Episode 75

[GoFlash]

#1: The warp drive would melt? Why's that? There are definitely metals in the DCU that can survive contact with the sun. Like, say, METALLO? The substance which can survive Superman's heat vision? (which, if you think about it, is probably about as hot as the sun's surface, considering how fast it melts through metal) And hey, for that matter, in the DCAU, we have cops with laser guns and superheroes with WARP DRIVES. I mean, really. Why couldn't that kind of tech, which can literally BEND spacetime, be possibly made of metal that can survive the sun's heat?

For #1, though, it wasn't the warp drive that Mike and James were discussing, it was the AFD (anti-fusion device). The energy from fusion causes the sun to expand, while the gravity from its mass causes it to contract - the sun's size is due to the balance between the two. I suppose I could argue that the AFD stops fusion, at which point the gravity pulls the hot plasma further into the sun, causing a receding dimple in the surface of the sun near the AFD, which kept enough distance between the AFD and the plasma to prevent it's melting, and that it is meant to be deployed in a thermonuclear exchange, so may be designed to put up with that sort of temperature short term, but frankly, I'd rather just ignore the detail of it melting.

Chris

[Missy]

The Terror Beyond is poor plot-wise but the emotion is very well done. Mike, Grundy died in this and you know he pops up again. Do you honestly think they'd ignore a major plot point like that within the JL series? Its not like Clayface between Batman and JL, he easily could have been stabilised before they imprisoned him. Grundy's return will not ignore the events of this story.

I know he comes back and I knew they'd explain it, but I wasn't sure if they'd have the time to address the impact it should have on the League and Hawkgirl.

[KnightWing]

For #1, though, it wasn't the warp drive that Mike and James were discussing, it was the AFD (anti-fusion device).

Oh yeah. Whoops.

[GoFlash]

Sadly, no one has yet addressed this. I suppose it falls to me, as the (likely) oldest person on this forum to speak to James.

As to the scene wherein the Society and the League charge towards each other, which you found fault with: I realize, that as the original came out in 1978, this was not as much a part of your formative years as it was mine. However, there will be no disrespect offered nor tolerated to the Challenge of the Superfriends homage. None.

Depressingly, I may be the only person here who actually watched Challenge Of The Superfriends as a first-run program.

Well, that's out of the way.

As to Terror, William Hootkins voiced General Ross. He was the fat, slovenly, Bullock stand-in in Burton's Batman, but given that Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker, Red 5) voiced Grundy, it's a bit of a reunion - Hootkins played Jek Porkins, Red 6.

In my second Niven reference in the last 12 hours, Larry Niven's Warlock series treats magic as a nonrenewable resource. Atlantis was unstable, and held above the waves by magic. One day, they had to use too much magic, and it sank. Looks like the crew had been pulling in references from all over.

The other great Hawkgirl exchange was the one about standard interrogation technique. "I was bad cop." "You're always bad cop." "Why play against type?"

For Society - ooh, sorry, James, I have to disagree again. You said that Batman had been far more highly trained than GL's program. Maybe, but it depends on the goal. I've been highly trained as a pediatrician - doesn't make me qualified as a surgeon. Batman has been trained as an individual, and relies on himself to a certain degree (like 359 of 360). The point of the training was to teach them to rely on each other. I agree that it looked banal, and GL was over the top drill sergeant. Still, the point of the training wasn't to defeat robots, but to work together.

Mike, I think the things you dislike about the end were the things I liked. True, the fight was poorly staged. I liked it though, because if you were really at a superhero fight with a camera, that's probably exactly what it would look like. It's not what we usually see, but I like the fact that they pushed things - I think it gave it a more realistic feel. I see your points about it being harder to follow than what we usually see, but it kind of works for me.

Also, I didn't think the "We say we're sorry and move on." was such as bad ending. Everyone's been rubbed raw, they're tired - saying in essence, we need to work on this, but for now, let's just say sorry and deal with this more once we're less frayed - seems pretty realistic to me. If they had come back to it later that would have been better (but in the real world, lets face it - saying "Yes, this is a problem. We need to talk about this later." and then finding excuses not to deal with it, and trying to pretend it never happened...also pretty realistic.) For both of these, I can understand where you're coming from as the typical way stories are told, but I kind of liked the fact that instead of using standard approaches, they tried something that feels or looks less right on television, but would seem a lot more right in real life.

Oh, and as to Batman shedding a tear while hugging Superman, I believe part of Bruce Wayne's training involved the surgical removal of his tear glands. Pointy Ear Man no cry. (So when do we get Grundy Mike giving the synopsis?)

About Shade's look at Giganta when he finds she's a gorilla - every time I watch this, I change my mind about what that look means. Although personally, I really like Giganta's portrayal - Ms. Hale made her very fun to watch.

Chris

[You Know Who]

people want Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths to be considered part of the DCAU?? In the immortal words of Adham Fisher, FUCK OFF

[Donomark]

people want Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths to be considered part of the DCAU?? In the immortal words of Adham Fisher, FUCK OFF

Why the fuck not? That was a great movie.

[Missy]

The action is great. The story, however, is average at best.

[KnightWing]

I think Crisis on Two Earths works within the DCAU canon. You just have to ignore Hal's presence and J'onn's backstory.

I mean, hey, if you can bend the DCAU over backwards in order to fit Teen Titans into continuity, then why not do it for Crisis on Two Earths? Heck, at least Crisis has several direct story connections to the DCAU (the invisible jet, the new watchtower, and the expanded League). I mean, look at the pros and cons:

Pros:

-The invisible jet's origin

-The new watchtower's construction

-The expansion of the League

Cons:

-Hal's presence (which is really minor)

-J'onn's backstory flashbacks

-the animation & voice cast difference

Hal's presence is very minor (he gets, like, what? three lines?), and the animation style shouldn't matter anyway, considering that the character designs change for each and every DCAU series.

Crisis does a good job of bridging the gap between Justice League and JLU, and I think WFP's JLU analysis would be all the better with a review/analysis of it.

The pros heavily outweigh the cons, in my opinion.

[You Know Who]

I think Crisis on Two Earths works within the DCAU canon. You just have to ignore Hal's presence and J'onn's backstory.

I mean, hey, if you can bend the DCAU over backwards in order to fit Teen Titans into continuity, then why not do it for Crisis on Two Earths? Heck, at least Crisis has several direct story connections to the DCAU (the invisible jet, the new watchtower, and the expanded League). I mean, look at the pros and cons:

Pros:

-The invisible jet's origin

-The new watchtower's construction

-The expansion of the League

Cons:

-Hal's presence (which is really minor)

-J'onn's backstory flashbacks

-the animation & voice cast difference

Hal's presence is very minor (he gets, like, what? three lines?), and the animation style shouldn't matter anyway, considering that the character designs change for each and every DCAU series.

Crisis does a good job of bridging the gap between Justice League and JLU, and I think WFP's JLU analysis would be all the better with a review/analysis of it.

The pros heavily outweigh the cons, in my opinion.

More cons for you:

-Anorexic J'onn

-Barry Allen as the Flash

-Lex Luthor was released from prison in "A Better World" and doesn't get jailed again until "Divided We Fall", but we see our Earth's version of him in jail in the film

-Aquaman's design in the film is radically different from the one he has in both JL and JLU, but similar to the one he had in Superman TAS. If this film is between JL and JLU, how and why did he switch to his old, younger, two-handed design from Superman?

-Similarly, the Watchtower in the film has very little in common with the one in JLU

[Donomark]

The action is great. The story, however, is average at best.

Howzat?

[KnightWing]

-Anorexic J'onn

-Aquaman's design in the film is radically different from the one he has in both JL and JLU, but similar to the one he had in Superman TAS. If this film is between JL and JLU, how and why did he switch to his old, younger, two-handed design from Superman?

-Similarly, the Watchtower in the film has very little in common with the one in JLU

Actual visual designs don't matter much; design styles shift all the time in the DCAU. Maybe Aquaman got a Luke Skywalker-style artificial hand for a short time, but quickly got bored with it. And lest we forget, J'onn is a shapeshifter.

-Barry Allen as the Flash

?

That's definitely Wally.

-Lex Luthor was released from prison in "A Better World" and doesn't get jailed again until "Divided We Fall", but we see our Earth's version of him in jail in the film

Maybe he forgot to pay a LOT of speeding tickets.

Maybe he's crazy, and just hangs out there for fun.

Maybe he got a little jail time for punching a guy who called him "baldy."

There's a lot of little technical details that are different, but the bigger story points match up very well. I'm not saying that it's literally and completely in the same universe, but it's close enough that it's worth watching, if only to get a very general idea of what happened in-between JL and JLU.

[slothian]

people want Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths to be considered part of the DCAU?? In the immortal words of Adham Fisher, FUCK OFF

Yes, Adham truly birthed the phrase "Fuck off".

For me, the voice cast is the key thing that stops me considering it part of DCAU continuity. It may well be good but that's not reason enough to add it to another series of programming. It's a stand-alone DCAU original animated feature, no matter what was intended for the original draft. Consider it the Gotham Knight feature of the Nolanverse Batman films.

[KnightWing]

Consider it the Gotham Knight feature of the Nolanverse Batman films.

That's about right.

I would say that the plot of COTE has a lot more important plot points than Gotham Knight does, but the universe analogy is sound.

[Missy]

The action is great. The story, however, is average at best.

Howzat?

The basic plot we've seen before, which is fine. I have no problem with superhero fiction using the same story elements from time to time. However, something new needs to be added to it to keep me interested. And this movie didn't do that.

[KnightWing]

The basic plot we've seen before, which is fine. I have no problem with superhero fiction using the same story elements from time to time. However, something new needs to be added to it to keep me interested. And this movie didn't do that.

That's true. I wasn't too high on the story, either. I just kinda felt that the fact that it filled in a few gaps, and when coupled with the awesome action and visuals (and James Woods Owlman!), made it very enjoyable, at least.

[You Know Who]

The action is great. The story, however, is average at best.

Howzat?

The basic plot we've seen before, which is fine. I have no problem with superhero fiction using the same story elements from time to time. However, something new needs to be added to it to keep me interested. And this movie didn't do that.

yeah that's my big gripe with it; they already did a great evil-Justice-League-from-alternate-world story in "A Better World" (though we all know you weren't that crazy about that episode).

[Donomark]

The action is great. The story, however, is average at best.

Howzat?

The basic plot we've seen before, which is fine. I have no problem with superhero fiction using the same story elements from time to time. However, something new needs to be added to it to keep me interested. And this movie didn't do that.

I thought Owlman's overarching plan and the fact that the "opposite" Batman and Superman were basicaly a nihilist and a thug put an interesting spin on what is admittedly a fairly typical superhero plot. The movie could've basically ended after Superman and Lex have Ultraman and Jimmy Olsen arrested, but the problems that arose after that and the escalation of Owlman's schemes were fairly inspired.

[Guest]

I was the one that took issue with the Wonder Woman demon toss.

[wolfhawk06]

While watching Secret Society,every time I see the JLA and the Secret Society just lining up to face off, I am the little 10 year boy in the stands saying "Get 'em." Rest of the episode and fight, eh... not so much.