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Justice
League Unlimited
The Ties That Bind
Original Airdate - 02/12/05
Lord
Darkseid has gone missing from Apokolips and in his absence,
a power struggle has sprouted up to claim his throne. One
of the contenders, Verman Vunderbar, has kidnapped Darkseid's
son Kalibak in a twisted effort to recruit him. Granny Goodness
had the same idea, but a few minutes too late.
Now Granny needs to rescue Kalibak from
the X Pit on Apokolips, a place only one other person has
ever successfully escaped from; Mister Miracle. Granny kidnaps
Oberon and threatens to kill him if Mister Miracle and his
hottie wife Big Barda don't help her rescue Kalibak.
When
Mister Miracle and Big Barda go to the JLU for assistance they
are told by Martian Manhunter that it would not be in the
best interest of the universe to help any dictator rise
to power on Apokolips. Flash, feeling neglected by the JLU
recently (and rightly so), offers to help out. Mister Miracle
and Big Barda agree, but mostly because Superman was busy
doing other things and couldn't be bothered.
Flash fans are finally thrown a bone with
this episode and more than a nod is given to the fans who
may have complained about his treatment over the years.
Flash knows he's little more than comic relief and commiserates
with Elongated Man over a game of Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots.
Funny stuff.
The
story of Mister Miracle and his escape from the X Pit (is the
X for eXtreme?) is told in two parts. We simultaneously
see him escape from the pit as a child and as an adult.
Neither is very miraculous nor really even all that clever.
Big Barda on the other hand comes off looking like a Wonder
Woman clone with a more conservative costume and goofier
helmet.
A ho-hum plot and lazy character development
kept this episode from making a good impression. The stuff
with the Flash was nice, but he got the least amount of
screen time. I like Big Barda in the comics and Mister Miracle
has a cool costume, but neither makes a great first impression
in this episode.
The
most bizarre aspect of this episode is the main villain.
Pseudo-Nazi expatriate Verman Vunderbar is voiced in this
episode by Arte Johnson, who created and played the same
character 25 years ago on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.
I have the bad feeling that years from now when Bruce Timm
writes his tell all book that he will confess that the JLU
was set in a universe where all of the characters from Rowan
and Martin's Laugh In became super criminals and evil
geniuses.
Ernestine the Destroyer?
Two Flip Wilson?
Veddddddy
interesting…
Derek's
Continuity Corner
Long-time
fans already know that this episode shines a light on Jack
Kirby's "Fourth World Saga," or at least the characters
that appeared there in the Kirby trilogy New Gods
(later called Orion of the New Gods), The Forever
People and, of course, Mister Miracle). This
does not mark their first appearances in the animated universe,
as they proved a staple for Superman: The Animated Series.
At one point, Timm and Paul Dini had even wanted to do a
New Gods film until somebody pointed out that wasn't
going to sell in either the Deep South or in Utah.
Kirby
created the hero known as Mister Miracle as a tribute to
writer/artist Jim Steranko, who had spent some time as an
escape artist before turning to comics. As an infant, New
Genesis (meaning "good guy") heir Scott Free was
traded to Darkseid in exchange for Darkseid's son,
Orion. "The Pact," as it came to be known, complete
with quotation marks, would supposedly keep peace between
the rival planets of gods, New Genesis and Apokolips. Nothing
subtle in the naming, there.
While
Orion grew up being doted upon and loved, Scott Free was
sent into the pits, made a slave, treated horribly and on
one occasion may have had to massage Granny Goodness' bunions.
He fell in love with one of Granny Goodness' elite warriors
(known as "Female Furies"), Big Barda. Together
they escaped and fell to Earth, as it were, where Darkseid
and his minions kept interfering with humans in order to
discover the Anti-Life Equation.
Scott
encountered a down-and-out escape artist calling himself
Mister Miracle, whose sidekick was the dwarf Oberon. From
him, Scott learned showmanship, and when Thaddeus Brown
retired from his act, he awarded the costume and the dwarf
to the young New God. They fought crime, supernatural menaces
and domesticity in several volumes of comic book series,
with rumors of another revival being just around the corner.
As for
those Apokoliptian minions, they include Orion's half-brother
Kalibak, Granny Goodness, Kanto and yes, Verman Vunderbar.
Surprisingly, he's not actually German, just has a strange
affectation toward the Nazi era. If you hadn't guessed,
Kirby's Fourth World largely dealt in archetypes and broad
strokes.
This
is also not the first time that one of Arte Johnson's Laugh-In
characters has become an animated superbeing. His dirty
old man character morphed into "superhero Tyrone"
and ran on Saturday mornings in the mid-70's, complete with
overcoat, hat and cane.
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