Cindy and Chris are joined by Special Guest Host Noah Tarnow from the I Don’t Get It podcast to cover “Grudge Match”! Roulette has reopened Metabrawl, and is pitting brainwashed female Justice Leaguers against one another! Can Huntress free Black Canary’s mind? Will they survive their battle with Hawkgirl and Vixen? And who can possibly stand up to Wonder Woman?!?
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Clip credits:
Clips from Justice League Unlimited “Grudge Match”, music by Lolita Ritmanis, and theme by Kristopher Carter.
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Great show and great commentary, as always, Uncle Chris, Auntie Cindy, and Uncle Noah.
Bito Wladon is Sonar’s real name. Besides being a brilliant sound engineer and inventor, he is also the sovereign leader of Modora, a tiny European country nestled in the Balkans. How tiny? Well, Green Lantern Hal Jordan once said that Modora is “only a block long”, but he may had been exaggerating…
I did make the “watch JLU for the plot meme” comment mostly to get a laugh (and it did), but I do appreciate you all addressing the “elephant in the room” regarding the fanservice of female fighting matches. Anime versions can get very gratuitous, and I agree that this JLU episode handled it in a very not-so-salacious manner…
And yes, the plot was very Super Friends now that you’ve brought up just how far they could have taken this application of sonic technology. Does this mean we “watch Super Friends for the plot” now…?
My dad also had the Bruce Timm “Naughty and Nice” art books, and he had also received from a contact at WB Animation a collection of photocopies of Timm drawings that are “too naughty” for those artbooks, which my mom actually found to be hilarious… or maybe she found my dad’s reaction to seeing them hilarious. I haven’t seen them myself, but my mom once told me there was one drawing that explained Harley Quinn’s comment about the whoopie cushion in “Mad Love” and oh God Mom stop right there I don’t want to know…
Thanks for the clarification on Sonar/Bito! I should have really looked at Sonar’s Who’s Who entry or at least did a search on him. But can you tell none of us were big Sonar fans? My bad for the lack of due dligence on that.
I think we do watch SF for the plot! “Challenge” always seemed very much like a Gardner Fox JLA comic to me. Those were always heavy on plot, but any relation to actual real-world physics may be tenuous at best!
I can only imagine what some of the “too naughty” Timm images were like. There’s a few images in the “Naughty and Nice” book that kind LOOK like some of the DC and Marvel characters, but it’s not overly explicit. Well, that part isn’t!
That’s tiny. I suspect Sonor was stealing so he could afford to have Modora carpeted.
Another good episode. And great questions. How did Roulette manage to promote the fight? In the Teen Titans comic Dr. Light actually advertised for henchmen in an underworld newspaper. That was the origin of the Fatal Five. Both Marvel and DC had bars where supervillains would hangout. If you want to follow that logic, it wouldn’t be unusual to have paid ads promoting “Supermatch” or whatever they ended up calling it.
Ah yes, the Superfriends. I still remember one episode where the narrater described an alien spaceship as being here for “an unknown, yet evil purpose”.
Yeah, we saw the Flash Rogues bar in “Flash and Substance”. Maybe Sonar posted flyers there?
If I call my cable provider, what package do I ask for to get the Roulette channel?
I would ask for “Chickapalooza”.
hawkwoman and VIXin did’nt KILL Black Canary and Huntress? It cant be that sexy I dont remember this at all
Well, Black Canary is one of the best fighters in the DCU. Huntress just thinks she is.
It wasn’t overly sexy, compared to other episodes, despite it’s subject matter.
Just remembered you were asking about the Question’s identity. She is still Renee Montoya in All Along The Watchtower, but now the original Question just showed up with no explanation as to why he’s no longer dead. Unless that happened in another book. Renee is afraid he wants the name back because she feels she may have disgraced it.
Thanks for the update! I thought it was Montoya, but other than JLU, I haven’t been actively buying many DC comics set in the “present” at the moment.
Sorry I haven’t been commenting on the last few episodes, it’s just it occurred to me that there are, apparently, episodes of JLU I never saw! I always assumed I had seen them all, but your coverage of the last few tells me I must have missed them.
But I remember this one, and Noah as guest to boot! I know you guys were mostly joking about Flash and Question spin off shows, but thee really isn’t a reason why Max (HBO, not Romero) doesn’t have a “DC Animation Presents” series on RIGHT NOW, with rotating characters in either solo adventures or team-ups. With Gunn and co. trying so mightily to rebrand the DCCU, this would be a great step in that direction–after Metamorpho guests in SUPERMAN, give him an episode to himself via animation! But I guess doing sensible things is beyond Mr. Zaslav.
Fun talk, and I hope Noah does swing by KY sometime, We had dinner with him in San Fran while on our honeymoon (me and Kelley, not me and Noah) and it was a blast.
We forgive you for not commenting, not that we need to! And you have new-to-you JLU to watch! I envy you.
A “Legends of the DCU” type animated show on MAX would be fantastic. But it makes far too much sense. WB is selling off Looney Tunes movies to little studios named after condiments! A live-action Scooby-Doo series is going to Netflix, NOT Max. They also sold off Batman: Caped Crusader to Prime! Gunn and Safran are doing their best with DC Studios, but the rest of WB is in freefall, in my opinion.
Love this episode of the show and love this podcast discussing it.
Yes, there is some understated but present fan-service and double entendres here. How did ‘I’m going to take her from behind!’ not get dissected by the hosts for the ‘wink wink’ nature of it !?! Definitely the best line in the show. (Wait … is Shag possessing me to write this like Deadman???’
As for the ‘why didn’t they use this tech for bigger plots’, you have to remember this is Sonar’s tech, not the Society’s. I think Sonar is basically a sleaze. He doesn’t want to use this tech for big plots. He wants to use it so he can see beautiful women in some state of undress fight each other. It isn’t even about the money. It’s about the spectacle and his kink.
I am a huge Huntress fan, especially the Bertinelli Huntress. I think she has some begrudging respect for Canary and actually thinks of Dinah as a role model (even if Helena can’t admit it to her). She wants to ‘fight’ her because she wants to prove herself to Canary. So I love this issue. Huntress follows Canary because she cares, even if she tries to deny it.
Great episode. Definitely in the top three of this season.
If you are suddenly obssesed with taking photos of your feet, you may have been possessed by Shag. Seek medical help immediately. Physician, heal thyself!
Good point on Sonar and his leecherousness, but this was Lex’s idea. But maybe DCU Lex briefly fell into Silver/Bronze-Age Lex’s mindset. You know how Mark Waid always likes to mention he’ll build a $10 Million robot to rob $10,000 out of a bank?
I can buy that Huntress theory.
But what’s your favorite? We’ll be sure to ask you…soon! (SPOILERS)
you CANT worry about the cost of super gadets! If Luthor were REALLY smart stories would be boring. He’d just build a machine that MAKES MONEY. “fight Superman? Why? I bought wig and new Golf Clubs!
This episode is a winner. I guess I don’t overthink the “scantily clad women fighting” part because, isn’t that in most episodes? It’s not like the heroes were forced to change into other clothes, they’re wearing their regular costumes that the fight villains in all the time, sometimes women villains. Yes, the difference is this is being marketed for entertainment to a crowd, and is that a reflection of us as viewers of the cartoon, or readers of the comics, and trying to make us question the standards in superhero stories? Or is it WWE, and … same question? I mean, I never watched WWE, but I still know the name Ronda Rousey. Ok, enough, moving on.
With 2 mainstays of the Birds of Prey in the episode, it made me kinda want a true BoP story, instead of continuing to keeping up this feud between Huntress and Canary. By this point, Vixen, Gypsy, and Barda had been guest stars, so it would have worked.
For Helena’s fancy dress, I’m no expert, but I know I’ve seen a commercial of a woman contemplating a slinky black dress, and it definitely could have fit into a change purse, with its very thin material and only 3 feet long. Cindy’s math checks out.
The Wonder Woman entrance. I expect it, I know exactly when it happens, and on this rewatch I STILL said out loud “UH-OH!” Something about the platform raising her up fairly quickly, and seeing Diana’s costume from the back clearly with fists ready, makes this a huge moment. It gets me every time.
We don’t know how long Glamour Slam was running, so Canary’s “undisputed champion” title might only be 2 or 3 fights in, chalked up to Roulette’s showmanship. (or show-woman-ship?) Other fighters could have been Ice, Dr Light, Zatanna, and Gypsy, and while they’re tough, Canary’s cry is a great equalizer for the powerhouses.
I think this is the only episode focusing on Black Canary that does *not* have Green Arrow, which is overdue and a shame that it’s her last starring episode. This leads into one of my recent realizations after completing a read-through of Birds of Prey Volume 1 last year. I grew up only seeing Canary as half of “Green Arrow and…”, with no understanding that she was a solo hero long before then. Even her stint in JLI was an outlier because she stayed only one year before moving exclusively to the Mike Grell GA series. And I’ve come to realize that this relationship had relegated this awesome hero to “girlfriend” status in my head canon, which is a crime! But I can’t think I’m alone, as a whole generation of readers would have only seen Canary in JLA and other series playing backup to GA. He was the headliner, she was “his girlfriend”. Nowadays when I read those stories, I can see more agency in Canary, but it’s retroactive interpretation on my part. Now, the Canary/Arrow relationship is one of the great romances in the DCU, and I’m not arguing against it. But I feel like Canary wasn’t given her due for a *long* time and lived in GA’s shadow, so I’m grateful that readers from the 90s-on have seen her as the awesome hero and fighter she is. (Thanking the 90s. Go figure.)
Thanks for putting up with my meandering, and for a great episode!
It would have been interesting to see Barbara Gordon become Oracle on JLU and particpate in a “BoP” episode, but I doubt the Bat-embargo would have allowed it once we got into the “Unlimited” seasons. Batgirl was brought into “The Batman” animated series in Season 2, I think, before Robin even.
I guess I’ve read enough BoP over the years to kind of cleanse my mind of thinking of Dinah as “Ollie’s girlfriend”, but you’re right, DC seemed to default to that quite often back in the Bronze Age. Which is a shame. They still had Dinah give Ollie a lot of guff back then at least, thankfully.
We got Dinah this time, and Ollie next, their last real chances to shine on JLU!
Great ep about a great ep, natch. I think you nailed the explanation for why they didn’t do more with the tech. The mind-controlled heroes were only capable of taking rudimentary commands. “Be angry!” “Fight her!” And any bigger plots would have drawn attention and gotten them busted.
Looking forward to the return of Hawkman!