Justice League

Screen Shots

Synopsis

An oil crew hurriedly shuts down their drilling rig after hitting a pocket of methane gas. The rig is rocked by an underground explosion as a single spark ignites the gas and sends a fireball racing back up the drill shaft. The crew manage to escape, but their rig is destroyed. The video of the accident pauses as the oil company’s board of directors listen to a proposal from industrialist Simon Stagg. He says that their problems with union relations and insurance costs will be eliminated if they adopt this “Metamorpho” programme. It would create an enhanced worker able to shape shift and alter the chemical composition of his body. He could turn into a gas cloud, a liquid, or even solid iron. He would be stronger, more resilient that he was before. The chairman dismisses Stagg’s work as a fantasy and refuses to believe his claims without evidence. However, all that Stagg needs to prove his concept is a single volunteer – willing or otherwise – to undergo the conversion process.

Unlicensed transportation of the mutagens required for the Metamorpho process is illegal, but Stagg needs them to prevent his company going bankrupt.  He orders his henchman, the ape-like Java, to smuggle the case containing the mutagens to the Company’s headquarters on a public train. Java travels in standard class while Rex Mason, another executive at Stagg Enterprises, travels first class. A jolt causes the case of mutagens to fall open in the guard’s van and the chemicals cause a malfunction that makes the train accelerate uncontrollably. A green glow suddenly envelopes the train as Green Lantern (John Stewart) arrives. He manages to bring the train to a halt, but not before its ploughed through the a station’s ticket hall.

Rex Mason and John Stewart were in the US Marine Corps together, but they had lost contact with each other. It turns out that Rex has done very well for himself with a high-paid job at Stagg Enterprises and a beautiful girlfriend (Sapphire Stagg, the bosses daughter). For the first time John realise how much he’s sacrificed to be a Green Lantern. Batman interrupts their reminiscences to tell John that he’s discovered traces of the mutagens. John asks Rex if he knows anything about them – its Stagg Enterprises field of research -  but Mason is angry at the insinuation that he was involved and accuses John of being jealous of his success. Nevertheless, the next morning at Stagg Industries Rex asks his boss if he was the one responsible for illegally transportation the mutagens. Stagg tells Mason to ignore it and warns him that he can break him as easily as he made him.

That evening Sapphire invites her father back to her apartment and reveals her relationship with Rex. He’s accepted a job offer in Chicago and Sapphire is going with him. Simon is horrified and confused by her choice. He reluctantly gives Sapphire his blessing, but refuses to shake Mason’s hand. Later in the car, Simon tells Java that he believes that he’s found his volunteer. Rex returns to Stagg Enterprises to clear his desk – including a photograph of him and John Stewart in their army days – when he notices a security breach. The security desk doesn’t respond so he investigates it himself. Rex finds a lab breaker lying on the floor, but its a lure to trap him in a giant glass tank. He pounds on the tank’s walls, but it flooding with mutagenic gas and he loses consciousness.

Rex Mason awakes in a hospital room to find Java taking photographs of him while Simon Stagg looks on. Sapphire bursts in as Simon tells him there has been an accident. She is shocked by Mason’s appearance and faints. He then rushes to the mirror and is horrified to find that he’s been transformed into a Metamorpho. Java tries to restrain him, but Mason instinctively shape shifts out of his grasp. He runs from the hospital room and staggers into a nearby street. Even he recoils in horror from his own appearance and he accidentally steps into the path of an oncoming truck. The impact splatters Rex’s malleable body across the windscreen forcing him to slowly pull himself back together. The police mistakenly open fire on him forcing him to escape into the sewer system. Simon Stagg is fascinated by the power that Mason is demonstrating, but Sapphire doesn’t believe he meant anybody any harm. Green Lantern promises to her that he’ll find his friend.

Mason is waiting for Simon Stagg when he returns to his office. He has accessed Stagg’s files and knows about the Metamorpho process. Simon protests that what happened to was a terrible accident, but Mason demands that he tell the truth. Stagg them shows him pictures of Green Lantern consoling Sapphire and insinuates that they are having an affair behind Mason’s back. Green Lantern, meanwhile, has called Superman and Hawkgirl to help him find his friend, but the search is interrupted by a bank robbery. Hawkgirl chases the crooks into a road tunnel while Green Lantern waits for them at the other end. His slices their van clean in half and then plucks two of the crooks from the wreckage. However, Lantern missed one of the crooks and Hawkgirl accuses him of being “sloppy.”  He apologies and tells her that running into Mason has made his realise how many choices he has passed up over the years.

Green Lantern gets a call from Rex asking him to come to Stagg Enterprises’ test facility. John thinks he there to talk, but Rex greets him with a jet of flame. Rex accuses John of being jealous of him and taking advantage of the accident to make a pass at Sapphire. He is angry and refuses to  listen to John’s protests. Simon Stagg and Java are nearby filming the fight so that they can use it as evidence for the commercial, or even military, capabilities of the Metamorpho process. Rex throws spikes and flames at John which he blocks. Then, after John fires back, Mason dissolves into a gas and surprises John with a punch that knocks him unconscious. Mason stands over his fallen friend ready to deliver a final blow.

Commentary

The Comic Book Metamorpho

The Metamorpho character debuted during an odd time for DC Comics. They’d been the dominant comics publisher for over twenty years, but their first Silver Age (1950/60s) flourish was beginning fade. Their approach to characterisation was beginning to look a little, well.. square. About the same time Marvel Comics were introducing a pathos and angst to their characters that appealed to the new teenage demographic. The Jimmy Olsen and Peter Parker parallel is telling. At Marvel Comics Peter Parker was a young struggling photographer who gained superpowers and became a superhero in his own right. At DC Comics Jimmy Olsen, a young carefree photographer, would gain and lose entirely new sets of wacky superpowers in each new adventure, but he always remained Superman’s Pal.  If Peter Parker had been created at DC Comics he’d had been the sidekick, not the hero.

Marvel were hurting DC Comics and DC knew they had to fight back. So they created a new generation of original heroes – not revivals of Golden Age characters – these included the Metal Men (1962), the Doom Patrol (1963), and in the 1965 they introduced Metamorpho. He was created by Bon Haney and Ramono Fradon for The Brave and the Bold vol 1. #57 (Jan 1965). Metamorpho was Rex Mason, an archeologist and treasure hunter employed by the multimillionaire Simon Stagg. Mason was sent to retrieve an artefact called the Orb of Ra from an Egyptian Pyramid, but its strange energies mutated him into an inhuman shapeshifter.

Rex Mason became Metamorpho the Element Man. He was able to transmute his body into any element found in his original human body. The cost was that the new Element Man, could only approximate a human appearance. Sapphire, Simon’s daughter, still loved Mason, but her father made sure this his henchman Java – a rejuvenated caveman – was around to act as a chaperon. Metamoprho’s adventures are more often than not related to some insane money-making scheme Stagg has dreamt up. He’s either being emotionally blackmailed into helping Stagg (by Sapphire) or he’s trying to clear up the mess after everything has gone horribly wrong.

Translating Metamorpho to the screen

Bruce Timm draft models for Metamorpho and Sapphire Stagg from Modern Masters Vol 3.

The Metamorpho presented in his episode is functionally the same as his comic book counterpart, but his origin has been heavily changed so that it is an industrial accident and not a magic artefact which is responsible for his mutation. In both cases it is Simon Stagg who is responsible for pulling the strings.

Len Uhley, the writer of the first episode, commented to World’s Finest about the need to update the character.

As for ‘staying true,’ let’s face it, a lot has changed since Metamorpho started out in the comic books. You simply couldn’t play Sapphire as a spoiled little rich girl (she’s still rich in this version, but that whole whiny cutesy-poo routine she did in the comics is long gone). The globe-trotting adventurer thing Rex Mason did back then has been kind of done to death since, thankyouverymuch Indiana Jones. So we had to find something else for him to do.

Having said all that, the basic relationships and personalities remain intact. Sapphire loves Rex. Rex loves Sapphire. Simon has an unhealthy affection for Sapphire (eewwww!). And Java is still a thicko.

Len Uhley interview by Jim Harvey at World’s Finest.

Executive Producer Bruce Timm has also commented on the need to update parts of Metamorpho’s origin and on how some fans are resistent to that level to modernisation.

This one is probably neck and neck with ‘War World’ if you go by the fans.  I love this show—it’s very old-school, and a lot of people have a resistance to that.  A lot of people just can’t handle superheroes with that much corn.  I have to say, though, aside from all of the Metamorpho characters looking kind of weird, they’re played pretty straight.  It’s kind of what we’ve always done when we translate characters from the comics into an animated series:  we try to put a little bit of a modern spin on it, but we deliberately didn’t go too twisted or too dark so we could honor their origins from the comics.

Bruce Timm to RetroVision Magazine, quote collated by Toonzone.

Voice Cast

Rex Mason is voiced by Tom Sizemore, his IMDB biography describes him as specialising in the type of roles that show a “ultimate tough guy/manly man” persona. In that sense he’s cast to type when playing the pre-Metamorpho Rex Mason. He played a soldier in the TV series China Beach whose love interest was played by Dana Delany – Lois Lane from Superman: The Animated Series.

Sapphire Stagg is voiced by Danica McKeller. She also voiced Frieda Goren, Virgil’s love interest in Static Shock.

Simon Stagg is voiced by Earl Boen. His first DC work was as a character called Chaka back in an old episode of the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman series. He also voiced Rhino in Batman: The Animated Series. His other genre roles include Nagilum, the foe in the Star Trek the Next Generation episode “Where Silence Has Lease”. He’s also played Santa Claus in a string of WB Christmas specials. You may also know him as Dr. Peter Silberman, the psychologist from the Terminator films, who treats Kyle Reese and later Sarah Conner when they claim to be fighting killer machines from the future.

Java is voiced by Richard Moll who normally voices Two-Face for the both Batman: The Animated Series and Batman: the Brave and the Bold. In the comics Java is a reanimated caveman, his appearance is the same in the cartoon, but his origin isn’t mention in this episode. Moll had a part in an early-1980s film called Caveman, where he ironically played the only character who wasn’t a caveman.

The NTSB Inspector is voiced by Michael Bell who voiced Gleek and Zan in the Super Friends. He voiced Lex Luthor in the 1988 single-season Superman cartoon. You may also know him as Zorn, the alien who offers Farpoint Station to the Federation in Star Trek: The Next Generation “Encounter at Farpoint” (their pilot episode).

Notes

• The train crash was originally meant to have been a plane crash, but it was changed due to sensitivity about the (then) recent post-World Trade Centre attack. Uhley told World’s Finest that the changes had to be made “in-house” after he’d written his script.
• Batman and Superman only appear for single small scenes. Flash, Wonder Woman, and J’onn J’onzz do not appear.

Opinion

Highlights

Green Lantern’s save of the train.

Oddities

Okay, I get that this is a Universe where superheroes and supervillains are common, but even so that cop had a frickin GRENADE LAUNCHER in his car!!

My Thoughts

“Metamorphosis” is one of those late-season episodes that I tend to (unfairly) forget. I’m not sure why, because it’s a solid episode and part-one packs a hell of a lot into 22-minutes. Like “Knight of Shadows” it features an unusual heroic guest-star. Aquaman at the start of the season was fairly obvious, but Etrigan and Metamorpho are a bit more kooky. I’m not entirely sure about the change of Rex Mason from a daring archaeologist to a corporate executive. It side-steps the entire Orb of Ra plot device, but it also loses the adventurer aspect of Rex. The characters who do come across perfectly are Simon Stagg and Java – even the character design looks close to the comic book original.

Something I’m also not entirely about is why the animation on this episode feels a bit different. It’s just little things like Sapphire not coming across as beautiful as she’s meant to appear. There is one plot point (hole?) that bug me – just how does Rex Mason go from anger at Simon Stagg for the “accident” to believing him hook, line, and sinker that John Stewart is having an affair with Sapphire. The way he suddenly trusts Simon Stagg’s version of events just doesn’t ring true. The Hawkgirl and Green Lantern subplot is advanced incrementally, it’s not a huge development, but a nice scene nevertheless.

3.0