Episode Guide: Justice League/Unlimited

Credits

Cast

Crew

Character Appearances

Featuring

• Green Lantern (last appeared in “Task Force X”)
• Hawkgirl (last appeared in “The Balance”)
• J’onn J’onzz (appeared last episode)
• Vigilante (last appeared in “Task Force X”)
• Vixen (last appeared in “Wake the Dead”)

Villains

• Kragger (brain damaged Thanagarian Officer in the life support battlesuit; last appeared in “Star Crossed”)
• Paran-Dul (Thanagarian Officer; Talak’s lieutenant; last appeared in “Star Crossed”)

Cameoes

• Hro Talak (leader of the Thanagarian Invasion fleet; dies in flashback; last appeared in “Star Crossed”)

Groups and Henchmen

• Thanagarians (at least five Hawk soldiers, including the big bearded one who’s credited as Hawk #2)

Story Details

Locations

• Watchtower
• Forrest Moon (location of the fake mine)

Continuity

There’s a Chinese restaurant next to Green Lantern’s apartment. The atomic number of Nth Metal is 676. There are at least 9 landing pads and they’re up to Javelin number 26.Shayera was an instructor in the Espionage Wing of the Thanagarian Empire. Vixen lives in a loft in Chelsea. Vigilante was captured by the Thanagarians during the invasion and was humiliated by his captors. Both Shayera and Vixen have seen Lantern’s underwear drawer (you’ve gotta love cartoon euphemisms). The Thanagarians lost the war to the Gordanians, there is a resistance movement active on Thanagar. Hro Talak is dead.

References

Star Trek^W, jungle combat movies, saturday morning westerns. Shayera’s new colour scheme is reminiscent of Uma Thurman^W’s yellow jump suit from Kill Bill^W, which of course is a homage to Bruce Lee^W’s costume from Game of Death^W. Big bearded hawkmen always remind me of Brian Blessed^W as Prince Vultan^W in the 1980 version of Flash Gordon^W.

Comments

Vigilante is Greg Saunders (not to be confused with the youngest of Gil Grissom’s CSI team), a famous country and western singer known as the “Prairie Troubadour.” He first appeared in Action Comics #42 (Nov 1941) and was created by Mort Weisinger and Mort Meskin. He had his own Vigilante: Fighting Hero of the West in the 1940s and was played by Ralph Byrd (an actor who was more famous for his movie serial appearances as Dick Tracy). He was a member of DC’s “other superhero team” a group of third-tier heroes called the Seven Soldiers of Victory. Another member was the Shining Knight and the JLU animators often seem to find away to put them together during the big fight scenes.

Advanced schedules listed this episode as “Mystery in Space” - the title of an old DC science fiction anthology. Apparently it was changed so that fans wouldn’t be disappointed when Adam Strange, the star of Mystery in Space, didn’t make an appearance. This episode was shown in YTV in Canada before it was shown in the USA. On YTV’s original airing the commercial breaks were inserted into the wrong places – speculation is that they were accidentally using the break pattern for “Double Date”.

Nth Metal is the magic nullifying metal that the Thanagarians used to construct Hawkgirl’s mace. In the comic book it’s Nth Metals anti-gravity properties and not natural wings that allow the Thanagarians to fly. For more information see the review of “Wake The Dead”.

Other Stuff

• Animal Powers used by Vixen: Lizard’s infrared sight, a cheetah’s sprinting and weight of an Elephant.
• One issue that came up on a few message boards was Vixen’s inability to fly. She can fly in the comics by borrowing a birds flight, but according to Dwayne McDuffie she can’t do that in the cartoon - apparently it’s not the type of thing kids assume she can do so it didn’t need to be established that she couldn’t fly.
• Hunter’s Moon is the name given to the first full moon after the Harvest Moon^W. It’s a favoured time for hunters to stalk their prey because the deer are bulking up for the winter and the cleared crops / bright moonlight make them easy to spot.
• Hunter’s Moon is a popular title. Amazon lists dozens of books with that in the title, a few albums, and a Burt Reynolds film.
• The Vigilante briefly drops his mask when he’s by the water hole.
• Something that didn’t occur to me when I watched “Star Crossed” first time around: nearly all Thanagarians appear to be played by actors and actresses with Latin American ancestory.

Synopsis

Previous on Justice League: At the conclusion of the second season it was revealed that Hawkgirl (Shayera Hol) was actually an advanced scout for a Thanagarian invasion force. Shayera found herself torn between her Hro Talak and Green Lantern - her Thanagarian and human lovers. When she realised that Talak was going to destroy Earth to save Thanagar from the Gordanians she defected back to the Justice League and helped expel her people. Afterwards she resigned from the Justice League and broke off her relationship with Green Lantern. “Star Crossed”. Shayera accepted an offer from Doctor Fate to stay at his tower and was finally called back to the League to help stop a resurrected Solomon Grundy. “Wake the Dead” During the same period Green Lantern had started dating the hero and supermodel Vixen, but he was disturbed to encounter a hero from the future called War Hawk who claimed to be his and Shayera’s son “Time, Warped”.

Mari McCabe, the Vixen, playfully ambushes Green Lantern and asks him why they haven’t been out on a date in over a month. Lantern agrees to Chinese, but considers it unprofessional to acknowledge his relationship with Mari while on duty. On the Watchtower Bridge J’onn is responding to a distress call from the mining starship Hawkerland. They uncovered a radioactive vein of transuranic iron ore on a remote forested moon and it’s radiation has rendered their ship inoperable. Shayera, Lantern’s ex-girlfriend, identifies the vein as unrefined Nth Metal and tells the mining crew to say put. She heads for the Javelin launch bay, but J’onn stops her and insists that she takes a support team. Green Lantern volunteers, but J’onn notes that two founders would cloud the leadership of the team and he accepts Vixen’s offer instead. Lantern questions the pairing of Vixen and Shayera, but J’onn rebuffs him saying that he doesn’t consider Lantern’s love life when making command decisions.

The Vigilante joins the ladies, but Shayera quickly becomes unsettled with his inexperienced piloting skills. When they arrive at the alien mine it’s night time and there’s no sign of the Hawklander or the Nth Metal. The cautious Leaguers investigate the mine, but quickly discover that it’s a hologram. They suddenly come under fire from unseen assailants and make a run for the Javelin, but it’s destroyed before they can reach it. The heroes regroup to a nearby outcrop, but are shocked when a voice calls out for them to surrender Shayera Hol. It’s Paran-Dul and a small squad of Thanagarian warriors. They are all that remains of Hro Talak’s fleet - upon their return to Thanagar the fleet was slaughtered by the Gordanians and Talak sacrificed his life to destroy the Gordanian flag ship, but it was too little too late. Paran-Dul blames Shayera for the loss of Thanagar and offers to spare the other Leaguers if she surrenders. Before Shayera can respond Vigilante answers Paran-Dul’s demand with a barrage of gun fire.

Dissent grows in each team. Paran-Dul’s second-in-command questions the wisdom of chasing Shayera. Seeing the Thanagarians again also reopens old wounds for Vigilante and he becomes increasingly resentful of Shayera’s leadership. He questions her loyalty and when she moots the idea of surrendering herself to Paran-Dul Vixen tells her she doesn’t think she lives up to praise Green Lantern still has for her. They’re forced to put aside their differences as the Thanagarians attack. Vixen holds two of them back while Shayera gets the injured Vigilante to safety, she then pretends to offer to track Shayera for the Thanagarians as a pretext to getting aboard their ship. Vixen actually manages to open a com channel to the Watchtower before she’s discovered by Paran-Dul.

Shayera is concerned about Vixen’s disappearance – she and Vigilante both know that it means Vixen has been captured. Shayera decides to turn herself over to Paran-Dul in the hope that she’ll release Vixen and advises the injured Vigilante to hide until a League search party arrives. He doesn’t like it, but there’s not much be can do about it. Shayera surrenders to Paran-Dul as the alien sun starts to rise above the forest’s horizon, but the exchange is rudely interrupted by the Thanagarians ship careering toward the party. The ever resourceful Vigilante hijacked the craft and has decided to come looking for his teammates. He manages to save a plummeting Vixen just in time for her to fight off Paran-Dul. Shayera then pulls the plug on Kragger’s battlesuit and the three heroes make a hasty retreat.

The staff on the Watchtower are alarmed to see the Thanagarian scout ship, but Green Lantern is relieved to that Vixen and Shayera are safe. Later Vixen and Shayera compare notes on Green Lantern and Shayera admits she still has feelings for him. They agree to a friendly rivalry where he is concerned and bury their animosity.

Review

The long awaited return of the Thanagarians and the conclusion of Shayera’s rehabilitation. Wake the Dead brought her back into the League, The Balance dealt with her biggest critic in the League, and this episode deals with what happened to the Thanagarians. The flashback felt forced, but the exposition can’t be helped in these situations. The scene change from the landing bay to the cafeteria also feels a little cliched, but it’s not something I think younger viewers would notice. Neither do I think they’ll notice the the differences in model sheets for Vixen and Hawkgirl – it’s nice that they actually take care to give different female characters different bust sizes – but I suspect the older viewers will definitely be paying attention to Vixen.

This episode is really about Shayera’s relationship with Green Lantern (as conceptualised by Vixen) and her relationship with the rank and file Leaguers (as conceptualised by Vigilante). His comments about the invasion are interesting considering that last episode Luthor noted that the League had taken a lot of flak for letting her back in. I’ve seen a couple of commenters who object to or just dislike the relationships within this series. I think they add a nice depth to the characterisation and lift this series from just being a higher budget version of the Super Friends. What did feel odd was that Green Lantern was all Mister Professionalism at the start and then didn’t expect Shayera and Vixen to act the same way when they were on a mission.

Justice League does Star Trek quite well. It’s not new, but a fair few Justice League stories in the comics have been influenced by Star Trek. The most obvious feature is the League transporters, but most areas in the Watchtowers are parallel to those found on the Enterprises. This episode in particular is very Trek with it’s interstellar distress call, marooned Away Team, and Klingon like Hawk people, Vigilante certainly has a very good grasp of Captain Kirk style diplomacy, they loose a shuttle craft, and those Gordanian ships even look a bit like the Doomsday Machine from the classic series.

The drama in this episode comes from Vixen and Shayera, yet I really can’t help but be most interested in the Vigilante. Keen eared viewers may recognise his voice as that of Caleb (Nathan Fillion) from the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. He’s also the fourth Firefly/Serenity (another series by Buffy’s creator Joss Whedon) cast member to voice a character on this show. On that show he plays the Captain and his second in command is played by Gina Torres who just happens to be the voice of the Vixen.

Screenshots