Plot summary: Vandal Savage changes world history so that he led the Nazis to victory in World War II, forcing the Justice League to follow him back in time.

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: 24 (S1.E24)

Original Air Date: November 9^th, 2002

Directed: Butch Lukic (12)

Written: Stan Berkowitz (9)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD (24)

Music: Kris Carter (9), Michael McCuistion (10) and Lolita Ritmanis (10)

Batman’s resistance group includes Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake and Cassandra Cain.

As with all children’s programming, swastikas were forbidden, replaced with a lightning bolt symbol, and they never even say the word Nazi out loud. Totally fine to draw Adolf Hitler (and later Herman Goering) though!

Given the setting, a tonne of DC’s World War II characters make appearances throughout this three-parter, starting with Sgt. Rock & Easy Company, the original version of The Suicide Squad, and Steve Trevor. There are also subtle nods to Marvel’s Nick Fury.

Recap

The League return from a mission in deep space, only to witness the Watchtower (with Batman aboard!) disappear in a huge flash of light.

They rush down to earth to investigate, only to find America under the grip of Nazi rule! They’re quickly accosted, but Batman arrives to lead them to the safety of his underground base.

Bruce doesn’t recognise any of them, and after a brief interrogation reveals the allies lost World War II and Vandal Savage has reigned as supreme dictator ever since.

Tracing a recent electromagnetic pulse to a nazi research facility, they discover a portal similar to a black hole that the scientists say could lead to controllable time-travel if they can stabilise it.

The League (minus Batman) jump through and find themselves on the Western Front at the height of WW2… but now the Nazis have fancier tech. They waste no time helping the allies but Savage’s forces are strong.

Diana and J’onn head for Berlin, rescuing Steve Trevor from a dog fight in the process. He reveals he just stole a communucation device from Savage and needs to get it to France for codebreaking.

J’onn continues to the heart of Savage’s weapons manufacturing, where he discovers Hitler in a cryogenic chamber. Savage attacks while he’s distracted, knocking him out.

Back in France, the strain of battle causes Green Lantern’s ring to finally run out of battery, leaving him a sitting duck as one of Savage’s ‘War Wheels’ descends upon him…

To Be Continued…

Best Performance

There’s no real doubt in my mind about who gets the nod here, but as a general point everybody is on their game, with the series regulars also getting to play various soldiers to varying degrees of success.

Phil Morris is a big comic book fan so understood Vandal Savage’s deal on arrival. That helps, because as I’ll talk about below, his dialogue is limited in this first part, so every line counts. Morris delivers them all well, capturing Savage’s detached megalomania.

But this is so powerfully the Kevin Conroy show. He deepens his voice to play the Resistance Leader Batman, whether to simply sell the idea this is a different character to make it easier for kids to understand, or because it felt appropriate to this specific variant of Bruce and his altered personal history. Regardless of the reason, he’s great here, far sterner but without getting into angry territory as has happened in the show when he’s periodically snapped at someone. He’s calm, but very firm. Fitting for a dude trying to keep a ragtag army together and resist Nazi occupation. Kevin Conroy was the man.

Episode Ranking

The idea of these episodes being a child’s first exposure to World War II is deeply funny to me for some reason. In fairness it is pretty shocking to see such a major historical event depicted in a cartoon, even with them having to toss in sci-fi elements and be careful about depicting death on screen. There’s simply an inherent power to all of this imagery that I think they ultimately do a good job wielding, with tanks rolling down decimated European towns and whatnot. I would imagine the art team probably had a decent amount of fun with the aesthetic of both time periods (love the hand around the The Daily Planet’s globe monument), and the voice cast all got to do their worst German accents to play random soldiers. The various action scenes feel weightier than the typical ones too, likely due to the setting. While none of our regulars are ever in any danger and they’re never going to show the slaughter of soldiers or civilians on screen, there is a baked-in understanding that a lot of people are dying just off-camera at all times. Plus the sheer scale of it means that with or without Savage’s enhanced tech, the League would struggle to turn back an entire invading army, so the stakes are enormous.

I’m glad they decided to start the episode in an alternate present so we could see the long-term ramifications of Savage winning the war for Germany, before taking us back to the 1940s so the team could directly participate. (Sick colour and shape warping during the time travel sequence too!) They could easily have had the League tumble through an energy storm on the way home and go straight to the alternate past, but then we’d have missed out on Resistance Leader Batman. I really like his alternate costume, his similarly dressed band of followers, and him simultaneously being higher and lower tech than the version we’re used to. This is way more appealing to me than Thomas Wayne using pistols and incorporating red into his colour scheme. The tragedy of Alternate Bruce optimistically hoping that reversing the changes to history could save his parents is brutal, especially as Superman (and ostensibly only Superman based on events of the show) knows for definite they’re fated to die either way.

While I’m glad for their decision making in terms of doing both time periods, I do wonder if it might have been cleaner to have the world have just changed while the team were away without the big flash of light at the start of the episode. But I guess then you don’t have the electro-magnetic pulse to follow to the epicentre.

On that topic, I’ve talked before about how it annoys me (and only me it seems) that Green Lantern’s Power Ring never needs recharging and he only even acknowledges it as a problem a couple of times, so imagine how thrilled I was when he ran out of juice at the end of the episode. Turns out the rings carry enough charge to complete a mission in deep space (and one so tough it required 6 of the 7 members), tow a ship “halfway across the galaxy” and then engage in no fewer than four instances of superhero skirmishing. And that’s all assuming he was on a full charge before leaving! If they were ever going to do this plot element though, this is the right time to do it, as John could not be more stranded given he’s in an alternate-past, in the middle of one of the bloodiest wars in history. They get a solid cliffhanger out of it, with he and Hawkgirl sharing a look when he demands she get the soldiers to safety, that says they both know it means his possible death if she complies. It also sets them up nicely for Parts II and III as John has a military background so can still contribute to the war effort, while also providing us with some solid character-development thanks to his new stripped-back status quo.

J’onn and Diana’s little diversion instinctually feels like it should have been moved to Part II as there was already so much going on that could have done with more breathing room, but the material we have is fun, so that’s more something to put a pin in and come back to later. Steve & Diana’s meet-cute is fine and dandy, and there is something beautifully perverse about J’onn encountering a frozen Hitler.

Overall it’s a pretty strong debut for this three-parter, but given how much ground they have to cover in 20 minutes there’s only so high up the list you can go without me seeing how it all plays out.

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

Rogues Roundup

[Huge disclaimer that obviously the Nazis would of course be the top villain in any ranking… possibly across the history of the world. But it feels a little gauche to rank the Nazis on this list of comic book villains.]

Vandal Savage (Phil Morris) (first appearance)

It’s a tall order to debut relatively late into an episode, not having many lines and still make a strong impression. Savage gets to borrow a lot of clout from Hitler and the Nazi regime in general, as well as there being posters of him plastered all across Metropolis that act as a solid stand-in, communicating the degree of his influence.

When he does arrive he’s solid if nothing special… yet. Murdering one of your own generals is such a great cheat code for making you hate a villain, while also demonstrating their power. His electro-glove is fun, taking out Martian Manhunter as well.

I’m going to debut him relatively low for now, but trust he’ll make a big climb as the story progresses and his role becomes more concrete, rather than simply being talked about so much in this episode.

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. Simon Stagg (and Java!)
12. Vandal Savage (NEW ENTRY)
13. Felix Faust
14. Morgaine le Fey
15. The Manhunters
16. Kanjar-Ro
17. Mongul
18. Gorilla Grodd