Plot summary: Wonder Woman teams with Hawk and Dove to try and resolve a civil war… but Ares has unleashed a murder-bot that feeds on conflict, which complicates matters.

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 3 (S1.E3)

Original Air Date: August 21^st 7^th, 2004

Directed: Joaquim dos Santos (2)

Written: Ron Zimmerman (1) (story) & Robert Goodman (1) (teleplay)

Animation: DR Movie Co., LTD (2)

Music: Kristopher Carter (1)

Given the episode takes place in Kaznia, there is naturally mention of Queen Audrey, Diana’s totally platonic gal pal from ‘Maid of Honor‘, who assumed the throne when her father was incapacitated by Vandal Savage.

The Annihilator looks a bit like Monarch, a mysterious masked villain eventually revealed to be Hawk. This was a controversial moment in comics history as Monarch was originally meant to be Captain Atom, with a number of clues pointing to that, but when fans guessed ahead of time DC Editorial made the sudden, barely sensical switch.

Fred Savage and Jason Hervey also played brothers in The Wonder Years, with their respective roles as older/younger sibling swapped in this outing as Hawk and Dove.

DCAU Debuts

Brothers Hank and Don Hall suit up as the strong and fast Hawk and Dove. Debuting in 1968, they were inspired by diametrically opposed viewpoints of the 1960s, named for the supposed pro-war ‘Hawks’ and pro-peace ‘Doves’. This extended to their personalities, with Hawk keen to get his hands dirty, while Don is more of a pacifist. They’ve been Teen Titans and Birds of Prey, died and been resurrected, and despite none of their ongoing comic series lasting very long, they’ve enjoyed a surprising amount of staying power in DC continuity.

Dawn Granger filled in as the new Dove for a time, and it was this incarnation of the duo who appeared in the live action Titans.

Recap

Hephaestus finishes crafting ‘The Annihilator’, an armoured automaton built to do exactly what it sounds like, on orders from Ares, the God of War.

Ares dons a disguise and hands it the leader of one side of a Kaznian civil war… while of course also egging on the other side to fan the flames of conflict.

Elsewhere Wonder Woman thwarts a bank robbery while attempting to enjoy a day off. J’onn pulls her away to instead help the Kaznian situation, pairing her with brothers Hawk and Dove, who she collects from a bar fight.

While Don focuses on crowd control and disarmament, Diana and Don try throwing hands with The Annihilator, but get their asses pretty squarely kicked.

Diana visits Hephaestus, recognising his handiwork. He’s coy about there being a hidden weakness in all his creations (including her own armour), but learning Ares is involved was all she needed.

Meanwhile Hawk and Dove split up to kidnap the two army leaders to force them to talk things out… but Dove quickly discovers Ares has disposed of the Northern leader and taken his place!

Another skirmish breaks out, with Diana realising The Annihilator is feeding off their rage. Taking heed, Dove convinces the soldiers to lower their weapons, which shuts the robot down.

Ares demands the conflict resume but Diana shames him into leaving, and the two sides part ways in an unfriendly but civil manner.

Best Performance

Always nice to hear from Ed Asner, even if Hephaestus is him on auto-pilot compared to the delightfully bizarre Granny Goodness. Pretty funny when he nonchalantly hits on Diana only for her to no-sell it, though. I was prepared to just give him a short shoutout and then move on to the real winner, but nobody better emerged. Pretty damning!

Susan Eisenberg wasn’t bad by any means, but she never really rose to the level required to tie this episode together, either. She’s just angry for no established reason… and then just snaps out of it. We couldn’t get some kind of deep confessional to J’onn? A ‘what have I done?’ moment near the end? Nothing?

As cute as the Fred Savage & Jason Hervey casting is… they’re not very good at this. I can’t decide which is worse… maybe Hervey? Their cadence is awkward, their tone is off, they just do not sound believable in these roles.

Michael York also doesn’t feel fully into this, especially compared to his previous outing as Kanto, who I was very sad only appeared once in STAS. You’d think a Greek God who thrives on subterfuge would be right up his alley, but he just doesn’t seem engaged. In fairness, his dialogue is pretty bad. He hams it right up for them but it just rings false.

Episode Ranking

It is so wild to me that so little effort was made to highlight Wonder Woman or shine a light on her civilian life during Justice League. Even with me understanding it was difficult to juggle so many characters, basic stuff like her deflecting bullets with her gauntlets barely came up through 52 episodes, while the Lasso of Truth was missing entirely. I think she appeared in plain clothes like… twice? Anyway, here she is, stopping a getaway car with her bare hands, looking like the supreme badass she is. They use this to sew the seeds that Diana’s developed a bit of a rage problem, which is sub-optimal when Ares’ murder-bot feeds on anger and bloodlust. Oh hey look, tying a character’s personal problems to the ‘monster of the week’. Very television! Much writing!

But it’s all downhill from there, really.

I’m not sure Hawk & Dove making their DCAU debuts by using their powers to win a bar fight makes them as likeable as intended… but hey! They get stuck right in with their aggression vs peaceful gimmick, as Hawk feels Kaznia should be left to tear itself apart, while Dove thinks war can be prevented with “proper education.” It’s exactly as heavy handed as it sounds. I do like their respective combat styles though, with Dove preferring to dodge and trick his foes into taking themselves out, running around and breaking weapons (loved him forcing someone to re-pin a grenade)… while Hawk just loves a good clobberin’ time.

Ultimately the duo are here to act as an illustration of the conflicting sides of Diana’s personality. Historically a voice of reason and champion of peace and love, Diana has been established to have become extremely short tempered of late, so she starts the episode acting like (and directly teaming with) Hawk, and then realises she needs to snap out of it and return to her more Dove-like tendencies, restraining Hawk in the process. This would be fine if they hadn’t invented Diana’s new attitude for this episode, with no previous evidence. Depending on whether you follow production order or airdate order, you’ve seen Diana in either the previous one or two episodes, where she demonstrated no discernible attitude difference to her Justice League days. If they’d cleverly weaved this in during the previous series, or in her JLU episodes before now, then I’d commend them for their long-term storytelling. Instead they’re tacking something on that potentially contradicts continuity just so they could do the ending they wanted.

I also feel like they really could have done significantly more with Dove accidentally ending up alone with Ares, but all the God of War does is tie him to the front of The Annihilator, which lasts less than 10 seconds of screen time, as Hawk immediately frees him. This kind of thing seems harmless, but is almost always indicative of a poorly thought out script. They didn’t know what to do with Hawk & Dove in the middle portion of the episode, so conceived of this snatch and grab plan… but then didn’t know how to get back from that to another war scene, and the results are this useless nonsense.

This is not a good episode at all, with the voice acting and music unable to pick up the slack of Zimmerman & Goodman’s writing. It looks fine, I suppose?

For the Man Who Has Everything
Initiation
Hawk and Dove (NEW ENTRY)

Rogues Roundup

Ares (Michael York) (first appearance)

I’ve always liked the idea of a God of War who prefers to use trickery to play both sides of a conflict as opposed to the more overt bloodthirsty warmonger you see in most adaptations of the character. But the idea is Ares can also throw hands with the best of them, and instead he seems to pose very little threat here. The Annihilator kicks his ass during its test outing, until he calls it off. He reveals his true self to Dove… and then barely does anything to him. He tries to yell the two armies back into conflict, but Diana just talks some shit to him and he gives up and teleports away. This is meant to be one of her strongest adversaries!

I’ll include The Annihilator with him, because it’s an unmanned killbot doing his bidding. It’s another New Gods style design, and does its job. No more. No less. Having it feed on anger and shut down in the face of peace served the themes of the episode, but not terribly exciting.

God, I really thought it was would be difficult to beat Brimstone to the bottom given it’s a mute nuclear giant, but The Annihilator is like an even less compelling version of it, and whatever good sides there are to Ares are dramatically undercut by the bad. I think I preferred Brimstone’s raw destructive power, given he bodied two Leaguers.

Mongul
Brimstone
Ares (and The Annihilator!) (NEW ENTRY)