JLUCast: Dark Heart

The entire Justice League responds to an interplanetary threat: a never-ending army of self-replicating nanotech robots, which may soon devour the Earth! But despite their manpower, the League’s greatest hope may be their tiniest member, The Atom!

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Clip credits:

Clips from Justice League Unlimited “Dark Heart”. Theme by Michael McCuistion.

17 responses to “JLUCast: Dark Heart

  1. Enjoyed this episode.
    Update : doby never had days like this .
    Building is up thanks to prime stoping by we got done in record time .
    Thou we where attacked by villain but the knight man and zip zap stoped the so called female bandit with hostess cup cakes .
    Does this seem familiar to any one else .
    ( insert shag shouting a certain some one’s name ). If the comment went up choose witch one you like best if not never mind this part.

    1. I guess honestly I don’t dislike any of them, now. I came to like Gypsy somewhat during the Despero arc in JLI. Vibe was redeemed by Cisco on the CW Flash series, and those DC Nation shorts. Vixen was fine and is great on JLU. And at the time, I liked Commander Steel/Steel best.

      WW does kiss Snapper a lot, doesn’t she? But then again, she also wears an apron and vacuums…

  2. Hello again Franklins! I really enjoy this episode because oddly enough, the opening scene was reminiscent of one of my earlier dates with my wife – we went hiking which included a section of mountain climbing (not too steep to require climbing gear) but she was not a fan and told me later I came close to being dumped. Thankfully she never followed through on the threat and we never encountered an alien nanotech machine looking to consume everything it sees.

    I very much enjoy John C. McGinley as The Atom as well as J.K. Simmons as General Eiling. I think Simmons fit the bill perfectly (shoutout to Andrea Romano!) and was glad to see him have a recurring role in later episodes. I also noticed that the first couple of scenes where we see the mother ship that it was pulsating and to me it resembled a sort of pumping heart (I assumed this was done intentionally in lieu of the episode’s title) but wondered why subsequent scenes did not show it pulsating. Chris, you pointed out some issues with the animation and I found another. At 12:41 into the episode, just after Batman tells Superman to find Wonder Woman, the scene cuts to a group of heroes battling the spiders on the ground, which includes…. Batman? Oops… And speaking of Batman, is it just me or is Batman a little too casual while free falling to the ground? For someone who supposedly doesn’t trust anyone, he seemed to be putting a lot of faith in his teammates to rescue him.

    I remember when I watched this episode for the first time reacting pretty much the same way General Eiling did when J’onn mentions the binary fusion cannon. I agree that J’onn seemed far too casual about it and it is a great plot device to kick the whole Cadmus arc into high gear. But my problem with it is as we see in this episode (and most episodes prior) the Watch Tower now has a whole human staff performing operational roles within it. I’ve got to imagine that some of them were privy to the existence of the binary fusion cannon. If not, there must be some overseeing body governing these human rotations – I’d imagine that this governing body has some sort of liaison with the league. In the pilot episode of Justice League Superman addressed what (I think) he called the World Council. Assuming that is the equivalent of the United Nations, I would expect that there would be a committee to oversee the League’s actions and decisions. If the League truly developed the binary fusion cannon without any governing approval or knowledge, that’s truly dark and totally sets them down the path to become the Justice Lords.

    By the way, Chris you mentioned that you weren’t sure if the Dark Heart was seen again after this episode, but it was used in a later episode. I won’t provide any spoilers for those that haven’t watched the episodes yet but it does make a cameo toward the end of the season. I’ll leave you with one thought – what do you think happened to Billy? We assume the machines devoured him but we don’t specifically see them devour other humans, just inorganic material. so was there a possibility Billy is still alive? It would have been cool to see him rescued at the end but that might have been deemed too trite.

    1. I hope you fared better than poor Billy, but I guess you did!

      I should have mentioned the odd pulsating animation. It seemed a bit odd, and didn’t really repeat, but it does speak to the title.

      Oh, I wish I had caught that extra Batman! That’s a total Super Friends move there! Of course, even big budget blockbusters goof in the same way (Ant-Man and Giant-Man in the same scene in Avengers: Endgame).

      I get your point about Batman not trusting anyone…but that’s why I like it. This Batman DOES trust his teammates to save him. I think he knows at least Superman, Wonder Woman or GL will swoop in and save him.

      I don’t know if we ever get into who the JLU answers to or not, but that World Council sounds like a good as group as any, IF they report to anyone!

      Duh, how could I forget that the nanobot tecnology returns in THAT storyline? I get so caught up in the actual finale of that, I sometimes blur over the other moments.

      Thanks for the great feedback!

  3. Great episode, Franklins! Stream of consciousness commentary follows.

    I love the Batman/Superman moment for the same reasons you did. This show does a better job portraying that relationship than many comics writers do — although Grant Morrison also did a great job in JLA, and so did Mark Millar in JLA #27. That was a fill-in issue of Morrison’s run where Atom is called up to save the day against a threat that is beating ALL the Leaguers. In that case, it was Amazo, but now that I think about it, that’s a comic connection to this episode as well as the previous episode you already covered featuring the Atom and Amazo. Atom pulls an Aquaman move in the comic. I’m sure you talked about it then.

    I don’t always appreciate Mark Millar, but that was one of his that I loved, partly because I like this dynamic (in comics and cartoons) with Ray Palmer coming in to save the day in a way no one else could or would think to.

    I had a boss once who was normally very professional. Occasionally, she would playfully do something provocative and then snap back to the job like nothing happened. We would all act nonchalant about it, because making a big deal.about it would make us the weirdos. Now that I think about it, she reminds me a lot of Wonder Woman.

    Batman’s ejection seat is probably an ACES II. It’s one of the best and most reliable pieces of kit the U.S guv’mint ever bought, but I’m pretty sure that if you use hostile alien nanowarbots to eat through the seat, it will fail, so…verisimilitude.

    1. I’d like to say I remembered that Millar JLA issue….but I don’t, so I didn’t bring it up, either time! I loved that Morrison run, and Millar’s issues were always entertaining there as well! He did seem to favor the Atom more than some of the other side members.

      But did your boss ever discuss boob sweat?

      I’m sure Batman had the best of the best in ejection seats, for sure!

      1. You should totally get JLA #27, Chris. It almost reads like a JLU episode. I read mine so many times it’s as trashed as one of my eighties comics.

        Re: My old boss – She definitely discussed boobs. It was an air base in Florida, so boob sweat probably came up. I’ve lived in a house full of women in Southern locales most of my adult life, so that part would not have been memorable.

        1. Oh, sorry. I misread “don’t remember” as “haven’t read.” Well, I recommend digging it out of the longbox, then!

  4. Chris and Cindy, how are you and your family doing during all this flooding in Kentucky? Anything any of us can do to help? (I know the obvious answers are pray and give to or volunteer with the Red Cross, but maybe, being closer to the problem, you have some ideas I don’t.)

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