Justice League Unlimited (2004-06)

Justice League Unlimited (2004-06)

39 episodes, approx 22 minutes each, split over 3 seasons.

A continuation of the excellent Justice League (2001-04) animated series, set approximately two years after its end.

As you'll see in the accompanying image, while the core team remain Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc, there are a lot more supporting characters than before. And that's just a sample. There's even more in the series proper, some that are obvious choices and some that certainty aren't.

The extended roster is both a good and bad thing. It's good because with new faces come new challenges, which can open the door to new types of story, that can in turn give rise to internal conflicts and additional depth.

Some examples are the stories involving The Question (Jeffrey Combs) and Huntress (Amy Acker); and the love triangle that revolves around Green Lantern John Stewart (Phil LaMarr), Vixen (Gina Torres), and Hawkgirl (Maria Canals-Barrera).

On the flip side, it's bad in that it sometimes takes the easy option of including a threat that can only be defeated or neutralised by the new hero's specific power, which too often makes stories predictable. Those kind of stories make it feel like the hero was chosen first and the plot built around his/her superpower, as opposed to a situation that forces an individual to recognise their own strength(s) in the face of adversity. Superpower and strength aren't the same thing.

An alternative approach is to have them as background or support characters only, which can make it feel like they were included for the sake of it, or in the hope that increasing numbers can somehow increase drama. I'm sympathetic to the writers because the balance is difficult to get right. Thankfully, things do get better as the series progresses, with successful secondary characters getting subsequent episodes that acknowledge and build upon their previous role.

Many of the supporting heroes / villains were new to me, even though I've been a DC comic reader for most of my life, so I don't know if their TAS versions are entirely faithful to their comic book counterparts, but the ones that I recognised were used respectfully.

JLU differs from its predecessor in other ways, too, most notably in its weekly format, which is its direct opposite: while JL's stories are told as multipart episodes in all but one exception, JLU's are single episodes in all but one exception (the Season 01 finale is a two-parter). A shared continuity is maintained in both, however, so it's important to watch them in order.

Season 01 is a little choppy in places, as if the new format is still finding its feet, but it has some great episodes. The lingering consequences of one character's actions in Justice League's second season are explored, as are themes of nuclear power, teen angst, mutual respect, privilege, personal happiness versus moral duty, politics, war, poverty, and, of course, team work.

Some of Season 2's theme's are more complex or mature, such as jealousy, integrity, midlife crisis, etc, and it asks the question, 'who watches the watchers?' Plus, there's a scene involving torture that's strong for a daytime cartoon. It has more story-arc content, too, and even though episodes aren't presented as multipart, 09, 10, and 11 do follow on from each other.

Even though it could've ended there quite nicely, Season 3 is still a strong one. I'll skip another synopsis and simply mention that I really liked JLU's version of Wally West's Flash (Michael Rosenbaum); he was a 'lovable idiot' that didn't become annoying, and functioned as a wonderful counterpoint to the other main story. And I loved the brief Gamera homage.

Finally, a word on the opening title sequence of all seasons: if you want to avoid seeing who is in each episode before their scripted reveal, it would be wise to skip past the sequence because it often contains clips from the events that follow, which was a really dumb and lazy decision.

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