Justice League: Doom (2012)

Justice League: Doom (2012)

Dir. Lauren Montgomery

Batman is a notable and valued part of the Justice League collective, but he's never really been what one would call a 'team player'. He'd much rather be alone, doing things his way, accountable to no one but his his own (troubled) conscience.

But it's while alone that each member is most vulnerable. Ergo, if a megalomaniac with strategic knowledge and the proper resources was to target each of the individuals while they were divided…

JL: Doom is an exciting animation that's loosely based on author Mark Waid's four-issue Tower of Babel story that ran in the JLA comics in 2000.

The pacing is excellent, the action is plentiful, and there's a decent level of subtext in play. It's so well assembled that you might not even notice until afterwards that the villains are mostly blank slates who exist to facilitate the main antagonist, himself a character who gets some back-story but doesn't actually do very much. A more devastating threat comes from a less obvious place, and isn't as straightforward as it might sound.

On the 'heroes' side of things, their reactions are true to their usual personality types, but prior knowledge of each one is required to spot certain subtleties in the script. If you don't have it, you might not feel the full weight of the story. You won't need the same for the villains.

If you accept a lessened level of individual motivations in certain camps and have the prerequisite knowledge that I mentioned with regards the heroes, then you're all set to enjoy JL: Doom on its own merits. Personally, I consider it an excellent League movie. It has dramatic physical and psychological torments targeted strategically toward each of the protagonists, and explores a facet of Batman that I enjoy seeing brought to light: questioning whether or not his paranoia is damaging to him or if it's one of the things that he needs to stay ahead of the game.