Plot summary: Vandal Savage’s plot to invade America is finally revealed as the reunited Justice League do their best to stop him and prevent history from being changed.

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: 26 (S1.E26)

Original Air Date: November 9^th, 2002

Directed: Butch Lukic (13)

Written: Stan Berkowitz (11)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD (26)

Music: Kris Carter (11), Michael McCuistion (12) and Lolita Ritmanis (12)

Much like Green Lantern’s weakness to yellow, Martian Manhunter’s vulnerability to fire is never confirmed to be canon to the DCAU, and this episode does see him receive minimal damage from being caught directly in the afterburners of one of Savage’s jets.

With the exception of Martian Manhunter all of the characters on our main team had propaganda comics published during World War II… though they were different versions of Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl.

Recap

The Germans level the building with Diana, Steve and Ernst inside, leaving them for dead, but Diana was able to protect them. Ernst code-breaks Savage’s plans to invade America.

Superman, Hawkgirl, Flash and the Blackhawks succeed in bombing the hell out of a factory, revealed to be building advanced jet engines. J’onn J’onnz makes his way back and passes on what he knows.

John Stewart and Easy Company uncover Savage’s secret airbase containing his invasion force. They open fire, but Savage orders a full take-off, so John boards one of the planes via a motorcycle.

He starts wrecking shit in the engine room, but is quickly caught and brought before Savage for torture. Luckily the reunited League arrive and attack Savage’s planes.

Savage’s advanced jet engines allow his fleet to break away, but luckily Flash managed to sprint across the ocean and warn the American navy, who unleash heavy duty artillery.

Stewart and Savage brawl as their plane goes down, but Hawkgirl swoops in to save John moments before it hits the ocean, ostensibly killing Savage.

The Blackhawks finish off the remaining jets, forcing the Nazis to de-thaw Adolf Hitler so they can resume World War II. What a sentence!

The League return to the present where the original Batman greets them, blissfully unaware of what they’ve been through. Diana later tracks down an elderly Steve Trevor. Aww.

Best Performance

I think this was a bit of a step down on the voice acting front. Nobody was bad whatsoever, it’s just that the dialogue took a little bit of a backseat in favour of action compared to the previous episodes.

Among the series regulars Susan Eisenberg and George Newbern had one of their better outings, while Phil Morris remained strong as Vandal Savage. None of the other guests really stood out for me this time though, good or bad.

I think if pushed I’d go with a two-hander in Phil LaMarr and Maria Canals-Barrera, fitting for their romantic moment at the end. Both were solid individually, but that final exchange was superb.

Episode Ranking

In ‘Part II’ I commented that this is the platonic ideal for the structure of a big sprawling three-parter, as they established a high concept premise in ‘Part I’, split the team up into their own fun branches in ‘Part II’, and then everybody came back together for the climax. Each group carried a fragment of Savage’s overall plan, with Superman, Hawkgirl and Flash discovering the advanced jet engine, J’onn returning from his foray in Berlin with confirmation of what it’s used for, Green Lantern and Easy Company finding the secret airbase hiding the advanced invasion force, and Ernst’s codebreaking telling Diana and Steve Trevor that the target is America, not Britain. Just really good shit, with each of these side-quests contributing to the whole while also being fun on their own.

The amount of firepower unleashed by the Germans at the start of the episode was so extreme it almost became uncomfortable, as they utterly demolished an entire building just to get to Diana and Steve Trevor. Every time I figured it was over they fired more heavy artillery, and then after that just bulldozed the damn wreckage, making it pretty plausible even the mighty Wonder Woman would have perished. One of the more impressive assaults to have survived in the entire DCAU.

Conversely, Flash sprinting inside the factory before security could close the gate was pretty fun, as for all the power the heroes boast in direct combat, it turned out Wally saved the most lives by just slipping inside and ordering an evacuation. And that’s only half of his role in the episode, as he elects to sprint across the Atlantic Ocean to warn the USA of Savage’s invasion plans! Remember when he struggled to catch a truck a few episodes ago???

I got a kick out of Savage trying to order the other planes to maintain course when Stewart sabotages his engine and comms, accurately predicting that his followers would blindly follow suit and slow down. The giant aerial battle was extremely well animated, as were all the action scenes in this trilogy. It’s perhaps the most cohesive and powerful the League have looked as they utterly decimated this supposedly unstoppable fleet (albeit with some help from the US Navy and the Blackhawks.)

Almost lost amidst how much BIG stuff is going on everywhere was the fact everybody thought John Stewart was dead, so Martian Manhunter stopping mid-battle after sensing him – and getting shot out of the air as a consequence – is a solid idea. Obviously the far bigger moment was Hawkgirl learning John’s alive and rescuing him after she was forced to leave him behind in ‘Part I’. A nice job by Berkowitz to harness how dense these episodes have been with ‘things going on’, and we get the cute handholding between the obvious future couple to round it off.

The only weak point is the logistics of how they made it back to the present. Like did resolving the Savage paradox drag them back? Did Batman pull them back by fucking around with the equipment in the lab, despite having no clue where (or… when…) they’d been? It doesn’t kill the story or anything, and all three episodes were already fit to burst, so I’m not mad at them taking a shortcut to wrap things up. Plus when you end on something as poignant as the Steve & Diana reunion, you can get away with almost anything. The intensity of their time together in these episodes sold the romance decently, capped off with TWO smooches no less. The notion of him becoming the Peggy to Diana’s Captain America (and over a decade earlier than in the MCU) was a really sweet moment.

In totality this trilogy is a total home run. I was only really holding it back from the top spot for ‘wait and see if they mess it up’ reasons, and they absolutely didn’t. I would probably say this third part was the weakest of the three, but that’s only if forced to choose… which I’m not! It was still a great episode, but pure action is never as endearing to me as story and character. This episode still has those elements of course, just in smaller doses than the first two parts. This is such a waste of words though, because I’m saying these are the best episodes in the series!

1. The Savage Time (↑)
2. Legends
3. Injustice for All
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

Vandal Savage (Phil Morris) (third appearance)

Unfortunately Savage never really gets his ‘big moment’. He and John wrestled a little as their plane was falling out of the sky, and he did arguably get the best of the exchange, though he was aided by his shock-glove. He did once again hint at his ‘real’ deal, but you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s simply a standard cocky villain who needed shortcuts to beat a powerless John Stewart. I guess it was pretty cool that he remained utterly unbothered when Easy Company opened fire on him, calmly ordering his troops to take off no matter what.

Ultimately Savage’s legacy here is more about his grand plan. The man usurped Adolf Hitler and almost led the Nazis on an invasion of America armed with advanced weaponry. He was the head of a very large snake, as I’ve talked at length about how the totality of the German army provided as big of a challenge as has existed for The League.

I have perhaps been downplaying that role for him, so I’m going to bump him up a few more slots, but I think he needed to personally do a bit more to break into the Top 3.

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