Plot summary: Orm seizes Atlantis from his brother, has the Justice League put to death, and triggers an extinction event for humanity.

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: 7 (S1.E7)

Original Air Date: December 10^th, 2001

Directed: Dan Riba (4)

Written: Kevin Hopps (2)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD (7)

Music: Michael McCuistion (3)

Bruce Timm was somewhat cautious about Aquaman’s hook hand, feeling the reason for the injury in the comics was dumb, given it was caused by piranha, which he should be able to control. Plus the gore factor. This led to them making the baby blanket red so that when he wrapped his arm in it there would be no visible blood.

It’s deeply unclear why J’onn could traverse the ocean without extra equipment at the beginning of the episode, but does appear to be susceptible to drowning when they’re taken hostage.

One might think this episode would provide a pathway to Arthur joining the team, given he is a consistent member of the Justice League in comics. Timm always favoured replacing him with a second female member, excluding him from all their pre-planning for the series.

Recap

Lord Orm has Aquaman imprisoned, and then reveals to Mera that he has taken their son hostage to ensure her full cooperation.

The Justice League arrive, seeking an audience with Arthur, but they’re once again shot at on sight, leading to yet another underwater skirmish, and yet another Atlantean victory.

Orm imprisons the team (with power-dampeners preventing their escape) and sentences them to death by drowning, but Mera frees them and implores them to rescue her husband.

Talk of the devil, Arthur is chained over an abyss, next to his son, and then Orm triggers… I guess you’d call it a landslide? They hurtle towards a lava stream as Arthur struggles to free himself.

Arthur later staggers back to Mera, having cut off his own hand to rescue the boy! He confirms Orm is likely using a thermal weapon he had built as a last resort against the surface.

Armed with a sick new harpoon/hook hand, Arthur heads to the North Pole to confront his brother, with the League tagging along, much to his chagrin.

Arthur and Orm duel to the latter’s ostensible death, while Batman proves he is equal parts genius and madman as he daringly disarms the doomsday device.

In the aftermath Aquaman imprisons those that helped Orm, apologises to the League, and seemingly hints at being willing to do whatever it takes to make things right with the surface world.

Best Performance

Richard Green mostly sank into the background last time, sounding enough like Scott Rummell to believably play brothers, but not having much dialogue to do anything with. His role is far larger here, and I thiiiink I’d just about give him the edge this time. A lot of it is somewhat generic scheming shithead stuff, but he does it decently. I really enjoyed the delivery of “I’m off to avenge your deaths” when Orm is the one orchestrating said deaths. It’s said so matter-of-factly. Great stuff. His lies and threats to Mera are solid, and he and Rummell play off each other nicely in their final confrontation.

Rummell is still good, don’t get me wrong. It’s just a very small step down while Green elevated his game. Nobody else was remotely worth talking about, with all the regulars having a lot less to say.

Episode Ranking

I said last time that if Part II were as strong as Part I then I’d move them into first place. Unfortunately this is a far more paint by numbers affair for the most part, with the couple of bright spots not enough to make up for the boring stuff.

In the first 10 minutes of runtime there’s a recap of Part I, Orm twice reveals he’s kidnapped Arthur & Mera’s son and the Justice League are captured and then quite quickly freed. This is totally night and day compared to the more economical Part I.

I suppose this would be fine if the less ambitious material were executed well, but the Justice League vs Atlantis fight at the start is just an inferior version of the one they did last time. Given the DCAU is generally pretty great at clever little moments in fights and action sequences, I have to criticise how dumb it is that Superman grabs a pair of soldiers off their vehicles and then just… lets them float in the water a bit, apparently taken out of the action. J’onn does something similar when he drops a dude into the water later. In what way would that be debilitating for them? Isn’t that the equivalent of delicately placing a human onto their feet? Messy! The threat of death by drowning is solid in theory, but it’s over as quickly as it starts. I wish they had cut away to some more drama in the middle, but it’s all perfunctory.

Aquaman offers all the meat in the episode. First by desperately trying to free himself and rescue his son as the pair tumble towards some lava. It’s surprisingly well done given how silly it is to describe, and they animate his struggle very well, accompanied by an appropriate level of groaning and grunting. Of course the headline is ‘Aquaman cut off his own fucking hand to rescue his son’, with the hook hand bringing him fully into line with his 90s comic design, and that is indeed metal as hell. He follows that by being the only worthwhile part of the closing stretch. They make good use of verticality and the environment for his battle with Orm, and his decision to just reclaim his trident and leave his brother to fall to his death is iiiiice fucking cold. Cool character! Wish he appeared more!

The polar assault mission is perfectly fine, neither elevating nor lowering the ranking. It’s pretty sick when Arthur compels an orca to help him… but then John ruins it a little with a bad zinger. Speaking of which, where we had fun and interesting personality clashes last time, John doing the “I told you so” thing in the face of total global meltdown just made me roll my eyes. He and Batman helping shut down the device is whatever.

So yeah. If you’re boiling the events of the series down to highlights, there’s a lot to love from this two-parter, but it’s just too lopsided to take the top spot. A strong second place though and I’d say it’s much better than the opener.

1. In Blackest Night
2. The Enemy Below (–)
3. Secret Origins

Rogues Roundup

Orm (Richard Green) (second appearance)

The team decided ‘Ocean Master’ was too goofy a name to speak aloud, but is Lord Orm really that much better?

They dropped the whole brothers thing very casually late into Part I, which they try to make up for with some vague talk of Orm living in Arthur’s shadow. They do their best to speed-run the dynamic and what it all means so that by the end Arthur leaving Orm to die lands pretty well.

Obviously all the warmongering and betrayal are bad enough, but Orm goes full tilt on the villainous personality here. Firstly he’s overly touchy with Mera (and was in Part I), making no bones about the fact he wishes to take her as his own queen. To this end he lies to her that Arthur is dead, even though she only missed seeing that’s not true by seconds. THEN he fucking kidnaps their child and first uses it to force her to co-operate, and then later leaves it for dead. Just so you really know this guy sucks.

If this were his only appearance I’d consider putting him above Deadshot, but I have to reward the solid simplicity of Floyd’s brief outing and punish Orm’s more limited role in the first half.

1. The Imperium
2. Deadshot
3. Orm (↑)
4. The Manhunters
5. Kanjar-Ro