Plot summary: The League are forced to participate in a twisted game show as Joker has hidden bombs (and cameras) all over Las Vegas.
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: 47 (S2.E21)
Original Air Date: November 29th, 2003
Directed: Butch Lukic (23)
Written: Stan Berkowitz (18) & Dwayne McDuffie (13)
Animation: DongWoo Animation Co., LTD. (5)
Music: Michael McCuistion (19) & Kristopher Carter (19)
Joker’s financial alias, ‘Gwynplaine Entertainment’ is a reference to the protagonist of Victor Hugo’s ‘The Man Who Laughs’, which was obviously an enormous influence on the creation of The Joker.
The Royal Flush Gang first appeared in Batman Beyond in a wildly different incarnation, but it was acknowledged there that they were the latest in a long lineage. This version’s origins will be elaborated on in JLU, which will also impact the continuity of Beyond.
Speaking of the Royal Flush Gang, they’re voiced by the core cast of Teen Titans, and each member shares a loose physical similarity to the character each actor plays in that show.
Recap
Joker has bought TV time on multiple networks, having hidden an enormous bomb somewhere in Las Vegas, inviting the Justice League to try and find it before time expires.
Superman spots the bomb almost immediately with his X-Ray vision… but Joker has enlisted The Royal Flush Gang to play defence.
Joker explains The Royal Flush Gang were superpowered kids collected by the government with the intent to make human weapons, but he liberated them and gave them a makeover.
Batman successfully diffuses the bomb… only it of course turns out to be a fake. Superman does another scan and discovers twenty five other bombs dotted around the city!
Splitting up, The League disarm bombs, rule out fakes, and engage in major fisticuffs with the Royal Flush Gang all across the Vegas Strip.
Joker notes the romantic tension between Hawkgirl and Green Lantern so opts to prematurely detonate the bomb they were trying to disarm. John pushes Shayera to safety, possibly perishing in the process!
To Be Continued…
Best Performance
Obviously this is going to Mark Hamill. Playing the whole thing like a twisted light entertainment telethon worked really well, with his plethora of punchlines pitched accordingly. The iconic laugh is missing, but I can’t really complain when one of the best villain voice actors of all time has over half the script to play with, and I really enjoyed his irritation whenever The League got a temporary upper hand. You can kind of trace the path from this to his next outing as Joker in the Arkham video games, where Joker is constantly taunting Batman over a speaker system, firing off dozens of little ‘bits’. I wanted to honour Arleen Sorkin too, but she barely talks by comparison.
The tongue in cheek nods to the cast of Teen Titans were fun, with Tara Strong doing the best, which makes sense given she’s the most prolific.
The series regulars are good too, particularly Kevin Conroy (shocking), and honestly Maria Canals-Barrera absolutely nails the final line of the episode, screaming John’s name thinking he’s dead.
Episode Ranking
This is one of the more iconic episodes in the series, but every single time I forget it opens with the frankly ridiculous sexual tension between Hawkgirl and Green Lantern as they run financial forensics for Batman. I like when shows choose episodes like this to pay off a key subplot, rather than dedicating a whole episode to them. You can’t do it every time, but it’s fun when they do. Obviously the actual payoff is next time, but they use the narrative device of Joker narrating everything to spell out for the audience where they’re going with it. Also Bruce shaking down a network exec is a great little scene they absolutely didn’t have to do but I’m glad they did. The sleazy stooge initially seems like he won’t care where the money came from, but they instead have him sell the terror of this iconic villain by immediately trying to assist in killing the feed… only to reveal the entire thing was redundant as Joker already did it 35 minutes ago simply bought time from multiple networks.
But enough about that, the meat of this premise is essentially riffing – and in my opinion improving – on ‘Christmas With the Joker’. We spend several minutes exclusively seeing The League through the various cameras Joker has set up while he provides commentary, with a ticking clock in the corner of the screen the entire time, matched almost exactly to the run-time of the episode. Add ticking clocks/measurable progress to the list of things I’m a sucker for. They do their best to emulate the camera work and musical stingers you’d associate with this style of show, making sure to carve out time for Joker to gab it up with a Vegas grandma relentlessly pumping coins into a slot machine.
Speaking of which, Vegas makes for a wonderful backdrop for the whole affair, providing lots of verticality, bright lights, thematic things to smash, and of course the perverse ‘its every city at once’ thing to provide some aesthetic diversity. Seriously, we get a submarine, a volcano, a rollercoaster and the statue of liberty. In fact they commit so hard to the Vegas schtick that when Batman and Jack start brawling, Joker cuts to his oddsmaker, who is a full on mobster stereotype playing the whole thing (mostly) straight.
Batman talking Flash through disarming a bomb while in the middle of a fight is another one for Bruce’s highlight reel. I wonder if it would have been even better if we didn’t cut to Batman at all and the whole fight happened in audio only, but they still get mileage out of the gimmick, with his instructions pausing after he’s punched only to resume as if nothing had happened a moment later.
Devoting so much time to exposition about The Royal Flush Gang was one of the only weak points of the episode. They do their best to keep it fun with Joker’s warped choice of wording and some little gags, but it’s just so much time to give something like this, no matter how proud they are of it and the long-term impact it’ll have on the DCAU.
Overall it’s just an extremely strong premise, with the episode basically writing itself, though Berkowitz & McDuffie obviously fill it with fun flavour, and knowingly or not establish something plot-important for much later. It’s also interesting from a cliffhanger perspective to leave the ticking clock on such a short amount of time heading into the second part given it’s almost real-time in ‘Part I.’
- The Savage Time
- Legends
- Hereafter
- Only a Dream
- Twilight
- Wild Cards (NEW ENTRY)
- Hearts and Minds
- Injustice for All
- Paradise Lost
- In Blackest Night
- Tabula Rasa
- The Terror Beyond
- The Enemy Below
- Secret Origins
- A Knight of Shadows
- A Better World
- Fury
- Maid of Honor
- Secret Society
- Eclipsed
- War World
- Metamorphosis
- The Bold and the Brave
Rogues Roundup
The Joker (Mark Hamill) (third appearance)
I understand the impulse to want to give new villains a chance to shine rather than leaning heavily on Joker, Lex and Darkseid… but my word does this episode sing thanks to finding the perfect premise to harness the power of Mistah J.
Putting him into full yucky-yuck gameshow host mode is a stroke of genius, and the entire thing demonstrates how you can effectively utilise a character that isn’t any physical threat whatsoever to most of The League.
I’m not going to shift him all the way to the top spot yet because he may only just be getting started, but I really did think about it.
Harley Quinn (Arleen Sorkin) (first appearance)
Obviously it would be nice to see Harley in a bigger role, but acting as Joker’s ‘woman in the field’ and calling in reports from a helicopter is still fun. I LOVED her looking wide-eyed at the camera in silence as Superman starts scanning the city, terrified he’ll spot her.
Luckily for Harley a lot of the villains in this show are lacking in personality, something I reward more than ‘doing cool shit’, so she can debut higher than she perhaps deserves to… and yet still probably lower than most would like.
The Royal Flush Gang (Scott Menville/Tara Strong/Greg Cipes/Khary Payton) (first appearance)
It’s endearing to me how much Bruce Timm loves The Fantastic Four. Ten is big and strong. Jack stretches. Queen makes stuff float. King makes fireballs. I guess that would make Ace Franklin, as the youngest and most powerful. Joker constantly talking to her while she ignores him is a good, creepy bit even if you don’t know where it’s leading.
While they make for some fun little fight scenes (particularly Jack hiding in plain sight as a giant playing card on the wall and Queen making herself an impromptu suit of armour) they barely have any personality compared to their Beyond counterparts. I’ve got to limit them for that reason.
- Darkseid
- Dr. Destiny
- The Joker (↑)
- Lex Luthor
- Despero
- Vandal Savage
- The Injustice Guild (and Brainwave!)
- Amazo
- Solomon Grundy
- The Injustice Gang
- The Imperium
- Brainiac
- Hades
- Draaga
- Aresia
- The Superman Revenge Squad
- The Royal Flush Gang (NEW ENTRY)
- Deadshot
- Gorilla Grodd
- Harley Quinn (NEW ENTRY)
- Orm
- Simon Stagg (and Java!)
- Colonel Vox
- The Secret Society
- Felix Faust
- Ichultu
- Eclipso
- Morgaine le Fey
- The Manhunters
- The Justice Lords
- Kanjar-Ro
- Mongul
- Doomsday
The Matt Signal 
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