the shape changer phase and is just a
robot of mass destruction. Poor Red Tornado never had a
chance. The only line he's has had all season was a pig
call and now all the Justice League can do is turn him in
for the 5 cent recycling deposit.
After
a rough start, JLU episodes are definitely getting better.
Each episode builds on the momentum of the previous one
and some of the longer term storylines are beginning to
bear fruit. Hopefully that trend continues after the hiatus.
In the meantime check out our reviews of The
Batman!
Derek's
Continuity Corner
Most
of the continuity issues were covered in "Tabula Rasa,"
except that despite appearances, I'm not counting Red Tornado
out yet. The android creation of T.O. Morrow has been destroyed
several times and always come back with greater force. Most
recently, he revived and served as adult mentor to Young
Justice, then disappeared so they could become the Teen
Titans again.
Other
heroes making brief spacebound cameos include S.T.R.I.P.E.,
Captain Atom, Orion (the son of Darkseid, reduced to cannon
fodder) and Red Star, who used to be called Starfire until
the Tamaranian Princess on Teen Titans took that
name. Not to be confused with Christian Gossett's The
Red Star, Red Star is a Russian hero with the usual
array of powers that occasionally popped up in Marv Wolfman
and George Perez' classic New Teen Titans. As Starfire,
he appeared in the original Teen Titans comic book series,
designed by artist Nick Cardy.
And
though it makes sense to me (and clearly Bruce Timm) for
The Atom's costume to appear when he's full-sized, in the
comics it doesn't. It only shows up when he's small -- dramatically
so in last week's Identity Crisis #4.
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