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Justice
League Unlimited
Ultimatum
Original Airdate - 12/04/04
Not only does
the Justice League return from a seemingly endless series
of reruns, but they return with the Fish King in tow!
Superman, Batman,
Wonder Woman and Aquaman investigate an oilrig which has
recently struck not only oil but lava spewing magma men.
Just as they are about to unleash justice upon the molten
minions, a new team of superheroes arrives to upstage the
Justice League foursome. They call themselves the Ultimen:
Ultimen ROLLCALL!
Juice: master of electricity and excellent bartender.
Long Shadow: overly sincere Indian guy with the power to
grow (tee hee)
Downpour & Shifter: androgynous twins with the ability to
change form and blur their true genders.
Wind Dragon: leader of the team who can both suck and blow.
Following
an impromptu press conference, the Ultimen thank the Justice
League for their minor role in the battle and for continuing
to prove positive role models for "younger, hipper" heroes.
The Justice League once again extend an offer to the newbies
to join the League but the Ultimen snub them. Only Long
Shadow seems interested and he's really far more interested
in Wonder Woman's Greek style lovin'.
The Ultimen
are the pawns and marketing tools of Maxwell Lord and his
mysterious backers. They contact Maxwell following the encounter
at the oilrig and demand to know why Wind Dragon is showing
off previously unknown powers.
Meanwhile
Long Shadow takes Wonder Woman up on her offer to go on
patrol. Together they run into Giganta and Bizarro who are
trying to break Gorilla Grodd out of prison. The heroes
beat the bad guys and then share a tender moment. Somewhere
in the night, Batman sheds a tear.
After
running a series of tests on the Ultimen, Dr. Emil Hamilton
informs Maxwell Lord that the Ultimen have become unstable
on a cellular level and will die painful deaths. Before
anyone can offer to find a cure, Lord's boss, Amanda "The
Wall" Waller tells them to abandon the current Ultimen and
begin prepping their replacements. Unfortunately, Long Shadow's
newest power of super hearing blows the secret on their
plan. Soon, the Ultimen are in a fight for their lives against
their creators and must turn to the Justice League for help.
Ultimatum
not only furthers the conspiracy plot that began in Fearful
Symmetry but served as an homage to Super Friends.
The only members of the Justice League that we see are ones
that also appeared as the super four of the Super Friends,
as did Giganta and Bizarro, charter members of the Legion
of Doom. The Ultimen's headquarters resembling the Hall
of Justice, Batman's lame gyrocopter, the size-varying Indian
and the asexual twins are not so obscure references to the
70's cartoon.
Younger fans
may have not gotten the nods but they were clearly on display
for even the most casual fan to see, old chum.
Justice League
Unlimited began the season by putting the weaker episodes
first which gave time for the show to build steam. By the
time we reached the half way mark, the lackluster start
was all but forgotten.
The second half
of season three begins here with the same format. There
was nothing fundamentally wrong with the episode, but it
didn't have quite the same punch as some of the finer previous
episodes did. Most of the 22 minutes was spent focused on
the Ultimen who were pretty dull. Only in their final battle
did they liven up.
The conspiracy
plotline continues to hold my interest. We still have only
questions without answers but the newest clue of Project
Cadmus may provide insight for longtime DC comic readers.
Derek's
Continuity Corner
Juice and Wind Dragon also have their place in The Challenge
of the Super Friends. You might know Juice better as
Black Vulcan, who occasionally still tears it up on Harvey
Birdman, Attorney at Law, bitter about his short pants.
Perhaps the most obscure reference to the Super Friends,
Wind Dragon matches up with a cyclone creating hero creatively
called Samurai. Not once did the guy wield a sword, or an
interesting line of dialogue.
But
this episode isn't just a nod to that strange Hanna-Barbastardization
of the Justice League. The basic idea for the Ultimen comes
out of Grant Morrison and Howard Porter's run on JLA.
In the story now included in the trade "Justice
For All ," the League faced the Ultra-Marines,
genetically engineered super-soldiers that unknowingly had
an expiration date. They reformed by the end of the story,
and vowed to use their last days (years?) of power to stop
injustice around the world. This is the story that sort
of serves as the set-up for Morrison's current arc in JLA:
Classified.
Maxwell
Lord, of course, gathered the infamous "funny"
league together in a series written by J.M. DeMatteis and
Keith Giffen. DeMatteis not so coincidentally scripted this
week's episode. As Batman implies in this episode, Lord
was always looking for profit and licensing opportunities
for his League. For Lord's latest adventures, you can check
out Formerly
Known As the Justice League and its upcoming sequel
in the pages of JLA: Classified.
In the
comics, Lord did eventually knock heads with Amanda Waller,
herself originally the bureaucrat in charge of the Suicide
Squad, and thus currently under suspicion for being behind
the events of Identity Crisis.
Notice
also JLU's quiet use of Dr. Emil Hamilton, a character that
started out in the comics as an ally to Superman then became
jealous and turned evil. Most recently, and not entertainingly,
Hamilton gave up his humanity to become part of Enginehead.
The
Cadmus Project is a Jack Kirby creation from which the current
Superboy, clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, sprang. Long
dabbling in genetics, and only occasionally on the side
of good, Cadmus' connection to the government is iffy at
best. It's also, by the way, a concept that has been pasted
into Smallville,
where Lionel Luthor conducted experiments to determine Clark
Kent's secrets.
Finally,
Long Shadow, aka Apache Chief, also appears in the regular
DC Universe under the name Manitou Raven, where he displays
far more than the ability to grow large. (Did Goodson really
write "tee hee?") Look for him in the pages of
Justice League Elite, available at fine comics shops everywhere,
but especially Brian's Books in Santa Clara and Earth-2
in Sherman Oaks (that's North and South California, respectively).
Next
week - Dark Heart: When the League is helpless to stop
an alien invasion, the world's only hope is the Atom, a
microscopic super hero (and MURDERER.)
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