Plot summary: Tis the season for an anthology episode! Martian Manhunter is invited to Kent Farm, Flash tries to track down a rare toy, and Hawkgirl and Green Lantern swap holiday traditions.

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: 49 (S2.E23)

Original Air Date: December 13^th, 2003

Directed: Butch Lukic (25)

Written: Paul Dini (3)

Animation: Koko Enterprise Co., LTD (37) & Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (1)

Music: Lolita Ritmanis (21)

Dong Yang return! After sharing credit on every episode with Koko for a long time, they vanished entirely during Justice League… until now!

This is also a return for Paul Dini, who technically co-wrote the terrible ‘The Brave and the Bold‘, but broke his hand so couldn’t actually write anything. Long-time readers will know I have (possibly baselessly) inferred there was a rift of sorts between Dini and Bruce Timm, but Dini’s absence is probably just because of the hand thing… right?

This is our only stand-alone episode in all of Justice League. This is because ‘Twilight‘ ended up being trimmed from 3 to 2 episodes, leaving a one-episode gap in the schedule. All other season openers/enders were three-parters.

Carl Lumbly improvised the lyrics to J’onn’s song at the end.

One of Kara’s stuffed animals resembles Zook, Martian Manhunter’s odd little sidekick/pet in the 70s.

Recap

The Justice League frantically assemble a gravitational device that prevents an ice planet from colliding with an alien world full of cute little creatures.

With Christmas fast approaching back on Earth and Batman manning The Watchtower, the rest go their separate ways to celebrate the holiday.

Green Lantern and Hawkgirl stay behind on the ice planet, with John giving Shayera a crash course in frolicking in the snow. She’s not super into it.

They follow this up with some hard drinking on a seedier planet. Shayera starts a full-on bar brawl to cap off what she calls a perfect night. They pass out arm in arm.

Elsewhere, Flash visits an orphanage and promises to get the kids an incredibly popular doll. Naturally it’s sold out everywhere, but Wally does eventually acquire one.

Unfortunately he runs into the Ultra-Humanite on the way back and in their melee the doll is damaged. Wally successfully appeals to the villain’s sense of decency and he repairs the toy.

Superman takes note of J’onn’s lack of holiday cheer, so invites him to spend Christmas on Kent Farm where J’onn’s gloomy exterior slowly melts.

Ma Kent gifts J’onn a sweater, he wanders Metropolis in disguise, attends mass, and ends the episode in his ‘true’ form, singing a Martian song and petting the Kents’ cat.

Best Performance

Carl Lumbly feels like the obvious choice. His dry, depressed greeting to the Kents is equal parts funny and sad, especially “I’m J’onn. I’m a Martian.” His confusion over Clark’s more human side is well done too, and his bizarre little improvised song is cute. But his lines are sparse because of his melancholy nature, with most of the emotion delivered through visuals instead of voice acting.

Instead, Ian Buchanan swoops in and takes the episode out from under him in my opinion. At first I thought he sounded a bit disinterested in the role as he traded barbs with Flash, but as he softened and agreed to help Wally with the doll, his performance got better. He maintains his snootiness at all times, but there’s a fun sense of stoic sentimentality at play that ends up being great.

Episode Ranking

Your standard holiday anthology episode, this is a cute little slice of television, though far from the best one of those you’ll ever see. The three stories are all varying degrees of harmless fun.

Naturally the one everybody remembers and loves best is J’onn learning the meaning of Christmas, as it were. Clark correcting Pa Kent that Santa wrapped his presents in led-lined paper so he couldn’t sneak a look is one of the best little character moments in Superman history. Many take it to mean Clark unequivocally believes in Father Christmas, others interpret it as him simply insisting on them maintaining the charade to keep the spirit of things alive. Whatever your preference, he’s a little cutie. J’onn flying around Christmas Carol style in his translucent form, and then wandering the town in a human disguise, before settling on the comfort of simply being himself (his true ‘monster’ form) as he sings and strokes a cat basically holds this entire episode up on its own.

Flash participating in an obvious knockoff of Jingle All the Way, then pivoting into talking the Ultra-Humanite into doing the right thing was… something. It’s a bizarre encounter with a very nice ending that against all odds they actually earn thanks to Dini’s strong dialogue. Who would have thunk they’d see Flash smiling quietly as he watches one of The League’s deadliest foes taking in a cheap light show in front of an aluminium Christmas tree in his jail cell.

John and Shayera taking things to extremes in their snowball fight feels very on brand, and then the designated drinking planet is a visual treat with its cornucopia of wacky alien designs. I got a real kick out of Hawkgirl starting a fight and pinning it on John, with a grin on her face that was equal parts innocent and wicked. But this one’s all surface level, really. They got their big moment last episode and this is just going through the motions by comparison even if it ends with the tender kiss on the cheek while John sleeps/is unconscious from brawling.

Overall it’s a sweet little episode, but they’ve achieved plenty of touching moments throughout the show, so that can’t take it very far. There’s nothing abjectly wrong with it, so it’s definitely not going to the bottom of the pile, but it also isn’t going to score overly high. I feel like a Grinch now.

1. Wild Cards
2. The Savage Time
3. Legends
4. Hereafter
5. Only a Dream
6. Twilight
7. Hearts and Minds
8. Injustice for All
9. Paradise Lost
10. In Blackest Night
11. Tabula Rasa
12. The Terror Beyond
13. The Enemy Below
14. Secret Origins
15. A Knight of Shadows
16. A Better World
17. Fury
18. Maid of Honor
19. Comfort and Joy (NEW ENTRY)
20. Secret Society
21. Eclipsed
22. War World
23. Metamorphosis
24. The Bold and the Brave

Rogues Roundup

The Ultra-Humanite (Ian Buchanan) (third appearance)

Previously ranked as a member of The Injustice Gang, Ultra-Humanite was fun in those episodes thanks to an ‘odd couple’ dynamic with Lex Luthor.

It is deeply funny to me that arguably the defining trait for this take on one of DC’s most surprisingly long-tenured villains… is that he’s deeply troubled by how public arts funding is spent. Ransacking a gallery with a sci-fi laser gun because he considers the art installations to be of low quality is such a profoundly different motivation compared to the mayhem and depravity most rogues engage in.

Likewise, his choice to reprogram ‘DJ Rubber Duckie’ to tell the story of The Nutcracker instead of making fart noises was both adorable and consistent with this characterisation. He not only honours a temporary truce to do this, but willingly goes back to prison after, stating he will never pass up on opportunity to uhh… culturally uplift. What a big complicated lug.

1. The Joker
2. Darkseid
3. Dr. Destiny
4. Lex Luthor
5. Despero
6. Vandal Savage
7. The Injustice Guild (and Brainwave!)
8. Amazo
9. Solomon Grundy
10. The Injustice Gang
11. The Imperium
12. The Royal Flush Gang
13. Brainiac
14. Hades
15. Draaga
16. The Ultra-Humanite (NEW ENTRY)
17. Aresia
18. The Superman Revenge Squad
19. Deadshot
20. Gorilla Grodd
21. Harley Quinn
22. Orm
23. Simon Stagg (and Java!)
24. Colonel Vox
25. The Secret Society
26. Felix Faust
27. Ichultu
28. Eclipso
29. Morgaine le Fey
30. The Manhunters
31. The Justice Lords
32. Kanjar-Ro
33. Mongul
34. Doomsday