Plot summary: The Justice League and Legion of Doom join forces to defend the world from Darkseid’s all-out invasion of Earth.

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 39 (S3.E13)

Original Air Date: May 13^th, 2006

Directed: Joaquim dos Santos (20)

Written: Dwayne McDuffie (20)

Animation: DR Movie Co., LTD (20)

Music: Kristopher Carter (15), Michael McCuistion (14) and Lolita Ritmanis (14)

Ice’s ‘ready for battle’ sequence is a direct homage to Iceman’s transformation sequence in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

Darkseid’s cocky “Let’s go!” mirrors Superman saying the same to him in ‘Twilight‘.

Per Dwayne McDuffie, Lex Luthor and Darkseid became one with The Source Wall, as happens to everyone who solves The Anti-Life Equation. One of these faces is Jack Kirby.

The formations The League run down the stairs in at the end of the episode are loosely collected by either creator (Bob Haney, Louise Simonson, Steve Ditko) or team/era (Seven Soldiers of Victory, Justice Society of America, Justice League Detroit and Justice League International). The seven founding members of The League in the DCAU are of course last, with The Trinity getting the final placement.

DCAU Debuts

Blue Devil and Commander Steel are basically the only members of The League to not do anything up to now and both get to speak or do something big here, so why not?

Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn created Blue Devil in 1984 as an attempt to excite Steve Ditko by amalgamating Iron Man, The Thing, Spider-Man and Green Goblin… only for Ditko to not like it at all. Daniel Cassidy is a special effects artist who creates a Blue Demon suit for a movie but then after some hijinks with a real demon… the suit becomes grafted to his skin. At first sad about it, he embraces heroism, joins the Justice League and even gets a sidekick (Kid Devil). His tech-powered abilities became a techno-organic fusion and he carries ‘The Trident of Lucifer’ that allows him to banish demons to Hell. The character got an oddly large role in Young Justice and also found his way into the tragic Swamp Thing series.

It goes without saying Commander Steel is an obvious knockoff of Captain America, with this episode even having him tossing a shield like Steve Rogers. Gerry Conway and Don Heck created the character in 1978, intending to recapture the World War II era Cap stories. The character wasn’t overly successful in his original incarnation, but the mantel was passed down to his son and later grandson and between the three of them they just about have a legacy. All three are super strong, incredibly durable, and the entire lineage appeared in Legends of Tomorrow.

Atomic Skull also never got a mention despite appearing more than I remembered, so fuck it! The Joseph Martin version of the character debuted in 1978, the work of Roger Stern and Bob McLeod. He was one of many characters who suddenly had their ‘meta gene’ activated by an energy weapon unleashed by the alien race The Dominators. DC’s roundabout way to counter Marvel’s mutants/Inhumans? Sure! He’s got invisible skin, gives off dangerous levels of radiation and due to brain damage thinks he’s acting out an old TV show from his childhood (hence his ‘stage name’), and that Superman is the villain. That detail is completely absent in the DCAU… or is it???

Recap

Lex reveals his crew only survived the explosion thanks to Sinestro generating a shield and then stealing a Motherbox from their would-be-rescuer, the New God Lightray, to reach Earth.

Superman and The League are reluctant to believe Lex, but when Boom Tubes begin appearing all around the planet and Apokalips forces pour in, Batman proposes an alliance.

Thus makeshift squads of heroes and villains are deployed all around the globe to fight off wave after wave of Parademons, Dragon Tanks and more.

Superman, Batman and Lex Luthor opt to attack the most heavily protected ship, correctly guessing Darkseid is aboard and the God of Evil himself makes his entrance to confront them.

Mr. Terrific and Steel surmise that drilling machines aim to turn the planet into a new Apokalips, so the squads concentrate their efforts on destroying the drills.

A random old man offers to help Wonder Woman, demonstrating shocking superhuman strength… before transforming into first a big red dragon, and then a returning Martian Manhunter!!!

Darkseid levels The Daily Planet, with the battle between he and Superman continuing on into the streets of Metropolis. Darkseid eventually emerges victorious and prepares to finish Superman.

Lex goads Metron into taking him to The Source Wall where he unlocks the Anti-Life Equation. He in turn offers the equation to Darkseid and the two vanish in a storm of cosmic energy.

The former Legion of Doom members insist they should walk free after helping, but the League only offer a five minute head-start before giving chase.

THE END OF THE DCAU!!!

Best Performance

I’m afraid Michael Ironside just didn’t seem to be about it in 2006. He’s got a relatively solid entrance monologue talking about all the things that’ll happen to the world before and after he kills Superman… but he just sounds bored. The fight banter is decent enough, but I will say that the overall dialogue for Darkseid is a smidge more… obvious? Generic? I dunno. This just definitely isn’t the STAS-era Darkseid writing. He at least closes strong with his whispered wonder towards the Anti-Life Equation.

Conversely, George Newbern recognises how huge this all is for Superman. He crushes the ‘cardboard’ monologue, tackles all the grandstanding fight banter with Darkseid well, expresses irritation and concern for Lex Luthor, sounds half dead when Darkseid is winning, and finishes it all with a little jab at Batman. I wish Kevin Conroy got stronger material for his final outing as the DCAU Batman, but hey.

Carl Lumbly was always tasked with a very difficult job, keeping J’onn J’onzz as cold and monotone as possible while still trying to act as a key member of an ensemble team of heroes. Allllll of that finally pays off as he returns from his little pilgrimage to ‘get a life’, adopting a more ‘human’ pattern of speech. But too little dialogue to win.

Lex Lang is a little utility player, doing voices of lesser characters throughout the series, but in handing him the keys to Atomic Skull, one of the more visually imposing villains in the show… he’s undone. I’m sorry, but he sounds like a total geek exclaiming “Yeah!” Sorry, Lex.

Episode Ranking

“That man won’t quit as long as he can still draw a breath. None of my teammates will. Me? I’ve got a different problem. I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control for even a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can’t ya big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am.”

Part of me wants to leave it at that incredible piece of Superman writing, one of the single most important in the character’s lengthy history. It says EVERYTHING about him, but also so much about Darkseid, that seemingly he and only he can survive the full unbridled onslaught Clark is truly capable of unleashing. Not just that, that he’s the only one Clark dislikes enough to do so. And then he fucking fights back and has Superman down for the count, only to drop everything for the Anti-Life Equation, ending everything with some classic DC cosmic bullshit (complimentary!)

In ‘Divided We Fall‘, I felt that they wasted a tonne of time on weightless action sequences and left themselves nowhere near enough road to ‘bring it home’, leading to a rushed stretch with Superman attempting to disband The League, Green Arrow talking him out of it, and then Clark revealing his secret to Lois. By contrast this is a significantly better structured episode of television. Act One sets the stage for the global conflict, giving a couple of dozen characters a big entrance, culminating in Darkseid arriving for the first time. Act Two escalates everything, with Darkseid taking the advantage, poised to kill Superman. Act Three tilts things back towards Superman for that wonderful monologue, then shifts back to Darkseid seeming to have won, only for Lex Luthor to make his insane cosmic play for a shocking ending. That leaves them roughly two minutes to wrap everything up, which they do by giving the entire Founding Seven a line each before the almost perfect (Aquaman should have been there, embargo be damned) final shot of The League sprinting towards camera in themed groups, culminating with The Trinity, with Batman forcing a cut to black. The DCAU is after all the house that Batman built.

By giving more time to a more meaningful final fight and then choosing an ending that is driven more by visuals than dialogue, they are able to make the former more satisfying than the ‘Lexiac’ confrontation, without sacrificing an ounce of poignancy from the latter. Nothing felt rushed or missing. There’s nothing I’d really cut to make room for something else or to allow more time. I’ll go over some tiny nitpicks in a bit, but overall this is the best ending they’ve done to any of the series, which makes sense as it was the end of the entire DCAU.

The episode starts out on the right foot with a number of smaller details that you generally only find in the best scripts. I liked that Lex’s narration implied Lightray helped the Legion get home, but the visuals show that even though he seemed willing to do exactly that, they essentially mugged him anyway. Good little ‘they may all be on the same side now, but let’s not forget these are villains’ stuff. Ditto Superman being able to hear the Boom Tubes all around the world and asking if anyone else can when they obviously can’t. He’s very powerful, guys! And in an episode where screen time is at a premium, I loved that they carved out space for a handful of Leaguers to get ‘suiting up’ sequences, with Fire & Ice’s by far the most fun.

I sliiiightly question the composition of some of these teams if the aim was to ensure each villain is offset by a powerful ‘leader’ figure, as you’ve got someone as powerful as Bizarro under the supervision of Green Arrow/Black Canary, but who can deny the fist-pumping pomp and circumstance of these amalgamated teams fighting off hordes of Parademons in a dozen cities around the world? You’ve got Hawk & Dove doing wrestling moves, Toyman blowing up troopers with a nerf gun, Sinestro conjuring a big yellow energy dragon to destroy a dragon tank, The Question running the fuckers over in his car… it’s just all tremendous fun and lets everybody have a quick moment in not very many minutes.

The most powerful visual among these is of course pairing The World’s Finest with Lex ‘freakin’ Luthor in a hilariously lopsided triangle attacking Darkseid’s mothership. Lex does hold his own in fairness, but they smartly have Darkseid toss Lex off the ship, forcing Batman to make the save and leaving the two main event heavyweight fighters to get it on one more time. Of course that’s not strictly true as the Bruce and Lex keep finding their way back to the central conflict, but having them go away and come back between bouts of Superman and Darkseid punching each other into next week works nicely.

Fundamentally these four get to have quintessential moments that perfectly encapsulate their respective characters. Batman refuses to use a gun in the height of this global invasion with his own stock of gadgets/weapons depleted, becomes the ostensible first person to ever evade the Omega Beams, and KEEPS trying to fight Darkseid with his bare hands. Superman is so inspired by his friend’s determination that he summons the strength required to finally start fully winning the fight with Darkseid, moments after he showed great concern for his nemesis (who he was adamant about not trusting at the start of the episode), trying to protect Lex despite being on his hands and knees at Darkseid’s boot. Darkseid is simply irritated by anybody who isn’t Superman, amused by Batman using elite gymnastics to barely avoid the Omega Beams and then intimidating Lex into fleeing just by pretending he’s going to have to match Bruce’s Herculean effort. He takes every punch Superman can throw and still almost wins. Lex pleads with Metron for help one episode after he laughed in his face, then tries to use reverse-psychology and a fucking gun to threaten a god. Then he insists he’s overqualified when warned “only a twelfth-level intellect” could survive what comes next… and is proven correct! This entire thing culminates in Lex successfully traversing ‘The Source Wall’, discovering The Anti-Life Equation, which Darkseid flocks to like a moth to a flame, showing almost childlike reverence to it as the two villains vanish into the ether and Batman carries Superman to safety. Chef. Fucking. Kiss.

Moving things over to my only real criticism, the drills subplot felt a little unnecessary to me. I don’t dispute that’s a thing Darkseid would do, trying to transform the planet into a mirror of Apokalips, but the stakes were plenty high with the invasion, and the drills just create more problems for the episode. For one thing they seem to only suddenly notice the damn things when they’re like a hundred feet tall and in the case of Hawkgirl/Atomic Skull/Commander Steel, not very far from where they were standing. You’d surely attack these things even if you didn’t know what they did on account of them being so big. Then there’s the fact that Hawkgirl can destroy one with just her mace, while Green Lantern and Flash have to come up with a convoluted strategy to take out theirs (aiming to launch it into the Sun with a trebuchet, but it instead just collides with a ship and both blow up.)

You already have the biggest one-on-one fight possible being waged in Metropolis and the inherent shock and cool factor of the hero/villain team-up against a backdrop of famous cities, as well as J’onn’s emotional return, so you really didn’t need to up the ante on these secondary action sequences. They could have switched these moments for battles with Darkseid’s generals (Granny, The Furies, Virmin Vundebar, Mantis, Kanto and the missing Kalibak, who could have easily been freed from his prison) in my opinion. Alternatively, could we not address the absence of New Genesis’ forces after they placed the planet under their protection?

I already said these are just minor nitpicks though. This is an extremely well done piece of television. It doesn’t quite work in a vacuum given its paying off so much history, but it’s not that far off, and I’m willing to place it at the top of the rankings as a result. It’s suitably grand for an ending to not just the season, not just the series, but the entire continuity. It places the most powerful villain against the most powerful hero. It serves dozens of side characters. Nothing is rushed. Wally gets another smooch. The ending is the classic ‘and while our story is over, this all carries on forever’ thing. Really, barely any notes at all.

Destroyer (NEW ENTRY)
Double Date
For the Man Who Has Everything
Clash
The Great Brain Robbery
Task Force X
Question Authority
Ancient History
Fearful Symmetry
To Another Shore
Panic in the Sky
The Return
The Once and Future Thing, Part 1: Weird Western Tales
Epilogue
Flashpoint
Shadow of the Hawk
The Ties That Bind
The Cat and the Canary
The Greatest Story Never Told
Divided We Fall
The Balance
Dark Heart
Alive!
Initiation
This Little Piggy
Flash and Substance
Kids’ Stuff
The Once and Future Thing, Part 2: Time Warped
Doomsday Sanction
Wake the Dead
Ultimatum
Grudge Match
I Am Legion
Hawk and Dove
Far From Home
Patriot Act
Chaos at the Earth’s Core
Hunter’s Moon
Dead Reckoning

Rogues Roundup

Darkseid (Michael Ironside) (second appearance)

This is a Final Boss.

Arriving triumphantly at the end of Act One to talk shit to Superman and tossing Lex Luthor off his ship is a fantastic entrance. The Parademons bow to him on arrival and then fly off and leave him alone to fight Supes, because this is not a guy who feels he needs a numbers advantage and is instead more than willing to go toe to toe with The Man of Steel. His opening move is to clobber him with the huge globe sculpture on the top of the Daily Planet, sending him crashing allllll the way through the building and almost killing him for goodness sakes. He even had Clark dead to rights and was preparing to cut out his heart with a Kryptonite knife before Lex intervened!

It may feel lazy to just say ‘This guy’s the strongest, just cos he is’ and put him in a position where he can beat up Superman… but they do an excellent of job of framing him as deserving of that spot, what with the big entrance, the way every character treats him and how much it takes to finally defeat him. Is he even defeated???

It’s also entirely in-keeping with the character they were writing for years, as he was always able to beat up Superman, he already led a couple of invasions against Earth, and he has almost always coveted the Anti-Life Equation. That’s the least consistent aspect of his treatment, but they sell that extremely well here by having him lose all interest in finishing off Superman the moment Lex shows it to him, beholding it with true soft-spoken wonder. I think it’s entirely fitting that he could conceivably still be alive after all this as he and Lex just disappear.

Lex had some wobbly moments in JLU compared to STAS and Justice League, so Darkseid almost snatched the crown right at the finish line, but he’ll have to settle for second place.

Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) (ninth appearance)

While I’m a little disappointed they didn’t reveal Darkseid had been playing Lex’s strings with fake Brainiac visions all along, they do keep some hope alive for my personal head-canon by having Luthor say he can’t hear B in his head since the resurrection. Either way, Lex has gone so far off the deep end he genuinely doesn’t care about preventing the world from being destroyed or conquered, he only wants revenge against Darkseid.

He’s also made to look simultaneously cool by getting to be paired with Superman and Batman, nonchalantly taking down Parademons with dual-wielded pistols, but then pretty dumb when he predicts Darkseid won’t notice them only for him to immediately make his big entrance. He literally throws himself desperately at Darkseid, ranting and raving about Brainiac, while Big D does the ‘I don’t think about you at all’ thing and tosses him to his near-death.

I really love the touch of returning Lex to his business suit after his ascension to possible godhood. I enjoyed his little Legion of Doom costume, but it just makes sense for him to be suited and booted in his final moments. You can interpret his final actions any way you want, but they’re undeniably cool as hell and I like that they gave him such a monumentally important ending.

Joker may be more iconic, but in terms of how they’ve written the two characters, Lex Luthor is probably the most important villain in the DCAU and off the strength of that he just about fends off Darkseid’s late push for the throne.

The Legion of Doom (Jennifer Hale/Lex Lang/George Newbern) (seventh appearance)

Unlike Lex, the surviving members of The Legion sincerely seem to want to save the world from Darkseid’s full invasion, being willing to fight The League so they can help stop it. And indeed using this handful of villains to help bolster the ranks of the heroes, teaming up with them without any qualms whatsoever, really helps sell the idea that this is truly for all the marbles, fitting of a series finale.

They also get to look better than they did in their big showcase episode last time, which is a bit weird. Overall, I feel bad not letting them crack the top 10, so let’s shift them up a little.

Lex Luthor (–)
Darkseid (↑)
Steven Mandragora
Amanda Waller & Project Cadmus
Circe
Task Force X
Amazo
Galatea
Shadow Thief
Gorilla Grodd and The Legion of Doom (↑)
Chronos
Mongul
Brainiac
Granny Goodness
Devil Ray
The Rogues
Tala
The Patriot aka General Wade Eiling
Deimos
Dark Heart
Tobias Manning
The Jokerz
Felix Faust
The Annihilator
Roulette
Gentleman Ghost
Metallo
The Ultimen
Doomsday
The Fatal Five
Hades
Solomon Grundy
The Thanagarians
Brimstone
Ares
Mordred (and Morgaine le Fey!)
Mordru
Virman Vundabar
Sonar