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matt_zimmerThere are plenty of movie buffs out there and a ton of comic book fans. As for as fictional mediums go, television was always the bastard red-headed stepchild compared to film and books. Movie critics do NOTHING but talk shit about it and you what? I do too. It doesn't stop it from the being the medium of entertainment I most consume and that I feel the most comfortable with.
Does TV suck? Righteously and almost always. But it's still where I get the bulk of my fiction, good and bad. And it probably always will be.
There are plenty of amazing TV shows on TV currently. I don't dig them all but I get the appeal. And TV did not used to be this level of high quality, if you can believe it. It used to be MUCH worse. There was a point in time in which Quantum Leap was the best science fiction series on television, which strikes me as a fucking travesty. Nevertheless, as a TV buff I have had MANY favorite shows over the years, mostly during my formative young adulthood. The thing all of these shows I loved have in common is almost none of them hold up in hindsight on any level. Many are outright cringe. I get WHY I loved Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, The X-Files, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Dinosaurs at the time for their uniqueness, but each of those shows were shows I thought were majorly sucky rewatching them years later. I'm sure plenty of kids who grew up in the 1980's were disillusioned when seeing a full episode of ThunderCats or Transformers as adults. My sensibilities are so different from when I was younger that I want to pick holes in Captain Fucking Picard! What is wrong with me?
There are exactly THREE shows from back in the day I loved that hold up equally well and contain the same magic today as back then (one of them lands even BETTER in hindsight). There are a few shows I still have great admiration for despite their imperfections (Farscape, Millennium, The Simpsons, Futurama, Gargoyles, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, Superman: The Animated Series) but only three shows I EVER saw as a youth wowed me decades later: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Twin Peaks, and Justice League Unlimited. This will be a 3 part essay on each of these shows, what they meant to me as a viewer and a writer, how they influenced my work (where applicable) and what the best and worst things were about them.
The third and final essay will cover Justice League Unlimited
Justice League Unlimited
Justice League Unlimited is not just the best DC Comics cartoon of all time. It's not just the best DC Comics TV show. Or the best DC adaptation live-action or animated, film or television. It's not just the best animated TV series based on a comic. It's the best TV series PERIOD based on a comic.
As a matter of fact, I will go out on a VERY long limb and say that Justice League Unlimited is the single great animated TV show of all time. Maybe if The Simpsons had been canceled immediately after its 8th Season, it wouldn't be. But reality is currently as I described.
What is so great about a cartoon using characters, that no offense, tend to suck in most iterations? Batman and Superman may have great comic book stories to their names, but their track records of movies, TV shows, and cartoons are much spottier.
One of the reasons I love Justice League Unlimited is there is NO reason it is as good as it is. It never needed to be. In fact, the series it is a follow-up to, Justice League was BEYOND hit or miss. The second season of that show was pretty great but the first was appallingly lousy. JLU being the greatest thing since sliced bread is NOT because sliced bread was invented the previous winter. It just is. Beyond all reason.
Bruce Timm is essentially the Godfather or the DC Animated Universe starring Kevin Conroy's Batman, and despite the fact that Batman: The Animated Series is considered his crowning pop culture achievement, the thing HE is proudest of is JLU. And I agree with him. JLU was the one DC show that was fun for him to come into work for. With a creative partner like the late, great Dwayne McDuffie I get why. They were having fun and doing their own thing, and getting paid for it until Cartoon Network told them to stop. It was SO great and popular, it was the highest rated show on Cartoon Network. But CN canceled it because it wasn't just kids watching. It had this huge adult following that CN had zero patience for. Which is why we aren't allowed to have nice things.
I mentioned Justice League Unlimited was canceled? It was! Nearly three times before it stuck! The Superman: The Animated Series "Legacy" is a powerful series finale for that series, but it was never intended to be the last episode, and Timm regretted ending such a positive series on such a downbeat and uncertain note. So when Justice League was on the bubble in season two, Timm gave it a heartbreaking but wonderful series finale. When Justice League Unlimited was ordered Timm sincerely doubted CN would renew the show past the initial 26 episode run, so he created the most mind-blowing, definitive series finale in DC animation history. When JLU got a surprise final season 13 episode pick-up Timm and McDuffie teamed up to make the FINAL final episode a purely enjoyable and rewarding romp for longtime fans.
Bruce Timm is an amazing TV producer because most producers of animated action cartoons actually end their seasons on cliffhangers to force the network into giving them a renewal (which usually doesn't come). Instead of using the season finales to play chicken with the network, Bruce Timm and Dwayne McDuffie used them to satisfy the audience in the very best way, in case this was the last place they'd ever leave off. This is the correct mindset of a creator who doesn't just care about the fans and the heartbreak they go through when their favorite show is unjustly canceled. It shows a larger commitment to preserving the quality of the work, no matter what happens. I think it is a DAMN shame this is a rare viewpoint, but it is utterly admirable.
I have a LOT of complaints about how DC treated Bruce Timm, his Universe, and Kevin Conroy over the years. I don't want to turn this entire essay about that but I would like to point out that DC is a shitty production company on every level. James Gunn's first ever DC Studios project Creature Commandos being terrible is the DC brand. And when Gunn is inevitably fired because people don't want to see his DC movies either, they'll have this big meeting about what the REAL problem is. And fire Gunn. And rehire Joss Whedon. And once Whedon fucks up, creative control is handed back to Zack Snyder. '
Failures only fall upwards at DC. Actually firing the people responsible for the problems involved would probably clear out 75% of the board at Warner Discovery, and THAT'S never gonna happen. Accountability for David Zaslav? Easier to play shitty writer musical chairs. Yeah, they are gonna lose more money this way. But not ZASLAV'S paycheck? Are they insane? That's sacred!
Say what you will about Marvel (and I've said plenty) they are very responsive to fans' wants and needs. That can be a problem, as seen by the fact that a great deal of recent Marvel films are turned into unfunny "romps" with zero stakes because audiences respond to the jokes in Marvel movies the best. Yeah, that's not a good thing.
But I remember a few a years ago seeing Deathlok on Agents Of SHIELD, and a couple of weeks later a cartoon version popped up on Ultimate Spider-Man. Synergy. Marvel has it.
If a character is popular and the rights aren't tied up, Marvel wants to get them out to as many different audiences as possible. DC believes viewers are too unsophisticated to understand the ideas of different Universes and continuities even though their entire last fucking big project hinged on the Multiverse! They hit cartoons and TV shows with dumb "character embargos", not allowing the project to use the characters if another project has "dibs", instead of being smart enough to understand both projects using the character elevates both projects and the character in general. How did that famous tweet go? "DC's all 'Wonder Woman is too confusing for a movie!' And Marvel is like 'Here's a raccoon with machine gun.'" Pretty much. And despite Marvel's output currently being in the dumper, that's never really changed. Justice League Unlimited itself suffered from the Bat-Embargo in which no other main Batman character but Batman himself was allowed in the show. McDuffie and Timm cunningly used D-list Batman TAS characters like Dr. Milo and the Clock King instead to keep JLU's ties to BTAS fresh while they weren't fucking allowed to use either Robin or The Joker because The Batman and Teen Titans had "dibs" for them both respectively.
What does this have to do with JLU? People LOVED X-Men: The Animated Series. They begged for a revival. Marvel produced X-Men '97. Me, being a contrarian makes me the one fan who dislikes the revival because it doesn't focus on or understand why the original show was so compelling and addictive to begin with. It has better animation and can afford music rights for pop songs, but those are literally its only improvements.
Anyways, what I personally think doesn't matter. X-Men: TAS fans by and large love the shit out of the show and consider it everything they ever wanted.
When James Gunn was asked about a potential JLU revival, Gunn's like "No, that show had a good ending, and should stay gone."
DESPITE the fact that it was left purposefully open-ended so it could easily be revisited, despite the fact that fans have been begging for it to return since the cancelation (we all believed it never should have been canceled in the first place). Despite the fact that the fucking CAST had been lobbying for a reunion movie until Kevin Conroy died. James Gunn's idea for the animated series DC fans want and deserve is a bunch of rape stories starring the Creature Commandos.
I suspect David Zaslav will hold those failure musical chair board meetings any minute now. "What is Joel Schumacher currently doing?"
Kevin Conroy's death infuriates me at DC especially. The dude LOVED playing Batman, and DC only stingily cast him for "Special Occasions". Without ever being aware Kevin was the very thing that made Batman projects special to begin with. DC had the entirely fucked up mindset that making every project special and great is a bad thing. And while Kevin was able to voice Batman, and everyone could have returned to the Universe DC fans loved best, he was being held off for "Special Occasions". As if Kevin's life and work wasn't precious, and DC wouldn't be DAMN lucky to have him for every second they did. It still makes me mad.
The reason JLU was canceled and was never revived, despite it being the greatest animated television show in history, is because the fans wanted that the entire time, and DC would rather sink 200 million dollars into an R-rated musical sequel to a fluke hit that nobody asked for or wanted. This is DC's logic, and still its CURRENT logic with James Gunn at the helm. I'm here to tell you DC wasn't always a mess. Justice League Unlimited and the DC Animated Universe were near-perfect interpretations of those characters that was canceled for the sin of being the highest rated show on Cartoon Network. "Quick. Somebody get Tim Burton on the line."
Why It Still Holds Up
Dwayne McDuffie has the same reputation for witty and sparkly dialogue as Joss Whedon did with almost NONE of the problematic subtext.
Plus, McDuffie brought an effortless level of diversity to the show. For many people back in the early aughts, Bruce Wayne as Batman, Clark Kent as Superman, Princess Diana as Wonder Woman, John Stewart as Green Lantern, Wally West as the Flash, J'onn J'onzz as the Martian Manhunter, and Shayera Hol as Hawkgirl were the defining iterations of those characters. People thought of GL and Flash, they thought of John and Wally. But DC insisted GL and Flash NEEDED to be Hal Jordan and Barry Allen in all future projects. Recently both the comics and recent adaptations are starting to realize Hal is actually boring and Barry a narrative dead end so they've focused again on John and Wally. They ignored the positive fan response to Justice League Unlimited and put their own shitty takes in the public consciousness instead, in Green Lantern and Flash movies so underwhelming, they damaged the brand of both characters. And that's not even getting into how shitty the CW Flash show was.
JLU still holds up if only because there literally has not been a single DC project as good as it since.
Why I Love It
JLU walked the line between a kids show and an adult show. Yes, the stories were so intelligently written they appealed to adults more than kids, but the genius of JLU was that even if it was never gonna be the fad Pokemon or Ninja Turtles were, kids still LIKED the show. They didn't love it, but they watched it and respected it. And it was a rare show kids and adults could enjoy together.
Also, it was FUN. I can't think of too many DC project as fun as Justice League Unlimited. How fun?
Dwayne McDuffie decided to make Gorilla Grodd an Objectivist, spouting Ayn Rand bullshit to justify every shitty thing he does as rational instead of dickish.
So like now it feels REAL good when Flash punches him. You're like, "Yeaugh...."
Dwayne McDuffie is the greatest superhero writer of all time because he understood superheroes have no value unless they are punching out talking gorillas. There is nothing about the premise that interests me besides that. If you aren't hitting a talking monkey, your superhero project cares about the wrong things. Because talking gorillas NEED to be punched and Grodd's Objectivist bullshit needs to be shut all the hell up.
Also that was one baller toyline. Mattel didn't make the toys easy to find, but the ones in stores you COULD find where shockingly affordable, which allowed me to beef up my collection. It along with ThunderCats was my favorite toyline of all time.
How It Influenced Gilda And Meek And The Un-Iverse
Honestly? Nowhere NEAR as much as DS9 or Twin Peaks. I think the biggest thing I cribbed from JLU is the wonderful idea that a small detail in a previous series in the franchise that seemed minor at the time, is in fact this huge lynchpin for world-shattering events. I decided to one-up JLU and put my hints in far more esoteric projects than the previous DCAU shows, just so the twist lands harder.
Fun Fact: We haven't precisely gotten to any of those moments yet. But we will.
Best episode(s):
Any and all parts of The Cadmus Arc are amazing. I first took notice of the series in its fourth episode "Fearful Symmetry" featuring a break-out role for Jeffrey Combs as The Question. The guy who breaks into buildings while creepily humming bubblegum pop under his breath. The character was a revelation and the second best character on the show after Batman. Period. I'm not exaggerating.
Alan Moore saw Steve Ditko's version of the Question and envisioned his stand-in Rorschach as an utterly loathsome and immoral Objectivist piece of shit. Dwayne McDuffie and friends saw Vic Sage and decided he's lovable and an even bigger conspiracy loon than Agent Mulder on The X-Files. Trying to undercover the ties between boy bands and the Illuminati. Or as he's being tortured revealing that the plastic coils around the ends of shoelaces are called aglets and their true purpose is sinister. The Question is NOT the guy Dr. Manhattan blows up for being a dick. It would never even occur to him to do that.
Speaking of Moore, "For The Man Who Has Everything" is notable for being the FIRST adaptation of Moore's comic book work he not only didn't disown and / or never took his name off of. It's the first and only adaptation of his work he's actually praised. Hasn't happened before or since. JLU did that. That's how amazing it was.
"The Doomsday Sanction" was such a great episode that it made me lose my cynicism entirely. Just for a moment, but it happened. Batman's ordeal in the Batwing is so tense and exciting I lose my senses entirely and worried they were gonna kill Batman off. Forget the fact that Batman Beyond exists, forget the fact it's a kids show and Batman is the kids' favorite character, how amazing is it that I was caught up in that moment like the naive dope McDuffie was hoping I'd be? I felt silly for my worries and loved being allowed to feel that way.
The final series two-part series finale "Alive / Destroyer" is a delightfully violent and funny end to the end of Lex Luthor and the Legion Of Doom's Arc. JLU's final season suggested something provocative to me. The DC Animated Universe was essentially a story of two different wealthy men on entirely different paths: Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor. Both of those characters evolving arcs mattered more to the canon more than any other character, including Superman.
But really the best JLU episode is the five part Cadmus Finale comprised of "Question Authority", "Flashpoint" (no relation to the comic event), "Panic In The Sky", "Divided We Fall", and "Epilogue". "Divided We Fall" is not just great resolution for Cadmus, and Lex Luthor / Brainiac, but Flash's fate in the Speed Force, and Superman's reaction to believing Luthor killed him also perfectly wraps up the arc to the Justice Lords too.
"Epilogue" was designed to be the series finale to the entire DC Animated Universe (although the final renewal happened, it was unlikely) and as such ties all of the series together with Batman Beyond in a shockingly polarizing way. Some people love the revelation that Terry McGuinnis is secretly Bruce Wayne's son and some people (including Alan Burnett) loathe it. It's my opinion that the revelation is underwhelming because it doesn't actually change anything. Which is a good thing, technically, especially when being asked to view the entirety of Batman Beyond in hindsight. But it also means as far as Dark Secrets go, it's unnecessary to the narrative. No, the way, "Epilogue" earns my love and eternal devotion is the final scene of Terry as Batman flying past a Gotham City PD blimp, and one of the Pilots saying "Did you see that?" perfectly recalling and dovetailing into the first ever scene in the first Batman: The Animated Series episode "On Leather Wings." Is animation allowed to be this perfect and satisfying 20 years later? Dwayne McDuffie believed so, and I seem to agree with him.
But of the Cadmus Arc, my favorite episode was and remains the first part "Question Authority", arguably Combs' best performance as the Question. The episode is so beloved I routinely see grown-ass adults post its best scene online via YouTube in political discussions.
In the scene, an incredibly frayed Question is worried about the Alternate Universe the Justice League visited a couple of years ago, where that other alternate Superman assassinated President Luthor and the Justice League overthrew the planet after renaming themselves the Justice Lords. In OUR Universe, Lex Luthor is running for President and Question has the sneaking suspicion that that "alternate Universe" wasn't an alternate Universe at all, but a future timeline that is inevitable once Lex Luthor kills the Flash (as he did in the Justice Lords' Universe). The Question decides to take matters into his own hands and assassinate Luthor on his own so he'll never kill the Flash, and Superman won't crack up and kill him himself. He walks into Luthor's office and calmly explains his intentions reasoning, "I'm a known crackpot. It won't alter the timeline too badly or damage the reputation of the rest of the Justice League." Luthor HAS to die in order for their Universe to be saved, and Flash's life and Superman's soul can be saved right alongside it. And in explaining his planned murder to a snickering Luthor the Question goes back to the Objectivism the character was famous for. "A is A. B is B." And he moves on Luthor.
And Luthor just knocks the shit out of him. He drags him all around his office gleefully kicking every square inch of his ass, using superpowers he doesn't even seem to recognize as such, and reveals the Presidential campaign was just a sham to drive Superman nuts. Unlike most other Luthors in the DC Multiverse, OUR Lex Luthor never wanted the job, or expected to win the election. And the kicker he says next is WHY everybody posts the clip: "Do you have any idea how much power I'd have to give up to become President?" Did I mention something this awesome is a kids show? And probably each kid who saw it over the air's first experience of amazing television. I envy them and I bow before Dwayne McDuffie's genius.
Okay, I think JLU is a better show than The Simpsons. But I think the first 8 seasons of The Simpsons are better than JLU. My FAVORITE episode of The Simpsons is Season 8's utterly polarizing and wickedly brilliant "Homer's Enemy". Which is the better best episode of the two best animated shows of all time?
Honestly? Gonna give it to "Question Authority" (by a hair). "Homer's Enemy" is amazing, but it's also sour as hell, and there is a reason some people actually hate it. The best animated episode of any TV show that I've seen remains JLU's "Question Authority".
Worst episode(s):
This is funny. There exist NO bad episodes of the series.
I exaggerate. But not by much. People are constantly talking shit about the episode "The Balance" but I think it's a pure delight and Robert Englund and Jason Bateman kill it as Felix Faust and Hermes respectively. ("Whoops. Lost my place.") You are hard-pressed to find an episode that truly sucks.
Except for one that come close. This is funny, because I am aware of why people dislike the episode, and I even agree with the complaints in question. But it's still an amazing episode for a reason most people don't realize. I'm talking about the infamous "Hawk And Dove".
The episode is written by much maligned comic book writer Ron Zimmerman (no relation) so people were talking shit about it even before it aired. Diana is written entirely out of character, but in fairness, the only writer who could properly write the JLU Wonder Woman consistently well was Dwayne McDuffie. I heard somebody gripe the entire episode was written just to hear Kevin and Wayne Arnold from The Wonder Years argue about politics in such a non-specific way as to not anger any parents (Fred Savage and Jason Hervey play Hawk and Dove respectively). And the dialogue is soft and despite a strong performance by Michael York as Ares, that character never pops the way Wonder Woman's Ultimate Evil should (in fact, he is never seen again). All of those things are true. It IS the worst JLU episode. It's not bad. But it's the worst by far.
But the reason JLU is an Aces show, and could NEVER be dismissed, is because either way that is the best screen adaptation of Hawk And Dove ever put to screen. It's their first appearance, and the major thing I notice about their later different versions on Batman: The Brave And The Bold and (ugh) Titans is how inferior they are, especially when it came to Dove. Hawk and Dove as seen on The Brave and The Bold also argue. But get into physical fights there too which is the antithesis of Dove. Both versions of Dove on the famously shitty Titans (my pick for worst superhero show of all time, live-action or animated) are bone-crunchingly violent as well.
But Ron Zimmerman, shitty writer extraordinaire, took deliberate care when writing Dove in the "barfight". His brother Hawk flips over tables and throws punches, but because he's a pacifist, Dove simply ducks punches, swerves out of the the barflies' way, and swing their punches at him around so they harmlessly hit nobody. He harmlessly deflects each attack so nobody gets hurt. Like an actual pacifist who happens to be a superhero. The worst episode of Justice League Unlimited took the time and effort to figure out how to board that fight in an exciting way and never violate the pacifism Dove is supposed to stand for. And came up with the single best interpretation of those characters onscreen EVER. Not bad for the worst episode of the series.
Should I watch Justice League Unlimited?
Yes. Definitely. The ideal experience will involve first watching Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Static Shock, The Zeta Project, and Justice League first (as well as the movies Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm, Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero, Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker, and Batman Mystery Of The Batwoman, and the web series Gotham Girls) just to get an inkling of the fucking SCOPE of the Cadmus arc. But each of those shows contain their share of shitty episodes and you might get impatient wading through them all. Knowing that, the only series I would definitely recommend watching first is Justice League. Everything else is gravy. Now JLU made itself some GREAT gravy, but you'll still be able to greatly appreciate and enjoy it with slightly less of it.
Does TV suck? Righteously and almost always. But it's still where I get the bulk of my fiction, good and bad. And it probably always will be.
There are plenty of amazing TV shows on TV currently. I don't dig them all but I get the appeal. And TV did not used to be this level of high quality, if you can believe it. It used to be MUCH worse. There was a point in time in which Quantum Leap was the best science fiction series on television, which strikes me as a fucking travesty. Nevertheless, as a TV buff I have had MANY favorite shows over the years, mostly during my formative young adulthood. The thing all of these shows I loved have in common is almost none of them hold up in hindsight on any level. Many are outright cringe. I get WHY I loved Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, The X-Files, Quantum Leap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Dinosaurs at the time for their uniqueness, but each of those shows were shows I thought were majorly sucky rewatching them years later. I'm sure plenty of kids who grew up in the 1980's were disillusioned when seeing a full episode of ThunderCats or Transformers as adults. My sensibilities are so different from when I was younger that I want to pick holes in Captain Fucking Picard! What is wrong with me?
There are exactly THREE shows from back in the day I loved that hold up equally well and contain the same magic today as back then (one of them lands even BETTER in hindsight). There are a few shows I still have great admiration for despite their imperfections (Farscape, Millennium, The Simpsons, Futurama, Gargoyles, Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, Superman: The Animated Series) but only three shows I EVER saw as a youth wowed me decades later: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Twin Peaks, and Justice League Unlimited. This will be a 3 part essay on each of these shows, what they meant to me as a viewer and a writer, how they influenced my work (where applicable) and what the best and worst things were about them.
The third and final essay will cover Justice League Unlimited
Justice League Unlimited
Justice League Unlimited is not just the best DC Comics cartoon of all time. It's not just the best DC Comics TV show. Or the best DC adaptation live-action or animated, film or television. It's not just the best animated TV series based on a comic. It's the best TV series PERIOD based on a comic.
As a matter of fact, I will go out on a VERY long limb and say that Justice League Unlimited is the single great animated TV show of all time. Maybe if The Simpsons had been canceled immediately after its 8th Season, it wouldn't be. But reality is currently as I described.
What is so great about a cartoon using characters, that no offense, tend to suck in most iterations? Batman and Superman may have great comic book stories to their names, but their track records of movies, TV shows, and cartoons are much spottier.
One of the reasons I love Justice League Unlimited is there is NO reason it is as good as it is. It never needed to be. In fact, the series it is a follow-up to, Justice League was BEYOND hit or miss. The second season of that show was pretty great but the first was appallingly lousy. JLU being the greatest thing since sliced bread is NOT because sliced bread was invented the previous winter. It just is. Beyond all reason.
Bruce Timm is essentially the Godfather or the DC Animated Universe starring Kevin Conroy's Batman, and despite the fact that Batman: The Animated Series is considered his crowning pop culture achievement, the thing HE is proudest of is JLU. And I agree with him. JLU was the one DC show that was fun for him to come into work for. With a creative partner like the late, great Dwayne McDuffie I get why. They were having fun and doing their own thing, and getting paid for it until Cartoon Network told them to stop. It was SO great and popular, it was the highest rated show on Cartoon Network. But CN canceled it because it wasn't just kids watching. It had this huge adult following that CN had zero patience for. Which is why we aren't allowed to have nice things.
I mentioned Justice League Unlimited was canceled? It was! Nearly three times before it stuck! The Superman: The Animated Series "Legacy" is a powerful series finale for that series, but it was never intended to be the last episode, and Timm regretted ending such a positive series on such a downbeat and uncertain note. So when Justice League was on the bubble in season two, Timm gave it a heartbreaking but wonderful series finale. When Justice League Unlimited was ordered Timm sincerely doubted CN would renew the show past the initial 26 episode run, so he created the most mind-blowing, definitive series finale in DC animation history. When JLU got a surprise final season 13 episode pick-up Timm and McDuffie teamed up to make the FINAL final episode a purely enjoyable and rewarding romp for longtime fans.
Bruce Timm is an amazing TV producer because most producers of animated action cartoons actually end their seasons on cliffhangers to force the network into giving them a renewal (which usually doesn't come). Instead of using the season finales to play chicken with the network, Bruce Timm and Dwayne McDuffie used them to satisfy the audience in the very best way, in case this was the last place they'd ever leave off. This is the correct mindset of a creator who doesn't just care about the fans and the heartbreak they go through when their favorite show is unjustly canceled. It shows a larger commitment to preserving the quality of the work, no matter what happens. I think it is a DAMN shame this is a rare viewpoint, but it is utterly admirable.
I have a LOT of complaints about how DC treated Bruce Timm, his Universe, and Kevin Conroy over the years. I don't want to turn this entire essay about that but I would like to point out that DC is a shitty production company on every level. James Gunn's first ever DC Studios project Creature Commandos being terrible is the DC brand. And when Gunn is inevitably fired because people don't want to see his DC movies either, they'll have this big meeting about what the REAL problem is. And fire Gunn. And rehire Joss Whedon. And once Whedon fucks up, creative control is handed back to Zack Snyder. '
Failures only fall upwards at DC. Actually firing the people responsible for the problems involved would probably clear out 75% of the board at Warner Discovery, and THAT'S never gonna happen. Accountability for David Zaslav? Easier to play shitty writer musical chairs. Yeah, they are gonna lose more money this way. But not ZASLAV'S paycheck? Are they insane? That's sacred!
Say what you will about Marvel (and I've said plenty) they are very responsive to fans' wants and needs. That can be a problem, as seen by the fact that a great deal of recent Marvel films are turned into unfunny "romps" with zero stakes because audiences respond to the jokes in Marvel movies the best. Yeah, that's not a good thing.
But I remember a few a years ago seeing Deathlok on Agents Of SHIELD, and a couple of weeks later a cartoon version popped up on Ultimate Spider-Man. Synergy. Marvel has it.
If a character is popular and the rights aren't tied up, Marvel wants to get them out to as many different audiences as possible. DC believes viewers are too unsophisticated to understand the ideas of different Universes and continuities even though their entire last fucking big project hinged on the Multiverse! They hit cartoons and TV shows with dumb "character embargos", not allowing the project to use the characters if another project has "dibs", instead of being smart enough to understand both projects using the character elevates both projects and the character in general. How did that famous tweet go? "DC's all 'Wonder Woman is too confusing for a movie!' And Marvel is like 'Here's a raccoon with machine gun.'" Pretty much. And despite Marvel's output currently being in the dumper, that's never really changed. Justice League Unlimited itself suffered from the Bat-Embargo in which no other main Batman character but Batman himself was allowed in the show. McDuffie and Timm cunningly used D-list Batman TAS characters like Dr. Milo and the Clock King instead to keep JLU's ties to BTAS fresh while they weren't fucking allowed to use either Robin or The Joker because The Batman and Teen Titans had "dibs" for them both respectively.
What does this have to do with JLU? People LOVED X-Men: The Animated Series. They begged for a revival. Marvel produced X-Men '97. Me, being a contrarian makes me the one fan who dislikes the revival because it doesn't focus on or understand why the original show was so compelling and addictive to begin with. It has better animation and can afford music rights for pop songs, but those are literally its only improvements.
Anyways, what I personally think doesn't matter. X-Men: TAS fans by and large love the shit out of the show and consider it everything they ever wanted.
When James Gunn was asked about a potential JLU revival, Gunn's like "No, that show had a good ending, and should stay gone."
DESPITE the fact that it was left purposefully open-ended so it could easily be revisited, despite the fact that fans have been begging for it to return since the cancelation (we all believed it never should have been canceled in the first place). Despite the fact that the fucking CAST had been lobbying for a reunion movie until Kevin Conroy died. James Gunn's idea for the animated series DC fans want and deserve is a bunch of rape stories starring the Creature Commandos.
I suspect David Zaslav will hold those failure musical chair board meetings any minute now. "What is Joel Schumacher currently doing?"
Kevin Conroy's death infuriates me at DC especially. The dude LOVED playing Batman, and DC only stingily cast him for "Special Occasions". Without ever being aware Kevin was the very thing that made Batman projects special to begin with. DC had the entirely fucked up mindset that making every project special and great is a bad thing. And while Kevin was able to voice Batman, and everyone could have returned to the Universe DC fans loved best, he was being held off for "Special Occasions". As if Kevin's life and work wasn't precious, and DC wouldn't be DAMN lucky to have him for every second they did. It still makes me mad.
The reason JLU was canceled and was never revived, despite it being the greatest animated television show in history, is because the fans wanted that the entire time, and DC would rather sink 200 million dollars into an R-rated musical sequel to a fluke hit that nobody asked for or wanted. This is DC's logic, and still its CURRENT logic with James Gunn at the helm. I'm here to tell you DC wasn't always a mess. Justice League Unlimited and the DC Animated Universe were near-perfect interpretations of those characters that was canceled for the sin of being the highest rated show on Cartoon Network. "Quick. Somebody get Tim Burton on the line."
Why It Still Holds Up
Dwayne McDuffie has the same reputation for witty and sparkly dialogue as Joss Whedon did with almost NONE of the problematic subtext.
Plus, McDuffie brought an effortless level of diversity to the show. For many people back in the early aughts, Bruce Wayne as Batman, Clark Kent as Superman, Princess Diana as Wonder Woman, John Stewart as Green Lantern, Wally West as the Flash, J'onn J'onzz as the Martian Manhunter, and Shayera Hol as Hawkgirl were the defining iterations of those characters. People thought of GL and Flash, they thought of John and Wally. But DC insisted GL and Flash NEEDED to be Hal Jordan and Barry Allen in all future projects. Recently both the comics and recent adaptations are starting to realize Hal is actually boring and Barry a narrative dead end so they've focused again on John and Wally. They ignored the positive fan response to Justice League Unlimited and put their own shitty takes in the public consciousness instead, in Green Lantern and Flash movies so underwhelming, they damaged the brand of both characters. And that's not even getting into how shitty the CW Flash show was.
JLU still holds up if only because there literally has not been a single DC project as good as it since.
Why I Love It
JLU walked the line between a kids show and an adult show. Yes, the stories were so intelligently written they appealed to adults more than kids, but the genius of JLU was that even if it was never gonna be the fad Pokemon or Ninja Turtles were, kids still LIKED the show. They didn't love it, but they watched it and respected it. And it was a rare show kids and adults could enjoy together.
Also, it was FUN. I can't think of too many DC project as fun as Justice League Unlimited. How fun?
Dwayne McDuffie decided to make Gorilla Grodd an Objectivist, spouting Ayn Rand bullshit to justify every shitty thing he does as rational instead of dickish.
So like now it feels REAL good when Flash punches him. You're like, "Yeaugh...."
Dwayne McDuffie is the greatest superhero writer of all time because he understood superheroes have no value unless they are punching out talking gorillas. There is nothing about the premise that interests me besides that. If you aren't hitting a talking monkey, your superhero project cares about the wrong things. Because talking gorillas NEED to be punched and Grodd's Objectivist bullshit needs to be shut all the hell up.
Also that was one baller toyline. Mattel didn't make the toys easy to find, but the ones in stores you COULD find where shockingly affordable, which allowed me to beef up my collection. It along with ThunderCats was my favorite toyline of all time.
How It Influenced Gilda And Meek And The Un-Iverse
Honestly? Nowhere NEAR as much as DS9 or Twin Peaks. I think the biggest thing I cribbed from JLU is the wonderful idea that a small detail in a previous series in the franchise that seemed minor at the time, is in fact this huge lynchpin for world-shattering events. I decided to one-up JLU and put my hints in far more esoteric projects than the previous DCAU shows, just so the twist lands harder.
Fun Fact: We haven't precisely gotten to any of those moments yet. But we will.
Best episode(s):
Any and all parts of The Cadmus Arc are amazing. I first took notice of the series in its fourth episode "Fearful Symmetry" featuring a break-out role for Jeffrey Combs as The Question. The guy who breaks into buildings while creepily humming bubblegum pop under his breath. The character was a revelation and the second best character on the show after Batman. Period. I'm not exaggerating.
Alan Moore saw Steve Ditko's version of the Question and envisioned his stand-in Rorschach as an utterly loathsome and immoral Objectivist piece of shit. Dwayne McDuffie and friends saw Vic Sage and decided he's lovable and an even bigger conspiracy loon than Agent Mulder on The X-Files. Trying to undercover the ties between boy bands and the Illuminati. Or as he's being tortured revealing that the plastic coils around the ends of shoelaces are called aglets and their true purpose is sinister. The Question is NOT the guy Dr. Manhattan blows up for being a dick. It would never even occur to him to do that.
Speaking of Moore, "For The Man Who Has Everything" is notable for being the FIRST adaptation of Moore's comic book work he not only didn't disown and / or never took his name off of. It's the first and only adaptation of his work he's actually praised. Hasn't happened before or since. JLU did that. That's how amazing it was.
"The Doomsday Sanction" was such a great episode that it made me lose my cynicism entirely. Just for a moment, but it happened. Batman's ordeal in the Batwing is so tense and exciting I lose my senses entirely and worried they were gonna kill Batman off. Forget the fact that Batman Beyond exists, forget the fact it's a kids show and Batman is the kids' favorite character, how amazing is it that I was caught up in that moment like the naive dope McDuffie was hoping I'd be? I felt silly for my worries and loved being allowed to feel that way.
The final series two-part series finale "Alive / Destroyer" is a delightfully violent and funny end to the end of Lex Luthor and the Legion Of Doom's Arc. JLU's final season suggested something provocative to me. The DC Animated Universe was essentially a story of two different wealthy men on entirely different paths: Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor. Both of those characters evolving arcs mattered more to the canon more than any other character, including Superman.
But really the best JLU episode is the five part Cadmus Finale comprised of "Question Authority", "Flashpoint" (no relation to the comic event), "Panic In The Sky", "Divided We Fall", and "Epilogue". "Divided We Fall" is not just great resolution for Cadmus, and Lex Luthor / Brainiac, but Flash's fate in the Speed Force, and Superman's reaction to believing Luthor killed him also perfectly wraps up the arc to the Justice Lords too.
"Epilogue" was designed to be the series finale to the entire DC Animated Universe (although the final renewal happened, it was unlikely) and as such ties all of the series together with Batman Beyond in a shockingly polarizing way. Some people love the revelation that Terry McGuinnis is secretly Bruce Wayne's son and some people (including Alan Burnett) loathe it. It's my opinion that the revelation is underwhelming because it doesn't actually change anything. Which is a good thing, technically, especially when being asked to view the entirety of Batman Beyond in hindsight. But it also means as far as Dark Secrets go, it's unnecessary to the narrative. No, the way, "Epilogue" earns my love and eternal devotion is the final scene of Terry as Batman flying past a Gotham City PD blimp, and one of the Pilots saying "Did you see that?" perfectly recalling and dovetailing into the first ever scene in the first Batman: The Animated Series episode "On Leather Wings." Is animation allowed to be this perfect and satisfying 20 years later? Dwayne McDuffie believed so, and I seem to agree with him.
But of the Cadmus Arc, my favorite episode was and remains the first part "Question Authority", arguably Combs' best performance as the Question. The episode is so beloved I routinely see grown-ass adults post its best scene online via YouTube in political discussions.
In the scene, an incredibly frayed Question is worried about the Alternate Universe the Justice League visited a couple of years ago, where that other alternate Superman assassinated President Luthor and the Justice League overthrew the planet after renaming themselves the Justice Lords. In OUR Universe, Lex Luthor is running for President and Question has the sneaking suspicion that that "alternate Universe" wasn't an alternate Universe at all, but a future timeline that is inevitable once Lex Luthor kills the Flash (as he did in the Justice Lords' Universe). The Question decides to take matters into his own hands and assassinate Luthor on his own so he'll never kill the Flash, and Superman won't crack up and kill him himself. He walks into Luthor's office and calmly explains his intentions reasoning, "I'm a known crackpot. It won't alter the timeline too badly or damage the reputation of the rest of the Justice League." Luthor HAS to die in order for their Universe to be saved, and Flash's life and Superman's soul can be saved right alongside it. And in explaining his planned murder to a snickering Luthor the Question goes back to the Objectivism the character was famous for. "A is A. B is B." And he moves on Luthor.
And Luthor just knocks the shit out of him. He drags him all around his office gleefully kicking every square inch of his ass, using superpowers he doesn't even seem to recognize as such, and reveals the Presidential campaign was just a sham to drive Superman nuts. Unlike most other Luthors in the DC Multiverse, OUR Lex Luthor never wanted the job, or expected to win the election. And the kicker he says next is WHY everybody posts the clip: "Do you have any idea how much power I'd have to give up to become President?" Did I mention something this awesome is a kids show? And probably each kid who saw it over the air's first experience of amazing television. I envy them and I bow before Dwayne McDuffie's genius.
Okay, I think JLU is a better show than The Simpsons. But I think the first 8 seasons of The Simpsons are better than JLU. My FAVORITE episode of The Simpsons is Season 8's utterly polarizing and wickedly brilliant "Homer's Enemy". Which is the better best episode of the two best animated shows of all time?
Honestly? Gonna give it to "Question Authority" (by a hair). "Homer's Enemy" is amazing, but it's also sour as hell, and there is a reason some people actually hate it. The best animated episode of any TV show that I've seen remains JLU's "Question Authority".
Worst episode(s):
This is funny. There exist NO bad episodes of the series.
I exaggerate. But not by much. People are constantly talking shit about the episode "The Balance" but I think it's a pure delight and Robert Englund and Jason Bateman kill it as Felix Faust and Hermes respectively. ("Whoops. Lost my place.") You are hard-pressed to find an episode that truly sucks.
Except for one that come close. This is funny, because I am aware of why people dislike the episode, and I even agree with the complaints in question. But it's still an amazing episode for a reason most people don't realize. I'm talking about the infamous "Hawk And Dove".
The episode is written by much maligned comic book writer Ron Zimmerman (no relation) so people were talking shit about it even before it aired. Diana is written entirely out of character, but in fairness, the only writer who could properly write the JLU Wonder Woman consistently well was Dwayne McDuffie. I heard somebody gripe the entire episode was written just to hear Kevin and Wayne Arnold from The Wonder Years argue about politics in such a non-specific way as to not anger any parents (Fred Savage and Jason Hervey play Hawk and Dove respectively). And the dialogue is soft and despite a strong performance by Michael York as Ares, that character never pops the way Wonder Woman's Ultimate Evil should (in fact, he is never seen again). All of those things are true. It IS the worst JLU episode. It's not bad. But it's the worst by far.
But the reason JLU is an Aces show, and could NEVER be dismissed, is because either way that is the best screen adaptation of Hawk And Dove ever put to screen. It's their first appearance, and the major thing I notice about their later different versions on Batman: The Brave And The Bold and (ugh) Titans is how inferior they are, especially when it came to Dove. Hawk and Dove as seen on The Brave and The Bold also argue. But get into physical fights there too which is the antithesis of Dove. Both versions of Dove on the famously shitty Titans (my pick for worst superhero show of all time, live-action or animated) are bone-crunchingly violent as well.
But Ron Zimmerman, shitty writer extraordinaire, took deliberate care when writing Dove in the "barfight". His brother Hawk flips over tables and throws punches, but because he's a pacifist, Dove simply ducks punches, swerves out of the the barflies' way, and swing their punches at him around so they harmlessly hit nobody. He harmlessly deflects each attack so nobody gets hurt. Like an actual pacifist who happens to be a superhero. The worst episode of Justice League Unlimited took the time and effort to figure out how to board that fight in an exciting way and never violate the pacifism Dove is supposed to stand for. And came up with the single best interpretation of those characters onscreen EVER. Not bad for the worst episode of the series.
Should I watch Justice League Unlimited?
Yes. Definitely. The ideal experience will involve first watching Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Static Shock, The Zeta Project, and Justice League first (as well as the movies Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm, Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero, Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker, and Batman Mystery Of The Batwoman, and the web series Gotham Girls) just to get an inkling of the fucking SCOPE of the Cadmus arc. But each of those shows contain their share of shitty episodes and you might get impatient wading through them all. Knowing that, the only series I would definitely recommend watching first is Justice League. Everything else is gravy. Now JLU made itself some GREAT gravy, but you'll still be able to greatly appreciate and enjoy it with slightly less of it.
