Plot summary: An evil spirit is set loose and gets to work trying to end the world, but Flash has his own problems as he’s attacked in the media for utilising his celebrity for profit.
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: 39 (S2.E13)
Original Air Date: November 8th, 2003
Directed: Dan Riba (21)
Written: Joseph Kuhr (3)
Animation: Koko Enterprise Co. LTD. (33)
Music: Kristopher Carter (15)
While Eclipso never directly appears, the evil spirits are a very clear reference to him, and General McCormick’s outlandish costume is based on Eclipso’s look. Mophir was also integral to Eclipso’s comic debut, albeit in a very different role.
Glorious Godfrey makes his first appearance in the DCAU. Historically he’s an agent of Darkseid with hypnotic powers who frequently masquerades as a TV personality to influence the people of earth.
The ‘Just-Us League’ dig by Godfrey was used in a different context previously by Hawkgirl in ‘Twilight‘, referring to how many of the team are orphans and exiles, rather than declaring the group to be selfish.
Godfrey makes reference to the fictional book ‘The Innocent Seduced’ by Dr. Frederic. This is a reference to the real book ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ by Frederic Wertham, which accused comic books of corrupting the innocent American youth.
Recap
The US military are conducting a stealth mission in an ill-defined Middle Eastern country, where they run afoul of Mophir, who tries to stop them from touching a mysterious gemstone.
One of the soldiers takes possession of the stone and is promptly possessed by an evil spirit. He attacks his comrades, caving them in as he strolls away whistling an ominous tune.
Meanwhile The Flash comes under fire for revelling in his celebrity, putting his fast feet in his mouth during a TV interview and annoying Green Lantern for making The League look bad.
Flash makes things even worse when he storms off a set due to the ridiculous dialogue, with his own agent leaking the footage to Glorious Godfrey, the man leading the smear campaign against our heroes.
The possessed soldier is arrested trying to storm a nuclear weapons test facility, but the spirits jump from him to one of his captors, General McCormick.
Upon hearing Godfrey claim that The Justice League could destroy the world if they wanted, McCormick dons a whacky supervillain outfit and starts blowing shit up.
Racing to the scene, Green Lantern and Flash battle raging fires while Wonder Woman confronts the possessed general.
Diana makes quick work of McCormick, but ends up touching the dark crystal and the episode ends with her possessed by the evil spirits…
To Be Continued…
Best Performance
For as all over the place as this episode is, it’s absolutely crawling with great voice work.
Michael Rosenbaum very much understood the assignment with Flash’s energy bar commercial (cheese level maximum), and the fame going to his head, although I suppose it wasn’t a million miles off how he plays Wally all the time. Where he does show some range is his awkward attempts at rebuttals, muttering comments about how white collar crime isn’t really their area.
Jack Nicholson’s best friend, Tracey Walter, is obviously too white to play a character like Mophir, but admittedly his trademark zany energy makes the character engaging, even with the slightly icky connotations of how he’s written, drawn and performed.
Bill Murray’s brother Brian Doyle-Murray taps into his SNL sensibilities to bring Flash’s sleazy agent Artie Bauman to life. I loved him turning on the charm and telling Flash he can do what he wants before folding immediately when Wally calls his bluff. Good shit. Also doing a collect call to Godfrey and sleazing all over Wonder Woman. A charmingly terrible man.
Enrico Colantoni goes full-on “I’m walkin’ here!” which isn’t exactly the voice I imagine in my head when I read Glorious Godfrey dialogue, but I do think it works given his role here is inflammatory TV personality. I liked him toning it way down once the cameras stopped rolling too. I think this is the part of the episode they put the most effort into and they needed Colantoni to bring it home, which he did.
Episode Ranking
We have two very different episodes happening at once here that take a surprisingly long time to come together, and both are very silly. At first it seems the only link is that the rise of rage-bait style media is a metaphorical end of the world, while Eclipso plans to bring about a far more literal one. The truth is far simpler, that they wanted The League to be portrayed negatively on TV so that Eclipso would be inspired to target them as puppets for his genocide, but I could see viewers being put off by the time it takes for all of that to come together.
Eclipso’s side of the story is as generic as things come, flirting with stepping into orientalism as evil spirits escape from an mysterious gemstone found in a middle-eastern temple, while an odd little half naked man wielding a sword jabbers incoherently and tries to warn everybody. Played by a white dude. This is far from the worst ‘one of these’ I’ve seen, but I am glad we have mostly moved past this 90s/00s obsession. Once Eclipso is free and starts jumping from host to host and engaging in fish out of water antics in his attempts to commit mass murder, the episode got more fun, and that admittedly only takes until the end of the prologue. I think a little bit more exposition up front could have helped things, but it’s fine.
As for Flash’s controversial energy bar endorsement and Glorious Godfrey’s smear campaign against The League, while I was surprised by how much screen time they gave it all, I actually think it’s good harmless fun that makes the show’s world feel a bit more alive. They totally nail Godfrey, who you want to punch early and often, pulling cheap stunts like panning to empty chairs and calling The League cowards for refusing to face him when they patently were never invited. My favourite line from him was the insane blaming of the team for 50% of marriages ending in divorce and the other 50% in death (the stated point of marriage), which is so powerfully stupid that it’s depressingly good satire. Flash is the logical character to do this story with as he’s by far the most shallow of the group, and the staff clearly had a lot of fun with the commercial (featuring a trio of his Rogues making their DCAU debut) and of course his creepy Bang Van.
In a bubble this is one of the worse episodes in the series, but I actually think they’ve set a table for ‘Part II’ that could redeem it, as there’s plenty of fun stuff and it’s less about any of it being particularly bad, but rather the absence of anything big and exciting. The promise of Eclipso jumping between different members of The League is an intriguing one, but they may have some difficulty bringing the Flash stuff to a satisfying conclusion.
- 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
- Eclipsed (NEW ENTRY)
- War World
- Metamorphosis
- The Bold and the Brave
Rogues Roundup
Eclipso (Ted McGinley/Bruce McGill) (first appearance)
Look. I know this is technically ‘soldiers possessed by evil spirits’, but it’s obviously Eclipso, so that’s what I’ll be calling him.
The little tune he whistles is an excellent idea, as it’s both a memorable creepy affectation, and acts as a cue to who is currently housing the evil spirits as their appearances don’t change. It also gives you that killer ending with Diana humming the tune.
In terms of motivations and whatnot, the phrasing of “How many mammals can this kill? made me laugh, whether they intended it or not. He’s an evil spirit, he loves to do mass murder, that’s it. I did find his little verbal miscues as he tries to blend in with modern life somewhat charming though. There’s a limit to how high that can get you, but there are no active problems with the character so he’s going to place high enough to piss off fans of The Justice Lords.
- 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
- Eclipso (NEW ENTRY)
- Morgaine le Fey
- The Manhunters
- The Justice Lords
- Kanjar-Ro
- Mongul
- Gorilla Grodd
- Doomsday
The Matt Signal 
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