Plot summary: J’onn descends further into Morgaine le Fey’s illusion as the team struggle to keep the sorceress away from the Philosopher’s Stone.

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: 21 (S1.E21)

Original Air Date: September 27^th, 2002

Directed: Butch Lukic (11)

Written: Keith Damron (2)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD (21)

Music: Michael McCuistion (7)

These episodes serve as a big tribute to Jack Kirby, creator of Etrigan and most of characters being parodied by Harv Heffner’s party guests. Even the giant worm resembles ‘The Eater’ from Kirby’s Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth books.

Speaking of Heffner’s party guests, the Batman lookalike does Adam West’s famous Bat-Tusi.

Michael T. Weiss (Etrigan) and Olivia d’Abo (Morgaine le Fey) played Tarzan and Jane in Disney’s The Legend of Tarzan.

An error in the DVD release called these episodes ‘A Knight with Shadows’. How embarrassing!

Recap

A tour of Harv Hickman’s mansion confirms he does indeed possess The Philosopher’s Stone (granting him a charmed life), allowing Wonder Woman to grab it seconds before Morgaine le Fey arrives to steal it.

The sorceress turns Hickman into a giant worm creature to attack the heroes, and then wipes the floor with Etrigan, requiring a full retreat.

The League lock the stone away inside the Watchtower, but le Fey summons a cadre of her demonic followers directly onto the station, causing total chaos.

While they succeed in beating back the invaders, they realise both the increasingly tortured J’onn and the Philosopher’s Stone have gone missing!

As the team try to prevent J’onn from handing the stone over to le Fey the Martian ends up absorbing Jason Blood’s memories of the fall of Camelot, snapping him out of his own trance.

J’onn crushes the Philosopher’s Stone, so le Fey simply teleports away to fight another day. J’onn offers to resign from the League, but a departing Blood expresses admiration for his strength.

Best Performance

Carl Lumbly is great here, really going through the emotional wringer as he first tries to articulate his struggles with the illusions to Bruce, and then privately falling deeper into despair, with J’onn sounding like we’ve never heard him before. His desperate pleas with Etrigan when trying to hand the stone over to le Fey are great too, especially his pained “I don’t care” when he’s told it would all be a lie.

Susan Eisenberg turning on the charm just a smidge when Wonder Woman is trying to get the lecherous Harv Hickman to take her to The Philosopher’s Stone was fun. Diana has generally condemned women who use their feminine wiles to get what they want, so you may think this is her being a hypocrite, but I think Eisenberg not going completely overboard with it sells the idea. She’s back to disgust over Hickman using the stone to get money and women a few seconds later, so all is right with the world.

Michael Weiss is worse this time around, especially when imploring Diana to take the stone and run. To be fair, I think it’s pretty common for people to struggle to raise their voices when talking in an accent that is not their own. Olivia d’Abo is similarly a let-down in her second outing as Morgaine le Fey, drifting into wooden territory in the emotional climax.

Episode Ranking

I can’t really put my finger on why I think Part II doesn’t work to such a degree that it drags the overall story down… but I’ll try anyway!

I should start off by acknowledging there’s a tonne of emotional material at work here. J’onn’s cruel visions remain the feature attraction, and the degree to which they linger and appear to him even when Morgaine le Fey isn’t around is pretty unsettling. But the true main event of this arc is his admission he knows it’s a lie but he’s just too damn sad to care, fighting Etrigan so that he can lose himself in it.

They didn’t really need to do the opening scene with J’onn apologising to Bruce but I’m really glad they did. It was an emotionally honest moment, and also illustrated that J’onn is consistently respectful with the use of his telepathy, as he remarks on how Batman wouldn’t understand how it feels to yearn for the return of dead loved ones. Plus every time Bruce gets medical treatment they leave his mask on even if they remove his shirt like they did here. It’s all just very wholesome.

I don’t know if they properly capitalised on the tension within the team from last time. Flash’s distaste for Etrigan exhibited in Part I continues, as he feels the demon isn’t grateful enough for his help against le Fey, as well as disapproving of his general pessimism. Etrigan is certainly more prickly in general this time, rebuffing Diana when she tries to offer sympathy in the face of Wally’s open disdain, and then making fun of her when J’onn steals the stone. Like… he’s kind of been correct in all his assertions, but he’s such a dick about it and simply… gets away with it? Batman offers a limp ‘better with us than against us’ defence, but never really scolds his ‘friend’ for his behaviour. Trying to pull off a sympathetic ending (as he is condemned to continue wandering the globe) doesn’t really work after all that.

Morgaine le Fey doesn’t develop in any way, and when you line up every single beat from both episodes it becomes apparent this is actually quite an ‘And then, and then, and then’ plot, with characters literally teleporting around the globe for fight scenes. Something in the connective tissue never fully comes together. Or maybe there’s something missing? I really don’t know. I think perhaps finding more of a personal touch between le Fey and Jason Blood – who spends almost the entire episode as Etrigan – and then contrasting that with J’onn’s torment could have really made the whole thing sing. Especially as the turning point in the climax is J’onn reading Jason’s memories, which turns out to be more about J’onn seeing ‘first hand’ how many people died as a result of Blood falling for her lies, and less about any emotional payoff. And then le Fey just says fuck it and teleports away!

I will say the incidental brawl scenes have gotten subtly better throughout the show, with an improved sense of fight choreography and scene planning, as exhibited by the fight aboard the Watchtower. The idea of Flash running so fast that he shatters the frozen monsters while not affecting his friends in any way is a little weird, but it made for a fun visual nonetheless. Remember when he couldn’t catch a normal truck, though?

All told I stand by all the praise I heaped on Part I, but Part II just doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain and the combined story ends up being less than the sum of its parts.

1. Legends
2. Injustice for All
3. Paradise Lost
4. In Blackest Night
5. The Enemy Below
6. Secret Origins
7. A Knight of Shadows (↓)
8. Fury
9. War World
10. The Bold and the Brave

Rogues Roundup

Morgaine le Fey (Olivia d’Abo) (second appearance)

It’s a real shame le Fey never graduates beyond her fun but limited ‘devious sorceress’ schtick. They add nothing new to her at all in this episode, though she does remain strong on the combat front. Mordred gets in on the act too, but he’s annoying as fuck, so she’s getting no bonus points for that.

All glib comments aside, I think that’s actually the main problem. It’s one thing to forgo exploration of whatever relationship she had with Jason Blood and instead pinning everything to her child, but if you’re going to do that the kid has to be in any way interesting or likeable. Instead he’s just a generic bratty child with a bad voice actor. I could definitely have gotten on board with ‘this woman will go to literally any lengths to secure a future for her son’, but they never really got there, so she’s left with nothing to hang her hat on. Or mask, I guess.

I’m forced to move her way down the list. Her fighting prowess and the cruelty of torturing J’onn save her from a further fall, but she’s one of the most hollow villains to get a feature appearance.

1. Lex Luthor
2. The Joker
3. The Injustice Guild (and Brainwave!)
4. The Imperium
5. Hades
6. Draaga
7. Aresia
8. Deadshot
9. Orm
10. The Injustice Gang
11. Felix Faust
12. Morgaine le Fey (↓)
13. The Manhunters
14. Kanjar-Ro
15. Mongul
16. Gorilla Grodd