One thing I don't quite understand. During the first series, they made it clear that the Watchtower was funded by Bruce Wayne.

Is that the case with this one? If so...jeez, that's a lot of cash to plunk down. This thing looks at least three times as big as the old one. Plus all of the ancillary satellites around it, plus all the new spacecraft, plus what looks to be dozens of support crew members.

Are we talking the neighborhood of hundreds of billions of dollars? I didn't think BW had that kind of scratch. Maybe there's another source of funding. Anybody know?

Ha ha, Dana Delaney as Lana/Lois. Nice touch.

can someone tell me what happened at the end of season 2? Because i missed the last episode about the thanagar people.

For a second there I thought WW was going to kick Mongul in the groin from behind when she was running up behind him the way they posed that shot. I guess if they're not going to show alien dog poo then I guess the other scene is out of the question.

Where did Mogul come from? I don't remember him.

Now that their identities are in the open they feel free to use each others real names. And nice flirting between Diana and Bats.

Seems blood and dog crap are both on the forbidden list.

Still hating the theme song. Thing is, in and of itself it wouldn't be that bad, for a different show. Like, a shonen fighting cartoon maybe. For JL it sucks.

They are using scenes from the week's episode in the opening credits. Not integrated very smoothly with the cgi though. I also noticed at the end there were just three silhouettes of WW, Batman and Superman so looks like those will indicate who's in the episode.

Mogul was in an episode of the previous JL series.
He was an evil ruler making Sups fight or he would blow up a planet.
GL and somebodies broke the planet killing gun and Sups defeated Mogul in a fist fight.

Okay...not a perfect adaptation of Moore and Gibbons' tale. But compared to the movie versions of From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentleman, it's pretty good. Just kinda weird when you can predict some of the better lines. I'm guessing that the stuff Moore wrote...the harsher stuff involving Jor-El...had to be exorcised in favor of dog poop. I'll take it.

Yeah...impressed by Mongul's badassness. Way better than in the "Warworld" arc.

This I hate because it basically spoils you about the episode.

Some identity, why did they feel to visit Supes in costume? No way was anyone gonna see them in civvies clothes since that Javlin is probably faster than anything the current military has and was cloak.

I won't say invisble jet because there was no explanation of what that was and where would WW get one? And most importantly, why would she need one?

Plus, I didn't sense any flirting between Bats/WW, the REAL flirting was going on in the bed scene with Clark/Lois and Lana hybird. WOOHOO!!!

Speaking of that hybrid, I think that was greatly influenced by Smallville. In the Superman cartoon, when Lana visited him I thought they made it pretty clear that he didn't have feelings for her anymore.

Didn't Trigun do something similar where the intro varies with each episode (in the Pioneer released DVDs the first ep. opening was the only one used though)?

This has nothing on power chord intros of Japanese anime. It's still more like the '80s cheeseball stuff.

I never read the Moore story so I don't know how this episode stacks up, but from reading Moore's other stuff I could guess it was lacking stuff.

It was decent. It reminded me of the Mad Hatter ep. of BTAS. In fact I thought there was no way Bruce would fall for the plant thingy's deceptions since he went through it before. But I have to admit Mongul was waaaay more badass in this episode than in the warworld one.

So is this the story where the famous Superman "Burn" line comes from in the comics?

Gnosis: yes, it is. And I love Supes when he's pissed off...like his last battle with Darkseid.

The story pales in comparison to Moore's book. For one thing, in Batman's fantasy, Thomas Wayne did not beat the everloving shit out of Joe Chill. Seriously, did you see the look in Lil Bruce's eyes? He was happy to see father deliver the pain. Creepy...not as creepy as adult Batman smiling.

I know Moore's story is reprinted in a few places. The only one I can remember is in Across the Universe: The DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore. You can look for it at your library...it's the first story in there.

I've been meaning to get that, and now I have a reason. Thanks. I'm sure a pissed off Supes is much cooler than a faux pissed off Supes (as in Action Comics 775).

Regarding GA and joining the semi-fascist JLU, considering he's joined up with the black-ops JLElite in the comics this was much less of a stretch (though I can forgive Kelly for putting Ollie in the JLE since I like the way he writes him. Wally West being part of the JLE team is a real stretch though).

I haven't read the book, but I second the fact that this was so freaking creepy. Bats is my favorite of the league, but that moment just gave me the twitchies.

While Clark's fantasy was touching, Batman's hero worship of his dad beating the holy fuck out of that hapless mugger was both creepy and cool. It was kind of cute seeing the young Bruce get that gleam in his eye as he witnessed hs first beatdown. But I was a little creeped out at seeing the adult Batman smile. Batman's not supposed to smile, unless he just cracked a case or cracked a thug's head open.

Someone on Usenet made what I thought was a very good point about Batman's fantasy - it's as though even HE doesn't know what would happen after his parents live. Them dying is such a turning point in his life that not even his deepest heart, which wishes they could've survived, can concieve of a life with them around. So the fantasy gets stuck in the one thing he does know: vengeance and violence.

As long as he doesn't go on to marry Kathy Kane. :)

Oh, and one thing about the episode I thought improved over the comic: I don't remember the comic letting Batman go through as much effort to remove the Black Mercy as he did in the cartoon. Maybe it was Robin distracting him or something, but I seem to remember the comic Batman immediately trying to resort to tugging the Black Mercy off, which would be, to me, a last-ditch effort (what if doing so irreparably harmed Superman's psyche?). The JLU Batman actually trying to cut and wither off the Black Mercy first made a lot more sense.

I don't think it was that creepy, most kids like to think that their dad is Superman (so to speak), I'd bet that little Bruce was expecting Thomas to beat up the mugger and save the day.

Well originally, Wonder Woman did not have the power of flight. In her old origin, the Invisible plane was a magical contraption for her to travel from place to place..

When DC rebooted Wonder Woman in the 80's comics, the Invisible Plane first appeared in Wonder Woman #117, when Diana went digging around in the Antarctic. She met up with the Lansinarians. They gave her a semi-sentient device called the "morphing disc" as a gift.

When Hippolyta took a trip to the ‘40’s to be Wonder Woman with the JSA she fashioned a plane out of the disc. Once Hippolyta came back to the present and returned the mantel of Wonder Woman to Diana, she gave her the Lansinarian life form, which could take any form it was willed to.

Eventually in Wonder Woman #141 it became the "Wonder Dome", a floating HQ for the Amazon. When they rebooted Wonder Woman's origin and gave her flight powers, they brought back the Invisible Jet mainly as a fanwank. I recall in a recent issue she commented that even though she can fly, she kept the jet to carry cargo or a bunch of passengers.

Great episode. I always like to see Batman, WW and Supes together. Whole lotta violence. I don't think I've ever seen WW get the shit kicked out of her like that before. But she gave it just as good as she got it.
I noticed on the closing credits "Mike Farrell......Pa Kent" I didn't see Pa Kent in there. Did I miss something? Maybe they cut him out?

That's an understatement. Mongul totally kicked WW ass! I keep hearing how WW is "supposedly" 2nd to Superman in power(I never believe this anyway) but I can't see how? I think Jonn would've gave Mongul a better fight, imo.
I never once felt WW had the situation under control and Mongul was just toying with her. De-powered or not, the JL's WW got served.

Well in a previous episode from last season, both Wonder Woman and Superman were under a spell of illusion, and both thought each other were monsters and fought each other. Wonder Woman put up a good showing against Superman.

Superman is stronger, but Wonder Woman has shown to be a more skilled fighter. Her main weakness is she isn't nearly as durable as Superman is, so she can't take the level of physical punishment he can.

IIRC Superman was able to snap out of it earlier and realize it was WW and stopped putting up a fight more or less then WW started kicking the shit out of him. I think any superpowered being could do some damage after awhile if Supes stopped defending himself.


In the dream scene when Jor-El walks away from Kal-El and Van-El, my closed captioning said "Pa Kent's voice" on one line. Other than that, I don't think he made a visual appearance.

Nah, WW was giving a good account of herself even before Supes snapped out of it. She's reasonably kickass in the episode where she gets embroiled in the politics of some little 2nd world European kingdom, and in the WW2 episode. Most of the time however, I feel they do a poor job depicting the canonical WW power level. WW is at her coolest on those rare occasionas that for whatever reason she breaks out full bore magical Amazon war gear. When WW wears a helmet, and a sword or spear and a cloak, watch out. I wish they put her into that mode more often. She's theoretically one of the most skilled fighters in the DC universe, but I think they downplay that in the cartoon so as to give Batman a little characterization breathing room outside of being detective guy.

One of the underlying premises of WW vs. Superman is that she's a physical powerhouse based on magic. A lot of the powerful magic characters in the DC universe are spellcasters of various kinds, limited by all kinds of rules, not necessarily all that physically buff, etc. Superman is vulnerable to magic, and when making these comparisons, especially within the JLA, there's always a tacit undercurrent of not "How does this person compare to Superman", but rather "How would this person do against Superman if Superman went out of control."

Frankly, I think part of the problem in the cartoon is the voice actor. I thought Maria Canals did a better job making Hawkgirl sound like someone not to be messed with than Susan Eisenberg is doing with WW.

By the way, if there are any fans of the great character actor, Jeffrey Combs here, (Weyuon on Deep Space Nine, Shran on Enterprise) should take note that Combs will be the voice of The Question on an episode later this season. (Titled: 'Fearful Symmetry')

For those not familiar with The Question, The character's real name is Victor Sage. He's a television investigative reporter who is out to root corruption where he finds it. To that end, when he encounters stories he can't investigate by normal or legal means, so he dons a special mask the totally covers his facial features. (Making it look like he has no face) And he wears a matching trenchcoat and fedora. It gives him a very distinctive look. (Which is probably why the producers wanted to use him)

He has no special superpowers, but his deductive skills are on Batman's level. (Although The Question's methodology is somewhat different than Batman's) and he is a world-class martial artist. He can kick ass.

The Question had a wonderfully written comic series back in the late 80's. And is supposed to have an upcoming mini-series soon.

I'm a fan of both the Question and Combs, so I'm on board with this episode already. :)

I believe the same ending shot was used in the first episode's opening credits, if memory serves me right. I don't think it means anything.

And yay, Jeffrey Combs.

Yeah. Jor's voice definitely changed at the end there. I wasn't sure whose voice it was. They did a nice job of slipping that in. Nice voice cameos this ep.

I never read the Moore story (I either really love or really hate his work, which is better than having no reaction at all), but didn't the DC Comics' Wonder Woman have the lasso of truth at the time? Wouldn't she have been better utilized wither overriding Supes' fantasy or forcing Mongul into undoing the alien plant? Seems to me that her real power level lies there, rather than her physical strength, whatever its actual measurement is. In the Toon, though, I can't recall WW using the lasso much, so I have less of a problem with the way things were done (surprised they didn't substitute Green Arrow for Wonder Woman, though,,,I thought he was the theme of the new series...).

But blood wasn't needed this episode. Mongor was hit by heat vision. Any blood would've been cauterized instantly.


Can someone go into a little more detail what happens to Jor - El in the original story. When I saw this episode I found it interesting that Jor El was punished to an extent in Superman's ultimate fantasy.

I eventually glossed it over assuming Supes wanted to keep his fanatsy realistic but after reading a comment about Jor El getting the worst of I wonder if I shouldn't have glossed over the implications implied in the cartoon.

I think there are some advantages to depowering Wonder Woman. It places more emphasis on WW's intelligence (e.g., playing possum to fool Mongul) and courage (e.g., continuing to fight even though Mongul is beating the crap out of her). Plus she got to be the one who defeated Mongul in the end (by tossing that creature on him). But I agree with Hogin that she seemed more kickass in some of the past (pre-JLU) episodes.

Also, Mongul seemed stronger in this episode than before. Superman beat him decisively before, but they looked a lot more evenly matched this time.

True, but Mongul and WW both had the crap beaten out of them. Even with their toughness they should have bled at least a little.



He must have gone to the same gym Superman hit between seasons 1 and 2. The previous Mongul was sort of a wimp. He must have been channeling Darkseid this time.



Combs was also the voice of the Scarecrow on BTAS after it moved to the WB. He did a good job with that,



Comic Reviews

There's a detailed summary here.

This helps explain why there was no contact with the League: that's not how the story was written, and cramming in another hero would have made things to crowded. We should all be grateful they took out Robin. Actually, it doesn't really make sense for Batman to head down there. He's the type to just slip him the cash when he's not around, and therefore avoid the thank you.

In addition, it's my impression that the Fortress's location is supposed to be a secret. If they had called in the League, every hero would have been required to come down given Mongul's apparent threat level.

Yes, Diana got beaten down pretty hard and should have been bleeding. In fact, there doesn't seem to have been much blood in any episode.

Are Diana's powers magical? They were gifts of the Gods so that would be, well, god-given then.

There was very subtle flirting going on in the plane.

Who feeds Superman's alien menagerie when he's not there?

Wait, they're calling the Question episode "Fearful Symmetry"? Is there some kind of Blake-Question link I don't know about because I never read his comic, or is that some kind of highly-obscure Watchmen reference?

I thought they did about as good a job as they could with the source material, given that they didn't have time to fully flesh out Supes' dream world, and probably couldn't have gotten away with the content of it anyways. I think Wonder Woman looked a lot better in the cartoon than she did in the comic (where not even the neural impactor did much good); they seem to have sacrificed some of his invulnerability so that the female character wouldn't look so weak. I actually liked the Batman dream sequence, because Batman's SUPPOSED to be kind of creepy. Oh, and they made Mongul look a lot more beaten up near the end than the comic did, which was a nice touch. It really added to the effect of the holy whooping Supes gave him.

The new JL still suffers from a serious lack of Guy Gardner though. I'm serious, if they manage to pull off "ONE PUNCH!!" in this cartoon it will be the greatest thing ever animated. They've got Black Canary, they've got Manhunter and Batman, they can rename Captain Marvel if they need to, and there are plenty of heroes to fill in for Blue Beetle, even if it won't be the same without him. This needs to happen.

Thanks for the review cambridge it opened my eyes to the grievences Superman had with Krypton falling apart as it did. i question the adaptation's obscuring Superman's feelings towards his father. It gets across how conflicted his gratitude and anomisity are where his father is concerned; but as a result it takes away from explaining how badly he didn't like Jor El's "involvement" in things he wished didn't happen on and to Krypton.

Considering how much S:TAS has gone into how much he loves his adopted parents I think it would've been somewhat better to really go into what he felt about his biological parents.


I'll conceed that W and Mongul could've bled a little more after the pastings both recieved.

If memories serves, Mongul in the comics has ALWAYS been close to Superman in strength level. I remember a scene during the whole Death Of Superman storyline where Mongul manhandle a not, yet fully-powered Superman and a fully-powered Supergirl as well.

WW, I heard during this comic storyline was laid out very quickly.

I cracked UP at Diana's reaction to the envelope that Bats showed her as his gift to Supes. I like any ep that has me laughing one minute to being totally creeped out (the smile on Bruce's face and Thomas kicking ass) the next.

I wish they wouldn't put scenes from the actual ep in the opening credits, though. It's distracting and, I can't I'm saying this as a Spoiler Ho, but it's TOO spoiler-ish.

So is Mongul going to take up space at the Fortress now?

It could be a really tangential Watchmen reference, since iirc, Rorschach was based off of the Question. Hrm... :P

For some reason, Bats smiling during his fantasy struck me as more sad or slightly pitiful than creepy -- it seemed to emphasize more of the little boy-ishness of his career of choice. Although I was surprised when Thomas just kept wailing on the guy.

The original Moore story was remarkable for many reasons, but I'll always remember it as the one time the Jason Todd Robin didn't come off as a complete asshole. For that reason, I actually missed his presence in the ep. Everyone's always described the story as the classic Big Three story, but I've always thought of it as the quintessential Robin story. Robin, meeting Wonder Woman, seeing the unimaginable, otherworldly Fortress for the first time, finding himself caught between a larger than life World Conquering Alien and the Man of Steel ... and, in the end, saving the day.

And while I suppose the source material called for a knock-down drag-out super-knuckle-fest, after ten minutes it was enough with the pummelling already.

And, dammit, the actor's delivery of "Burn." (Loved that period at the end of "burn" -- never has a simple punctuation mark done more characterizing work) just didn't do it for me. Too bland, too affectless.

So, yeah, it stands as the best translation of Moore's work, but, as has been noted, that's not saying much.

I loved the fact that Batman's fantasy world was animated exactly as it was. I think I had mentioned here previously, that he seems to be much more focused than GL when it comes to being dark and angry. The look on his face as boy-Bruce summed it up perfectly. It was good for us to be creeped out. We should be. We shouldn't want to be Batman.

That was very cool.

It was a nice touch at the end to have him point out that wherever Mongul is right now, it's too good for him.


I think he probably has one of those feeders that drops the pellets down into the food bowls on a timer.

Well once they re-tooled Wonder Woman she was given powers that made her second only to Superman in strength. In fact there was a comic where Doomsday returned post Death of Superman and Wonder Woman went toe to toe with him. IN the end she was going to lose but she was able to use this gauntlet that like doubled her strength and she kicked some ass.

Also she has held her own against Darkseid in comics since the re-tooling. I didn't see this episode so I don't understand....

Wonder Woman was depowered?? How? And if she was depowered, how can we really give Mongul credit for kicking her ass?

I'm glad I didn't see it. If you go by the comics she is supposed to be second only to Supes and I don't think this show does that justice.

But then again supes gets beat down in this series too so I guess they don't want them to come across as too powerful cuz what fun would it be if WW and Supes could just wipe the floor with anyone.

Good point. Also, I've heard complaints of how Superman is slower and less nimble than in the comics. If that's true, then good. For one thing, if Superman were as fast as Flash, then what purpose would Flash serve? And I like it better when things are more balanced, with various characters having their respective strengths and weaknesses. It's makes for better storytelling. This is a little off-topic, but I think that's one of areas where Marvel screwed up with Venom and Spider-Man. I mean, if Venom has basically every advantage on Spidey, including blocking his spider-sense, then how the hell can Spidey keep coming out on top without total contrievance? Of course, I'm no expert on comics so maybe there's good reasoning to this. Still, I think it's better when no one person is so dominant, especially the good guys. It was hard enough, I think, finding ways for Hawkgirl to be useful besides being able to block magic.

This was driving me nuts..."For the Man..." is reprinted in "The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told," published in 1986. However, there's a new tpb coming out next week, and it does NOT have "For the Man..." It's titled "Superman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told." But I do recommend DC's Alan Moore tpb, which has two nice Superman stories, including "For the Man..."

I wish we'd get ads for upcoming episodes. What's on tap for next week? I'm almost afraid to ask.

ETA: I want to record the last ep for a friend, so I looked up the time...and saw the next ep description. Already, I'm nausous. Supes, Bats, Wonder Woman and GL as kids? No. Seriously...no. I liked the "Sins of Youth" saga that spun out of Young Justice, and I feel that something like that works better in print as opposed to onscreen, up to and including Batboy disabling the HQ's wayward defense systems and proclaiming, "Uh huh. Who's the Batman?"

Hawkgirl doesn't need to be useful; she's just plain cool.

Sorry, my long-standing Shayera crush coming out...

Well, the Comic Flash is way, way, waaaaaay faster than the cartoon one.

In a recent issue of Justice League of America, a nuclear warhead is just a few seconds from detonating over a city with 500,000 people in it, the Flash manages to evacuate every man, woman and child from the city in less than one-half second. The comic Flash is ungodly fast. At best, Comic Superman if he's really pushing himself could probably move at 75% of the Flash's speed.

And also, the comic Flash has some special powers the cartoon Flash does not have. For example the Comic Flash can "steal" the kinetic-motion energy from a person or object to slow it down or and bring it to a complete stop.

Well, she's a Hawk-girl and you're a rooster-boy. It's fate, baby! (but not Dr. Fate, 'cuz that would be weird).

In regards to 'For the Man Who Has Everything': With all due respect to Princess Diana's gift-giving sensibilities, if millionaire Bruce Wayne gives you an envelope of full of cash? It's a 'Happy Birthday' no matter who you are or what planet your from.

After all, what do mild-mannered reporters make salary-wise? Exactly.

Thank you, Zerowing for the info. I guess then, that whole "fastest man" thing they did on Superman TAS wasn't comic-book-accurate. Good. Because I was wondering what the point would be then of having Flash on the team. I read something the makers of JL said about the difficulty of doing Flash action sequences. That would explain their slowing him down. Still, you'd think they could come up with better ways of having the bad guys stop him besides simply tripping him up on whatever mundane objects are handy.

Along the same lines, I read something about the comic book Shade being able to control shadows without the cane. Why didn't they give the cartoon guy that ability? He would be far more formidable if you didn't just have to knock the cane out of his hand and then punch him.

All these things are making me want to go to my nearest comic book store and get my JL fix that way...

While animated continuity Superman and Flash are around the same level speed wise, I think that Flash beats him in his ability to quickly change directions. Flash can zigzag, while Superman is stuck to straight lines, if he wants to keep his speed up.

I thought it was an pretty good ep but I wish Diana was able to put up more of a fight against Mongul. Also I would have liked to see what Argo was like in Kal's fantasy.

Since I missed the ep can someone give me a brief recap of how WW came to be depowered?

And did she fight Mogul without any of her powers?

Cuz that?

Not fair. : )

She wasn't de-powered. She was just overwhelmed. Mongul isn't excatly a "lightweight". He can stomp Superman good if he's having a good day.