Plot summary: Doomsday is freed from a Cadmus facility and goes on a rampage to try and kill Superman, while Batman starts to question… everything.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 16 (S2.E3)
Original Air Date: February 19th, 2005
Directed: Dan Riba (8)
Written: Dwayne McDuffie (5) (story) and Robert Goodman (4) (teleplay)
Animation: Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (8)
Music: Michael McCuistion (6)
Hugo Strange was intended to return in a later episode but these plans had to be scrapped due to the infamous Bat-Embargo.
There were originally plans for Batman to leave The League and join Project Cadmus and form his own team of non-powered superheroes such as Huntress and Wildcat. The creative team feared it made him look evil so scrapped it, but you still get his grumpy little rant at the end.
The results of Batman’s secret mission for The Question to investigate ties between Lex Luthor and Cadmus will be revealed in ‘Double Date’ and ‘Question Authority’.
This is indeed the same Doomsday defeated by The Justice Lords in ‘A Better World‘, with his crash-landing on Earth explained as a failed attempt by Cadmus to launch him into space to get rid of him. As is tradition, he returns with an immunity to the previous method used to kill him, hence being lobotomy-proof this time.
DCAU Debuts
Tala was created by Neal Adams and Robert Kanigher, first appearing in 1969 in the pages of Phantom Stranger. Despite rocking the moniker of The Queen of Evil she’s become quite an obscure character and you’d be forgiven for thinking she’s a DCAU original. She’s a demon and proud, tricking mortals into eternal damnation, trying to end the world, all that jazz.
Recap
Batman confronts Amanda Waller in her home, threatening to expose her Cadmus activities. She reasons that it’s all necessary after hearing about The Justice Lords conquering a parallel Earth.
Bruce leaves and confers with The League about what they know of Cadmus so far, wondering about possible ties to Lex Luthor, who is now running for President of the United States.
Waller cuts the funding of Dr. Milo (remember him?), so he tries to take revenge by releasing Doomsday from captivity… but is rewarded with death and the monster’s escape to seek out Superman.
Doomsday finds Clark helping with an impending volcanic eruption, leading to an enormous brawl against a backdrop of molten rock and magma, with The League busy with the evacuation.
Realising the danger Doomsday could pose after he’s through with Superman, General Eiling orders a Kryptonite missile strike on the island against Waller’s wishes.
Batman is able to safely divert the missile thanks to some daredevil flying in one of The League’s Javelins, safely ejecting at the last possible moment.
Superman finally wins the knockdown drag-out fight with Doomsday, hurling him into the volcano, with Wonder Woman swooping in to save Clark from the lava he’s too tired to evade.
In the aftermath they try to interrogate Doomsday but send him to The Phantom Zone when he stands on business. Batman expresses doubts about their actions, wondering if Waller is right about them…
Best Performance
I have to go with Kevin Conroy given Batman is about the only interesting thing happening here. He’s playfully menacing in the opener with Waller and stern at the end when scolding Superman, trying some stuff you don’t often hear from him, insisting Clark take things seriously. Likewise he channels a degree of desperation during his rush to the Javelin hangar that feels distinct from previous work, demanding various characters get out of his way. It’s far from his best work, but I’ll definitely take it.
Armin Shimerman takes over from Treat Williams as Dr. Milo and fits the character well, being a Peter MacNichol style perfect little weasel man. Shame he dies immediately.
Michael Jai White now has a bunch of vocal effects added to his performance as Doomsday, and I think that actually works out for the best… although why pay White when you could get someone who hasn’t been in a bunch of (mostly bad) movies? I still have some issues with the dialogue, such as “Superman, I’m here to kill you, is this a bad time?” just feeling wrong coming from what’s generally a broadly mute monster.
Episode Ranking
This is one of the better cold opens the show has done to date, lulling you almost to sleep as Amanda Waller goes about her morning routine – tossing in the official confirmation Lex Luthor is running for President for some long-term continuity – and then having Batman suddenly appear for a little chat. It also serves to tie together some threads, with the events of ‘A Better World‘ and the reveal in ‘Dark Heart‘ that The Watchtower has weapons capability spooking her, leading to the creation of The Ultimen and Galatea. They even tie all of this to Lex assisting General Hardcastle in ‘Legacy‘, and even a link between Dr. Milo and Kirk Langstrom. I don’t think the camera panning works quite as well as they want, but the idea of swapping from The League’s roundtable discussion to Cadmus’ was nice, and we get a proper roll call of the inner circle, with Waller, Professor Hamilton, General Eiling, Hugo Strange, Dr. Milo and the debuting Tala, with Lex Luthor the obvious financial backer. It’s all a very neat bit of advancing the Big Plot, verging on feeling like admin, but not quite.
Superman tunnelling pressure relief for the volcano is the kind of thing they occasionally touched on in STAS, using his powers in thoughtful ways beyond just punching aliens and robots, and I have missed that in these shows. It’s a shame that it’s only a small prelude to the bulk of the episode being Superman and Doomsday smashing into each other like action figures. What is this, a Zack Snyder movie??? If anything it might be dumber than that, as Clark tosses Doomsday into the volcano as a finishing move… despite the fact they were literally just brawling inside it, so we know they can both handle it. I guess it’s more actively erupting at that point? Is that what they want us to believe made the difference? Whatever.
Batman’s dramatic chase-down of the missile underlines the problem with the episode in general. On paper it seems really exciting, as Bruce decides only he can get there fast enough, demanding other heroes get the hell out of his way as he tears off, almost dying on re-entry due to the speed he’s hurtling, his missiles failing so having to improvise, narrowly escaping before he went down with the ship. But. None of it felt real to me. The whole scenario came together so fast and was dealt with almost as quickly, with Batman never feeling in any real danger whatsoever. It was like trying to speed-run the ending of ‘Starcrossed‘ where he tried to suicide bomb the Thanagarian base only for Superman to save him at the last second, but by comparison this felt entirely unearned. And then it’s just right back to the mindless Superman/Doomsday brawl.
There’s plenty of solid Batman stuff to try and save things, such as Bruce calling Waller on a phone that only the US President is meant to have the number for, and the downer ending that I wish they’d had the courage to follow through on. Batman breaking away and forming his own sub-team – akin to The Outsiders – feels on brand and would have been a good way to deal with the Bat-Embargo as they could have just checked in with them a couple of times. The hugely expanded roster means they could withstand spinning off a founding member, but even without that, the scene is done well. Shame Diana doesn’t say a word to him and it’s all swept up in Batman vs Superman feuding, but hey.
This episode is more important to continuity than it is good in its own right. Truly one of the most boring stories they’ve told.
- For the Man Who Has Everything
- Fearful Symmetry
- The Return
- The Once and Future Thing, Part 1: Weird Western Tales
- The Ties That Bind
- The Cat and the Canary
- The Greatest Story Never Told
- Dark Heart
- Initiation
- This Little Piggy
- Kids’ Stuff
- The Once and Future Thing, Part 2: Time Warped
- Doomsday Sanction (NEW ENTRY)
- Wake the Dead
- Ultimatum
- Hawk and Dove
Rogues Roundup
Doomsday (Michael Jai White) (first appearance)
I know Doomsday’s creation, mental conditioning and being launched into space should fall under the actions of Cadmus, but I do think it gives the character a smidge more depth compared to his lacklustre showing in Justice League. I’m kind of charmed by the idea of Milo trying to free him from his forced obsession with Superman, only for Doomsday to murder him and still go after The Man of Steel. Some classic ‘I’m a snake, you idiot’ stuff. Does anybody get that reference? Does anybody read any of this??? Best not to dwell on such things.
For the most part he’s still just mindlessly fighting Superman and shrugging off basically all damage, which isn’t terrifically compelling, but they do a slightly better job of making him seem uniquely menacing thanks to putting a name to his bloodlust. It makes his promise to get free and kill Superman land much better than it might have otherwise… though he never comes back after this. I can’t hold that against him though. Much improved.
Project Cadmus (CCH Pounder/J.K. Simmons/Robert Foxworth/Juliet Landau/Armin Shimerman) (second appearance)
As a reminder, I’m packaging up Amanda Waller, General Eiling, Professor Hamilton etc. as a single entity. I may spin some of them off into their own rankings later, but for now they’re all just one big shadowy government organisation doing messed up stuff and it’s cleaner to talk about them as a collective.
As mentioned above, Milo reveals the twisted torture inflicted on Doomsday and how the group discarded him when he became a problem. Eiling cites drug trafficking as a perk of wiping out an entire populated island to deal with Doomsday and Superman. Waller remains ice cold about everything she says and does, always keeping more cards to her chest. Profoundly weird they added Tala to the mix though. Classic ‘for the greater good’ stuff by the military folks, putting a literal fucking demon on the payroll.
Unfortunately the ongoing mystery that surrounds their true plans means they’re somewhat obfuscated from being truly interesting. I’ll leave them where they are for now.
- Lex Luthor
- Circe
- Amazo
- Chronos
- Mongul
- Granny Goodness
- Galatea
- Project Cadmus (–)
- Dark Heart
- Tobias Manning
- The Jokerz
- Doomsday (NEW ENTRY)
- Roulette
- Solomon Grundy
- Brimstone
- Ares (and The Annihilator!)
- Mordred (and Morgaine le Fey!)
- Mordru
- Virman Vundabar
The Matt Signal 
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