Plot summary: Receiving a terminal diagnosis of Kryptonite Poisoning, Lex Luthor seeks revenge against Superman by forming his own group of villains, The Injustice Gang.
For background on the creation of Justice League and info about how I’ll be covering it, check out the Series Primer.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 8 (S1.E8)
Original Air Date: September 6th, 2002
Directed: Butch Lukic (5)
Written: Stan Berkowitz (3)
Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD (8)
Music: Lolita Ritmanis (2)
This episode aired after ‘Fury‘, creating a continuity error as The Injustice Gang were already operating together in those episodes, as well as a few other little references in other episodes that demand this happened first. Per the primer, I’m going by the production order.
Remember how in ‘World’s Finest‘ all the previous owners of the Laughing Dragon Kryptonite statue fell ill and died? Well, surprise!
Ultra-Humanite was actually Superman’s nemesis until Lex Luthor’s creation.
Luthor’s new look is patterned after his design from Super Friends. For a show that the creative team desperately wanted not to emulate, they sure do pull from it a bunch.
Batman pocketing Luthor’s chunk of Kryptonite at the start becomes important in the later episode ‘Tabula Rasa’.
Recap
Lex Luthor seemingly has Superman dead to rights thanks to a chunk of Kryptonite… only it turns out it’s Martian Manhunter in disguise, and the whole thing was a sting by the Justice League.
The bald billionaire makes a run for it in a fancy gunship with the real Superman in hot pursuit, until Lex suddenly suffers a seizure and has to be rescued by his nemesis.
Turns out years of exposure to Kryptonite has given Lex a terminal case of blood poisoning. He naturally refuses to accept this fate and organises a jailbreak with The Ultra-Humanite.
Deciding a two-person team-up wouldn’t do, they form The Injustice Gang, sending invites to Cheetah, Copperhead, Solomon Grundy, The Shade and Star Sapphire.
The villain supergroup get straight to work with a hostage situation that ends up being a trap for the Justice League, sparking a massive brawl between the two teams.
The heroes get the edge, so Luthor orders a strategic retreat. Copperhead is left behind, but he also managed to poison Batman. Swings and roundabouts, I guess!
Lex is furious with the group for their failures, but The Joker strolls into their headquarters and offers his services, revealing a tracer planted on Lex by Batman during the skirmish.
Using this to their advantage, their lure a defiant Batman (disobeying Superman’s orders to rest) into their hideout and capture him.
To Be Continued…
Best Performance
I’ve missed you, Clancy Brown. It’s classic Lex straight away as he moves from gloating over a victory that never was, to trying to worm his way out of a prison sentence, to lashing out at Superman for his ‘part’ in the diagnosis, and then trying to throw money at his problem to make it go away. Every one of these was delivered perfectly. He stays on top form throughout, going from a suave sales pitch to his new cadre of freaks to chastising them for their failures in a short stretch. He’s just so damn good, man.
There was a wealth of fun voice work from the others villains, including Ian Buchanan as the hoity-toity Ultra-Humanite, Sheryl Lee Ralph’s sassy take on Cheetah, and DCAU fave Olivia d’Abo as the conniving Star Saphire, but none of them can compete with Brown. Not even Mark Hamill in a fun dual-role as The Joker and Solomon Grundy. The former is very much him on autopilot after almost a decade playing the character and only arriving right before the end, while the latter was a great demonstration of his range, but with limited lines. The difference is Brown was given better dramatic material to play with, so he wins on the acting standpoint even if Hamill’s technical ability is superior.
Episode Ranking
This felt like a step up in terms of scale, despite the first 7 episodes depicting an alien invasion, a cosmic court case and an underwater civil war. Opening the episode with a big aerial chase sequence and then the dramatic news of Lex’s diagnosis was about as strong as you could start, but the real juice was assembling a villain super-group for a giant brawl with the full Justice League. That’s probably exactly what fans were hoping for when the show was announced and in that regard I’d call it a pretty major success. DC is in some ways an extremely top-heavy company, but also has a tremendous amount of villain depth and just as an ensemble show allows the writers to use heroes that wouldn’t have gotten their own series, we got to see multiple slightly niche villains in action. You obviously could do episodes with Copperhead and The Shade as feature foes, but The Injustice Gang facilitates a lot of bang for your buck on this front.
The first rumble between the two sides is a lot of fun, with two super-geniuses planning the whole affair. On the villains side, I really loved Cheetah posing as a hostage, Grundy being strong enough to smack Superman around, The Shade’s shadow powers taking out Flash and Hawkgirl (and later allowing an improbable escape), and just the general chaos caused by having so many live bodies running around and wrecking shop. But it also made the Justice League look great as they managed the field and saved each other, a far cry from their lack of cohesion in the opening three-parter. There’s also Hawkgirl being able to floor Grundy with one shot after he had been wailing on Superman shows off the power of her mace, Wonder Woman gets a dramatic entrance with music blaring, and Batman plays strategist, spotting Luthor running the show from up top and trying to isolate him. They underline all of this in somewhat clumsy fashion by having Ultra-Humanite complain that their opponents are simply too well organised.
Beyond just the grandiose gimmick of the episode, it was the nicest looking episode to date, with fun little details like the prison guards draped in shadow during the jailbreak scene, and the excellent detail on the bombing and fire Lex starts as a distraction. Speaking of which, I’m really glad they took the time to do a short scene of Batman (and Hawkgirl!) saving a little girl from the fire instead of just showing it start and then leaving it to our imagination that the fire department came and put it out while moving on with the episode. This is why you do two-parters. That and Hawkgirl implying Flash struggles with women because he cums too fast.
I wouldn’t call it a terribly sophisticated episode as it basically boils down to Lex Luthor forming an evil version of the Justice League to get revenge against them for finally tossing him in prison, but it’s just so well executed I have no choice but to place it at the top of the list. Best looking episode. Best voice work to date. Best fight scene to date. And some interesting ideas such as dramatically changing Lex’s ‘deal’ (from legit businessman who the audience know is secretly evil to an overt criminal mastermind), and Joker being added into the fold late when they already had plenty to play with, setting up Part II extremely well.
- Injustice For All (NEW ENTRY)
- In Blackest Night
- The Enemy Below
- Secret Origins
Rogues Roundup
Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) (first appearance)
(Yes, I know he’s a member of The Injustice Gang, but given his towering stature in the DCAU he’s getting his own ranking.)
Say goodbye to Lex Luthor, public figure and businessman. He’s going to be a pure villain and fugitive from here on out, which makes sense as a change to his status quo for this new show after years on STAS. He remains an extremely compelling character, evidenced early with his speed-running through rage, bargaining and depression… but of course never acceptance. He’s Lex Luthor and he thinks he can think his way out of anything… and is usually right!
I really enjoyed him blaming Clark for his sickness, and hacking his prison cell TV to complain about Ultra-Humanite making too much noise first, and beginning an escape plot second. Priorities! This is the essence of the character, that he’s so brilliant and also so petty.
He’s going straight to number one. The Imperium were fun but lacked a mouthpiece. Deadshot proved remarkably effective against The League, but Luthor outsmarts everyone at all times. Orm was underhanded, but Luthor is one of the best villains in fiction.
The Joker (Mark Hamill) (first appearance)
Just like Luthor I’m giving Joker his own ranking separate from the group given the history that comes with the character. Also thank goodness they tweaked his character design to more of a synthesis of his two designs, ditching the shark-black-eyes. He looks SO much better!
His role is somewhat limited as he arrives so late in the episode, but it’s a strong entrance as you’d expect from the Clown Prince of Crime. He annoys Lex, knocks out Grundy with gas and demonstrates his legitimate value thanks to his knowledge of Batman’s methods.
I’ll limit his ranking due to the brevity, but given he’s about to get a full episode to play around in… he’s likely heading further up the list!
The Injustice Gang (Mark Hamill/Ian Buchanan/Olivia d’Abo/Steven McHattie/Sheryl Lee Ralph/Efrain Figueroa) (first appearance)
Look no further than this eclectic group for evidence of how much broader the creative team went with Justice League, debuting more villains in a two-minute stretch than any previous episode or movie featured in totality. Actually I guess ‘Trial’ had more… But still!
The trade-off for their sheer numbers means none of them really get much character (hence ranking them as a unit), but I do appreciate them giving each member a quick moment in the spotlight during their initial tense meeting. Grundy being too strong for Cheetah and Copperhead to take down together, then The Shade flexing his supernatural abilities… only for Star Sapphire to calmly disarm him was a nice little escalation and demonstration of what each can do.
Similar to my reasoning for Lex going to the top of the pile, I think their absolute floor is being better than Deadshot because they match his ability to battle The League to a relative stalemate. He escaped, they fought. They also make for a fun blend of personalities, so I was tempted to put them over The Imperium too, but I loved the sci-fi horror vibes that came with the alien invaders.
- Lex Luthor (NEW ENTRY)
- The Imperium
- The Injustice Gang (NEW ENTRY)
- Deadshot
- Orm
- The Joker (NEW ENTRY)
- The Manhunters
- Kanjar-Ro
The Matt Signal 
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