Plot summary: The Injustice Gang have Batman right where they want him… or is it the other way around?
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: 9 (S1.E9)
Original Air Date: September 13th, 2002
Directed: Butch Lukic (6)
Written: Stan Berkowitz (4)
Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD (9)
Music: Lolita Ritmanis (3)
Much as the opening three-parter takes heavy influence from Grant Morrison’s JLA comics, The Injustice Gang appears to be an homage to that same book, as well as some of Super Friends‘ Legion of Doom… which had some complicated rights issues we’ll get into later.
Hawkgirl crashes into a state of The Wonder Twins. The duo would appear in an episode of Justice League Unlimited.
Cheetah was originally intended to have been murdered by Grundy at the end, hence her being missing from the lineup in ‘Fury‘. She was accidentally spared due to an animation error that placed her in the police van at the end. The writing staff would later use this to bring her back in JLU.
Recap
Joker wants to kill the imprisoned Batman, while Lex insists on getting info out of him. To that end they confiscate his utility belt and Lex gets to work on bypassing its security measures.
Bruce wastes no time sewing seeds of dissent between Ultra-Humanite and Solomon Grundy about how much each is getting paid. Lex has Cheetah take over and tells the others to buzz off.
Luthor eventually extracts the contents of the belt, providing access to The Watchtower for Star Sapphire, The Shade and Grundy, who stroll right inside and knock out Martian Manhunter.
The rest of the team return from an unsuccessful interrogation of Copperhead, blissfully unaware Batman snuck off and got captured, and that The Injustice Gang left a bomb behind!
However the team receive an anonymous tip about the bomb, which they manage to find and toss into space just before it detonates. Lex us furious.
Next Bruce tricks Grundy into giving him a sip of water, which he spits into the stasis field that was blocking J’onn’s ability to locate him, bringing The League to Luthor’s hideout.
The team didn’t bank on Ultra-Humanite building Lex an advanced battlesuit to help deal with his health issues, and he briefly gets the upper hand on Superman.
Luckily Ultra-Humanite turns out to be the traitor among the group, knocking out their benefactor in exchange for more money… which goes toward an arts grant for more opera to watch on his prison TV.
Best Performance
Kevin Conroy, mannnn. His role has been dramatically reduced basically since the end of BTAS, with even TNBA often tying one hand behind his back, while Beyond reduced him to an advisor to a new Batman. And of course the ensemble nature of this show means he appears less often and talks less when he is around. But when you give him a meatier part he absolutely runs with it. He puts on slightly different tones of voice with each member of the Injustice Gang he speaks with, most notably sultry flirtation with Cheetah, as well as playful defiance with Lex and both sympathy and vulnerability with Grundy. One of his absolute finest outings.
Mark Hamill gets more time to show off as Joker and he ends up in a close second place for me, while everybody else was a little bit worse than last time. The curse of a Part I set-up vs a Part II action montage, I guess.
Episode Ranking
Exactly like Part I, this is an extremely simple episode. However unlike the near flawless execution of last time, this episode has some fantastic material that gets somewhat squandered, along with some shakier stuff that brings things down a smidge.
Batman spends most of the episode as a hostage and almost talks the Injustice Gang into defeating each other. Not only does this build upon the theme they established last time – that the League are better organised than the ragtag Gang – but it takes the DCAU’s foundational character and makes a point of reminding you he’s cool as fuck. Conversely, Superman looks utterly impotent while trying to interrogate Copperhead, getting less info out of him from a position of power than Batman did from one of weakness.
J’onn made a point of Bruce being the only one on the team with no powers last time, yet here he is psycho-analysing each of his captors and pinpointing their weaknesses with laser accuracy. Grundy is simultaneously greedy and has spent a lifetime being talked down to, while Ultra-Humanite has a huge ego. Cheetah was maligned by the academic community (love the tongue in cheek references to his romance with Catwoman too!)
Unfortunately the list ends there, as they seemingly lost interest in this concept halfway, as Batman simply headbutts Joker and never even speaks to The Shade or Star Sapphire. Perhaps some of the side effects of the whole ‘the villains appear in large numbers but aren’t fleshed out’ thing; They have just enough personality to argue with each other, but not enough for Batman to pick apart their foibles. That should have been the majority of the run-time, and instead we’re teased with it quickly and then it’s dropped.
That would be okay if the screen time were going somewhere good… but it doesn’t. The Injustice Gang breaking into The Watchtower and incapacitating the only League member on board… and then just leaving a not very well hidden bomb behind feels like overthinking a simple concept. That the team receive an anonymous tip via their secret phone-line, and then frantically look for the bomb, makes them all look a bit silly . Shouldn’t Flash be able to search the entire place in like 30 seconds? They simply can’t decide how fast he’s meant to be in the show and that’s begun to annoy me. This is all compounded by Green Lantern being the one to track down the briefcase via his ring’s ability to detect the heat left behind by footprints. Footprints! While all three were wearing boots! on a cold metal floor in space! Wouldn’t any heat left there dissipate almost instantly? It’s not like they arrived seconds after The Injustice Gang left, as they had enough time to return to their headquarters and sit and watch a video feed of the search!
You can call of that nitpicking, but in fact I think it’s the opposite. This should be an extremely simple piece of the story and they worked way too hard to make it complicated, while ironically making it dumber. Sneak aboard, ambush The League, try and murder them. Done. Or drop this entire aspect and have Lex spending his time receiving treatment from Ultra-Humanite while the rest of the crew get their turn battling Batman’s silver tongue.
The rematch between the two teams near the end is fine. Not as good as their first clash, but still some fun trading of powers and attacks. Fortunately they stick the landing on the story with the one-two punch of the Ultra-Humanite reveal after a Cheetah seduction fake-out, and then some classic Batman vs Joker action, with Bruce revealing he was actually able to escape at any time. Like… of course he was!
So in summary, while they did their best to sabotage the excellent set-up Part I provided by shoving some bullshit in the middle, the episode is still decent enough. In concert with the opener there’s plenty of quality to keep them in the number one spot.
- Injustice For All (–)
- In Blackest Night
- The Enemy Below
- Secret Origins
Rogues Roundup
Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) (second appearance)
The eye twitch after Joker mildly embarrasses him in front of the rest of the team, followed by Lex screaming at everyone is gold. It’s a slightly weaker showing than before overall though, even with him cracking the security on Batman’s utility belt and the debut of his iconic battle-suit. He simply doesn’t wear it for long enough.
I’ll leave him in first place, but his hold is weaker than before.
The Joker (Mark Hamill) (second appearance)
On the one hand it seems unlike Joker to push for Batman’s immediate execution versus trying to torture him, given his whole ‘we’re going to do this forever’ deal. On the other, this is a Joker who has tangled with Batman dozens of times by this point in the DCAU, so the idea of him finally learning his lesson shows growth.
Either way, you get more of him irritating the crap out of Lex, and then annoying Ultra-Humanite enough to leave him alone with his nemesis, but it’s a shame he doesn’t use that to take a crack at murdering him after all. In fairness I do understand him coming around to the idea of forcing Batman to watch his friends die first.
Plus it looks good for him to be able to take down Cheetah, Wonder Woman AND The Flash through his trickery. It’s good to give him moments like this once in a while given he’s often all bark and no bite in this continuity. He’s going way up the list.
The Injustice Gang (Mark Hamill/Ian Buchanan/Olivia d’Abo/Steven McHattie/Sheryl Lee Ralph/Efrain Figueroa) (second appearance)
While the headline is Batman runs rings around the terrible troupe, you do also get to see them working effectively as a unit for a bit when they invade the Watchtower, with Shade plunging the room into darkness and Grundy (equipped with nightvision goggles) knocking out Martian Manhunter. They also give it a good go in the rematch near the end. Oh, and I guess Copperhead stands up to interrogation by Superman?
I’m fine keeping them where they are on the list.
- Lex Luthor (–)
- The Joker (↑)
- The Imperium
- The Injustice Gang (–)
- Deadshot
- Orm
- The Manhunters
- Kanjar-Ro
The Matt Signal 
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