So I’m gonna be honest here, this week it may or may not be my birthday and so today
I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about something that probably won’t get
a ton of views, but is just something that I love and that I want to talk about. And
that is the Justice League animated series that aired from 2001 to 2006. And this show
was basically my childhood. Seriously, this show is what I grew up on, it’s what got
me into superheroes in general and it is incredible. So let’s talk about it. Also, spoilers ahead
for all of these seasons. *clip* SPOILERS
I’m going to go chronologically by season, so let’s start off with….
*SEASON 1 and SEASON 2* Yeah, for this one, I’m just gonna group
these two seasons together because I’d be saying the exact same thing about both of
them. So this show was essentially following up
the success of Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series in the 90s.
And it took everything those pretty great shows did and made it better. Firstly, the
voice acting in this is really great. All of the actors play their characters well,
and the one that stands out to me, as always, is Kevin Conroy as Batman. Batman doesn’t
always need to be super depressed or sound like he smokes 20 packs a day, *clip* this
is my personal favorite representation of Batman. Not too dark but not too goofy, not
too emotionless but not too comedic, he’s just how I like seeing
the character. Now these seasons doesn’t specifically focus on a certain character
throughout. Well, maybe there’s a bit more of Batman and Superman. But each character
gets their own episode sprinkled in there with all the team episodes, there’s the
episode on the Green Lantern planet, there’s the one with Wonder Woman’s homeland, everyone
gets a lot of care and attention except for one character. Hawkgirl. Don’t get me wrong
she’s got some stuff going on for sure and she does some cool things, but she was always
my least favorite of the team and I didn’t think she ever really had her specific time
to shine. However, that is made up for in the season finale which is pretty much all
about her, but we’ll get to that later. These episodes are more episodic, monster
of the week type thing, and I’ve complained about that with other shows, but for this
kind of show, an animated Justice League show, it absolutely works. And there are still some
overarching themes and plot points throughout the seasons. These more episodic episodes
give the series a chance to show off all manner of DC characters, Aquaman, Deadshot, The Injustice
Gang, Darkseid, AMAZO, Solomon Grundy, Doctor Fate, almost anyone who has been involved
with the Justice League you’ll be able to find on this show. The show also just goes
all over the place, just like the Justice League in the comics. One day they go to space,
the next day they go back to World War II. The action scenes in this are also really
cool. So now just to wrap this up, I’m gonna talk
about 3 or 4 episodes in these two seasons that that stood out to me for whatever reason.
First off, A Better World, it’s the episode with the Justice Lords, where in an alternate
dimension Superman murders Lex Luthor and the Justice League become these villainous
tyrants. It’s a lot of fun and really interesting and the best part of it is that it comes into
play in the later seasons. Next up, the episode that traumatized me and
messed me up as kid. I think it was called Only A Dream, and it’s basically where this
guy who looks terrifying by the way, invades all the members of the Justice League’s
dreams, and makes their worst fears play out. It’s really dark for a kid’s show, like
Superman ends up killing Lois Lane and Hawkgirl ends up buried alive. Batman has to stay awake
the whole time so he can stop this guy. And the thing that really scared when I first
saw this episode is when the bad guy goes to his ex girlfriend’s house I think. And
he has like razor sharp fingers and he says something like, “It’s time for the doctor
to operate” or something. *clip* This episode was a terrifying experience but I still do
enjoy looking back on it. Then there’s Starcrossed, which was the
finale of the series and could easily take up an entire video. It was less of an episode
and more of a movie that wrapped up the season, Hawkgirl’s people come to Earth and the
Justice League have to stop them, it’s full of cool action and great characters and awesome
one liners, it’s spectacular. This is the perfect conclusion to these two seasons, all
the characters come full circle especially Hawkgirl and Green Lantern, and who knows
you might even tear up. This is the only movie that to this day I actually watched so many
times that I could say the lines by heart. That’s how I muched I loved it, and I can
still put it on and be extremely entertained by it.
And finally, the Christmas special, just cuz I like Christmas specials and it’s a fun
special episode. So now, in 2004, the show was switched up
a bit. The title was changed to Justice League Unlimited, and the tone and style was also
slightly different. Now this could be seen as a separate series, but I’m just bunching
these all together, so let’s talk about...
*SEASON 3* In this new season, while some overarching
plot points are introduced, it’s still kind of like the first two in that each episode
is more of an individual adventure. Now I’m not sure what happened between these
seasons but I’m assuming the show got the rights to like, every character in the DC
universe or something, because this show now just explodes with characters. This is the
original Justice League, and this is the Justice League in this season. And that makes for
a lot of fun episodes since we have new heroes to follow. I kind of wished there had been
more of the original seven members, just because I’d grown to like them so much, but the
new team isn’t that bad. Green Arrow is pretty good and The Question is one of my
favorite characters on the show. Like I’ve said before, this guy totally needs his own
movie. And if not movie, how about a TV show? That’d be awesome.
In this season there are also some weird one off episodes with weird scenarios but I kind
of liked that. Like there’s this episode where Wonder Woman gets turned into a pig
and there’s the episode where the Justice League get turned into kids. But I kind of
liked that. It’s really still a kid’s show, so goofy episodes are totally fine.
They also crossed over with another great animated show, Batman Beyond, and that was
a lot of fun. Batman got to meet his future self, how cool is that. *clip*
Overall, there isn’t a lot to say about this. It does everything the first two seasons
did well, exciting action, great characters, and fun episodes. It’s just on a much bigger
scale. It’s still extremely enjoyable and it did plant the seeds for the awesomeness
of….
*SEASON 4* So this is where this show stopped being a
collection of individual adventures and started actual having a plot that goes throughout.
And it makes this season the best season of this show.
So basically, this season is about Project CADMUS and Amanda Waller and basically this
shady secret government organization. They finds out what happened in the alternate dimension,
that Superman kills Lex Luthor and the Justice League become a group of violent dictators,
and so this organization try to destroy our dimension’s Justice League before that can
happen. They clone superheroes and make Doomsday and Galatea, they send in the Suicide Squad
or Task Force X as they’re called. They even hack into the Watchtower and use like
they’re nuclear laser to destroy half a city. And that was a really cool direction
to take this season, that whole government aspect and it was a new kind of villain. Instead
of an over the top super strong bad guy, it was some government officials, and that was
interesting. This is also where the Question really gets
to shine. He finds out about the alternate dimension Superman, he tries to murder Lex
Luthor, he gets tortured, he has a romance. This is where I really started to like his
character. But then as if all of this wasn’t enough, there’s another plot line that comes
through. Lex Luthor is running for President but there’s clearly something weird about
him. For some reason he has super strength and stuff like that. And then, in the weirdest
scene in the entire show, Lex Luthor sprouts tentacles and grows a robot face in his stomach.
It turns out he’s been the super villain alien Brainiac all along which was an interesting
plot twist. But this scene man, that’s the stuff of nightmares. *clip* We get to see
the original seven fighting Luthor again, and the Flash also gets a scene to show off
his powers, which was pretty cool. The thing I really love about this season
is that it could’ve just kept going with the typical formula of fun stopping bad guys
episodes. But it broke away from that, and got a bit darker (for a kids show I mean).
And that’s what makes this my favorite season of this show.
The only thing I can say that I didn’t love is that this once again it ends with a Batman
Beyond crossover, but it’s more of a Batman Beyond episode and less of a Justice League
one. Which is a little bit disappointing for the conclusion of an awesome season. But still,
it doesn’t ruin the season or anything. Now we’ve arrived at the final chapter,
*SEASON 5* So how could the show now top season 2 for
this epic finale? Well, short answer, they didn’t manage to top it, but it’s still
good for sure. For this final season they played it pretty safe, which is totally fine.
In this one, Gorilla Grodd forms a team of supervillains and they fight the Justice League.
That’s more or less it. That does mean that we do get to see a lot of cool supervillains
throughout this season. It’s fun and it’s still good, but they didn’t take that many
risks here. It also went back to being more lighthearted and fun in its tone, which is
again completely fine, this is a kids show after all.
There are a lot of good things about this, once again the voice acting is good, the action
is good, the animation is cool, just...nothing really stands out about it. Besides that one
episode where The Flash and Lex Luthor switch minds, that was pretty funny.
Now as far as the final episode itself, it was pretty actually awesome. Darkseid comes
down from space and fights Batman, Superman, and Lex Luthor, while the rest of the heroes
and villains fight Darkseid’s minions. The Daily Planet gets lifted up, one of the coolest
visuals in the entire show, and Superman finally gets to let loose. *clip* Luthor and Darkseid
goes off with the anti life equation, and it all ends with the heroes running towards
the camera. It was a fun, satisfying way to end the series, and it does leave it open
for a possible continuation, though that probably won’t happen.
So overall, Justice League is a fantastic show and is the main reason that I’m such
a comic book fan today. If you have kids, then show them this series. Just skip the
dream episode and everything will be great. Justice League and Justice League Unlimited
easily get a 10/10. So those are my thoughts on the Justice League
show. Did you watch it when it aired, and if so, what are your thoughts on it? Let me
know in the comments. Be sure to like this video, check out my Instagram @bhl_hudson,
and subscribe for more videos like the one you just watched. Thanks for watching and
I’ll see ya next time.