Justice League (Unlimited) Animated Series

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Fearful Symmetry

Some scientist escape being chased by Supergirl with murderous intents, because she's hunted by some militaristic forces.
Supergirl survived all that was thrown at her, killed the target, and woke up from a dream with eye beam holes in her room's ceiling in the farmhouse.

I hate that the intro to every episode of Unlimited spoils events in the episode it introduces.

After meeting with J'onn, we seem to have to believe the kid -20+ years old lady- trusts Green Arrow after their one adventure, and we get the debut of The Question to the series, a conspiracy theorist ravaging trash of other people. How and why did he go to Smallville? Dialogue exchange suggests he checked her trash there.

Emil Hamilton reminds us of the events in the finale of Superman: TAS, and this time he is not voiced by Victor Brandt.

Military forces barge into the scene after they exit S.T.A.R. Labs, convenient timing to doubt Superman's friend.

Isn't that convenient? Capeless Power Girl shows up to kill General Hardcastle soon after Supergirl's party exits the place. At least the audience got some of their questions answered by him.

An Aqua song is the way to terrify your target.
I like what I heard of her songs.

Ollie and Kara chase Tea (Power Girl in this world, evil clone of Supergirl instead of a counterpart from another dimension) to the Danger Room in a lab complex to kill her. And Kara knows Ollie's secret identity, just thought this was worth mentioning.

Danger Room destroyed, Power Clone disappeared, shown in Hamilton's lab, to never be seen again after getting fixed.



I love this episode, my commentary doesn't show it, but I love it, I think it's one of the stronger episodes.

 

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The Greatest Story Never Told

An episode that highlights Booster Gold, and introduced the idea that the kid asking for his signature wasn't paying attention to the presentation, or that the name Green Lantern involves the color green in the outfit.

The villain name is Mordu. Quick, someone call Doctor Strange.

Booster is happy about a menacing villain on that scale, that is a jerk attitude.

Doctor Light (Kimiyo, not evil guy) moved to the transmat before J'onn called her name.

Plastic Man is referenced by name, but never even shown in this show.

"Ants", this episode addresses the pronunciation dilemma differentiating the bugs and the ladies in a funny manner.

Why is Elongated Man needed after the "one stretchy guy is enough?"

Crowd control can lead to some very interesting tasks. Moral of the story; never undermine what looks like a menial task.

"Sorry"? You're sorry that your black hole sucks material and endangers people, but walk carelessly with it in your torso? That is careless of you doctor.
How does it suck material but no people?

GL mistake is not exclusive to children.

Where did Doc Blackhole go to save the second train?

What was the point of that experiment anyway? And why did they allow it to go haywire?

 

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One thing I forgot to add in my last episode commentary; they added pictures to the episode end credits there.

 

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The Return

We finally get to see Kyle Rayner again after his one episode in Superman:TAS, only to see him get injured by planet destroying golden A.M.A.Z.O, it destroyed Oa by just hitting ground, and it's approaching Earth.

A tunnel under the barber shop laced with Kryptonite? How much of that followed Kal-El to Earth?

The robot destroyed a planet to reach Earth and kill one man? It may have destroyed more planets on its way home.

Atom is cool, he calmed Lex instead of making it a scene of needless continued bickering between the two.

Red Tornado is completely destroyed, there is no reason for that one to return.

"These words are always used to justify destruction." ~ Doctor Fate
He is a wise man.

A.M.A.Z.O. "I'm here to destroy you Luthor"
LL: "Nu-Uh, you have another goal"
A.M.A.Z.O. "Ok. I'll let you live"

Oa is there, yay.

Hooraaay, for the return of Hawkgirl.




This is bad, if one episode in this series can be described as bad, I would use the word to call this episode.

 

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Ultimatum

Aquaman and DC trinity are in an oil rig middle of the ocean fighting disturbed underground creatures, and suddenly; The Ultramen.

One of them forms a wave, and it hits the entire rig, but it doesn't affect more than Wonder Woman and the handful of lava beings she's fighting against.

Wind Dragon freezes everything with a snowstorm, but the JL members aren't affected by the storm that freezes lava creatures. Legit.

Oh hey, Maxwell Lord is here.

Why and how did Bizarro leave the planet Superman left him on? What happened to MXYZPTLK doing community service for him? What happened to "Me am heeroo" attitude?

Why are power levels inconsistent in this show? One episode has Wonder Woman able to fight Superman toe to toe, another she can't hurt an enemy Superman can defeat physically, and now she can beat Bizarro with a punch from her? And one slap gifted by Long Shadow from the other team.

The battle between the deranged clones and the League members is great action, the build up for it is pretty good.

Amanda Waller is scary, knowing Batman is terrifying.



This episode has its weaknesses, but it's good.

 

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Dark Heart

This episode opens with a multi-racial relationship, but then the boyfriend disappears and the girlfriend is saved by the military.

This episode is written by Warren Ellis, that's one reason it's better than all the episodes that came before it this season.

Atom had his time between Wonder Woman's boobs.

 

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Wake the Dead

Nice to get more info about Shayera's mace, and to see her active again.

This is one of the better episodes.

 

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The Once and Future Thing

Chronos vs the Justice League. A time travelling story that is steadily good and doesn't have a bad influence on the story.

How did Batman know where to put the disc in Chronos belt? Or that there is a slot for one? He's a detective not a psychic.

They changed the intro for it from spoiling the episode to recap of previous episodes in this season. But the end credits spoils events from the next season, I guess they had the 26 episodes formula ready for Unlimited as well.




13 episodes, 11 single stories and one arc wrapping the season. 1 Bad episode, 2 average episodes, 1 decent episode, and 9 good ones. The bad and average are big enough for 13 episodes to drop the score for this season below what the two seasons prior have.

Overall score for the season: 7.2/10

 

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Season 4, season 2 for Unlimited.



The Cat and the Canary

Ted Grant -a.k.a. Wildcat- is addicted to fighting, Black Canary asks Green Arrow for help in saving him from that, cause it keeps him from aiding her in scouts and patrols where he's needed.

Hey, Ollie is open with his identity in the Watchtower, and that he sold his company, but that is probably in the papers.

How did Ted guess Ollie is not a fighter? And how come he can punch brick walls the way he does and think he's useless as a League member?


This episode is a good start, and a good introduction to Canary and her mentor, but mostly to Canary and building her relationship to Arrow.

 

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The Ties the Bind

Mr. Miracle rehearses a great escape, and Oberon is abducted by Granny Goodness. Big Barda is dressed the same way she is dressed in Batman Beyond, but it makes me wonder why Scott is not with her 40/50 years into the future Justice League.

Cut to the watchtower where Flash and Elongated Man have a chat on how they are viewed with little respect in the league, and they give us in that scene two nods to Barry Allen (friends with Ralph Dibney, and a founding member of the team), and one to Wally West (teenage sidekick).

That was fast in accepting Flash's help after denying it for the while, but desperate measures, right?

The main villain is a Nazi alien who tortures with cake? And other torturous methods, but I love that idea.

Not sure how Flash recognized Kalibak, or how that move unlocked the chains.

I don't know why, but Mister Miracle has a fascinating story.

When did J'onn join them after denying?

How and why was Kalibak abducted? No wonder Darkseid feels shame of him being family.



Mr. M is voiced by Ioan Gruffurd, the guy who played Mr. Fantastic.

Two great episodes in a row, but this one is of lesser quality, albeit having greater joy.

 

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The Doomsday Sanction

Batman infiltrated the highly secured house of Amanda Waller, and it was a calm but tense conversation between the two, something you don't see much of.

Doctor Milo is alive, he looked dead before the end of 'Night of the Wolf', but we only see him to hear about his death by Superman's clone. How many times do they try to clone Superman in this world?

This episode has a good number of tense moments, and they all involve Batman.



The episode is better than the one that came immediately before it. Strong season so far.

 

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Task Force X

This episode focuses on the Suicide Squad in their more kid friendly name infiltrating a place high over the Earth armed with a cannon of mass destruction.

How did Clock King get the league schedule?

The quartet invading the watchtower are lucky they found the right number of people to take their place in the proper schedule.

Should I wonder why the League members are not aware of files of super villains they fought before? Pretty sure GL should know Deadshot's name and face.

In the previous episode "We're the good guys" ~ Amanda Waller
This episode involves the "good" guys endangering a large number of people with their plan by letting radiation leak and unleashing an armor of mass destruction. How did they get the password to activate it?

Duuuude, Rick, you didn't let Lloyd finish the "Guess I'll be seeing you...", maybe he had the "See you when I'm summoned again", which is what you basically told him after punching him.



It's a good episode, but so far it's the lowest point of all four.

 

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The Balance

I hate Tala in this show, I hate magic.

So this episodes takes place a few years after that blah Felix Faust arc.

I don't know why Shayera is mad at Diana? I get why Diana is mad at her, but not the other way around. Oh well, at least reconciliation is a good thing.

So the princess of Thymiscera is the cousin of Ares and his brothers. Cool.


It's really good, but I'm not a fan of magic, Olympus, or any of that crap, so the episode does not resonate well with me.

 

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Double Date

An excellent episode pitting the duo of Arrow & Canary vs the duo of Question & Huntress. Nothing felt forced, except for that last kiss the episode ends with.


Clash

Captain Marvel to Superman: "I'm your biggest fan".
And it's funnier now knowing that the actor that voiced Captain Marvel for his only appearance in the DC Animated Universe voiced Superman in more recent direct to video animated films.

 

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Hunter's Moon

Watchtower received a distress signal, Hawkgirl, Vixen, and Vigilante go to the distress signal location, to see that it's an ambush devised by some of the few remaining force members of Thanagarian invaders for Shayera Hol.

We get some nice background information about the main characters other than Hawkgirl.

 

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Question Authority, Flashpoint, Panic in the Sky, and Divided We Fall

This epic story starts with Superman and Captain Atom battling a threat coming from Apocalypse, the menace is sent away, Superman takes Lois Lane for a picnic and Captain Atom is summoned for military duty by general Wade Eiling.

The ending arc of Superman: The Animated series was years before this arc start, for both the audience and the characters of Earth, fear of Superman losing control of himself and trying to conquer the planet once more looms again, the fear never really dissipated, fear of the Justice League doing so, or being like the Justice Lords scares people.

Question and Huntress went to one of Cadmus labs to steal 3TB of data, you don't need to wonder how futuristic that setting is when you have VHS in the 40s-50s for Batman:TAS, mostly with the older art style.

Emil Hamilton examines Lex Luthor, and gives him a cleran bill of health. He's lucky that in this world their relationship is nothing like in the comics where they hate each others guts. Amanda Waller tells Lex Luthor about the predicament with data stolen by the extremely paranoid Question who has no trust for the founding seven members of the league.

After failing to kill the super powered Lex Luthor himself, the Question is taken to Cadmus for questioning, Superman and Huntress save him, Captain Atom comes in and they fight, Superman wins and takes the Captain back to the tower.

The cannon of doom is launched by remote control via Lex Luthor, Flash and Arrow go down to assist the people with the help of some other league members, and then they are force to stop after one guy shows how angry he is that a beam from the sky did all this damage. How did the population know that the Justice League have a weapon of mass destruction at their disposal?

The original seven excluding Batman go and surrender themselves, Flash chants Joker's Christmas song in answer to why Batman is not there with them.

Stuff happen, the six go to stop Luthor who is suddenly revealed to be possessed by Brainiac who was building himself in him for all these years, allowed the physical body of Lex to be poisoned by Kryptonite, and grew massive in almost the blink of an eye.

Spoiler

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Epic battles and chases take place, the most epic scene in this part of the scenario has to do with Flash vs Brainthor. I think this theme suits the scene very well.

Spoiler

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From point 01:23 of the video

What follows is very touching, but how did everyone manage to listen to Green Arrow's speech and applaud? I think everyone started applauding just cause the ones to their left/right/in front of them is applauding.




This arc is the most memorable thing this season had to offer, and one of the most memorable stories in the series. I think it's one of the better told stories in a significantly strong season.

 

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Epilogue

"65 years later", so this means Terry McGuiness is 31 years old, and his brother Matt is an adult. Why didn't they looks at Matt to explore his side more? He too is the son of Bruce Wayne.

This episode has the only appearance of Andrea Beaumont after Mask of the Phantasm in animated* format.

You ever wonder why a hunter who does what he does for the thrill of the hunt or for honor would team up with other villains with varying alternative motives and the nothing gathers them in common other than the hero they hunt? Bloodsport/Stalker joined this Frightful Four before Batman declared his resignation to his fellow JLU members.

Hey look, the series episode ends with homage to the opening episode of the DCAU. Happy 25 years to the show that started it all.



Great season, the best season so far, and a high note for the series to end on, only this is not the end, we have 13 more episodes to go.
This season gets a nice 9//10. None of its episodes is mediocre or bad, they're all varying degrees of good-great.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I Am Legion

Lex Luthor is still mentally attached to Brainiac and escapes captivity, to be saved and brought in to serve Gorilla Grodd (free agent who pays a fee). Luthor, Polaris, and Key go to Black Hawk island to fetch a spear for the big ape to put in his office.

How did they know all these details about the island? Who funded that small group? Who maintains security? How did they know what codes they need to press to activate things at moments when that Key guy was supposed to not do anything? And why did Flash not punch Luthor when he held the only surviving Hawk hostage?

Some are nitpicks, but it is a good episode.

 

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Shadow of the Hawk

Justice League members Batman, Vixen, Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl fight a group of throwaway rogues, and they beat them.
Carter Hall crosses the police line without the cops saying anything to him, he points his sword at the girl he has a crush on and doesn't expect to be called on it. Lucky for the audience, the writers turned that around.
League members leave, Carter turns around, and none of the spectators question why his shadow movements is delayed.

Cue the intro, and we do see a bit spoiling the episode, but it's not as big as how it was done in the first season of Unlimited.

For this world, Carter Hall is the name he changed legally, his original name was that of Guy Gardner's evil clone. And he's an internet message boards weirdo, banned from 57 internet forums dedicated to his wife... him and Shayera are not married in this world, and we know it.

Batman: "Hey girl, you know that guy who said he wanted to talk to you for a long time? He was following your adventures for quite some time now, up close."

Hawkgirl *angry*: "You don't trust me"
And she leaves the room.

John Stewart followed that by talking about Warhawk, who is a white son of a black man. You know something? Thanagarians are all white, maybe they have something that filters the non-white chromosome out of the genes of their newborns.
Or maybe I'm looking too deep into things.

Carter carries nothing big on him going to the archaeological site with Shayera.

Carter pushes Shayera out of harms way, his left sleeve is torn, and the needles were hitting from his right.

How did Carter came to the conclusion that he's the winged man? Where did he get the wings from? When did he change pants? He carried nothing big enough to carry the wing harness. How come he can remove his wings in convenience if none of the other hawk people can? He had nothing big enough to carry the mace.

I don't know why did walking shadow leave Carter and held back to fight Batman.

Ships is so hot it's smoking cause it ran out of fuel. Legit.


Definitely not one of the best episodes, it's kinda worse when you think that the reincarnations of a couple from another world are one alien and the other is from Earth.
It's a bad episode, and that's a shame when you see the name J.M. DeMatteis attached to the task of writing the episode.

 

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Chaos at Earth's Core

The start is a way to fulfill fantasies of otaku people, and a way to disappoint some. Hardcore ones were probably scary when they first saw this episode.
Flying turtle Godzilla.

Angry Japanese girl: "Don't talk that way about Supergirl, she can know you with her eyes" (that's how I hear it)
Stargirl: "My stepfather is a mecha"
Angry Japanese girl: "Mecha is so last year"

And then they are sucked under the North Pole, where there is another sun.

Why are Supergirl's powers nullified so fast?

A group of lizard military attack the four members of the Justice League, but they are overpowered and need to flee. One of them goes to the Wizard; Demos, and draws the crest of the house of El on the ground, Demos disintegrates that lizard man and then Metallo and Silver Banshee come out of the shadows knowing exactly which symbol they need to know about, without seeing it first.

Kryptonite heals? How did it drop to the center of the Earth? And why is there so much of it on this planet?

Isn't it nice of that soldier to wait for Kara to touch her wound after he hit her face with the bottom of the hilt of his sword and let her hit him back hard?

Lack of powers make a poisonous rock less of a fatal threat.

Pretty sure John Crobin lost his battery once before and moved fine.

 

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To Another Shore

Wonder Woman is not a good diplomat in this episode, not a well seasoned one.

Who did the art for the story of prince John the viking? It looks very inspired by the work of John Romita sr.

That underwater villain with tridents looks like Black Manta, I thought he was Black Manta.

J'onn J'onzz likes humans no more? Why?

What a time for him to choose to leave the team to mix it with people, not the best of times.

 

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Flash and Substance

Episode opens in a bar for rogues, and two of the rogues sitting side by side are Mr. Element and Doctor Alchemy they are both the samee person, except for that one time Al Desmond met the other Al Desmond who became another Doctor Alchemy.

I don't understand why Mirror Master turned to fragments when that mirror shattered considering the mirror dimension we saw him usually traverse in.

I don't understand how Orion came to the conclusion of "Acting like a fool to hide a warrior's pain", I didn't see anything that shows that.

There is also this greatness.

A good episode, might be one of the best episodes this show offered, and it's hard to do with the fastest man alive as the centerpiece.

 

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Dead Reckoning

Why is taking an orb suck the souls out of monks in the entire monastery? And how come destroying it brings back the dead/comatose monks from their former state?

Eeww. What's up with some women in this world and their affection to an ape?

I don't understand the logic behind that orb Grodd wanted stolen, or how it helps turn every human on Earth to apes.

How come a Kryptonian devolves into a gorilla? Didn't they have something else to evolve from? And why is it that Earthly diseases affect Superman?

Throw the ape generator out and it reverses the effect instantaneously.

Deadman was not imaginative enough, he was supposed to posses the underwater villain instead of using Batman to unintentionally kill him.

*sigh* kill one killer and you change the balance of the world.

Eeeewwww. Lex smiled that ape kisser immediately called him darling after shooting Grodd unconscious.



A decent episode focusing on the ghost who posses, but I'm not a fan of ghost stories.



Patriot Act

WOW. The episode opens up with Captain America's origin, in reverse of roles, and the opposite of places. Nazi super soldier serum in a high castle easy to spot instead of an American underground secret installation.

Dirty Harry talk is a good thing.

Crimson Avenger was useless here, they've just shown him to showcase the entire team of the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

I recognize a few unnamed characters, there are the Newsboy Legion, and that old lady that thought Superman was an angel of mercy.


A good episode, but it could have been better.

 

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The Great Brain Robbery

What's up with Bizarro? What's his story?
How come Green Lantern was unable to stop custard, when he can stop Sinistero's light?



Still a better episode than the one before it.

 

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Grudge Match

An episode dedicated to the Birds of Prey. There isn't much else to say.

Great episode.