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Justice
League
Wild Cards
Original Airdate - 12/06/03
We join
our heroes this week in mid action. No, not the action heating
up the Watchtower between Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, but
the Batman busy crashing a television executive's office.
It seems
the exec has sold some primetime airtime to a company called
Gwynplaine Entertainment, which is a front for The Joker.
Even though Batman convinces the exec to pull the plug on
the Joker's broadcast, the clown prince of crime had a back
up plan and is soon broadcasting Everyone Loves Joker
worldwide.
The premise
of Joker's reality show is simple enough. The Justice League
(minus Wonder Woman and Martain Manhunter) has 23 minutes
to defuse a bomb that the Joker has hidden somewhere along
the Las Vegas strip. He has placed cameras all over Las Vegas
to record the League's every move. The show has mindless violence,
wanton property damage and a super cast. Mmm…ratings.
Joker
narrates the League's every action starting with Batman, Flash
and Superman's arrival on the red carpet…err, landing in assorted
vehicles. Superman quickly locates the bomb with his x-ray
vision. Flash and Superman are about to defuse the bomb when
the Joker introduces his guest stars for the evening, the
Royal Flush Gang.
This
is the first appearance of the Royal Flush Gang outside of
Batman Beyond. Since that show took place in the (possible)
future, this gang would have to be considered the original
Royal Flush Gang.
The team
is comprised of: Ten, a man who feels no pain (and we assume
must also be indestructible or that's not a great power to
have when fighting the JL), Jack, who's rubbery a la
Plastic Man, Reed Richards, etc., Queen has the power of magnetism,
similar to Magneto, and King has the ability of pyrokenesis.
The Joker
also has an "Ace" up his sleeve to be revealed later. (I'm
so clever.)
The RFG
mix it up with Superman and the Flash until Hawkgirl and Green
Lantern arrive to bring the battle to a standstill. Meanwhile,
Batman defuses the bomb but Joker counters that by letting
the viewing audience know that that was just the first of
26 bombs planted in Vegas. The clock is ticking (literally)
and is down to 14 minutes.
The Joker
takes a brief interlude to fill us in on the history of The
Royal Flush Gang and how they came to be. Each of the members
were born with their powers (coughmutantscough) and kidnapped
by the government (coughultimatexmencough). In a secret facility,
they were trained to use their powers for badness until one
day when The Joker freed them. They were so grateful to the
Joker for releasing them, they joined his league of extraordinary
henchmen.
If it
seems like I'm jumping around a lot in the plot recap, that's
just deferring to the structure of the episode.
Back
in the present, the League rushes around Vegas disarming a
few bombs and clashing with the Royal Flush Gang. In the Amos
Fortune casino, Hawkgirl and Green Lantern rush to disarm
one of the bombs, but the Joker gets bored and pushes the
detonator. In a last second effort, Green Lantern propels
Hawkgirl to safety while taking the brunt of the blast.
With
only seven minutes left on the countdown, Green Lantern is
buried under rubble, Hawkgirl is frantically searching for
him, Batman is tied up fighting Jack, Superman is trading
punches with Ten and Flash is…um…I'm going to cut the writers
some slack and assume he's disarming bombs off camera. Although
the Joker says there are 26 bombs, we only see about 5-8 disarmed
on screen so it's a good bet Flash is on it. Hawkgirl eventually
finds Green Lantern and begins pounding on his chest. (No
mouth to mouth?) When that doesn't work, she uses her mace
to give GL a blast of electricity.
I am so
sick of her using that Swiss army mace. John comes around
and he and Hawkgirl share an "I though I'd lost you" moment.
The clock is ticking people! Chop! Chop!
We'll
flash forward a bit as the race against time all comes down
to one last bomb. As the League finish off the RFG and disarm
the last bomb, Joker plays his final card.
Ace is
a telepath with the ability to drive people insane. With the
Joker Show now being broadcast on all the major television
networks, he has Ace use her powers to turn the world into
drooling, slack jawed idiots.
I know
what you're thinking, but they already beat you to that joke.
Superman
and the Flash fall victim to Ace's mind scramble leaving only
Batman to save the day (because as I mentioned, Wonder Woman
and Martian Manhunter were out antiquing).
Wild
Cards was a very enjoyable episode. It broke away from
the standard method of JL storytelling and used "The
Joker Show" as the medium to get the story across. Most comic
fans like to hear Joker's quips, so they gave the fans what
they wanted. Joker's narration worked on both an entertainment
level and thematically.
The appearance
of the Royal Flush Gang was a welcome surprise. I liked them
on Batman Beyond and I'd be totally down with seeing
them again on Justice League. I'm guessing that Wonder
Woman and Martian Manhunter were not used in this episode
in order to even up the numbers of RFG members to JL members.
It makes it a more even fight that way.
Another
interesting nuance of the Royal Flush Gang was that their
voices were provided by the same five member team that voice
the Teen Titans on their show. Ten was voiced by Kahary
Payton who plays Cyborg. Jack was voiced by Greg Cipes who
provides the voice of Beast Boy. Queen was voiced by Tara
Strong who voices both Raven on Teen Titans and Barbara
Gordon in the Batman shows. King was voiced by Scott Menville
who voices Robin and Ace was voiced by Hynden Walch who voices
Starfire. If Ron Perlman (Slade) had shown up to play Harley
Quinn, we would have had a complete Teen Titans reunion.
Of course,
the only thing fans are going to be talking about at the end
of Wild Cards is the closing moment of the show as
Green Lantern and Hawkgirl share a passionate kiss in the
med lab of the Watchtower. It was a nice payoff to the sexual
tension they have been building to all season. Hey, isn't
Hawkman rumored to show up in the season finale? I can't wait
to see that slap fight.
In the
immortal words of The Angels, "my boyfriend's back and you're
gonna be in trouble. Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back!"
Derek's
Continuity Corner
Originally in comics, the Royal Flush Gang was pretty much
as portrayed in Batman Beyond, but fairly recently
Geoff Johns stepped in to the Superman books and did a revamp
where they became more of a street gang, with each city having
its own chapters, and presumably, super-powered members. So
though this T.V. version is also obviously a swipe at the
X-Men and/or the Cartoon Network's Teen Titans, it wouldn't
be too surprising to see them show up in a similar incarnation
in the comics.
Gwynplaine
Enterprises takes its name from a 1928 Universal horror film
-- The Man Who Laughed, starring Conrad Veidt as a
man disfigured by gypsies as a child so that his face always
has a perpetual carved smile on it. Yes, when Bob Kane (or
whoever he was paying at the time -- both Bill Finger and
Jerry Robinson lay claim to this) was looking for a nemesis
for Batman, they turned to this film for inspiration.
A throwaway
bit: Amos Fortune is also a minor Justice League of America
villain from the sixties, a man with the power to influence
luck. So it's okay that the one bomb they fail to stop explodes
in his casino -- he is, after all, a bad guy, even if most
viewers won't know that.
Next
Week
"Comfort and Joy." The Justice League returns to Earth for
Christmas Eve. (When did they leave?)
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