Plot summary: The Imperium’s leadership reveals itself, forcing The Justice League to finally come together as an official team.

For background on the creation of Justice League and info about how I’ll be covering it, check out the Series Primer.

1. Notes and Trivia
2. Recap
3. Best Performance
4. Episode Ranking
5. Rogues Roundup

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 3 (S1.E3)

Original Air Date: November 17^th, 2001

Directed: Dan Riba (2)

Written: Rich Fogel (3)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD (3)

Music: Kristopher Carter (1)

I mentioned last episode how the Imperium are stand-ins for the White Martians. Of note, Grant Morrison’s JLA run was a big influence on the show and featured White Martians in the opening arc. The similarities even include Batman being the only member of the team to not be captured and then rescuing the others from their powerful adversaries despite having no powers, just as happens in this episode.

Senator Carter calls the captured Justice League members ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’. Bruce Timm has been pretty open about the fact he was historically more of a Marvel guy and that he looked to The Avengers for how to do a superhero ensemble.

Flash also sarcastically suggests the name Super Friends, a playful jab at the show of the same name that the creative team wanted to distance themselves from as much as possible.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer made reference to the events of this opening three parter in the episode ‘Showdown’.

Recap

Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter regroup to share the news about Batman’s death and to plan a rescue for Superman and Hawgirl.

Sneaking inside the plant, things start off well but they quickly fall into a trap and are all gassed unconscious, raising the hostage count to six.

Senator Carter (the astronaut from Episode 1) reveals himself as an alien imposter, having spent years subtly weakening earth’s defences, including manipulating Superman into helping.

One of the Imperium leaders arrives from a giant spaceship and has J’onn tortured back into his normal appearance. He vows to finally assimilate the last Martian.

But turns out Batman is still alive and J’onn has been telepathically concealing him from the Imperium! (J’onn has frequently appeared distracted in the episode up to now.)

Bruce does some sci-fi bullshit with the crystal from last episode which reverses the functionality of the plant, restoring sunlight over Metropolis, which melts a bunch of the aliens.

With the team freed they begin kicking alien ass, exposing more of them to sunlight, and rescuing hostages before the plant explodes. They work together to fend off the remaining aliens from around the world.

In the aftermath Batman commissions The Watchtower, a space station headquarters for The Justice League, and while the rest are enthusiastic, Bruce insists he’s only a part-time member.

Best Performance

See previous episode really. I would say Susan Eisenberg and Phil LaMarr are much more relaxed and natural in their roles, but still not to the degree they’re in any danger of winning this category. Carl Lumbly is solid but I think a little less so than before as J’onn spends most of the episode distracted with Batman’s plan or getting tortured. He gets a touching scene at the end, but I don’t think I want to give it to him either. Kevin Conroy is fun as always but doesn’t have many lines.

You know who is great? Kevin Michael Richardson. He’s been doing fun minor characters in the DCAU for ages now, but here they let him take on the role of The Imperium leader, and I loved his choice to go higher-pitched and floaty with it. Richardson is known for his incredibly deep rumble, so it was nice to hear some of his range, and he made that weird giant tentacled-bacteria monster stand out despite not having a great deal of screen time.

Episode Ranking

Ehh. More fun than Episode 2, but in my opinion fails to make good on the promise of Episode 1. As a collective – which is of course how they’re ranked – I agree you have a lot of good elements here for the formation of the team, and it’s nice to see them start working together after their previous failure, but I don’t think there’s enough oomph to this third part. My assessment of the trilogy would be: Good, Bad and Mediocre.

When I say there’s not enough oomph, what I mean is they don’t go far enough with the realisation they need to work together instead of bickering. They don’t verbalise the idea that they’ll have better luck as a quartet at the start of the episode than they did in separate teams before, but they just inherently perform a little better until they’re captured. Then the reveal of Batman and J’onn’s deception is intended to be this galvanising event that rallies the troops and gives everyone the confidence boost to overcome the aliens that previously kind of whipped their asses. It’s a fun little action sequence where everybody gets their licks in, even Superman, who gets to be invincible again. But there’s a limit to my praise for this scene. It’s relatively short and there aren’t any big moments that I’ll remember long-term. It feels very paint by numbers.

That would be fine if not for the fact it’s intended to be the high point of the episode, and the rest is relatively generic. Flash is able to take out one of the tripod walkers by himself when he couldn’t previously. J’onn shows off some of his terrifying power as he phases his hands THROUGH two guards and like… I dunno, rematerialises inside them to fuck with their internal organs. They rescue like… 8 hostages? Which feels like way fewer than The Imperium should have captive, even if it’s just one of several plants around the globe. And then they beat the rest of the invasion via a news montage narrated by Snapper Carr. It’s just a little bit rushed and lacking in a compelling emotional through-line. I think I needed them to bicker more while they were imprisoned and then come to an understanding that facilitates working together more. I want to feel the joy of them synergising their abilities and realising in real-time that they make a great team.

I did enjoy the leader creature taking J’onn’s continued survival personally and torturing him in gross, borderline upsetting ways, and the reveal of the aliens’ hierarchy, but it doesn’t really build beyond cool imagery. J’onn drags the monster into sunlight and it starts melting, but then electrocutes its way free and tries to flee in a ship, but gets brought down. That may sound kind of exciting, but in execution it’s all a bit ‘and then, and then, and then.’

I know Justice League is a great show when it’s firing on all cylinders. But I just don’t think this is the banger opening people claim. The pacing is all wrong, with them trying to do just a little too much in Episode 1 (despite excellent eerie vibes), not doing enough in Episode 2, which then results in this final part feeling rushed. If they’d padded out the debuts of characters more, provided some more exposition to their various backstories and gimmicks, and threaded the needle on the team finally coming together I would have a lot more complimentary things to say about the story. I love The Imperium; They were a perfect first adversary to justify the formation of The League. I just think they could have done even more than they did. But hey, they’re finding their feet, I suppose.

1. Secret Origins (–)

Rogues Roundup

The Imperium (Gary Cole/George Newbern/Kevin Michael Richardson) (third appearance)

So I guess technically The Imperium are the giant bacteria looking creatures and the other aliens are just… I dunno, unidentified aliens that serve them? Whatever, I’m calling the whole group the Imperium.

I like the design of the leader creature and the reveal that they look down on the bulk of the army, calling ‘Senator Carter’ a worm and leaving him to die. Also his torture of J’onn, first forcing him back into his original shape via electrocution, and then shoving tentacles inside him that you can see bulging underneath his skin was fucking gross in a good way. I could have gone for a little bit more of this creature to be honest, especially a better resolution.

In the end I can’t really fault the Imperium. They delivered multiple designs that share some common visual DNA while maintaining distinct flavours. They’re very throwback sci-fi, with J’onn’s telepathic flashes in Episode 1 driving that even further. And boy do they die good! Seeing them all melt in the sun, and the leader bubble and blister as it tries to cling to life was suitably grizzly.

There’s also the reveal ‘Senator Carter’ had spent two years undermining planetary security, including convincing Superman to disarm all the nukes as part of his redemption tour. That’s a cute idea. Again, I could have done with even more of this. Let him talk! You got Gary Cole! Let him be an omnipresent sleazy senator you get bad vibes from before the reveal!

1. The Imperium (–)