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Justice League (animated series)
Justice League is an animated series about a team of superheroes which ran from 2001 to 2004 on Cartoon Network. It is based on the Justice League and associated comic book characters published by DC Comics.
History
Animators Bruce Timm and Paul Dini , having successfully adapted both Batman and Superman into animated television programs in the 1990s, took on the challenge of faithfully adapting the Justice League comic book. Ignoring the sidekicks, pets and silliness of the earlier Super Friends show, the line-up of this new JLA adaptation was created with two things in mind: To pay tribute to the original line-up of the Justice League of America while also reflecting racial and cultural diversity. Significantly, the well-known (but much-deprecated) superhero Aquaman was left out of the lineup (although he would be used on the show) in favor of a second female on the team - Hawkgirl - and the African-American Green Lantern John Stewart was used rather than either of the better-known modern-era Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner, even though Rayner had appeared as Green Lantern in the Superman animated series. (In the second season, Rayner is described as a Lantern in training under Stewart's old mentor, explaining his absence. He makes an actual appearance in an episode of Justice League Unlimited.)
In February 2004 Cartoon Network announced a follow-up series, Justice League Unlimited, which premiered on July 31. Two more seasons of 13 episodes each have been ordered, to which the creators refer as seasons 3 and 4 in spite of the series' name change. Unlike the original series, Unlimited's episodes will primarily be stand-alone.
Characters
The seven founding members of the Justice League in the animated series are:
- Batman (Bruce Wayne, voiced by Kevin Conroy)
- Superman (Clark Kent, voiced by George Newbern )
- Green Lantern (John Stewart, voiced by Phil LaMarr)
- Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz, voiced by Carl Lumbly)
- Wonder Woman (Princess Diana, voiced by Susan Eisenberg )
- Hawkgirl (Shayera Hol, voiced by Maria Canals )
- The Flash (Wally West, voiced by Michael Rosenbaum)
Episodes
A total of 52 episodes, along with two parts of "A League of Their Own", Static Shock crossover episodes. Each episode ran 30 minutes per episode including commercials.
Season 1
Secret Origins - #1, 2, 3
Astronauts on Mars uncover relics of an alien race. Years later, Batman uncovers a plot to cripple Earth's space monitoring systems. He is joined by Superman who begins to experience strange mental phenomena. This is eventually revealed to be caused by the captive, J'onn J'onzz (also known as Martian Manhunter). Meanwhile, Earth comes under attack from aliens who land and begin converting Earth into a habitat more suitable to their physiology. J'onn explains that these same creatures devastated Mars and that they were defeated at the cost of his species, he being the last of his kind. The human astronauts had been killed and replaced by these aliens. Superman, Batman and The Martian Manhunter, are joined by fellow superheroes Green Lantern (John Stewart), Hawkgirl, The Flash and new-comer Wonder Woman (we have previously seen Wonder Woman defying her mother's wishes and leaving her homeland to join the fight). Eventually, Batman realises that the changes being made to Earth's environment primarily involve blotting out the sun, and uses this to defeat the Aliens. The title of these episodes come from DC Comics's series of comic books that explain the origins of various heroes.
In Blackest Night - #4, 5
The Enemy Below - #6, 7
Paradise Lost - #8, 9
Sorceror Felix Faust invades Wonder Woman's homeland of Themiscyra, turning all its inhabitants to stone, in a quest to unleash an ancient evil buried beneath the island.
War World - #10, 11
Superman and the Martian Manhunter are abducted by extraterrestrial slavers and sold to a planet where the population spends its time watching aliens kill each other in an enormous coliseum. Green Lantern and Hawkgirl set out to rescue them.
The Brave and the Bold - #12, 13
Green Lantern and the Flash uncover a world domination plot by Grodd, a hyperintelligent talking gorilla (from a hidden city of hyperintelligent talking gorillas) with the power to control the minds of others.
Fury - #14, 15
A woman who was raised on the women-only island of Themiscyra since, as a child, her parents were killed in a war sets out to kill all the men on Earth.
Legends - #16, 17
The Justice League are accidentally transported to a parallel world that is the home of the Justice Guild of America, who are comic book characters in the Justice League's world. (This story is a homage to the cross-world team-ups between the Justice League and the Justice Society of America that used to occur regularly in the comics.)
Injustice For All - #18, 19
Lex Luthor assembles a team of supervillains to take on the Justice League.
A Knight of Shadows - #20, 21
The Demon, also known as Etrigan, seeks the assistance of the Justice League in preventing the Philosopher's stone from falling into the hands of his ancient enemy, the sorceress Morgan le Fay.
Metamorphosis - #22, 23
Green Lantern's old friend Rex Mason, now working for a shady industrialist, suffers an "accident" arranged by his jealous employer, and becomes the superhero Metamorpho.
The Savage Time - #24, 25, 26
The Justice League return from a mission in space to find the world altered - a result of supervillain Vandal Savage feeding information to his younger self in the 1940s, allowing him to have taken over the world during World War II. The Justice League travel back in time themselves to stop him, with the assistance of DC Comics' WWII-era heroes (including Easy Company, the Blackhawks, and Steve Trevor).
Season 2
Twilight - #27, 28
The League is asked to assist the New Gods against the threat of Brainiac. Darkseid has his own motives, however.
Tabula Rasa - #29, 30
Lex Luthor manipulates a powerful android, AMAZO , who can copy any superpower, against the Justice League. J'onn questions the nature of humans.
Only a Dream - #31, 32
Maid of Honor - #33, 34
Hearts and Minds - #35, 36
A Better World - #37, 38
The Terror Beyond - #39, 40
Eclipsed - #41, 42
Hereafter - #43, 44
A band of supervillains (all previously seen on Superman: The Animated Series) team up to get revenge on Superman. When they attack Metropolis, Toyman succeeds in hitting Superman with an experimental weapon that seemingly vaporises him. The League attempts to cope with Superman's loss by defending Metropolis as best they can. Eventually, Lobo shows up to replace Superman against the wishes of the rest of the League. In their final battle with the "Superman Revenge Squad", Lobo drives home what a loss Superman was. In part 2, Superman wakes up on a strange planet. He spends years traveling across the surface, the red sun having drained him of his powers. He finally encounters the immortal villain Vandal Savage who reveals that this planet is Earth, but in the far future. Savage explains that one of his attempts at world domination accidentally caused Humanity to become extinct. He now lives alone with an immense feeling of guilt. He and Superman plan to repair a time machine Savage had built in an attempt to undo his earlier actions, but first they must steal back a power source (an artificial yellow sun) from a new species of insect that has appeared on Earth. They succeed and the show ends with Superman returning to the League and leading them to thwart Savage's plan that will destroy humanity.
The Secret Society - #45, 46
Comfort and Joy - #47
Wild Card - #48, 49
Starcrossed - #50, 51, 52
Static Shock
A League of Their Own - #34, 35
External links
- Justice League page at Cartoon Network
- Justice League & Justice League Unlimited at toonzone.net
- Justice League Animated
- Justice League Resource
- Justice League: The Animated Series at the Big Cartoon DataBase
Categories: Cartoon Cartoons | Animated television series | Children's television series | Programs broadcast by YTV