Plot summary: The fate of the world is in the hands of The Atom when an overwhelming alien force armed with nanotechnology threatens to consume the entire planet.

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 10 (S1.E10)

Original Air Date: December 11^th, 2004

Directed: Dan Riba (5)

Written: Warren Ellis (1)

Animation: Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (5)

Music: Michael McCuistion (4)

Prominent comics writer Warren Ellis was brought in to write a single episode as the original intention was JLU would be an anthology series of stand-alone episodes, before the creative team – particularly Dwayne McDuffie – began stitching everything together into big arcs that incorporated the entire DCAU continuity.

The Atom fighting a ‘giant’ monster inside a petri dish may be lifted from The Dark Knight Strikes Again.

A few episodes ago they added clips of the next episode to the end credits, while this marks the final episode to feature clips of the episode itself in the opening titles, instead switching to a series of random moments from throughout the series.

Unbelievably this is the final appearance of The Batwing in the DCAU. While Batman’s presence will be reduced with time he’s never going away entirely, but for some reason his beloved jet is no more.

DCAU Debuts

There are a number of heroes who contribute significantly to the battle scenes and first-time viewers may ask ‘Who is that?’, which is the entire point of this segment… but I can’t give you a paragraph on Atom Smasher, Dr. Light, Vigilante, Shining Knight, The Ray, Starman and S.T.R.I.P.E., so let’s hope some of those folks do some talking before all is said and done…

Instead I want to talk about General Wade Eiling who debuted in 1987 as part of Cary Bates and Pat Broderick’s Captain Atom, blackmailing the titular hero into working for the government. Grant Morrison really spiced the character up in the late 90s by giving him an inoperable brain tumour that drove him to transfer his consciousness into the all-powerful body of… The Shaggy Man, going full-scale supervillain in the process. Put a pin in that idea… His design is altered from the comics to resemble his voice actor, J.K. Simmons. He was played in live action by Clancy Brown in a few episodes of The Flash.

Recap

The US military are called in to deal with a freaky ass alien structure in Nevada after a pair of rock-climbers stumble upon it.

The structure produces a series of ‘spiders’ and ‘dogs’ that tear through the unit and take no damage in return. When The League arrive, Batman asserts the entity is expanding as it feeds on matter.

Batman freezes the entity solid while the other heroes start picking off the spider-bots, but there are simply too many, pouring out from underground.

Seeing no other choice, J’onn reveals that the new Watchtower has major weapons capability, unleashing a massive orbital laser to cut a trench around the aliens in order to isolate them.

Noting the nanotechnology at play, Superman brings in The Atom, who asserts the machines are self-replicating and won’t stop until they strip the entire planet of resources.

Wonder Woman escorts Ray to the ‘mothership’ (flanked by all The League’s flyers) and he shrinks down enough to infiltrate the central core, learning the machines are 50,000 years old.

Atom thinks laterally and realises he can give the core a ‘heart attack’ by futzing with the ‘arteries’ carrying liquified matter around, killing all the aliens in one fell swoop.

In the aftermath the military take the ‘mothership’ away and General Eiling expresses his disapproval that The League were hiding a weapon of mass destruction all along, promising they’d have ‘a talk’.

Best Performance

John McGinley somehow lost all his charm in a short span of episodes, as Ray Palmer comes across far more wooden when just going about his regular business compared to the startling warmth he showed Lex Luthor in ‘The Return‘. I can’t even fault the dialogue, as “I’m going to lay here for a while, Katie, I’m old now, and I get tired.” is a lovely line… but he seems disinterested in that, too. I don’t know if he recorded his lines in person and had Clancy Brown with him last time and that’s the key difference, but yeah. He’s a little better when explaining the nightmares of nanotechnology to Superman, though.

Conversely Kevin Conroy is delightful as always. His disturbingly calm request to be saved from splattering into the ground is 100% one for the highlight reel, particularly the “Now would be good” and Superman grabbing him at the last possible second. He’s also just great at analysing the situation, both in terms of how he interacts with the rest of The League and providing exposition for the audience, all while keeping it light with little jokes about needing to flash-freeze Gotham river once and whatnot.

I love J.K. Simmons, but he’s obviously capable of more.

Episode Ranking

This episode is evocative of ‘Unity‘ from STAS and ‘Secret Origins‘ from Justice League, with a massive alien invasion methodically overwhelming our heroes. I loved some of the designs of The Imperium, but it is startling to see the improvement in animation and design work of the interior ‘base’ of each alien faction.

We’ve now had 3 episodes close together that feature ostensibly the entire League assembling to take on one giant threat, which is interesting to me as you’d think it would be a card they’d play very sparingly. The point of the expanded roster was to allow them to spread themselves far and wide, not toss 50 heroes at one big thing. The way they first did it the previous times subverted expectations, with Amazo slicing through everybody with ease and Lex Luthor winning the day with words, and then everyone fighting Mordru off-screen while Booster Gold had his own crazy adventure. I suppose you could argue this is a little similar to those, as their combined might does very little to beat back the colossal swarm of metal spiders while The Atom saves the day… but it does feel like one time too many in just the first season of the show, even if it is fun to see SO many powers unleashed at once. Still, you get that pretty dope closing shot of all of them looking up to camera at the end, so that’s neat.

Knowing where the series is going with its overall plot makes the reveal of the Watchtower’s secret arsenal incredibly interesting. General Eiling seems harmless enough in his exchange with the heroes as his men are working to evacuate three towns as quickly as possible, but it’s hard to call him wrong to find it off-putting to learn of the orbital laser floating on orbit free of any oversight.

It’s a solidly executed middle of the road episode, with Warren Ellis understanding how to get maximum mileage out of a simple concept, and doing what he can with the cliched ‘only the smallest of the heroes can save the day!’ trope with The Atom. Just as it’s interesting to me they did so many episodes in close succession that required the full might of The League, I am a little bemused by them going to Ray Palmer twice in a short span of time. Obviously it was Lex that ultimately ‘defeated’ Amazo, but they made a real point of The Atom seeming like the worst possible final line of defence only for him to tilt the tide, just as he does here. Aside from his little petri dish adventure, I think his previous outing was more successful than this one. Also unsure why he had to hitch a ride in Wonder Woman’s cleavage, but Ellis did get some accusations levelled against him…

This may all sound like a very negative review overall, but it’s more about putting qualifiers on why it’s not in the top tier despite having a lot of elements present that I normally enjoy a lot. Unfortunately it feels like a recycled concept despite the impressive visuals (loved J’onn left alone in the dark after the orbital laser killed the power on The Watchtower), and there are diminishing returns in such cases.

For the Man Who Has Everything
Fearful Symmetry
The Return
The Greatest Story Never Told
Dark Heart (NEW ENTRY)
Initiation
This Little Piggy
Kids’ Stuff
Ultimatum
Hawk and Dove

Rogues Roundup

Dark Heart (first appearance)

I have always found it unsettling when the first wave of attack ignores the armed soldiers and instead targets their vehicles, with it soon becoming clear that they need the metal to produce the larger ‘dog-bots’ and whatnot. ~~Man’s~~ Freaky Alien Structure’s gotta have a code. Indeed while I generally prefer villains with a strong sense of individual personality… there is something inherently scary about a legion-like force such as this, coldly pumping out thousands of drones and eating entire planets for eons. No talking. No other quirks or wants than to feed.

Buuuut there’s still a ceiling on all of that for me. Not as compelling as the far-reaching implications of Project Cadmus, but better than the boring/bad/limited solo villains.

Lex Luthor
Circe
Amazo
Mongul
Galatea
Project Cadmus
Dark Heart (NEW ENTRY)
Brimstone
Ares (and The Annihilator!)
Mordred (and Morgaine le Fey!)
Mordru