Plot summary: Lex Luthor seeks help with the failing suit that’s been keeping him alive, but instead uncovers Amazo, an incredible shapeshifting android.

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: 29 (S2.E3)

Original Air Date: October 4^th, 2003

Directed: Dan Riba (15)

Written: Stan Berkowitz (12)

Animation: DongWoo Animation Co., Ltd. (1)

Music: Lolita Ritmanis (15)

I have no idea why there was a three month gap between the last episode and these ones, especially given they’ve JUST started Season 2.

This is the first episode of the series to be animated by someone other than Koko. DongWoo have worked on a bunch of American cartoons including Ben 10, Yu-Gi-Oh!, The Batman, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Teen Titans.

Tabula Rasa can be translated to blank slate, referring to how Amazo has a bland/functional design that evolves as it upgrades its powers, and how Lex corrupts its ‘innocent’ personality.

Mercy Graves accuses Lex of treating her like a dog. He stated that he took her in like a stray in ‘Ghost in the Machine.’

Martian Manhunter’s mental breakdown may be lifted from the iconic Kingdom Come, where J’onn had attempted to connect with every mind on earth, turning his brain to pudding.

Recap

Lex Luthor barely escapes an encounter with Superman and Hawkgirl, seeking refuge with Mercy Graves (remember her?), who has been running LexCorp since he went on the lamb.

Mercy tells him to go screw, and that she fired his top roboticist, Professor Ivo, enraging Lex as he needs powersuit repairs. He chokes her until she tells him where Ivo lives and then flies off. Yikes.

Luthor finds Ivo dead in his home, but his attention quickly turns to the towering android that was caring for him. Lex is able to manipulate ‘Amazo’ into helping fix the suit, saving his life.

To that end, Amazo breaks into a power plant and steals some kind of fuel canister. Hawkgirl spots the robbery and tries to stop it, but Amazo mimics her powers and kicks her ass.

Meanwhile, Superman is so desperate to find Luthor that he implores a hesitant J’onn to perform a psychic sweep of all of Metropolis.

J’onn is almost completely overwhelmed by the sea of internal monologues, reverting to his true martian form and wandering off into the woods in agony.

A deteriorating Lex convinces Amazo that the Justice League must be taken out, leading to a giant brawl that sees it copying their powers one at a time.

Superman is asked to stay away but simply can’t help himself. He does a solid job of preventing Amazo from making eye contact, but to no avail, as Amazo absorbs the abilities of The Man of Steel.

To Be Continued…

Best Performance

Robert Picardo was a sublime choice for their take on Amazo, as he gives every line a sense of quiet contemplation. “When will Professor come back?” was an excellent opening line that said so much in only five words. The only problem is Amazo barely talks, so I don’t know if I can fully sign off on it.

Lisa Edelstein getting to be a bossy boss and finally talk shit to Lex Luthor at the start of the episode was fun. Good For Her. But again, brief.

I guess I’m compelled to go with Clancy Brown for his silver tongued devilry. It may have never been clearer that Lex is a true asshole, and Brown makes the whole thing work. If you’d never met Lex before you’d think he was being sincere in his conversations with Amazo, whereas sometimes with this kind of thing the villain is doing such obvious ‘I Am Evil’ acting that it all feels stupid.

Episode Ranking

I’m going to say a lot of complimentary things about this episode and then only rank it slightly above the middle because of some criticisms most of you won’t agree with. Strap in.

It’s interesting to me Hawkgirl is still written to prioritise her main target over the safety of bystanders, as I thought ‘The Savage Time‘ would be a turning point for her. I’m not mad about it, and if anything it underlines precisely how hardwired her Thanagarian upbringing is.

I enjoyed that J’onn’s psychic breakdown was portrayed in such a distinctly cartoony fashion, with a cacophony of semi-transparent disembodied faces flying at him from around the city. It’s an overall fun mini-story to play with, as J’onn’s incredible power is matched only by his loneliness, so seeing him become so overwhelmed by the psychic chatter that he severs communications with The League, reverts to his ‘monster’ form and wanders off into the woods is all gripping stuff. More interesting still is that Superman was the one to talk him into doing it despite his warnings of the risks, which were proven apt. J’onn did it anyway because he is so selfless, and just as we see him at the height of his discomfort, we have Clark across town casually suggesting bringing J’onn over to read Mercy’s mind. It all makes for an interesting parallel with Amazo being used by Lex, which makes sense as both characters are lonely, introspective shapeshifters.

Speaking of which, it was a pretty great debut for DongWoo, who do some excellent work with Amazo, both in terms of how expressive it is despite barely having a face, and the ‘T1000’ style liquid metal shapeshifting. They could have just had him morph his hand directly into the security guard’s to pass the palm scan, but they went with him growing a new, smaller arm out of his hand, and then his existing hand melting into this new arm. I appreciate that kind of hyper-specific creepiness.

Amazo is the most memorable part of these episodes, and where I stray away from general consensus, unfortunately. I’ll talk a bit more about the character below, but in broad terms it just doesn’t fully do it for me, even if I can objectively recognise some solid writing. I find these kinds of ‘innocent creature is led astray by the true villain’ stories very hit and miss in general. I don’t think this is a bad one of those by any means, but right from the jump they have to work hard to fully get me on board. The first half of the episode worked for me, but it’s once Lex convinces Amazo that The Justice League need to die that I start bouncing off everything. It’s just not as convincing of a sales pitch as it needs to be, and it takes us into another trope that works for a lot of people but I seldom care for:

‘Mirror Matches’ SHOULD be interesting in terms of demonstrating a character’s ability to think outside the box when their power advantage has been nullified, but they so rarely actually are in my opinion. Every time Amazo copies a new power the character is incredulous and just keeps trying the exact same tactics. I recognise how it should be cool to see it growing wings when fighting Hawkgirl, gaining super-speed from Flash and so on. It’s even a nice touch that he mimics their body language when using their skills. But… ehhh. I also call bullshit on being able to make a Power Ring by simply looking at Green Lantern. I did really enjoy Superman’s attempted strategy to stop Amazo from making eye contact though. Very nicely handled.

So yeah, I think the stuff with Lex and Amazo in the first half, and J’onn’s breakdown are really great, and Lolita Ritmanis turned in a tremendous score, but I can only place it so high up the list due to my general distaste for Amazo.

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

Rogues Roundup

Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) (third appearance)

Just one episode after Darkseid dethroned Lex as our reigning top villain, they put in one of his most deplorable appearances and I have no choice but to restore him to the top spot.

Mercy reminds us of how poorly he always treated her in STAS, an action he rewards by almost choking her to death. Then he emotionally manipulates Amazo, quickly identifying the metaphorical-newborn’s struggles to grasp the concept of death and turning it around for his own ends. It’s always more compelling when a villainous character isn’t just pure cartoon evil, but instead demonstrates they are capable of parsing emotion and empathy… but that they simply ignore them. Being able to pass for a good person, if you will. He even goes as far as to cast Amazo in the role of his surrogate son, which is just an insane thing to try.

Oh and he’s maybe dying on top of all of that, which is a nice piece of continuity.

Amazo (Robert Picardo) (first appearance)

Cards on the table: I have always had an irrational dislike of Amazo in every iteration – comic or cartoon. I cannot explain it, and it is 100% going to colour my review, something I feel a need to acknowledge as this version is incredibly popular.

I think a lot of that popularity stems from their Iron Giant style sympathetic take, starting Amazo off as an innocent, almost cute creature who is just trying to figure the world out but is led astray by Lex Luthor. That’s aided by the animation, as I talked about above, and Picardo’s voice acting, which is devoid of any menace. All of this is good.

As a ‘villain’, the raid on the powerplant is a solid showcase, as it calmly walks through gunfire and broadly ignores security altogether unless they’re directly in its path. There is something sinister about that nonchalance that to me is actually more interesting than Amazo’s main gimmick of copying, which I’ve already covered my disinterest in above.

Overall I’d say this first episode is pretty solid for Amazo, even if I still have my own personal issues with the character.

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