Justice League: Injustice For All Part Two

Screen Shots

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Episode Credits

Synopsis

Previously in Injustice For All Part 1: Lex Luthor‘s world came crashing down around him after his crimes were finally exposed by the Justice League and he was diagnosed with a terminal blood poisoning brought on by long term exposure to kryptonite. Luthor hired the Ultra-Humanite, Copperhead, the Shade, Star Sapphire, Cheetah and Solomon Grundy with the stated intention of destroying Superman and the Justice League. After their first encounter with the League, Copperhead was captured and the other villains were forced to flee. Batman traced the villains to their hideout, but was ambushed and captured by the Joker.

Luthor’s mercenaries are not taking any chances with the captive Batman. He is in a full-body titanium restraint and a stasis field hides him from J’onn J’onzz’s telepathic scans. The Joker insists that the Batman is too dangerous to be kept alive, but his murderous protests are resisted by Luthor who believes that their hostage may still be of use to them. Luthor’s decision makes his other allies uneasy. The anti-tamper tazer on Batman’s Utility Belt floors even the hulking Solomon Grundy and Luthor is forced to take it upstairs to examine himself. Grundy and Humanite are left guarding the Batman, but Luthor’s forced to replace them with the Cheetah after Batman turns them against each other. The strain of dealing with the Batman’s games causes Lex to have another seizure. Its clear to even his hireling that Luthor’s condition is worsening.

The Flash and Superman interview Copperhead at Metropolis Prison. He claims he’s just an “innocent victim of circumstances” and isn’t afraid of the “boy scout” Superman. The exasperated Man of Steel is left asking “How does Batman do it?” Meanwhile, the Batman has used his natural affinity for cats to get Cheetah talking about herself. She was a research scientist who used herself as a test subject when she couldn’t find funding to test her theories. She even ends up kissing him. The Joker is suspicious of how long they’ve been alone together so Luthor sends the Humanite to relieve the Cheetah.

Luthor finally manages to open Batman’s Utility Belt – much to delight of the Joker who finally gets to play with Batman’s toys. However, its the transmitter that controls access to the Justice League Watchtower’s hanger than is Luthor’s real prize. Grundy, Star Sapphire, and the Shade use it to gain access. They ambush J’onn J’onzz and then leave a bomb timed to destroy the rest of the League when they come to his assistance. The Joker pulls up a TV set to allow the Batman to watch. The Joker’s macabre antics disgust the Humanite who leaves him alone with the Batman. Luthor has agreed that after the League are dead the Batman will be handed over to the Joker.

Luthor watches the same TV feed in his laboratory and calls for his minions to be quiet. The remaining Leaguers revive J’onn and discover that the Batman is missing. They then get an anonymous tip off that there is a bomb on board the Watchtower and spread out to search for it. Green Lantern finds footprints in the Hanger Bay that lead to the hidden bomb. The Flash then throws the bomb, at superspeed, into space and it explodes safely distant from the Watchtower. Luthor is delighted to see the explosion, but throws his chair at the monitor screen when the Watchtower is revealed to be still intact. Star Sapphire and the others are on the verge of walking away when agrees to triple their pay.

The Joker is equally dismayed and is one slice away from killing the Batman before Grundy forces him to rejoin the other villains. Grundy sees nothing wrong when Batman asks for a drink of water, but the resourceful Dark Knight spits the water into the machines above him. The water shorts out the telepathic dampening field and he immediately sends a telepathic summons to J’onn J’onzz and the rest of the League. The Humanite finally acts on Luthor’s worsening condition by  sealing him inside an armoured breastplate. The containment unit will stabilise his condition, but Luthor will be forced to wear it for the rest of his life. Grundy rushes in to tell them that the statis field is down.

Before the League arrive Luthor reveals that he knows that their is a traitor in the group – how else could they have known about the bomb. He shows them security footage of Cheetah kissing Batman and they all assume that she is the traitor. Cheetah tries to make a run for it, but is blocked by the Joker. Luthor then gives Cheetah to Grundy as a “present”.

When the League arrive J’onn J’onzz tries to make contact with the Batman, but he is spotted by the Humanite. Hawkgirl and the rest of the League crash through the front door after J’onn fails to check in. They press their initial numerical advantage by taking out Star Sapphire, Grundy, and the Shade. Luthor then unveils a suit of battle armour built around the chestplate that is controlling his condition. He has Superman at his mercy until the Humanite reveals himself as the true traitor. Batman bribed him by making a large donation, double what Luthor was paying, to the Humanite’s favour public broadcast opera company. The Joker sneaks off in the chaos to kill the Batman, but he finds his enemy ready for him. Batman tells the Joker that he could have escaped at anytime, but he decided to stay put to keep an eye on the villains.

Commentary

Luthor, the Iron-Man

The Ultra-Humanite’s solution to Lex Luthor’s terminal condition is to seal him inside a special breastplate that will keep him alive. When Stan Lee created the character of Iron-Man (Tony Stark) he included in the origin an allusion to the Tin Woodsman (who didn’t have a heart) from the Wizard of Oz. In his origin, Tony Stark was badly injured when he was kidnapped by enemy soldiers. During his captivity, he has to build a magnetic breastplate around himself to regulate and protect his heart. It was the construction of the breastplate that served as the impetius and cover for his creation of the Iron Man armour. So the Ultra-Humanite’s method of saving Lex Luthor is an allusion to Tony Stark’s origin which itself is an allusion to the Tin Woodsman.

Lex Luthor’s green and purple armour, the suit that he adopts at the end of this episode, was designed by legendary DC artist George Perez in 1983. It’s original origin was as an ancient suit of armour Luthor discovered on the planet Lexor – a world where he was a hero and Superman was the villain. It was also featured in the old Super Power toyline, but was retired in 1986 when Luthor became a buisness man. It – or variants that look like it – have popped up through the years, but Lex only took it up again himself after his failed stint as US President. That storyline was recently adapted as the direct to DVD movie Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.

Over at Toonzone they’ve got a description by JL producer Rich Fogel on Luthor’s change:

“When we first started talking about ['Injustice for All'], we knew that Lex Luthor was going to be the moving force behind it.  Bruce Timm felt that we had done almost all we could with the evil corporate Luthor in our Superman series and wanted to shift him more toward the classic mad scientist / supervillain Luthor.  The challenge was how to get a character as rich and complex as our Lex to convincingly move into this new role.  Writer Stan Berkowitz had a lot of fun playing out this transformation, and throughout the course of this episode we see Luthor evolve through almost every version of the character that we’ve seen over the years—including the 50′s prison-gray Luthor!”

“Although he ends up as sort of a supervillain, Lex’s motivations remain very human.  His escalating frustration with his inability to finish off the Justice League is actually very funny.  Producer James Tucker compares it to Chief Inspector Dreyfuss’ frustration with Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies.  Clancy Brown really embraced what we were doing and gave a terrific performance here.  We all had a blast making ‘Injustice For All,’ and it sets the stage for more appearances by Luthor in the coming season.”

The Fate of the Cheetah

After she is falsely accused of being the traitor, Grundy drags the poor Cheetah off screen and we are never meant to see her again – the implication is that he killed her. Producer Bruce Timm has said that Grundy pulled “a Lenny” on her – a reference to the character of Lennie Small in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men who would accidently kill small animals he petted as he didn’t realise his own strength. If you don’t recognise that you may recognise the the Abominable Snowman from the Bugs Bunny cartoons who use to adopt small animals and declair that he would “Hug him, and squeeze him, and call him George.” Well, that’s another reference to the same Of Mice and Men character and his best friend George.

However, look closely when the villains are being led to the prison van and you can see Cheetah is alive and well and already inside. Bizarrely Copperhead is there as well despite him already being captured last episode.

Quotations

This episode is littered with references and old quotes

• Grundy shouting “Mr Luthor, Mr Luthor” after Batman brings down the stasis field has to be a reference to Ned Beatty’s Otis from Superman the Movie.
• Lex Luthor: “Et tu Humanite?” (And You Humanite?) is of course a reference to Ceaser’s line “Et tu, Brute?” from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The classic exclamation used by characters when they discover they’ve been betrayed.
• Joker: “You’re despicable” – an old Daffy Duck catchphrase. A Looney Tunes-like stunt occurs when GL calls for Sapphire to “duck!” before she’s hit by a large statue of a cartoon duck.
• One character crashes through a statue of the Wonder Twins. These were a pair of alien twins added to the old Super Friends cartoon to be sidekicks of the Justice League heroes.
• And, is it my imagination or does the fainting Joker look like Freakazoid.

Misc.

Wonder Woman (Susan Eisenberg) speaks in this episode, she didn’t speak in the first part.

Opinion

Highlights

Batman’s mind games with the villains and the final revelation that he was just hanging around to keep an eye on them.

Oddities

Mentioned above – why did the police drag Copperhead out of prison when they collected his team-mates.

My thoughts

The problem with a lot of superhero films/cartoons is that the villains are often far more interesting, and have far more fun, that the superheroes. This is particularly true in this episode as the heroes don’t actually get that much attention. For me, this two-part story really pivots around the appearance of the Joker. Before he comes in it’s a nice solid drama about Lex Luthor’s fall from grace, but the Joker’s appearance seems to give a sort of permission for the story to become a little bit more fun.  One of the most important legacies of this episode is that it demonstrates that a group of villains can carry large parts of the story – something that become quite important in the final season of Justice League Unlimited.