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The 12 Greatest Moments from the Justice League Cartoon


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?We’ve had plenty of superhero cartoons over the years, but no other animated series has had as long and dense of a history as the one originally started in Batman: The Animated Series, which spawned Superman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited and even Static Shock. All those series’ were good, but the creative team really killed it when it came to the Justice League cartoons. Not only did fans get tons of action, great heroes to root for and some of the best fight scenes of all time, but plenty of geeky in-jokes and scripts by comic writers like Geoff Johns, Gail Simone and J.M. DeMatteis. As far as serious quality goes, these Justice League toons are pound for pound the best of any comic-based series.

If this list sounds familiar, well, it should and it shouldn’t. Back in January, TR ran a list of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited‘s greatest episodes. Now we’re looking at the greatest moments — it’s a totally different set of greatness. But when you have shows as good as Justice League and JLU, there’s a great deal of greatness to be contemplated.


12) The Flash-Mobile

Sure, it’s a small moment before things get crazy with the Justice League facing off against Eclipso and Flash having to take on the possessed JLA (minus Batman) on the satellite by himself in the dark, but how can you not love when Flash shows off his van to Green Lantern? It really captures the free-spirited character that Wally West used to be, plus it’s a pretty hot ride complete with hydraulics, a “Wild Thing” spare tire cover, a lava lamp and a purple couch. It’s touches like this that make this one of the best cartoons of all time. (JL, “Eclipsed Part 1”)


11) Batman Sings For Wonder Woman’s Soul


After Wonder Woman gets turned into a pig with bullet-proof bracelets by the ancient Greek witch Circe, Batman enlists Zatanna to help turn her back into the Amazon she really is. In the end, it’s not fists or magic tricks that save the pride of Themyscira, but Batman’s voice. He makes a deal with Circe that he’ll embarrass himself up on stage at a blues club singing “Am I Blue?” in exchange for Wondy’s humanity. And damn does he belt it out! Eat your heart out previous singers of that tune Cher, Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand. (JLU, “This Little Piggy”)


10) Lex Luthor Learns Flash’s Identity… Kinda


What’s cooler than seeing Lex Luthor’s mind transplanted into the Flash’s body and him using the speedster’s powers to wreck shop in the JLU satellite? Maybe the Flash in Lex’s body moving at a snail’s pace (to him) in the Secret Society’s headquarters, not washing his hands and telling Dr. Polaris it’s “Cause I’m evil.”That’s close, but the best moment in this episode comes when Lex-in-Flash stops in the JL bathroom (there’s a lot of that in this episode) and dramatically pulls the Flash’s mask off to reveal his secret identity — only to look in the mirror and realize he has no idea who the man staring back at him is (around the 5:20 mark in the video). It’s a fun twist on a familiar theme for comic fans that many of us never really thought of. (JLU. “The Great Brain Robbery”)


9) Shining Knight Stands Alone


Part of the fun of JLU was seeing tons of second- and third-string characters showing their stuff. What other cartoon would offer an episode starring members of the minor superteam the Seven Soldiers of Victory including Green Arrow, Speedy (the only crossover from the Teen Titans animated series), Vigilante, Shining Knight, Crimson Avenger, Stargirl (in the place of the original Star-Spangled Kid) and S.T.R.I.P.E.? In “Patriot Act,” five of these seven heroes get asked to join in a parade in Superman’s place. That parade gets interrupted by Cadmus’s General Wade Eiling, now in a giant Hulk-like body and with a mad on for Superman. Instead, this group of scrubs-backed up by Speedy and Crimson Avenger give the General all they’ve got and it’s almost not enough. In the end, a broken and beaten Shining Knight stands up to the monster who clearly has no problem killing him and his cohorts. And he would have if a group of regular people (including some Newsboy Legion analogs) hadn’t stepped in to save his ass. Sure, it’s corny, but it’s still better handled than similar scenes in the first two Spider-Man movies. (JLU, “Patriot Act”)


8) The Death Of Solomon Grundy

In a nod to Marvel’s Defenders, the JL scribes teamed Aquaman (Namor), Dr. Fate (Dr. Strange), Solomon Grundy (Hulk) and Hawkgirl (Nighthawk) together to face off against Cthulhu’s uglier brother Ichthulhu and his army of Lovecraftian monsters. Grundy joins the side of the angels because they promise to get him his soul back, so he fights even harder against the big, gross monster. He does his damnedest, but Hawkgirl has to come in and finish the evil god off before holding Grundy’s hand as he dies in a filthy cavern in another dimension. It might seem like a fitting death for a swamp-made zombie, but after the episode you really feel for the poetry-spewing albino. (JL, “The Terror Beyond Part 2”)


7) The Question Confronts Lex Luthor


The JLU creators weren’t afraid of using continuity in their episodes. The events of this first season JLU episode reach back to the Justice League two-parter “A Better World” in which an alternate reality version of the Justice League has taken over the earth after their Flash was killed by Lex Luthor and Superman took his revenge by killing him. Now, in this episode, the conspiracy-loving Question finds out about this alternate reality and, after confronting the moody Superman about it, decides to make sure it can’t come about… by killing Luthor himself. Too bad for him, Luthor now has some unexplained superpowers and beats the hell out of him, leaving him a conspiracy theory-spouting mess. This show proved how cool the Question could really be, just in time for him to get killed off in 52. (JLU, “Question Authority”)

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6) Captain Marvel Quits


All Captain Marvel wanted to do was work alongside the world’s greatest heroes to stop evildoers… and hang out with his hero Superman. So how does Big Blue respond to the Big Red Cheese? Mostly with disdain. Oh yeah, and then by kicking his ass in one of the craziest fight scenes in the history of the show. See, by this time in the series, Lex Luthor was running for president and Cadmus was doing all they could to discredit the League, including stealing some Kryptonite and using it as a bomb-looking power source (with a timer no less) under Luthor’s brand new city for poor kids. Cap tried to stop Supes from wrecking the place, suggesting they call one of the JL’s science guys in to check it out and ended up getting knocked across Metropolis. The whole thing comes to a crashing halt after Captain Marvel calls down his mystical lightning on Superman a few times in Kingdom Come-fashion before Supes flips the script and turns Cap into his kid alter ego Billy Batson. Turns our Cap was right and it wasn’t a bomb. Afterwards, Captain Marvel walks right into the main seven’s meeting room and quits, telling them they “don’t act like heroes anymore.” That’s pretty courageous stuff for a kid. (JLU, “Clash”)


5) Flash Saves The World


In this finale to the long-running JLU Cadmus storyarc, the main seven have to face off against a Brainiac/Lex Luthor combination (which explains his aforementioned superpowers). With all of his teammates down for the count, it’s up to the Flash, the goofiest member of the League, to take down the big bad. Sounds like bad news for the world right? Guess again. After running around the world a few times to throw some heavy duty punches, Flash unleashes with a lightning-fast barrage of fists that somehow separates the two villains before vibrating himself nearly to death. Luckily, Flash gets sucked into he Speed Force and his friends are there to pull him back from the brink. It was a rad fight and a selfless act that showed how cool Flash is and also how important he is to the rest of his team. (JLU, “Divided We Fall”)


4) Super Girlfight

Secret Society member Roulette, who’s known for setting up superpowered fights for folks to bet on, decides the best way to make money is to pit mind-controlled superheroines against each other. What could possibly go wrong? Well, Huntress follows Black Canary and saves her only to get thrown into the ring themselves against Vixen and Fire. BC and Huntress have their work cut out for them trying to get the mind-control devices off of their teammates, but once they do, the real fun begins as Roulette reveals the next contestant: Wonder Woman. It’s all the four women can do to keep their heads attached as the League’s number one warrior barrels into them like a female god of war. As far as choreographed animated fights go, it doesn’t get much better than this, or hotter, if that’s your thing. (JLU, “Grudge Match”)


3) Supergirl Faces Her Fate


After getting sucked into the future by Brainiac 5 and Bouncing Boy, Supergirl, Green Arrow and Green Lantern offer their help in saving the other Legion of Super-Heroes members from the control of the Fatal Five. Soon enough we find out that Supergirl is supposed to die during her trip to the future and GL gets pulled over to the other side. Knowing that it might be the fight that kills her, Supergirl defends the Earth from the mind-controlled Legionnaires and GL, kicking ass and taking names so well it would make her cousin proud. Meanwhile, Brainiac and Green Arrow defeat the Fatal Five and everything goes back to normal, well, except for the fact that Supergirl stays with the Legion in their time (which explains why she vanished from the historical record) to enjoy the more advanced technology and the pleasure of Brainiac 5’s company. (JLU, “Far From Home”)


2) Lex Assumes Control of the Secret Society

“Dead Reckoning” is another one of those episodes that has way too many awesome moments. You’ve got Devil Ray shooting the monks of Nanda Parbat, being much cooler than his comic alter ego Black Manta ever was. Or Gorilla Grodd trying to turn the world into apes like him, including the JLU. Or what about Deadman possessing Batman and shooting Devil Ray? Those are all pretty sick moments, but the very best comes at the end of the episode (and at 1:10 in the above video) at Secret Society headquarters with all the villains sitting around a table. That’s when Lex Luthor has had enough of playing second fiddle to a giant talking ape and says “I wasn’t going to do this for another few weeks, but seriously? Turning all of humanity into apes? THAT was your master plan?” and then blasts him, assuming control of the assembled villains for his own crazy plans to rebond with Brainiac, proving that, while he still might be completely crazy, he’s still the biggest badass in a room filled with superpowered psychos. (JLU, “Dead Reckoning”)


1) Best Series Finale Ever


Technically, the last two episodes of JLU don’t have “Part 1” and “Part 2” in the title, but there’s really no other way to look at “Alive!” and “Destroyer.” See, “Alive” not only features an all out brawl between two factions of the Secret Society (those who support Lex Luthor’s plan to find Brainiac in space and those who don’t, including the newly healed Gorilla Grodd) that puts anything else like it to shame, but also the final fight between Lex and Grodd in which Lex uses Grodd’s brain powers against him AND knocks that big ape out of an airlock. But that’s not all, as it turns out, it’s not Brainiac luring Lex into space but Darkseid who, in “Destroyer” sends his forces to conquer the Earth. Now it’s up to the heroes and villains working together to defeat the hordes of Apokalips. Of course, it comes down to Superman and Batman taking on the final boss himself. Batman’s throw down is impressive, but it’s Superman’s knockdown, drag-out, city-smashing fight that really makes this something to remember, which is especially impressive after Superman had some heavyweight battles with Doomsday, Captain Marvel and Captain Atom. Oh, and Lex Luthor’s last minute save. Hell, these two episodes alone could produce a top 10 list of their own. (JLU, “Alive!” & “Destroyer”)