Going Through The DCAU Part Seventy-Eight

Jimmy and Tom sure did have a lot to say about the animated Justice League series.  Sure, most of it was how much they love Batman, even talking about Batman in episodes that don’t feature the Dark Knight of Gotham, but they still had a lot to say.

However, that particular show came to an end with the three part finale “Starcrossed,” and if you’re gonna go out, go out big.

“Starcrossed”

One Leaguer has some secrets, and their revelation will rock the world!

jimmy:  No wonder Watson is such a big Hawkman fan; they’re a bunch of jerks.

tomk:  He’s usually a hero, so that was a subversion of audience expectations.

jimmy:  Bunch of jerks.

tomk:  You’re just mad they captured Batman first.

jimmy:  He still saved the day.

tomk:  Sure.  Later.

And don’t invade his house.

jimmy:  Alfred’s got a lot of cleaning up to do.

tomk:  What else was he gonna do all day?

jimmy:  Make tea?

tomk:  And sarcastic quips.

jimmy:  He’s still Alfred after all.

tomk:  And he was never seen again.

jimmy:  Well, it was nice for him to get a send off here, unlike the rest of the Bat-family.

tomk:  Wayne Manor too.  Got a new door because the Flash tried to figure out what random buttons did.

jimmy:  He was not helping.

tomk:  Not there, no.

jimmy:  He helped that goat.  Eventually.

tomk:  Yeah, that baby goat that would have been blown to bits in a couple days anyway.

jimmy:  How many died when Bats flew the satellite into the wormhole dealie?  Or just the Thanagarians?

tomk:  Um…three.

Three ducks plotting world domination. But one might have been a janitor duck that went to work on the worst possible day.

jimmy:  It’s surprising that the satellite has controls to pilot it.

tomk:  Batman designed it.

jimmy:  That’s all that needs to be said about that.

tomk:  He also probably knew Clark would get him in time.

jimmy:  Probably.  And he finally revealed which Flash it was.

tomk:  Yes. What a surprise considering Barry was still dead back then.

jimmy:  Yeah, it wasn’t very surprising.

Except to Wally.

tomk:  Less surprising:  Batman already knew.

jimmy:  Exactly.  Even less surprising: he likes making out with Wonder Woman.

tomk:  He’s Batman. Even he has his weaknesses.

jimmy:  I bet he’d keep the beard if she told him she liked it.

tomk:  A bearded Bruce?  What kind of crap story would we even see something like that in?

jimmy:  I have it on good authority he can grow a luscious beard in just a few hours.

tomk:  Well, he can do anything…except save himself from a crashing satellite.

jimmy:  You already said he had that covered.

tomk:  Well, yeah. A man has to know his limitations.

In those cases, you should always have an expert on hand to help out.

jimmy:  Or just forcibly read their minds and take what you need.

tomk:  But not the Flash.  He hits the wrong button all the time.

jimmy:  So, you probably watched this when it first aired. Do you remember the reaction to the Hawkgirl revelation and betrayal?

tomk:  Surprise.  Shock,  Hunger.  Curiosity.  Exhaustion.  A deliberate feeling of intense feeling.  You know, the gamut.

jimmy:  That just about covers it. Lol.

tomk:  You?

jimmy:  Hunger for sure.

But seriously, it was surprising.  And I have my doubts this was the intention from the beginning, but who knows.

tomk:  I think it was.

She was a bit evasive with J’onn back in the Brainiac/Darkseid episode when J’onn suggested Brainiac might know how to get her back to Thanagar.

She said it was a teleporter accident that brought her to Earth. That was the official story Bruce Timm and other producers gave out before the show started airing.

jimmy:  Perhaps. But it still seems like there would be more obvious clues looking back if this was a 2 season plan.

tomk:  What better clues are there then none at all?

jimmy:  Sneaky.

tomk:  Face it:  Hawkgirl was a huge blank slate.

She’s not a traditional member of the League, at least not without Hawkman, and she didn’t really get much development until season two anyway.

Sure, we didn’t know which Flash it was, but in that case it didn’t much matter anyway since no version of the Flash is a comically dumb womanizer.

But over the course of season two you heard how Hawkgirl supposedly got to Earth, watched a growing relationship with John Stewart, learned her real name when she helped Grundy give a demon brain surgery, and finally showed her face.

jimmy:  Fine. It was a season two only plan. 

tomk:  I can’t help it if you were too distracted by the many times J’onn was knocked out to notice small things.

jimmy:  Maybe that was their plan all along!

tomk:  See, now you get it.

jimmy:  Not that it really matters.

And it sure gave the series a sense of finality in it’s current incarnation.

tomk:  You must have been happy John was finally using his ring to make constructs.

jimmy:  I did notice that. 🙂

tomk:  It’s almost like they suspected this was the end of the road so they tossed out every fan service-y thing they could.

jimmy:  I would imagine they did know.

How the tables have turned!!

tomk:  Like how Hawkgirl somehow knew where the Batcave was?

jimmy:  I wondered that too.

tomk:  Well, she got in there somehow.

jimmy:  I was also curious how the hidden video camera in her chest emblem captured the angle it did.

tomk:  Doesn’t your chest emblem work that way?

jimmy:  Not usually. Unless I take it off and flick it after putting it in hover mode.

tomk:  Oh you are your logic and good reasoning. All the time with the book smarts. Hawkgirl’s chest emblem camera doesn’t work that way. Beer kills brain cells. Now let’s all go back to that…place where our beds and TV…is.

jimmy:  If they want me to take the occupation of the world by aliens with hawk wings seriously, they better get the small things right!

tomk:  Well, look at you taking a stand now after…how many years have we been doing this?

jimmy:  Many.

tomk:  That’s right. You’re smarter than a Hawkperson trying to feed a tentacle to Wonder Woman.

jimmy:  Where did that food even come from?  Did they expect them to eat it?  Is this what hawk people eat?

tomk:  It could have been sushi.

jimmy:  Perhaps. Wonder Woman doesn’t do sushi.

tomk:  Or it was standard cartoon disgusting alien food.

Given these guys were military, it probably wasn’t good even for them. Rations are generally not gourmet quality.

jimmy:  The Christmas newsletter will be aglow this year with the tale of the Justice League escaping thanks to Wonder Woman and not Batman.

tomk:  Well, the others helped.

Everyone got to do something badass.

jimmy:  But she kicked it off.

tomk:  Didn’t Hawkgirl kick it off when they were all captured in Gorilla City?

jimmy:  But we can’t trust her now.

tomk:  But she redeemed herself?  Maybe?

jimmy:  Mostly. But we also don’t know how the League voted.

tomk:  Well, Superman and Wonder Woman probably voted no. Flash voted yes. J’onn asked for cookies. John just started crying. And Batman was wondering if Earl the mechanic did houses too .

jimmy:  So that’s 2 no’s to 1 yes. I guess she was out.

tomk:  Or she did like Batman did in the “Tower of Babel” comic story and quit before everyone could be put on the spot.

jimmy:  This wasn’t far off Babel now that you mention it.  Though at least Batman’s catalog of the team’s weaknesses was stolen and not given up outright.

tomk:  No.  Instead we found out the scariest words in Batman’s vocabulary are “Wait for it.”

jimmy:  It was only scary because he smiled saying it.

tomk:  

Well, your reasoning checks out.

jimmy:  Better than the reasoning that killing everyone on Earth was acceptable collateral damage to gain a tactical advantage.

tomk:  Yeah, well, I think the story made it clear Hro Talak was not the man he once was and war damaged him inside and out.

jimmy:  Where was Katar Hol when they needed him?

tomk:  Well, if you rearrange the letters in Hro Talak a bit, you get Katar Hol.

jimmy:  Sneaky.

tomk:  Also deliberate. They didn’t want to make Katar a villain, even one arguably doing so to protect his own.

jimmy:  Or they could, you know, give him a completely unrelated name.

tomk:  They also wanted to acknowledge the classic character.

Because fanboys would ask.

jimmy:  Pfft. Fanboys.

tomk:  Well, without them, we don’t get a show.

jimmy:  w00t!  Fanboys!

tomk:  Ok, here’s a nonfanboy factoid:  because Hawkgirl actress Maria Canals is a Latina with a bit of an accent, they deliberately cast Latino actors as the various Thanagarians.

jimmy:  Makes sense.

tomk:  Also explains Hro’s much thicker accent.

jimmy:  It made Hawkgirl swoon once upon a time.

tomk:  Maybe others too.  Apparently, the actor does a lot of soap operas.

jimmy:  News to me.

tomk:  Did you listen to the commentary track?  There’s an Easter Egg if you pause the episode at the exact moment Hro hits Hawkgirl.

jimmy:  Not as of yet.

tomk:  Well, they essentially slipped an extra drawing in for a quick flash if you pause it at the right spot.

jimmy:  I’ll take your word for it for now.

tomk:  Still, for a guy looking to destroy the Earth, Hro was almost sympathetic.

jimmy:  They didn’t really seem like bad guys.  Maybe a bit misguided with the whole “destroy the Earth” thing, but they were doing it to end their own war and save their planet.

tomk:  Yes, they were more desperate than evil. War made Hro a bit more extreme than Shayera remembered.

jimmy:  And she’s been 2+ years removed from it to really know what’s been going on.

tomk:  And it looks like Hro has seen better days.

jimmy:  For sure.

tomk:  And Hawkgirl can’t go home because she no longer has one.

jimmy:  The perils of being an undercover winged agent.

tomk:  Yeah. She might have trouble blending into a crowd for a while.

jimmy:  Or ever.

tomk:  Oh, you and your realistic ideas of how well a winged human could blend into crowds.

jimmy:  She needs one of those Warren Washington III harnesses.

tomk:  Yeah, those look comfortable.

jimmy:  The general Earth populace might not be so forgiving to Hawkpeople. She’ll probably want to keep a low profile for awhile.

tomk:  Yeah, well, good thing she has a normal-looking face for this universe.

jimmy:  So, end of series eh?

tomk:  Yeah. The show does somewhat continue, but the network requested some changes.

jimmy:  How come?

tomk:  Well, they didn’t want hour long two parters after this one.

jimmy:  Yeah. I was a little surprised that made up the majority of the two seasons.

tomk:  Justice League was intended to be a bigger show.

jimmy:  And it was. I don’t really recall feeling that any of them should have been trimmed down to 1 episode.

tomk:  Well, you’ll perhaps be pleasantly surprised at how the show turned out when they changed the format a bit.

jimmy:  Maybe I will, Tom. Maybe I will.

tomk:  Did you have anything else to add on “Starcrossed” or did Justice League do what it needed to do in the end?

jimmy:  Nothing comes to mind. It was bigger than BTAS or STAS (or Batman Beyond for that matter), but never felt bloated. Season one had us wondering about Superman’s power levels and J’onn’s ability to stay conscious, but they worked on that.   The Hawkgirl twist was a true surprise and with the destruction of the satellite home base, left the team in uncharted waters. It was able to successfully juggle a conclusion to the current arc and provide a springboard for moving forward.

tomk:  And for that, well, there is a movie bridging the two shows.

jimmy:  For a movie, it better be a threat bigger than destroying the world.

tomk:  How about…two worlds?

jimmy:  That’s one bigger.

tomk:  Could be more than that.

jimmy:  I suppose we should find out.

tomk:  We shall.

NEXT TIME:  Tom and Jimmy go for a special chat about the straight-to-home-video movie Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.