Plot summary: An unlikely alliance forms between Aquaman, Doctor Fate and Solomon Grundy, with the Justice League keen to learn why. Violence instead though.
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: 41 (S2.E15)
Original Air Date: November 15th, 2003
Directed: Butch Lukic (19)
Written: Dwayne McDuffie (9)
Animation: DR Movie Company Co., LTD. (3)
Music: Lolita Ritmanis (19)
The unlikely alliance of heroes and villains in these episodes are a nod to Marvel’s The Defenders. The original cosmic team of Doctor Strange, Hulk, Namor and others, not the Netflix street level heroes. Grundy even uses the same unflattering nicknames for the other 3 as Hulk does in the comics.
Hawkgirl’s complaint about Diana having to constantly plead to Hera for strength is a tongue in cheek nod to to a small pocket of fans who were annoyed by this in the series. Despite that, she has only said it three times, and never will again. Bullying works, I guess.
Dr. Fate’s spell mentions The Lords of Order, recurring entities in DC comics. Thankfully neither they nor The Lords of Chaos will appear in this series.
Recap
The military attempt to capture The Incredible Hulk Solomon Grundy with experimental weaponry, but in a shocking turn of events Aquaman rescues the villain and gets him to safety.
Arthur brings Grundy to The Tower of Fate, where Dr. Fate and Inza (remember them?) use magic to verify he is indeed undead. Grundy agrees to help them in exchange for his soul being restored.
Superman, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl investigate the scene of the opening battle and are shocked to hear of Aquaman’s role in it.
They’re even more shocked when they’re called to help defend a cruise ship from a giant sea monster. They head next to Atlantis, where Mera politely tells them to go away.
Armed with Fate’s name, the trio infiltrate The Tower and interrupt a big crazy spell. Tempers flare and a globetrotting brawl erupts thanks to Fate’s magic.
Our heroes eventually triumph and Clark demands an explanation from Fate, but the reason presents itself for him as a giant gothic horror entity begins to emerge from a rift between realities!
To Be Continued…
Best Performance
Oded Fehr replaces George Del Hoyo as Dr. Fate. He was somewhat shaky in the everyday conversation stuff, but did an extremely good job with the very silly and surprisingly long incantation, especially when tasked with basically shouting the end of it. Twice.
Mark Hamill is always fun as Solmon Grundy if for no other reason than it being a million miles away from his more typical roles. He clearly had a lot of fun getting to do more than usual this time, starting with a Hulk impression, and then moving to the fun challenge of generating sympathy for a monster with limited vocabulary.
I enjoyed Scott Rummell’s previous work as Aquaman, but he’s all grump all the time here and it’s just not as good.
I’m tempted to go with Maria Canals-Barrera. She’s just so damn good, honestly probably the most consistent member of the series regulars. Obviously when Kevin Conroy is actually allowed to talk he usually wins, but they let Shayera talk more often, so it’s simple maths. Her spicy banter with Clark and Diana and irritation with Dr. Fate were just really good stuff.
Episode Ranking
I knew this lineup was an homage to The Defenders but did not expect it to start with a full-on Incredible Hulk riff. The General looks like Thunderbolt Ross, Grundy says ‘crush’ in the same way Hulk would ‘smash’, his rampage is straight out of Hulk’s playbook, and even the weapons and tactics used to capture him are familiar. Aquaman rocking up on a giant sea dragon certainly spiced things up. I’m not mad about it – I like the Hulk! – it was just surprising how brazen they were with the tribute.
A happy accident of building a makeshift team of guest stars is that they only had room in the script for three Justice League regulars, which allowed each of them to have a stronger presence than usual in my opinion. I loved Hawkgirl’s dig about Superman constantly straddling the fence, as well as the discussion about playing bad cop during interrogations. Diana gets a one-on-one battle with Aquaman that makes her look really strong, Superman is cast into the unlikely role of temporary villain, and Hawkgirl gets to demonstrate her strength against magic users which hasn’t really come up before now. I hope this continues in Part II as we’re only really scratching the surface.
They really varied the setting throughout this episode, starting at the dockyard, moving to the Tower of Fate (expanded upon from its previous appearance), Grundy’s 1920s gangster flashback, the cruise ship, Atlantis and then Fate banishing Superman & Grundy and Aquaman & Wonder Woman to Egypt and Easter Island. The fight scenes at each of these locations were solid, particularly Arthur and Diana absolutely wailing on each other, with our heroine seemingly besting the King of Atlantis on land… only for him to drag her to the depths. Plus I always appreciate a sorcerer conjuring giant rock monsters as Fate does against Hawkgirl. I assume the art team had a really good time with all of this stuff, even if it was probably quite taxing.
Varied and engaging visuals can carry an episode… but only so far. We don’t yet have a proper idea about what’s going on, though they do drop a huge bombshell at the end with the Cthulhu monster. They do somewhat call out the fact that most of the episode could have been avoided if both sides had simply talked it out… but they still chose to have that all happen, and it kinda makes several heroic characters look a little bad. It’s also a bit frenetic, particularly the JL trio’s investigation. That’s minor though. Plenty strong and a good hook for ‘Part II’.
- The Savage Time
- Legends
- Only a Dream
- Twilight
- Hearts and Minds
- Injustice for All
- Paradise Lost
- In Blackest Night
- Tabula Rasa
- The Enemy Below
- The Terror Beyond (NEW ENTRY)
- Secret Origins
- A Knight of Shadows
- A Better World
- Fury
- Maid of Honor
- Eclipsed
- War World
- Metamorphosis
- The Bold and the Brave
Rogues Roundup
Solomon Grundy (Mark Hamill) (sixth appearance)
In his previous appearances Grundy has been ranked as part of The Injustice Gang. It’s debatable if he even qualifies as a villain in these episodes, but if I don’t count him then we don’t really have a villain at all in Part I… so I guess I have to consider his previous portrayals when ranking him here. Whatever man, I used to list Catwoman as the villain of any BTAS episodes she was in.
To date Grundy has been fun but in a limited way. He’s a behemoth who is there for when they need someone capable of smacking Superman around, basically. Mark Hamill gives him some charm, and some of the writing about him being so powerfully dumb is entertaining, but there’s obviously a ceiling on all of that.
By crafting an origin story onto him (murdered by rival gangsters, his soul removed with a voodoo curse and then tossed into a mystical swamp) and then giving him a motivation beyond his mindless gold lust, he has now become a proper character. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a sympathetic origin given he was stated to have been “an evil man who did many evil deeds”, but still. Suddenly we have an interesting moral quandary as he essentially accuses Superman of not giving him a fair shake. Clark wasn’t to know he’s freshly acquired knowledge of his stolen soul and wants it back, but as the audience you can’t help but feel bad for the big guy in this one specific scenario.
He’s no Draaga though, so that feels like his ceiling.
- Darkseid
- Dr. Destiny
- Lex Luthor
- Despero
- The Joker
- The Injustice Guild (and Brainwave!)
- Amazo
- Vandal Savage
- The Injustice Gang
- The Imperium
- Brainiac
- Hades
- Draaga
- Solomon Grundy (NEW ENTRY)
- Aresia
- Deadshot
- Orm
- Simon Stagg (and Java!)
- Colonel Vox
- Felix Faust
- Eclipso
- Morgaine le Fey
- The Manhunters
- The Justice Lords
- Kanjar-Ro
- Mongul
- Gorilla Grodd
- Doomsday
The Matt Signal 
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