JLUCast 4: “Injustice for All”

Chris and Cindy are back, and so is Lex Luthor! The Justice League may have finally brought him in, but he’s not going down without a fight…even if it kills him! Lex forms his own Injustice Gang to destroy the League. And there’s a Joker in this deck!

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Clip credits:

Clips from Justice League, “Injustice For All”.

Theme from Justice League and music by Lolita Ritmanis.

Clip from Challenge of the Super Friends, “Wanted: The Super Friends”

40 responses to “JLUCast 4: “Injustice for All”

  1. Great episode you two. I never really thought about how out of order this was when it was originally shown, but it makes sense.

    RE: Furballs–CINDY!!!! Chris would have gotten such a slap for that comment. Whoever slapped the table at that point, I honestly though poor Chris had a heart attack and fell down dead from you being the one to bring it up. However, don’t think I am discouraging this by any means. I found the exchange hilarious.

    “Typical horny animators having fun.” Wow. That sounds like a potential blog premise if I’ve ever heard one.

    FYI, “Robison” sounds like the “Rob” of Rob Kelly, not like robe, the thing you wear around the house. But it’s a common error, so no biggie. Keep up the good work and hope to hear the next episode soon (thank goodness there’s not another JLMay for a while, right?).

    1. Well, in my defense, I was referring to KISSING Cheetah. Cindy took it to the next level, so who needs to be reprimanded for that? Not me!

      Typical Horny Animators Having Fun coming soon to the Fire and Water Podcast Network. First episode: Jessica Rabbit. Second episode: The Rescuers!

      I just now stopped calling you Clinton RobiNson, and now you want me to change again? Sigh. Fine.

      Seriously, sorry for the mispronunciation. I work with a fella by the name of RobEson, and it got all conflated in my jumbled brain.

      Thanks for listening!

      1. No worries, Chris. Honestly after nearly 4 decades I’m pretty used to the pronunciation problem. Just keep churning out shows and worry about how it is said later.

  2. I have so many thoughts on this episode I need to stop halfway through and post some right now:

    1–Glad the show is back! I was afraid I had become the Ted McGinley/Cousin Oliver of JLUCast.

    2–“Remember Per Degaton?” [pause] “No.” Cindy has made a Nazi out there very unhappy, and for that the world thanks her.

    3–Fun Fact: Ultra Humanite’s favorite movie is SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT.

    4–I would agree with Chris’ assessment of Hamill as the Joker: it really is the best version of the character ever done, in that it incorporates all the best versions of the Clown Prince of Crime without ever going too far in any one direction (except the “cutting-his-own-face-off” version, that take can go straight to Hell)

    More later!

    1. 1. You’re too handsome to be Cousin Oliver. Ted McGinley it is! After all, he WAS Aquaman (kinda).
      2. Anytime we can piss off Nazis, I’m all for it!
      3. The man-ape has good taste!
      4. Yeah, the “Leatherface Joker” was on of the New 52’s worst concepts, and that’s saying something. The Joker’s vanity is his greatest weakness, yet he CUTS OFF HIS FACE?!? Ugh.

      Chris

    2. I finally stopped watching the Gotham TV series, when they cut the Joker’s face off there. The Timm-verse Joker is infinitely better.

  3. One of the changes made to Batman over the years that I never liked was when he started being such a loner that his unwillingness to work with others endangered the mission at hand. To me, Batman would NEVER do that, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. His inability to rise above his personal insecurities makes this modern take on Batman make him look even more damaged than he is already. Feh.

    BTW, Chris, when recalling where you saw Phyllis Diller before, you left out the big one—MAD MONSTER PARTY!!

    Fun show, so glad it’s back, even though Cindy’s salty humor made me blush.

    1. Yeah, I don’t like damaged man-child Batman either.

      YES! I can’t believe Mad Monster Party slipped my mind. But then I didn’t see it until I was around 11 or 12, and I already knew Diller from just being a guest on everything.

      You think Cindy’s salty? Have you listened to oHOTmu or Not? Our show is G-rated by comparison! 😉

      Chris

  4. I’m a sucker for any story in which the Justice League goes up against the Legion of Doom (or Legion of Doom analogue), and this Justice League two-parter is no exception. I recall loving it when I first saw it. I particularly enjoy the way the League sets up Luthor at the start of the first episode. It really highlights how the League, working together, is able to do what Superman, on his own, was never able to accomplish. Great stuff.

    Also, I can’t mention the Legion of Doom without saying how much I’ve been enjoying Scott Snyder’s new run on the Justice League book. He’s brought back the Hall of Justice, the Legion of Doom, and the old Hall of Doom. The current story even reminds me of something I might have read in Grant Morrison’s JLA run, which is another plus for me. Perhaps it’s the nostalgia talking, but I haven’t enjoyed the Justice League book this much since the Throne of Atlantis.

    1. I’m a sucker for the super villain team vs. JL myself. I will have to give the Snyder run a try. It’s the core 7 animated Leaguers, plus Cyborg and Aquaman, right? Sounds like a great book!

      Chris

    1. I can’t see the page (need to join the Superman Homepage FB group), but while I appreciate his eagerness and that he likes the show…it was only 2 months folks! And only one unscheduled month off! I don’t think that counts as podfading in any state, province or country. 😉

      Chris

  5. The receptive villain team episode this one was definitely a fun episode
    Luthor getting the kryptonite poisoning shocked me ad a kid as the whole him getting the news being a parallel to cancer was not expecting that.

    Ultra humanite was one of the highlights of this episode when I first saw him I thought he was gorilla grodd.
    Loved his sophisticated attitude and it was cool having superman’s first villain teams up with Luthor.

    Really interesting choices for the team maybe luthor should have got ones who weren’t in it for the money and had personal grudges against some of the league.

    Stat sapphire after getting into the comics was wondering who this version is.
    Supposedly its Carol Farris but her accent and her skin having a tan tone I figured it was someone original.
    Would have been cool if it was the early version of her.

    Cheetah was interesting in this they seemed to give her some sympathetic qualities.
    As a kid when grundy was asked what his did to her and he said he petted her real hard I thought as kid he did something sexual to her.
    I’m glad she technically served do to a animation goof though I think they could have given her a episode maybe one were she switches sides though I wonder if she would look dr evils cat do to grundy petting her fur off.
    Missed opportunity

    If you two had wrote this episode which villains wouid you have picked for the injustice league.

    Great work cant wait for the next one.
    Sorry for my misspelling I sometimes forget to double check them

    1. Hmmm, which Injustice Leaguers would we have picked? Maybe one more established villain from BTAS or STAS. Weather Wizard, maybe? Just so someone else would have had a grudge against both Superman AND the Flash? It would have thrown the dynamic of Luthor being frustrated by the team’s greed though.

      Too many Supes/Bats villains would have also skewed things too far into their camp. I liked the line-up overall, and we’ll pretty much see EVERYONE (minus most of the Bat-villains after WB installs that horrid embargo against them) in the Secret Society/Legion of Doom!

      Great question!

    2. An excerpt from my Comics2Film article covering the 2001 San Diego Comic Con Justice League panel:

      Bruce Timm:  [Star Sapphire is] from the Green Lantern comics.  One of the interesting things about [the Injustice Gang episode] is that we have eight supervillains, but it’s really Luthor’s story more than anything else.  We didn’t really get the time to go into their origin stories as much as we normally do in the series, so we really don’t explain anything about Star Sapphire.  [In the episode] she’s just this gal who has this special power.  Her actual back story is that she’s Carol Ferris—who was Hal Jordan’s boss—and she had this psychotic breakdown and [developed] this secondary personality.

      Rich Fogel:  She’s the epitome of “the woman scorned.”

      Bruce Timm:  Olivia D’Abo plays her.  We just love her English accent, but she’s never had a chance to use it [D’Abo was the voice of Ten on Batman Beyond]…so we figured that her secondary personality could have an English accent.  It just sounds nice.

      So, I believe this was the Carol Ferris version…

  6. True I’m happy with the lineup we got and yeah we eventually get almost everyone later on just thought it would be a fun question.

    Weather wizard would have worked well couid have had him ask for money with lex saying dosent he just want revenge on flash abd supes with wizard replying he has to keep his wands working and up to date.
    plus he dosent work free annoying lex even more.

  7. Regarding the Cheetah’s original fate, from theToonzone forum summary:

    http://jl.toonzone.net/cheetah/cheetah.htm

    DarkLantern on Cheetah:  “In Justice League continuity, the Cheetah was a scientist that was working on a genetics experiment for the betterment of humankind.  She was about to lose her funding, so she used herself as a test subject to prove [that] her experiment was a success.  And there is a reason [why] she was ‘replaced’ by Tsukuri in ‘Fury’ (courtesy of Toon Zone).”

    DarkLantern on Cheetah’s fate:  “It was implied that Cheetah was killed by Solomon Grundy behind-the-scenes [in ‘Injustice for All’], except she shows up in the police paddy wagon in the next-to-final scene (and surprisingly, the already-jailed Copperhead is there too; courtesy of Toon Zone).”

    Bruce Timm on Cheetah’s fate:  “Funny thing about that—DarkLantern’s right.  It was a mistake—she was supposed to be dead—the implication being that [Solomon] Grundy ‘[pulled] a Lenny’ on her [meaning that he petted her to death; a reference to John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men].

    “Well, my co-producer James Tucker kept saying we should bring her back, [and] I kept saying, ‘No, she’s dead, she has ceased to be, she is an ex-Cheetah,’ and, lo and behold, someone pointed out that she was in the paddy wagon—all in one piece, apparently still breathing—at the end of ‘Injustice for All.’  D’oh!

    “So, James got his wish:  she’ll be back in Justice League Unlimited.  Don’t know how she got away from Grundy, though (courtesy of Toon Zone).”

    1. My understanding is that the script described the “police wagon” scene as something along the lines of: “show the back of an open police wagon with the handcuffed Injustice Gang seated inside, except for Luthor and UltraHumanite, who are being led to the wagon by the SCU” — and a storyboard artist assigned to that scene read it as showing the ENTIRE gang except for Luthor and Humanite, which would explain both the Cheetah AND the already imprisoned Copperhead. And somehow this mistake went unnoticed through the production…

  8. Of course Cindy didn’t remember Per Degaton. Nobody ever does! Now, be a good fellow and wash those test tubes.
    Now for my usual old-man carping. Look , I understand the need to move the story along, and to have a big old fight at the end, but some elements here I just don’t like. 1. Batman. Rob said it very well up above. He’s a planner, not a petulant loner. 2. “You three go into outer space, take out the Martian Manhunter, who in no way mechanically or telepathically will any awareness of your arrival, plant a bomb on the spacecraft, then come back.” 3. When Julie Schwartz was editor, Superman was smart. Smart Superman would use his x-ray vision to look inside the villains’ lair, assess what weapons Lex has secreted on him, and then tell Green Lantern to encase him in a bubble. Smart Superman doesn’t confront him head-on, and give him a chance to activate his weapon.
    Okay, that’s enough.
    “Brought to you by the Ultra-Humanite and viewers like you.” Not so far-fetched. The Koch brothers sponsor a lot of programs.

    1. Nice one on Per Degaton!!!

      Batman being smart and Superman being thick-headed is another example of post-Miller “nerfing” of Superman to make Batman look better. He’s the “smart one” and Superman is the “muscle”, which is BS. DCAU occasionally falls into this just because they need to make Batman work better among these god-like characters.

      chris

  9. You know, the humorous ending of the Ultra Humanite’s donation wouldn’t have been nearly as funny if he’d gone ahead and actually had Cheetah killed. That revelation about the original fate of the Cheetah was dark as furballs.

  10. Thank you for covering the stories in the “correct” order. Watching the original broadcasts was so frustrating. Of course, if I couldn’t handle stories being out of order sometimes, I wouldn’t have started reading comics.

    My main nitpick with this story: Luthor’s “big plan™” is a bomb on the Watchtower. Really. A bomb. To take out Superman. And Martian Manhunter. And Green Lantern. A bomb that all Flash had to do was throw it out an airlock, and it wasn’t even strong enough to singe the tower’s outside. Either the Krpto-cancer was starting to rot Luthor’s brain, or the writers just phoned it in that day.

    Nowadays, Superman with Copperhead makes me think of the hilarious Justice League Action short: Good Cop Bat Cop.

    1. Good point Tim! I hadn’t even thought of how lame “the bomb” idea was. Maybe it had Kryptonite in it?

      I really have to get caught up on Justice League Action. I honestly haven’t watched much of it, since CN doesn’t seem to want to ever air it. I know I can find it on demand, and I really need to do that.

      Chris

  11. When I saw that “Injustice for All” was covered in this episode, I was a little confused, thinking “Didn’t this one come later?” So thanks for addressing that right at the start!

    Anyway, I recently watched this episode with my kids and it was a hit with all involved. The basic premise of the team of villains being assembled to fight the team of heroes is a classic superhero trope for a reason, and that is because it works really, really well. Great character moments abound and plenty of action as well. The ending is one of the best endings of any episode of any DCAU show, bar none. (I put it right up there with Robin’s Reckoning Part 2 and Apokalips… Now! Part 1 personally.)

    I also like that we kinda, sorta get a Hawkman villain here as Copperhead would appear a few times in the early days of Hawkman’s fourth series (the one begun by Geoff Johns and Rags Morales).

    Thanks again for the great show and looking forward to more Justice League down the pipeline!

    1. Thanks Luke! Good call on that ending being one of the best of the DCAU. It certainly is!

      Glad to hear this played well with the kids. Some things are eternal, like groups of super-powered people beating the stuffing out of one another.

      Chris

  12. Another fantastic episode!! Oddly enough, I barely remember these episodes. Sounds like it’s time for a re-watch!!

    And the Furball comment and Cindy’s reaction were hilarious!!

    Looking forward to more episodes!!

  13. Talk about being late to the party. Just started listening to podcasts. JL/JLU was one of my favorite serirs of one of my favorite books back in the day.
    I sincerely believe, and will until the day I die, that I am directly responsible for Len Wein creating the Injustice Gang. I was a prolific writer to the letters columns of comics back then. One of the letters I penned was to JLA about three months before “Balance of Power” came out.
    I was surprised, and pleased, when I read the issue and realised the story followed the suggestion I had made just weeks ago.
    I suggested the JLA needed their own version of the Injustice Society, an Injustice Gang of their own. I also suggested it might be cool if the heroes decided to switch foes. While I don’t remember specifically which villains I chose, I do remember four of my six were used.
    It’s an odd coincidence if Wein came up with the story on his own.
    I was also sent an advanced photostatic copy of Legends #1 to review. That letter appeared in the finished edition.

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