JLUCast : The Return

“The Return” lives up to its title with the reemergence of a few old friends, and one very determined adversary out for revenge! Amazo demands an audience with Lex Luthor and tears through the League to get to him. Is Lex’s only hope the Tiny Titan, The Atom? Or will Dr. Fate provide the solution? And how will anyone survive when the Green Lantern Corps is seeking justice for the fallen planet of Oa?

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Clip credits:

Clips from Justice League Unlimited “The Return”. Justice League Unlimited theme by Michael McCuistion

21 responses to “JLUCast : The Return

  1. 1. Who else here loves the Atom?
    2 i’ve always figured Ray Palmer is really sloppy with his secret ID He’s the famous professor who’s never around when the famous superhero who stops Ray Palmer’s weekly science gone wrong on THE SAME CAMPUS?
    4. Have you ever thought how powerfull the ATOM would be if he KILLED? Lex thinks he’s smarter than me? COOL I’M Flying up his nose and growing to full size!

  2. Realistically, if Amazo said “Oa was in my way” and I wasn’t terrified of him, I’d call him a gold-faced liar. It’s interstellar space, and even cislunar space is huge and empty. In space, you don’t hit what you’re not aiming at unless you are already incredibly close, throwing huge amounts of matter, or are throwing things for billions of years. Pick a random spot in the observable universe, head directly towards Earth, and you are staggeringly unlikely to get close enough to any planet to even see one with human vision before you enter the Solar System.

    Amazo knew exactly what he was doing by displacing Oa. There’s a Power Ring color for that, and it matches.

    Red Tornado vs Amazo: In the DCAU, Ivo definitely builds better robots than T.O. Morrow.

    Also, I seem to remember another DCAU android concerned with collecting knowledge and finding out how it all ends… by personally ending the sources of that knowledge. I’m sure he’d have something to say about it if he hadn’t been completely, utterly, irrevocably destroyed back in JL/Twilight, part II.

    1. Oh, and they could probably have used some of those Javelins over in Young Justice, where they apparently only have one this season.

    2. Yeah, Amazo’s excuse was kind of flimsy about moving Oa. Maybe he really just wanted the Guardians and the other GLs out of the way, but didn’t want to cop to that?

      I don’t think we’ll ever see even a trace of that other DCAU android you mentioned. Nope. Never. Not going to happen…

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  3. I’ve always thought The Atom had more potential in multimedia–especially animation–than he’s ever been given to show off. An endless stream of subatomic worlds our hero can have adventures in? Perfect for a weekly cartoon series!

    Since Rob M forgot it above, I will do a—>3. I prefer the Atom’s “open head” mask from the SWORD mini than the “closed” one.

    1. I think the Atom had a lot of potential too, but now he’d probably be minsconstrued as an Ant-Man rip-off.

      I always liked that look too. From “Sword of” to “Power of” and even Jurgens’ Teen Titans version with the red vest! But the classic costume is great too. Gil Kane, baby!

  4. I dont like anybody beating Darkside. Not becuase I like the charcter but because I REALLY DONT LIKE the character!
    He’s beaten the entire legion of superheroes
    yet he’s been killed by a Manhuter clone.
    he’s fought Superman to a standstill yet Doomsday knocked him out with one kick.
    HOW POWERFUL IS this guy? Gimmie some dang RULES!

    1. As someone who regularly talks about both Who’s Who and OHOTMU, I kind of disagree. OHOTMU was fun for my nerdy teenage self, but I bet creative teams didn’t respect the exact tonnage etc. listed in its pages. The story comes first, and I doubt anyone was fact-checking super-powers to make sure whoever wasn’t piercing too thick a plate of metal with theirs, or whatever. Who’s Who is more honest.

      Which perhaps doesn’t justify widely varying power from appearance to appearance, but this is the DC Universe. It’s been Rebooted many times and Darkseid has thus had different incarnations. What happens in the comics has no bearing on what happens in a movie or a cartoon show. And even within a concrete timeline, what powers a New God? Can Darkseid have expended himself and be weaker (just never let on)? Can Doomsday get a lucky shot, or does Superman always instinctively pull his punches (also, Doomsday was stronger than Superman, so not sure it doesn’t track)? In the Legion stories (in the future, he can grow in power in 1000 years), he’s mostly using agents, so it has nothing to do with the super-strength fighter element.

      To answer your question: Darkseid is as powerful as the story needs him to be. You can judge the story, but only in the context of what you know of Darkseid and his opponents in the current continuity (pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, post-ZH, etc., DCAU and so on). I get the sense that even if you had rules, you’d still hate the character haha.

  5. This show and these first two seasons are really great for Supergirl fans and this episode has one of the best moments for her ever.

    While everyone else is wondering what to do about the incoming Amazo, Kara … headstrong as usual in the DCAU … just flies up to meet him fist first. Yes, she gets taken out. But I love how she was looking around at everybody standing around. She was probably thinking ‘WTF is everyone doing? Well, if someone has to stop this thing, I will.’ And the determination on her face as she just flies with her fist out is just fantastic.

    You need to walk a fine line with Supergirl. She has to be cognizant of the ‘burden’ of the Red S. But she has to be young, learning. She has to make mistakes. She can be both brash and optimistic. And Timm and the creators of this show just nail it. I love Supergirl here.

    I also love the philosophical ending to this episode as well. You defeat Amazo by making him face his own existential angst and play the waiting game. Kudos to Lex. He even gets in the snide ‘I pity you’ line. Tremendous.

  6. Impressive podcast most impresses. I liked this episode well enough. Though amazo wasn’t my favorite on the show. Then again I was never that big of a fan of the Silver surfer either so there’s that. It was cool seeing Lex as a villain shining. Was interesting seeing him and the atom getting along so well. Y’all are rights that joke should’ve gone to super girl. All they did make the atom kind of sarcastic in these cartoons. The barbershop joke would’ve fit better with super girl. It is interesting to watch the justice league protect Luther. I know they would regardless. Just how much of a pain he’s been to them, they are having to protect him is kind of funny. Yet politicians lie all the time I don’t know why Joe Biden lies and people still voted for him. This is a decent episode. And it does build to how Luther becomes a presidential candidate in the cartoon. Since unlike in the comic books he decided not to become president.

    Though him using the pardon the justice league orchestrated for him as a way to build to that is decent enough. And it is weird that he does end up saving the world twice. This time and when he stops the Darkside on the last episode. Now watching amazo move the guardians to a different galaxy to where it looks like it completely destroy them. Was funny enough. And I can believe John would be ready to fight. And Hawk woman having his number at the end makes sense seeing as how close they are. And I think this was the first time we’ve seen her since she helped the jail a stop Solomon Grundy. Or this happen before that? I can’t remember ever the episodes but I couldn’t tell you the order. They make a decent defenders grouping in this cartoon. It was fun to see what would happen if Marvel had given them an opportunity to make a defenders cartoon. Though the justice league cartoons were great. To the point were still talking a bout them to this day. Though you need at least two of the main people together for it to work. As seen what happened when it was just Bruce Timm . Without Paul Dini. Since the last really good DC cartoon with him was gods and monsters. That is just my opinion and I haven’t seen Batman strange days yet. So I could be wrong. Still in the Batman cartoons Bruce Timm and Paul Dini seem to be the real dynamic duo.

    Though the justice league versus fatal five was not bad. As far as I’m concerned. This show though did have a good build up. And they did get to the point to where you liked the characters and in and in a great finale. And a build up to where they are going without having to to be continue to death. Once again cool podcast. Was glad to hear you to cover this episode At any can’t wait to hear the next podcast.

    1. This is the first time we’ve seen Hawkgirl since she flew off at the end of the Season 2 finale “Starcrossed”. The bit with Grundy comes later this season. We should get to that one in August.

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  7. One of my favorite parts of this episode was how Amazo was defeated – with brains and compassion rather than sheer power. It was a nice departure from the usual slug it out method (although we did get a lot of that upfront). I have to say that I was slightly let down about OA’s fate and how easily it was returned – not that I wanted to see the Corps and Guardians all wiped out , but it just felt like a cop-out to me. And Amazo was pretty reckless to move a planet simply because it was in his way – doesn’t he care about the potential gravitational impacts moving an entire planet would have on a cosmic scale!? Let’s hope OA didn’t have any moons that went spiraling away…

    The massive fleet of Javelins is easy to explain; another line item in the Wayne Aerospace budget! I mean c’mon, if Bruce can sneak the whole Watchtower construction past the board of directors, whose to say he can’t sneak past a whole fleet of Javelins too. 😀 Seriously though, with all of the human workers and technicians on the Watchtower now, I took it as the workers are selected from various countries to provide assistance to the league and these countries also provide funding to the league as sort of a world security team.

    Also, when the Atom makes to comment to Lex about being a nanotech expert, I assumed it was public knowledge that his suit was made of nanotech which gave him his abilities. But I also considered that it seems that his identity is public knowledge in the DCAU since Vandal Savage did know it already in Here After and (as we see later) he’s in full uniform in his lab in Boston working with his assistant. Lex does address him as The Atom and not Ray Palmer, so I’m not sold either way.

    I did enjoy the dialog that Ray and Lex have between them – I agree with you that they seem to have admiration for each others’ intellects. And I agree with you, to be a fly on the wall when Superman and The Atom have a chat about Lex. I’m sure Ray picked up some… colorful Krytonese. 🙂

    1. To be fair, removing a planet does basically nothing on the cosmic scale, gravity-wise. Orbits aren’t knife-edge balances of speed and distance; if they were, there’d be no long-term stable orbits at all.

      If Jupiter suddenly vanished, the Jovian moons would definitely be affected (some might wind up moving fast enough relative to the Sun that they’d escape the Solar system, others might wind up in very elliptical orbits, but with extremely low chances of collisions), but the rest of the planets would stay in pretty much the same orbits they’re in, NASA and Astrophysicists might have some issues because now they have to rework their ephemerides, and anything counting on Jupiter for a gravity assist is a Failed Mission now, but other than the direct results of SOMETHING MADE A PLANET DISAPPEAR on human society, Earthlife goes on as usual. For anything outside the Solar System, it’s lost in the noise.

      Long-term, the Kirkwood gaps in the Asteroid belt would close up, the Jovian Trojans and the Hilda Asteroids would drift out of their resonances, but they ‘d all still pretty much stay at the same distances from the Sun.

      If OA did have moons that were cut loose, Well, it’s the Guardians, supported by the Green Lantern Corps. They can go get them and bring them back, if they still want them. There hasn’t been enough time for those moons to go far.

    2. If an Oan moon DID break away, I could see a cool Green Lantern Corps/Space: 1999 mash-up series (ahem) spinning out of that!

      I like the idea of the Watchtower staff being comprised of citizens from different countries who help supplement the funding of the League. Kind of like a super powered Epcot Center!

  8. This episode feels like part of a plot arc to show us Lex Luthor evolving as a person. We started it back in Injustice for All, and have been walking with Lex as he gradually becomes more of the super-villain – but never whole hog into “I wear green armour and contemplate world wide mind control beams”. This is giving us both, and taking time to develop a villain that is as integral to the series as some of our heroes, especially in consideration of what’s coming up.

    I think Amazo here is not only a good continuation of his plot from his introduction, but also a deliberate mirror for Lex Luthor. Amazo gives us a chance to see Lex’s humanity, his defiance, even his genius. It’s why I also think the Atom was a good choice here, because (as one of the Franklins pointed out) he is most like Lex in terms of his intellect.

    No secret here, Lex Luthor as voiced by Clancy Brown is hands down my favourite Lex of all time – and this is said with respect to living Rosenbaum’s Lex in Smallville, and Kevin Spacey in Superman Returns. This Lex feels like they took the excellent Luthor we were given by Byrne and incorporates a decade or two of good comic history into a cohesive whole.

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