Review - Justice League Season One

After being accidentally awakened on their native planet, a group of Martians launch a full scale invasion on Earth. Seven of Earth’s greatest heroes band together to stop this threat and become the legendary team known as the Justice League. Together they are Earth’s only hope against despotic aliens, treacherous Atlanteans, and nefarious supervillains.

Justice League is an animated series that made its debut in 2001, created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini. Its first season consisted of 26 episodes and featured the voice talents of Kevin Conroy, George Newbern, Susan Eisenberg, Phil LaMarr, Michael Rosenbaum, Carl Lumbly, and Maria Canals.

As far as iconic superhero cartoons go, Justice League is way up there with Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series. This seminal adaptation of DC Comics’ premiere team introduced a generation of kids to superheroes like Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Hawkgirl alongside old favourites Batman and Superman. With its sophisticated multi-episode story arcs and streamlined animation, it stood above its contemporaries (and even most of its successors) in terms of quality. What also helped to set it apart was its pitch perfect casting. From Carl Lumbly’s ambivalent Martian Manhunter to Maria Canals’ attitude-filled Hawkgirl to Michael Rosenbaum’s comedic Flash, the voice work on Justice League is distinctive and embodies each character flawlessly. In fact, it’s so good that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in these roles.

The series opens with “Secret Origins,” a three-part saga that sees Superman and Batman assembling a team of heroes to defeat a Martian invasion. It clearly draws inspiration from the first arc of Grant Morrison’s JLA run, though it’s streamlined significantly and features a slightly different roster. While the alien invasion narrative is predictable, it does its job of assembling the team in a way that makes sense and provides the epic grandeur that is necessary for origin stories of superhero groups. It does struggle a bit with its introductions. Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and the Flash are without actual origins, while Wonder Woman’s gets mangled to the point that it’s unrecognizable (more on that later!). Still, it’s a great start.

Aside from the opening arc and the concluding one, the rest of the first season is comprised of two-part arcs. These vary in quality. The Aquaman-centric “The Enemy Below” is a standout. It introduces the King of Atlantis as he deals with the treachery of his half-brother Orm. Orm covets the throne and will do whatever it takes to get it, including starting a war with the surface world and attempting to murder his own brother. It’s a surprisingly dark storyline with some truly harrowing moments. Beyond that, it also accomplishes portraying Aquaman as someone who is not to be trifled with.

“Paradise Lost” and “Fury” are also some of the better episodes from the first season, though both are somewhat hindered by their failure to properly portray Wonder Woman and the Amazons. “Paradise Lost” sees Wonder Woman striking out on her own to recover artifacts for the sorcerer Felix Faust, who has turned her Amazon sisters to stone and won’t reverse his spell unless Wonder Woman completes his tasks. It’s a fun globe-trotting adventure that feels very reminiscent of Indiana Jones. It also features one hell of a smackdown between Superman and Wonder Woman while they are under the influence of one of the artifacts. “Fury” is an all-female romp as Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl team-up after a renegade Amazon unleashes a plague that only affects men. It’s enjoyable from a superficial level as it gives the series’ lead heroines the opportunity to interact with one another and get to kick butt without their male teammates sucking up the spotlight. However, its thematic elements are problematic as it’s clearly attempting to tackle feminism, but is done through the lens of a male writer and a male director.

“Injustice for All” is another noteworthy episode. Long-time Superman foe Lex Luthor escapes from prison and enlists the aid of Ultra-Humanite in order to assemble a gang of supervillains capable of taking down the Justice League. These types of superhero team vs. supervillain team are typically among my favourites whenever they crop up in comics and adaptations. They generally provide for a lot of interesting interactions and “Injustice for All” does not disappoint. From Lex and Ultra-Humanite’s rivalry to Cheetah’s flirtations with Batman, writer Stan Berkowitz gives us plenty of fun dynamics that punctuate this episode. Its only shortcoming (surprise, surprise) has to do with Wonder Woman. Cheetah is amongst the cast of villains used in this episode, yet she’s not acknowledged or even portrayed as a Wonder Woman villain.

The best episode from season one may be the three-part conclusion “The Savage Time.” In it, the Justice League (sans Batman – thank the Gods) are transported to an alternate past where the Nazis won World War II with the aid of the immortal villain Vandal Savage. Along the way, the League are fractured and must rely upon the aid of others to prevent Savage’s further assault on western Europe. Hawkgirl and the Flash ally themselves with the high-flying Blackhawks, Green Lantern becomes a part of the US military unit known as Easy Company, and Wonder Woman takes part of a sabotage mission alongside the spy Steve Trevor. Savage is a menacing villain and the technology that he introduces into the war makes for some great imagery. More importantly, “The Savage Time” digs deep into the motivations and emotional core of its lead heroes. The trio of Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and the Flash are integral to the overall plot, but they also offer differing point of views on war. The contrast between Hawkgirl and the Flash is especially fascinating. Hawkgirl has a more militaristic, greater good approach whereas the Flash has a “no man left behind” perspective that’s more personal in its nature. Green Lantern, meanwhile, proves himself as a capable hero without the use of his ring. This is crucial to showing the audience that he’s more than just some ring-slinging space cop. I also must admit that I quite enjoyed all of the interactions between Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. While I may not like them much as a couple in any medium, their dynamic here was quite cute.

The rest of the episodes from season one vary greatly in quality. Those that feature Green Lantern more heavily (“In Blackest Night,” “The Brave and the Bold,” “Metamorphosis”) tend to be on the duller side. “Legends” is a frustratingly disposable entry as it uses analogues for the Justice Society rather than the actual characters, which would have made for a more impactful storyline. “War World” suffers from being ridiculously predictable by pulling out the gladiator games trope (which is done in just about every TV show – including Smallville, Supergirl, and twice in Justice League Unlimited). If that weren’t enough, it’s also one of the (many) episodes where we see Superman severely depowered in order to make him seem more vulnerable.

Part of what makes Justice League so special was its strong adherence to character development. The first season is significant for its plotting of a budding relationship between Hawkgirl and Green Lantern. Both are very militaristic characters, though the former is wilder and more impulsive. She’s exciting and gives the usually straight-laced Green Lantern a foil. We see this replicated with his dynamic with the Flash, who serves as the comedic relief on the team. Ultimately, these are the characters that help to ground the series and they end up being the standouts. While this trio was afforded a lot of great character development that endears them to the audience, the same cannot be said for Wonder Woman. It’s clear from the onset that the producers don’t understand her character and they don’t even seem to like her. Where Hawkgirl is the cool girl on the team and can hang with the guys, Wonder Woman is presented as the prissy ice princess who is antagonistic towards men. In this series, Wonder Woman is very aggressive and there’s very little warmth to her. She’s not driven by any kind of divine mission of peace, which is evidenced by the shift in her origin story from a warrior who earns the right to be the Amazons’ champion to a petulant princess who steals her armour. Her lack of compassion and the overall harsh nature of her character betrays a very shallow portrayal. This is extended towards the Amazons as well. They’re not given any kind of depth or interiority. Instead, they’re man-hating extremists whose isolationist views are coded as weird and aggressive. It’s a place that Wonder Woman can’t wait to escape from, rather than a peaceful home that she loves to return to from the harsh realities of Man’s World. The problem is that the series is plotted by a bunch of men who can’t seem to understand why women would want to isolate themselves from the rest of the world (i.e. men) and who have a very difficult time writing women as anything more than love interests or aggressive warriors. It’s clear that they were pulling mostly from a late Silver Age or Bronze Age context for the Amazons, but it feels dated and unnecessary as they chose to ignore (and thus disrespect) George Perez’s influential work on the character and her mythos.

After all these years, Justice League still holds a special place in my heart. While it can at times adhere too much to common tropes and it fails miserably at portraying a well-written Wonder Woman, there’s a lot to love about its first season. The voice work is stellar and the amount of character development that is packed into these 26 episodes is nothing short of amazing. Hawkgirl remains the star for me and she steals every single scene she’s in, so further applause is in order for Maria Canals for that. The complex storytelling that is achieved is also brilliant and is worthy of praise. While the first season doesn’t quite hit a home run, it’s always worth a watch – though some mild cherry picking may be necessary.