Plot summary: Hawkgirl finally returns to action when her fallen friend Solomon Grundy rises from the grave, mindless and more powerful than ever.

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 11 (S1.E11)

Original Air Date: December 18^th, 2004

Directed: Joaquim dos Santos (6)

Written: Dwayne McDuffie (2) (story & teleplay) and Bruce Timm (1) (story)

Animation: DR Movie Co., LTD (6)

Music: Lolita Ritmanis (4)

This is our second homage to Marvel’s The Defenders (cosmic horror, not street level vigilantes), with Amazo now filling the slot of Silver Surfer.

These are the final appearances for most of the mini-team, with Aquaman in particular ruled off-limits due to the development of a Smallville spin-off that never actually came to fruition.

While Shayera left before the results of the vote for her right to stay with the team were revealed, we now know that Green Lantern abstained and Superman broke a tie. Based on their personalities and relationship to Hawkgril we can assume Batman and Wonder Woman wanted her gone, while Flash and J’onn voted to keep her.

Shayera confirms John’s favourite film is Old Yeller, which was alluded to in ‘Hearts and Minds‘ when Flash and Kilowog visited his apartment.

The creative team had intended Amazo to be shown in the overall series finale wondering if it was safe to return to Earth yet, but as they didn’t know which season would be their last they never committed to the idea.

DCAU Debuts

Vixen has appeared in a few giant action scenes recently but this marks her proper speaking debut. First appearing in 1981, Mari McCabe uses ‘the Tantu Totum’ to channel the power of various animals, while also walking the runway and/or killing it in the boardroom because she can truly have it all. Gerry Conway created her to address DC’s lack of prominent female superheroes (besides Wonder Woman) for the Justice League, as well as wanting to add some diversity to the company. He was particularly keen on making her a supermodel as in the 1970s it was one of the few jobs that a woman could believably bankroll a superhero career with. Obviously a lot of that sounds iffy now, but it was actually an astute set of observations on his part for the time.

Recap

A group of college kids perform a demonic ritual seeking the ability to fight back against their bullies. They think it failed, but then Solomon Grundy comes a-knockin’!

Dr. Fate senses a disturbance in the force and puts in a call to The League, who for some reason opt to send Green Lantern and his new girlfriend Vixen.

Grundy is more feral than ever though, easily smacking them around, and even beating the brakes off Superman when he arrives to back them up.

~~The Defenders~~ Fate, Hawkgirl, Aquaman and Amazo arrive to try and even the odds, but Shayera can’t get through to Grundy emotionally and he keeps kicking all their asses.

When Fate confirms no trace of Grundy’s personality remains, Amazo tries to end things but Grundy simply absorbs his energy, forcing The Golden God to teleport off-planet to not make things worse.

Of all their attacks only Shayera’s mace has any true effect, with Fate surmising the Nth metal it’s composed of is disrupting the chaos magic that has reanimated Grundy.

Tearfully, Shayera follows a weakened Grundy down into the sewers, emerging some time later having put him out of his misery.

In the aftermath the media heckle the former Hawkgirl for her role in the Thangarian invasion, but Superman and Green Lantern confirm she’s welcome back in The League and they all leave together.

Best Performance

This is not the DCAU’s finest day for voice work. Many past greats are not at their best, including Oded Fehr, who sounds like he’s fighting against his lines more than ever, while regulars George Newbern and Phil LaMarr put in decidedly average shifts. Even the charming Gina Torres doesn’t sound overly comfortable as Vixen.

Maria Canals-Barrera ended up becoming perhaps the most consistent actor in Justice League, so it was bold of them to bench her for almost a full season. For much of the episode I thought her work was only okay, but then things got emotional as she realised what she had to do for Grundy. From how she related it to Old Yeller to her soothing words to the giant zombie before putting him down, to her sorrowful response to her critics at the end, she really brought it in the final minutes. Much like the episode itself!

Episode Ranking

A strong ending does not an episode make.

Aquaman trying to provoke Shayera into her old personality was a whole lot of something. He’s always been a prickly outsider, so it’s tricky to pull off ‘pretending to be sexist’ to get a rise and make me think he actually cares and is a good person. I do enjoy the notion of Dr. Fate & Inza taking in all these broken toys like her and Amazo who have no idea where else to go and take some solace in his quiet, spiritual sanctum. It’s also nice that the thing that does bring Shayera back is the potential desecration of the nice sendoff she gave Grundy.

It does give the episode a bit of an odd structure though, as we move from the cold open of the conjuring ritual to Arthur & Shayera’s chess game, to Dr. Fate investigating Grundy’s grave, to Hawkgirl and Inza in the garden, to Green Lantern at Vixen’s fashion show, and then Superman joining their fight against Grundy. For one thing I’m unclear why Fate wouldn’t just gather his already assembled and personally invested motley crew and go after the big lug themselves. But more importantly that’s kind of a bizarre sequence of events, bringing more and more characters into the fold before we even get to the central premise, which is finally revealed about halfway through. Even when we do get to the heart of the matter it’s mostly just a big ‘people take turns punching each other’ event.

And then the ending happened. Firstly, huge fan of the lighting effects when Shayera descends into the storm drain with her mace flickering with magic, piercing the shadows and reflecting off the water. But it’s what she does when she’s finished ~~aura farming~~ basking in her own coolness that does its best to justify the entire episode. I loved the choice to subvert expectations of a big solo fight between Shayera and Grundy moments after revealing only she can hurt him, and instead finding him already half-dead (more than he normally is, I mean) and just awaiting the end. Maria Canals-Barrera really sells the heartbreak of the moment, and to have the death happen off-screen was the right call. No huge wail of agony. No flash of light. She just emerges sombrely and confirms it’s over. Powerful stuff. These 90 seconds are not enough to make up for the rest though.

The long-awaited reunion of Green Lantern and Hawkgirl is played pretty well, with John simply stunned to see her, and Shayera insulting his new appearance. But from there we get this kind of limp ‘she’s allowed back on the team’ scene. That’s cute and all, but it just doesn’t land as well as it might. And we get all this seething from Vixen as her man is all over his ex, only to get zero actual lines of dialogue about it. And not for nothing, but I wouldn’t have minded Dr. Fate scolding the kids for fucking around with dark magic.

Just a series of half-baked ideas, dull fighting and wasted opportunities if you ask me. Not at all a worth follow-up on the surprisingly good first outing for the magic squad.

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

Rogues Roundup

Solomon Grundy (Bruce Timm) (first appearance)

Hey remember when they gave Grundy a genuinely touching sendoff that would be tough to follow up on? Sigh.

I generally don’t care much for the ‘villain is much stronger now for some reason’ trope, but at least when they did it last time they also carved out a proper personality for Grundy, grounding the story by giving it a tonne of heart. This is just a mindless rampage, which is infinitely more dull, even if there is some comics history for Grundy coming back with a slightly different personality and power-set. He’s lucky that I didn’t do a combined Justice League/JLU villain ranking because this honestly undercuts everything they did in ‘The Terror Beyond’.

Amazo (Robert Picardo (second appearance)

Hey remember when they brought Amazo back for an incredibly memorable appearance that would be tough to follow up on? Sigh.

While I do get a small kick out of the most unstoppable foe The League have ever faced just chilling in the Tower of Fate, humiliating Aquaman at chess and whatnot, this feels like a bit of a joke appearance. Shayera begs to be given a chance to talk Grundy down before Amazo goes all Dr. Manhattan on him… and when he finally does cut loose he ends up noping out of the cosmos. Thanks, bruh! It’s nice of Dr. Fate to finally name the damn thing though, I guess.

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