Plot summary: The Justice League desperately try to make it back to their own universe, leading to some unlikely partnerships to stop The Justice Lords.
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: 38 (S2.E12)
Original Air Date: November 1st, 2003
Directed: Dan Riba (20)
Written: Stan Berkowitz (15)
Animation: DongWoo Animation Co. LTD. (4)
Music: Michael McCuistion (16)
I talked a bit about the decision to switch from The Crime Syndicate to The Justice Lords last time. They did plan to use The Syndicate later in a direct-to-DVD movie intended to bridge the gap between this series and Justice League Unlimited. This was scrapped and later reshaped into Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. The episodes also lead directly into the long-term Cadmus storyline in JLU, and The Justice Lords were seen again in Kyle Higgins’ controversial run of Batman Beyond comics.
Lord Superman’s robots repeat a couple of quotes the fans hated by Superman in Season One. More were planned but not used.
Batman’s secret code 91939 refers to the character’s debut in 1939. The 91 may be when the team began full production on BTAS, but I’m not sure.
Wonder Woman uses her tiara as a boomerang-style throwing weapon for the first time, a tribute to Lynda Carter doing the same in the 70s tv show.
Recap
Flash tricks Lord Batman by faking heart failure and frees The League, who deduce that Hawkgirl is being kept in Arkham Asylum, because she’s considered a criminal in this world.
The team trick their way inside, but fail to pass a security challenge by The Joker, who alerts a handful of robot duplicates of Lord Superman.
Batman infiltrates his counterpart’s cave seeking the portal between their worlds, but Lord Batman managed to free himself and the two battle to a stalemat, eventually seeing eye to eye.
The League defeat the robo-security and free Hawkgirl but are met by the damn military. Luckily Lord Batman arrives and orders them to stand down and he escorts his ‘prisoners’ to safety.
Returning to their native world, The League trick The Lords by having J’onn impersonate Lex Luthor during a jailbreak, leading to a huge brawl between the two teams.
Superman reveals a deal struck with the real Lex, who unleashes a ‘power disruptor’ on the Lords, defeating them all, in exchange for a full pardon. He later teases political aspirations to the media…
Best Performance
Kevin Conroy performed both halves of the conversations between the two Batmen in a set of continuous takes. What a guy. They’re pretty good too! The two Bruces trade blows but it’s their words that actually break through to one another, with our Batman convincing Lord Batman they have chosen the wrong course of action, sold entirely through inflections in Conroy’s voice. It’s baffling why they haven’t thrown the ball to their star player more often, because every single time they have written a meaty Batman story Conroy has crushed it.
His BTAS dance partners Mark Hamill and Diane Pershing do a great job modulating their voices for the lobotomised versions of Joker and Poison Ivy. They both sound so creepy because of how eerily calm they are, and Joker even maintains a sense of whimsy, albeit infinitely lower energy.
Episode Ranking
I don’t think they get everything out of the ‘one bad day’ gimmick they’re going for, but this at least hangs together as a more coherent episode than ‘Part I’ did.
The juice is in the mirrored battles, particularly Batman and Lord Batman trading critiques while stalking each other around the Batcave, the two Martin Manhunters turning into crazy demonic dragon creatures, and to a lesser extent The League getting to cut loose against a handful of (much weaker) Robot Supermen. John hesitating to attack Lord Hawkgirl was cute though.
Given the poor quality of much of the two episodes, I legitimately thought Berkowitz had powerfully misunderstood Batman for a while. Instead, Bruce tricks his counterpart pretty expertly after ostensibly ‘seeing the light’ and conceding their methods are justified given they’ve ensured nobody else will ever suffer his fate. It makes sense as he’s the most hardline on crime by a considerable distance, and they appear to have eradicated it entirely. He tosses in a comment about what a good state Gotham appears to be in, before absolutely owning Lord Batman with the sarcastic dig about Thomas and Martha loving what’s become of their city, where a random guy is arrested for causing a minor scene at a restaurant, and everybody cowers in fear. The DCAU’s Batman is defined by his humanity and warm heart beneath the gruff exterior – which is what makes Kevin Conroy such a great fit. Bruce genuinely believes in second chances and rehabilitation, best exemplified by his treatment of The Ventriloquist, Two-Face, Babydoll and Mr. Freeze. He never gets to see what’s become of his familiar foes in alternate Arkham, but you’d have to assume he’d be horrified.
Conversely, while I do get the temptation to have Batman give up, knowing he’s up against his mirror opposite… I just don’t think Batman would ever give up under any circumstances. Similarly the idea Bruce thinks nobody could ever account for Flash’s unpredictable personality also feels off. Surely Batman puzzling out that The Lords’ version of Flash died would be some kind of edge he could use to outfox his counterpart, but instead Wally gets a chance to shine. And that’s before he kicks Lord Superman’s ass one on one, which was a pleasant surprise.
Depicting Arkham against a sunny, pleasant background instead of the perpetual night and bad weather of BTAS was a fun touch to go along with the more on the nose lobotomised Rogues Gallery. Seeing them all so docile, particularly Joker, was compelling, and I got a chuckle from The Ventriloquist not having the telltale burn marks on his head, but rather Scarface sporting them instead. Truly a character that keeps on giving to the DCAU despite it seeming on the surface like he had such a limited gimmick. It was also a really nice idea to use Poison Ivy as the ultimate retort to the Lords’ claims they’re doing the right thing, as she no longer cares if people damage plants, or anything at all for that matter. Criminals need to answer for their deeds in some way, but hollowing out their personalities is so inhumane a child could see it.
I’m not wild about it all coming down to Lex Luthor honouring a bargain when he had free shots at Superman and the rest of the League, but it moves a key chess piece to where they want it later; The idea of him being inspired by his counterpart becoming President is fun.
Overall this is for sure an improvement, and I’ll move the combined story up one spot, but I still think ‘Part I’ was a total train-wreck, and they didn’t extract enough gold from their core premise. At times it’s a damning indictment of the characters, while at others it’s a nice window into psyches. All over the place, if you will. Doomsday was a powerful misstep that robbed them of time they could have used to have the opposites speak directly to each other more and delve into the differences and similarities. Like both versions of Wonder Woman barely fucking speak! Was there not some teasing they could have done with the Hawkgirls? No comment from John Stewart on liking how he looked bald? The two Martians communing telepathically? These episodes are a giant exercise in wasted opportunity, because as I said before, you get plenty of small moments for the highlight reel, but they’re extremely underbaked episodes of television.
- The Savage Time
- Legends
- Only a Dream
- Twilight
- Hearts and Minds
- Injustice for All
- Paradise Lost
- In Blackest Night
- Tabula Rasa
- The Enemy Below
- Secret Origins
- A Knight of Shadows
- A Better World (↑)
- Fury
- Maid of Honor
- War World
- Metamorphosis
- The Bold and the Brave
Rogues Roundup
The Justice Lords (George Newbern/Kevin Conroy/Susan Eisenberg/Phil LaMarr/Maria Canals-Barrera/Carl Lumbly (second appearance)
While four of the five begin to demonstrate something resembling a conscience, Lord Superman remains fully villainous, quick to anger, ready to murder Flash for no real reason, and smirking as he clearly lies to his team that he won’t lobotomise Lex Luthor when they object.
I’m surprised they didn’t make more of The Lords upgrading ‘our’ Watchtower with shielding and armaments, and as I said in the review they missed a huge trick by not giving them all more time to talk and reveal things about themselves. So we’re still left with cool alternate costumes, a few fun fight scenes, and like… I guess the stuff with Batman and Lord Batman is solid?
I just don’t think any of that is enough though so they can stay below the damn Manhunters and think about what they did.
- Darkseid
- Dr. Destiny
- Lex Luthor
- Despero
- The Joker
- The Injustice Guild (and Brainwave!)
- Amazo
- Vandal Savage
- The Injustice Gang
- The Imperium
- Brainiac
- Hades
- Draaga
- Aresia
- Deadshot
- Orm
- Simon Stagg (and Java!)
- Colonel Vox
- Felix Faust
- Morgaine le Fey
- The Manhunters
- The Justice Lords (–)
- Kanjar-Ro
- Mongul
- Gorilla Grodd
- Doomsday
The Matt Signal 
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